Power of the Sword

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Good luck for the Games, Herr de La Rey.’

  In the Mercedes again Heidi remarked, ‘My uncle liked you very much, and so did many of his friends – General Zoller for one.’

  ‘I enjoyed the evening.’

  ‘Do you like music, Manfred?’

  He was a little surprised by the question. ‘I enjoy some music, but I am no expert.’

  ‘Wagner?’

  ‘Yes, I like Wagner very much.’

  ‘Uncle Sigmund has given me two tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for next Friday. The young conductor Herbert von Karajan is performing a programme of Wagner. I know you will be fighting your first bout that afternoon, but afterwards we could celebrate.’ She hesitated, and then she went on quickly, ‘Forgive me, you think me forward, but I assure you—’

  ‘No, no. I would be greatly honoured to accompany you – whether I win or lose.’

  ‘You will win,’ she said simply. ‘I know you will.’

  She dropped him in front of the team house, and waited until he had gone in before she ordered the driver, ‘Back to the Rupertstrasse.’

  When she got back to the colonel’s house most of the other guests were leaving. She waited quietly until he came back from seeing the last of them away and, with an inclination of his silver hair, ordered her to follow him. His treatment of her had altered completely, it was now brusque and superior.

  He crossed to the unobtrusive oak door at the far end of the room and went in ahead of her. Heidi entered and closed the door behind her softly, then drew herself to attention and stood waiting. Colonel Boldt left her standing while he poured two balloon glasses of cognac and took one to General Zoller where he sat in the wingbacked chair beside the log fire in the stone fireplace, puffing at one of his herbal cigarettes, with an open file on his knees.

  ‘So, Fräulein,’ Colonel Boldt sank into the leather chair and waved Heidi towards the couch, ‘sit down. You may relax in your “uncle’s” house.’

  She smiled politely but sat stiff-backed on the edge of the couch and Colonel Boldt turned back to the general.

  ‘May I ask the general’s opinion of the subject?’ and General Zoller looked up from the file.

  ‘There seems to be a grey area surrounding the subject’s mother. Is it confirmed that his mother was a German, as he claims?’

  ‘I am afraid we do not have confirmation on that. We can establish no proof of his mother’s nationality, although I have made exhaustive enquiries amongst our people in South West Africa. The general belief is that she died at childbirth in the African wilderness. However, on his father’s side there is definite documented proof that his grandmother was German and that his father fought most valiantly for the Kaiser’s army, in Africa.’

  ‘Yes, I see that,’ the General said testily, and looked up at Heidi. ‘What sentiments has he expressed to you, Fräulein?’

  ‘He is very proud of his German blood, and he looks upon himself as the natural ally of the German people. He is a great admirer of the Führer and can quote at length from Mein Kampf.’

  The general coughed and wheezed and lit another cigarette with a taper from the fire before turning all his attention back to the red file with the eagle and swastika emblem on the front cover. The others waited quietly for almost ten minutes before he looked up at Heidi.

  ‘What relationship have you established with the subject, Fräulein?’

  ‘On Colonel Boldt’s orders, I have made myself agreeable and friendly towards him. I have in small ways conveyed my interest as a woman towards him. I have shown him that I am knowledgeable and interested in the art of boxing, and that I know a great deal about the problems of his fatherland.’

  ‘Fräulein Kramer is one of my best operatives,’ Colonel Boldt explained. ‘She has been given a thorough grounding in the history of South Africa and the sport of boxing by our department.’ The general nodded. ‘Proceed, Fräulein,’ he ordered, and Heidi went on.

  ‘I have conveyed to him my sympathy for his people’s political aspirations and made it clear that I am his friend, with the possibility of more than that.’

  ‘There has been no sexual intimacy between you?’

  ‘No, my General. I judge that the subject would be offended if I were to proceed too rapidly. As we know from his file, he comes from a strict Calvinist religious background. Besides which, I have not received orders from Colonel Boldt to initiate sexual advances.’

