Edelweiss

by Madge Swindells

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The five months since Marietta left were the worst the Count had ever experienced, for he had no way of knowing whether or not she was alive. Likewise, there had been no news of Louis since Stalingrad fell and the Count feared that his son was dead. Through his powerful contacts, he had discovered that Andrea and the surviving Lidhaky women were being held in Ravensbrück concentration camp where medical experiments took place, Polish and Ukranian women were worked until they dropped like flies, and twelve thousand prisoners were cramped into quarters designed for half that amount. The Count moved to his Berlin apartment and spent weeks trying to obtain Andrea’s release. He lobbied powerful friends, he pleaded, argued and finally bribed, but without success.

  Apart from his sorrow for his family, the Count was grieving for his compatriots, too. The past six months had seen a major reversal in the war. German troops were retreating in Italy and Russia and daily the enemy moved closer to the Fatherland. Allied retribution was terrible. RAF bombers at night and American bombers by day were pulverising Germany’s main cities and industrial areas. Thousands were dying in the raids . . . many more were homeless. Ten thousand tons of bombs had been dropped on Hamburg alone during the past eight days. Seven square miles of the city had been reduced to rubble. Shipyards and factories had been flattened. U-boats had been destroyed in their pens and the Elbe tunnel was totally demolished. Civilians also faced the terror of the Allies’ new weapon, a phosphorus incendiary bomb that created such intense heat the asphalt-paved streets turned into rivers of fire. Casualties were horrifying . . . a ghastly preview of what was in store for them.

  Yet it was not too late to save Germany and Austria from Hitler’s madness and Allied retribution, the Count reasoned. If Hitler were to be assassinated, a new German government could petition the Allies for a ceasefire while peace was negotiated.

  The Count had never been superstitious, never believed in the devil, but lately he was wondering if a force of evil really did exist. Time and again pure chance saved Hitler from the Conspirators’ plans. Eventually the Count realised that he must take the responsibility of assassinating Hitler upon himself, even if this meant sacrificing his own life. Could he succeed when so many attempts had failed? Was the devil looking after his own? The Count put his fears aside and made his plans.

  *

  An exhibition of the new army greatcoats had been arranged in the infantry school outside Berlin for 11 a.m on Wednesday, August 11, 1943. The Count’s driver pulled up in the VIP entrance at exactly 10.30 and opened the car door. The Count tried to smile reassuringly as he stepped on to the pavement, but failed. Overhead, wave after wave of Allied bombers were flying in close V-formation.

  ‘Bastards,’ his driver muttered, scowling as he watched them. ‘Will you be here long, Sir?’

  ‘An eternity!’ The Count shuddered. ‘Perhaps an hour. Who knows?’

  By 10.50 the hall was crowded, which bothered him greatly. He had hoped to avoid killing innocent young men. Once again he ran through his plan. When the Nazi entourage came in sight, he would prime the bomb and keep a careful minute count. It was a ten-minute fuse, which was all the time he would have to manoeuvre himself close to Hitler’s side. Time passed agonisingly slowly.

  It was two minutes past eleven, but still there was no sign of Hitler. Then a message was relayed to them over the loudspeakers. The Führer had been delayed by the chaos caused by the bombing raid. The official cars had been forced to take a detour. Glancing at his watch, the Count was horrified to see how badly and visibly his hand was shaking.

  By 11.20 the Count had himself back under control. At 11.25, a shout came from the door. ‘Here comes the Führer!’ The junior officers cheered.

  Looking through the window, the Count saw a train of five black cars coming into the car-park with a motorcycle escort. He put down his glass and fumbled with the fuse. It was a simple matter of pressing a switch, but in his state of suppressed excitement, he could hardly manage. At last it was done. He glanced at his watch again. The bomb was set to explode at twenty minutes to twelve.

  A voice over the loudspeakers boomed: ‘The Führer and his entourage are leaving their cars. Start the band. Form the guard of honour.’

  The music was deafening, but over and above it came an even louder roar, drowning the band completely. A bomber was flying low overhead, pursued by three German fighter aircraft. It was dropping its bomb load in an attempt to gain height. He heard the sound of whistling as the bombs fell. A split-second later the first explosion rocked the building. The floor heaved, the walls trembled. The next explosion was closer. Plaster fell around them. Everyone dived under tables and chairs.

  Seconds later, a third explosion tossed him headlong against the wall. A bomb had exploded in the yard behind the school. Smoke poured through the windows. Something was burning inside the room.

  The Count picked himself up shakily. Feeling his way through the smoke and dust from the blast, he staggered across broken glass to the window in time to see the convoy of cars speeding away. The Führer had fled.

  He looked anxiously at his watch. Eleven-thirty! What had happened to the past five minutes? Had he been knocked out? He shuddered. He had exactly five minutes before he blew these innocent bystanders into oblivion. It was impossible to defuse the bomb, but where could he dump it? His mind was racing. The hall was thick with SS guards, all zealous Nazis.

  He walked outside. He had three minutes. ‘Oh God,’ he muttered. He ran headlong into the smouldering wreckage, scorching his shoes and feeling the heat and smelling the burnt rubber as he ran faster. Dumping the bomb, he turned and fled. A split-second later, a massive explosion threw him against the wall and he slumped on to the ground. His last conscious thought was the hope that he had not been seen. ‘God protect my children,’ he prayed.

  *

  Two days later, Hugo received the news of his stepfather’s death with mixed feelings of pleasure and regret. ‘You old bastard,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Have you any idea how many times I’ve protected you from your foolish, treasonable actions? Too many times. D’you know why? Because Father, I have done everything to make sure I am your only living heir. And I am not going to allow my inheritance to be expropriated for treason.’

  Hugo was quick to travel to the scene of the explosion and make a public show of grief. A young officer eager for promotion was only too happy to state that he had seen the Count discover a bomb hidden under a table and flee with it outside. A hero’s funeral was organised.

  Standing at the graveside, Hugo peered at the casket of the Count’s remains and threw some flowers over it. He muttered his last words to his stepfather.

  ‘Marietta died in the camp. Louis is missing, presumed dead. Either way he’ll never get out of Russia alive. Andrea’s out of harm’s way and her baby is dead. So there’s only me left, Father. You never appreciated my worth, you always overlooked me, but I promise you, I’ll make better use of your estates than the others would have.’

  Hugo took up residence at Plechy Palace later that week and called in an interior designer to change the study and the main bedroom to suit his taste. Then to his chagrin Hugo discovered that he could not take up his inheritance as easily as he had assumed. The lawyers needed proof of Louis’ death, otherwise years would need to pass before he could be legally presumed dead. Hugo had never been a patient man and he returned to Prague determined to find the answer to his problem. ‘The will, allied to brutality, conquers all,’ he murmured. The SS motto gave him confidence that fate would send the documentation he needed.

  *

  Marietta was in the loft of the dairy, hidden behind bales of straw, tapping out a radio message in code, when Jan broke the news of her father’s death to her.

  ‘Louis . . . and Andrea’s baby, and Andrea in the camp, and all the Edelweiss students dead or gone. So many of our comrades. So now it’s Father . . . and I can’t even mourn him properly. I feel numb. Too many people . . . to
o much to grieve. Maybe later I will feel something. Oh God! Where will it all end?’ she muttered, more to herself than to Jan.

  Jan felt a surge of compassion as he saw her eyes fill with tears and her tragic face turn paler. She was a brave woman and he grudgingly admired her, despite her title and wealth.

  ‘I’m sorry, Marietta,’ Jan said softly and saw her glance at him in surprise.

  ‘You never call me that,’ she said.

  ‘I admired your father very much,’ Jan said stiffly. ‘Despite my job I always respected him.’

  Now her eyes had become bleak and hard again. She turned away to hide her pain. She was carrying too much on her shoulders. ‘Oh Jan,’ he heard her whisper. ‘I wish he could have lived. I needed to see him again.’