  ‘Good,’ the general nodded. ‘This is a matter of major importance. The Führer himself is aware of our operation. He considers, as I do, that the southern tip of Africa has enormous tactical and strategic importance in our plans for global expansion. It guards the sea routes to India and the East, and in the event that the Suez Canal is denied to our shipping, it is the only route available. In addition, it is a treasure house of raw material vital to our military preparations – chrome, diamonds, the platinum group minerals. With this in mind, and after my meeting with the subject, I am of the firm belief that we must proceed. Therefore, the operation now has full departmental sanction and a “red” rating.’

  ‘Very good, my General.’

  ‘The code name for the operation will be “White Sword” – Das Weisse Schwart.’

  ‘Jawohl, my General.’

  ‘Fräulein Kramer, you are now assigned exclusively to this operation. You will, at the first opportunity, initiate sexual intimacy with the subject in such a way as not to alarm nor offend him, but rather to strengthen our hold over his allegiance.’

  ‘Very well, my General.’

  ‘In due course it may be necessary for you to enter into a form of marriage with the subject. Is there any reason why you could not do so, if required?’

  Heidi did not hesitate. ‘None, my General. You can rely on my duty and loyalty entirely. I will do whatever is required of me.’

  ‘Very good, Fräulein.’ General Zoller coughed and hunted noisily for breath, and his voice was still rough as he went on, ‘Now, Colonel, it will suit our purpose if the subject is a winner of a gold medal at these Games. It will give him a great deal of prestige in his home country, apart from the ideological aspect of a white Aryan triumphing over a person of an inferior black race.’

  ‘I understand, my General.’

  ‘There is not a serious German contender for the light heavyweight title, is there?’

  ‘No, my General, the subject is the only serious white contender. We can make certain that all matches which the subject fights are refereed and judged by members of the Party who are under the control of our department. Naturally, we cannot effect the decision in the case of a knock-out, but—’

  ‘Naturally, Boldt, but you will do all in your power, and Fräulein Kramer will report daily to Colonel Boldt on her progress with the subject.’

  Both the Courtney and Malcomess clans had descended upon the luxurious Bristol Hotel rather than the Olympic village, though David Abrahams had bowed to the dictates of the athletics coach and moved into the apartment house with his team mates, so that Shasa saw little of him during the days of hard training leading up to the opening of the Games.

  Mathilda Janine prevailed on Tara to accompany her to most of the field athletic training, in return for equal timeshares of her company at the polo fields, so the two girls spent most of their time dashing from the vast Olympic complex across Berlin to the equestrian centre at high speed, the only rate of progress with which Tara seemed able to conduct her father’s green Bentley.

  The brief lay-off from training, combined with the imminence of the Games themselves, seemed to have sharpened David’s running rather than harmed it. He returned some excellent times during those five days and courageously resisted Mathilda Janine’s suggestion that he should sneak out for ‘just an hour or two’ in the evenings.

  ‘You are in with a chance, Davie,’ his coach told him, checking the stopwatch after his last run before the official opening ceremony.

  ‘Just concentrate it all now
and you’ll have a bit of tin to take home with you.’

  Both Shasa and Blaine were delighted with the ponies that their German hosts had provided. Like everything else in the equestrian centre, the grooms, stabling and equipment were all without fault, and under Blaine’s iron control, the team settled down to concentrated practice and were soon once more a cohesive phalanx of horsemen.

  Between their own long sessions on the practice field, they watched and judged the other teams whom they would have to meet. The Americans, expense not considered, had brought their own mounts across the Atlantic. The Argentinians had gone one better and brought their grooms as well, in flat-brimmed gaucho hats and leather breeches decorated with silver studs.

  ‘Those are the two to beat,’ Blaine warned them. ‘But the Germans are surprisingly good – and the Brits, as always, will be slogging away at it.’

  ‘We can flatten any of them,’ Shasa gave the team the benefit of his vast experience, ‘with a little luck.’

  Tara was the only one who took the boast seriously, as from the stand she watched him tear down the side field, sitting tall in the saddle, a beautiful young centaur, lean and lithe, white teeth flashing against the dark tan of his face.