  ‘The time to mourn will come later.’

  Jan was right, Marietta thought with a deep sigh, she would put her personal feelings aside. With a heavy heart, she went back to the radio. When she had finished she hurried down to the kitchen to prepare some food for the freedom fighters who were meeting in the cellar tonight.

  They were great talkers while the wine lasted, Marietta thought treacherously. So many men came to these meetings in the wine cellar. Most of them were strangers to her, but she had known some of them in pre-war days. For instance, Georg Kolar’s third son, Klaus, was one of them. Klaus was a huge man, with bright ginger hair and a freckled skin and, like his father, Klaus had worked on the Sokol estate, taking a degree in forestry at Charles University. Before the war, he’d been full of ambitious plans for the future of the woods and game within them. Another Resistance member, Wolf Erhardt, leader of N-Group and based north of Prague, was handsome in a gypsy way, with sultry lips, sensual eyes and regular features. His tanned skin contrasted with his white, even teeth. In pre-war Czechoslovakia, Erhardt had been the owner of a textile factory, now taken by the Nazis. He was a pest for he was always hanging around her. Not that it mattered, she thought. They didn’t see him that often.

  One man she knew particularly well was Alex Jablonec, who had once skied for Czechoslovakia. She had skied with him sometimes and they had been friends and she was surprised that he had never recognised her.

  Milan Holub was an ex-merchant banker, a tall, distinguished-looking man with thinning hair, grey eyes, and a pronounced stoop. She was amazed how he had survived the rough outdoor living, for he was old and his wealth had cocooned him with easy living. She remembered his beautiful home and his passion for collecting Dresden china.

  Ludvik Kalish had run the local supply store, buying and selling pigs, chickens, harvesters, eggs, pumps and even an entire sawmill at times. He had been a rich man until the Germans came. Like the rest of them, Ludvik had a price on his head. He kept his squad on the move and imposed the maximum punishment on the Bosch.

  Miki, her gypsy groom from Boubin Manor, was still with Jan. He was a shy, diffident man, who kept to himself, but his knowledge of the forest and the animals was invaluable. He taught the freedom fighters how to survive in the forest and to live off the land.

  They, and hundreds of others who came and went, formed a loosely woven, shifting mass of men that made up the Czech Resistance. Their only common bond was their hatred of the Nazis. Most of the time they were prepared to work together under the leadership of Jan or Kolar, but sometimes they went their own way, raiding Nazi garrisons or trains for personal gain. They were like modern-day highwaymen and, apart from the Communists, Jan detested all of them for their lack of discipline and their carelessness, but he needed them and he tried to wield them into a unit.

  A scruffy mob, she thought, watching them wonderingly, but amazingly efficient. Half-starved, ragged, unshaven and dirty, they lived from day to day, constantly shifting through the forests, relying on their wits and local peasants to feed them.

  Tonight she had managed to scavenge bread and cheese to go with the wine and the men wolfed it down in no time. The talk went round in circles. They were all waiting for Jan, no one knew why he was so late and the room was full of fearful expectation.

  *

  It was after midnight when Marietta heard footsteps overhead. Jan came down, followed by Schwerin and Maeier, with a third man she did not know, but whom Jan introduced to them as Dr Marius Dietrich, a physicist. He was a tall, beanpole of a man, skinny and tough, despite his delicate hands and features. His story was typical of many former Czech intellectuals. Once he had been a professor of physics at Charles University. He had been dismissed and sent to a camp in the very early days of the occupation. Eventually he had managed to escape and join Kolar’s group.

  Dr Dietrich had questioned the escaped prisoners and come to the conclusion that the Germans were producing a new type of long-range missile. Other top-secret research was taking place in other parts of the mine, but none of the ex-workers had been able to give any details.

  ‘It must be vital since it’s so well guarded. I need to get into the mine and see for myself,’ Dietrich told them.

  ‘The problem is, it’s impossible to get inside,’ Ehrhardt argued, ‘except via the railway line that links the mine with Theresienstadt concentration camp.’

  For an hour they argued over how to breach the fortifications. Eventually, Marietta decided to join in. ‘We must accept that Maeier and Schwerin got into the mine. Involuntarily, as it happens, but the point is, they got in. If there truly is no other way, we may be forced to get ourselves arrested.’

  There was a long silence while the implications sank in . . . they would get in, but not out.

  ‘It would be suicide,’ Jan said. ‘But you’re right. If there’s no other way . . .’

  The arguments became even more heated, but it was finally decided that three men should be arrested on minor infringements of the occupation laws, in the hope that they would be sent into Richard’s Mine rather than straight to one of the death camps. There was little chance of escaping, so they would have to devise a way to send messages out. Jan would have to find someone who had access to the mine and would be prepared to act as a courier.

  Dr Dietrich insisted on being one of the three and they drew lots to choose the other two men. Milan Holub and Alex Jablonec were chosen.

  *

  The following afternoon, Marietta parked her lorry untidily at the kerbside. Braking too suddenly, she and Milan Holub were thrown forward in their seats.

  ‘Ouch! Sorry,’ she said. ‘I think I’m a bit nervous.’ What an understatement, she thought wryly, trying to ignore her shaking hands and dry lips. The truth was, she was in a state of abject terror. She was driving a man to certain imprisonment and probable death, a man she liked and admired. With fumbling fingers she pulled on the brake and switched off the motor. Milan put one hand over hers.

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, Lara. I knew what I was in for when I volunteered to come back from France. Remember that.’

  ‘I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘In 1937, I left the bank and started an export business, based in Paris, mainly Czech-made instruments. I flew back just before Prague fell to the Germans and joined the Resistance. I was captured later, but I escaped. I knew the score. Just as you did when you joined the Resistance.’ He tilted his cap over one eye, and opened the door. Then he looked over his shoulder and winked. His face creased into a grin of pure affection. ‘Come on . . . smile,’ he said.

  Smile! She was quaking. It was more difficult to endure other people’s suffering than one’s own, she thought. She watched him give the thumbs up sign and stride along the pavement.

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ he called loudly.

  It was Marietta’s job to report back exactly what happened, but she had hours to kill. It would be better to drive away and come back later, she decided. Milan, carrying the papers of a Free Czech labourer, was going to the Spova café round the corner. There he would complain loudly about his unfaithful girlfriend who had spurned him in favour of a German corporal. He would curse all Germans and pull down the poster of the Führer, wh
ich the proprietor had hung behind the bar hoping to curry favour with his German masters. The proprietor would call in the troops and they would be just in time to arrest poor Milan when he staggered out drunk after curfew. That was the plan, but would it work?

  *

  ‘Milan was superb,’ Marietta reported to Jan that evening. They were sitting around the table in her kitchen, eating stale bread and cheese. ‘He should have been an actor. He rolled out on to the pavement exactly ten minutes after curfew. The pigs were late pitching up, so he obligingly passed out under a lamppost.

  ‘Naturally, the Bosch kicked him until he came to, threw him into the van and drove off at high speed,’ she said. ‘He was taken to Petsechek House.’ She shuddered. This had been the banking headquarters of friends of hers, all of whom had perished in a camp. The building had been chosen for Gestapo headquarters because of the huge underground vaults . . . ideal for interrogations. She shuddered, suddenly overcome with depression. ‘Oh God!’ She burst into tears. ‘I drove off and left him.’

  Jan put one arm around her shoulders and hugged her against him. ‘Hush, stop blaming yourself. Milan knew the odds. He volunteered.’

  Marietta blew her nose noisily and pushed Jan away. There was a long, awkward silence.

  ‘I’ve got to get tougher,’ she said, ‘it’s just that . . .’ She broke off. How could she explain how much she loved all of them, for their bravery, their ability to put up with terrible conditions and keep smiling, for their sense of humour in the face of danger, their compassion for each other and the downtrodden Czechs. Each one of them was special.