  ‘He’s so big-headed and cock-sure,’ she lamented. ‘If only I could just ignore him. If only life wasn’t just so flat when he’s not around.’

  By nine o’clock on the morning of 1 August 1936, the vast Olympic stadium, the largest in the world, was packed with over one hundred thousand human beings.

  The turf of the central isle had been groomed into an emerald velvet sheet, and ruled with the stark white lanes and circles that marked out the venue for the field events. The running track around the periphery was of brick-red cinders. High above it rose the ‘Tribune of Honour’, the reviewing stand for the traditional march-past of the athletes. At the far end of the stadium was the Olympic altar with its tripod torch still cold.

  Outside the entrance to the stadium stretched the Maifeld, its open acres of space containing the high bell tower with the legend: ‘Ich rufe die Jugend der Welt – I summon the youth of the world.’ And the massed echelons of athletes were drawn up to face down the long boulevard of the Kaiserdamm, renamed for the solemn occasion the Via Triumphalis. High above the field floated the giant airship, the Hindenburg, towing behind it the banner of the Olympics, the five great linked circles.

  From afar a faint susurration rose on the cool still morning air. Slowly it grew louder, closer. A long procession of open four-door Mercedes tourers was approaching down the Via Triumphalis, chromework gleaming like mirrors, passing between the closed ranks of fifty thousand brown-uniformed storm troopers who lined both sides of the way, holding back a dense throng of humanity, ten and twenty deep, who roared with adulation as the leading vehicle passed them and threw their right arms high in the Nazi salute.

  The cavalcade drew to a halt before the legion of athletes and from the leading Mercedes Adolf Hitler stepped down. He wore the plain brown shirt, breeches and jackboots of a storm trooper. Rather than rending him inconspicuous, this sombre unadorned dress seemed rather to distinguish him in the mass of brilliant uniforms, gold lace, bearskins and stars and ribbons that followed him between the ranks of athletes towards the marathon gate of the stadium.

  ‘So that is the wild man,’ Blaine Malcomess thought as Hitler strolled by, not five paces from where he stood. He was precisely as Blaine had seen him portrayed a thousand times, the dark hair combed forward, the small square moustache. But Blaine was unprepared for the intense Messianic gaze that rested upon him for a fleeting part of a second, then passed on. He found that the hair on his forearms had come erect and prickled electrically, for he had just looked into the eyes of an Old Testament prophet – or a madman.

  Following close behind Adolf Hitler were all his favourites: Goebbels wore a light summer suit, but Goering was portly and resplendent in the sky-blue full-dress of a Luftwaffe marshal and he saluted the athletes casually with his gold baton as he went by. At that moment the great bronze bell high above the Maifeld began to toll, summoning the youth of the world to assembly.

  Hitler and his entourage passed out of sight, entering the tunnel beneath the stands, and a few minutes later a great fanfare of trumpets, magnified a hundred times by the banks of loudspeakers, crashed over the field and a massed choir burst into Deutschland über alles. The ranks of athletes began to move off, wheeling into their positions for the entry parade.

  As they emerged from the gloom of the tunnel into the sunlit arena, Shasa exchanged a glance with David marching beside him. They grinned at each other in shared excitement as the great waves of sound, amplified music from the bands and the choir singing the Olympic hymn and the cheering of one hundred thousand spectators, poured over them. Then they looked ahead, chins up, arms swinging, and stepped out to the grandeur of Richard Strauss’s music.

  In the rank ahead of Shasa, Manfred De La Rey stepped out as boldly, but his eyes were focused on the brown-clad figure far ahead in the front rank of the Tribune of Honour and surrounded by princes and kings. As they came level, he wanted to fling up his right arm and shout, ‘Heil Hitler!’ but he had to restrain himself. After lengthy discussion and argument, the counsel of Blaine Malcomess and the other English speakers in the team had prevailed. Instead of the German salute the team members merely snapped their heads around in the ‘eyes right’ salute as they came level. A low whistle and stamp of disapproval from the largely German spectators followed them. Manfred’s eyes burned with tears of shame at the insult he had been forced to offer the great man on the high dais.

  His anger stayed with him during the rest of the amazing festivities that followed: the lighting of the Olympic torch and the official speech of opening by the Führer, the sky filled with the white wings of fifty thousand doves released together, the flags of the nations raised simultaneously around the rim of the stadium, the displays of swaying gymnasts and dancers, the searchlights and the fireworks and the music and the fly-past by squadrons of Marshal Goering’s Luftwaffe that filled and darkened the sky with their thunder.

  Blaine and Centaine dined alone that evening in her suite at the Bristol and both of them were suffering from an anticlimactic weariness after the day’s excitements.

  ‘What a show they put on for the world!’ Centaine remarked. ‘I don’t think any of us expected this.’

  ‘We should have,’ Blaine replied, ‘after their experience in arranging the Nuremberg rallies, the Nazis are the grand masters of pageantry. Not even the ancient Romans developed the seductive appeal of public spectacle to this refinement.’

  ‘I loved it,’ Centaine agreed.

  ‘It was pagan and idolatrous, and blatant propaganda – Herr Hitler selling Nazi Germany and his new race of supermen to the world. But, yes, I have to agree with you, it was unfortunately jolly good fun, with an ominous touch of menace and evil to it that made it even more enjoyable.’

  ‘Blaine, you are a hard-nosed old cynic.’

  ‘My only real virtue,’ he conceded, and then changed the subject. ‘They have posted the draw for the first-round matches. We are fortunate not to have drawn either the Argentinians or the Yanks.’

  They had drawn the Australians, and their hopes of an easy win were dashed almost immediately for the Aussies galloped in like charging cavalry from the first whistle, driving both Blaine and Shasa back in desperate defence, and they kept up that unrelenting attack throughout the first three hard-ridden chukkas, never allowing Blaine’s team to gather themselves.

  Shasa kept the curb on his own instincts, which were to ride and shine alone, and placed himself completely under the control of his captain, responding instantly to Blaine’s calls to ‘cut left’ or ‘cover the fall’ or ‘break back’, drawing from Blaine the only thing which he lacked himself, experience. Now in these desperate minutes the bond of understanding and trust between then, which had taken so long to forge, was tested almost to breaking point, but in the end
it held and halfway through the fourth chukka, Blaine grunted as he passed close to his young number two.

  ‘They’ve shot their bolt, Shasa. Let’s see now if they can take what they’ve been handing out.’

  Shasa took Blaine’s next high cross shot at full stretch, standing in his stirrups to pull it down out of the air, and then to drive it far up field, drawing off the Aussie backs before sending it back inside in a lazy dropping parabola to fall under the nose of Blaine’s racing pony. That was the turning-point, and in the end they rode in on lathered ponies and jumped down from the saddle to pound each other between the shoulder blades, laughing with a triumph touched by a shade of disbelief at their own achievement.

  Triumph turned to gloom when they heard that they would meet the Argentinians in the second round.

  David Abrahams ran a disappointing race in his first heat of the 400-metre dash, coming in fourth and missing the cut. Mathilda Janine refused dinner and went up to bed early that night, but two days later she was bubbling and deliriously excited when David won his heat in the 200 metres and went through to the semi-finals.

  Manfred De La Rey’s first opponent was the Frenchman, Maurice Artois, unranked in his division.

  ‘Fast as a mamba – brave as a ratel,’ Uncle Tromp whispered to Manfred at the gong.

  Heidi Kramer was sitting beside Colonel Boldt in the fourth row, and she shivered with unexpected excitement as she watched Manfred leave his corner and come out into the centre. He moved like a cat.

  Up to this time it had taken much effort for her to feign an interest in the sport. She had found the sounds and odours and sights associated with it all repellent – the stench of rancid sweat on canvas and leather, the animal grunting and the slogging of padded fists into flesh, the blood and sweat and flying spittle offended her fastidious nature. Now in this company of well-dressed and cultivated spectators, clad herself in fresh silk and lace, perfumed and serene, she found the contrast of violence and savagery before her frightening but at the same time stirring.