Assignment Gestapo (23 page)

It was not long before a familiar grey Mercedes drew up with two SS-Unterscharführer and a small dapper civilian, dressed all in black. The civilian looked at one and the same time seedy and sinister. Like a bank clerk going off to his grandmother’s funeral, with his shiny black bowler, his big black overcoat, his gloves, his scarf, his umbrella and his cramped rounded shoulders and shuffling footsteps; like a weasel after a rabbit, with his small close-set eyes shifting furtively from side to siden bright as diamonds and as hard, missing nothing and ceaselessly on the alert . . .

Captain Brockmann could hardly believe his eyes when he passed this curiously clad creature creeping up the stairs. He stood a moment, staring after him, then hurried across to the sergeant in charge.

‘Who the hell was that clown?’

‘I dunno, sir. I asked him for his pass, but he just walked right on up the stairs like he never heard me. Like he was a ghost or something.’

‘A ghost!’ The Captain gave a short bark of laughter. ‘An escaped lunatic, more like. No one who was even remotely normal could walk round in that ludicrous get-up.’ He snatched the telephone from its hook and dialled a number. ‘Klaus, there’s a chap dressed in black from head to foot wandering about the place if he owns it. Have him picked up and brought straight to me under escort.’

He laughed and rubbed his hands together as he replaced the receiver. Whoever this little black maniac was, they were going to have some fun with him. Captain Brockmann had something of a reputation in the Regiment as a wit and a wag, though he occasionally went too far for everyone’s liking. Only a month earlier he had succeeded in pushing Lt. Köhler to suicide. But nobody was likely to care what happened to this funereal nonentity creeping round the building with his rolled umbrella and his stooped shoulders.

Borckmann rang up one or two of his particular friends amongst his fellow officers and invited them along to the party.

The intruder was stopped in the corridor by a Feldwebel and taken down to Brockmann’s office. He went without a murmur, only a twisted smile on his lips and a gleam of anticipation in his diamond-bright eyes.

Brockmann was waiting for him, legs straddled, hands on hips, while his friends lolled about in easy chairs and smoked and prepared to watch the fun.

‘Well?’ bawled Brockmann, swaying forward slightly on the balls of his feet so that his boot leather creaked. ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing, wandering about the barracks as if they’re a public amusement park? Civilians aren’t allowed on the premises without a special pass . . . and even if they’ve got a special pass they’re expected to show it to the sergeant on duty and not just stroll in without so much as a by your leave.’ He swayed a bit more, until he was creaking all over like a sail boat at sea. ‘Are you deaf and dumb or something? Why didn’t you reply when the sergeant asked to see your papers?’

The civilian stood with bowed head, looking down with interest at the floor. Brockmann took his riding crop from the desk and brought it lashing down against the side of a boot. He then held it behind his back, rocking back and forth on his heels and swishing the crop gently to and fro so that his spurs jingled. As he did so, he sucked industriously at a hollow tooth and rolled a comical eye at his fellow officers. They grinned encouragingly as they smoked their cigarettes.

‘Do you realize I could have you locked up and left to rot – and no questions asked? An old black crow like you, you could be dangerous. For all I know you’ve got your pockets stuffed full of time bombs, eh? Planning to blow up the whole barracks . . .’

The civilian looked up. He stared mildly into Brockmann’s face, and his expression was far-away and calculating, as if this present moment were of no concern whatsoever and he was deliberating upon more important matters.

Brockmann jerked his riding crop at the big black umbrella.

‘Have you got a licence for that thing?’

‘Of course not, the chap’s a saboteur!’ declared Lt. Berni, stubbing out his cigarette and coming across to have a closer look. ‘Sticks out a mile. Traditional saboteur’s outfit, that.’

Everyone laughed. They began circling round the man, examining him from all angles, noting the greenish sheen of his bowler, the sunken neck and the rounded shoulders, the ridiculously long overcoat and the enormous gloves that hung puppetlike from the sleeves.

‘Do him good to be in the Army,’ declared Lt. Reichelt. ‘See a bit of action, get some of that tension out of him.’

Not that Reichelt had ever seen any action. Before the war he had been a wine and spirit merchant, and now he bought his safety with cognac and champagne. Reichelt was having a good war. He had built up a reputation as a ladies’ man, and he never ran less than three mistresses at a time, discarding them all after a few weeks and finding himself three new delights.

‘Brockmann, I think you ought to examine his papers,’ said Schmidt, who was the Commissary General and whose war was going as smoothly as Reichelt’s.

Instead of women, Schmidt had food. He lived for food. He not only ate it, he also stole it and sold it to a butcher in Lübeckerstrasse. The butcher in Lübeckerstrasse traded almost exclusively in food stolen from the barracks. Schmidt was not his only supplier.

‘You’ll probably find,’ added Schmidt, ‘that he’s lied his way out of military service. He ought at least to be in the Territorials. You’d like that,’ he told the impassive civilian. ‘Do you no end of good.’

The man remained silent. Schmidt wrinkled his brow in perplexity.

‘You don’t think the chap’s touched in the head, do you?’

There was a rap on the door and before anyone could say ‘come in’ it had been opened and an SS Unterscharführer had entered the room. He was big and brutish and well over six feet tall. On his sleeve were the letters SD: on his kepi, pushed carelessly to the back of his head, gleamed a silver death’s head. He ignored Brockmann and walked straight up to the civilian. He saluted smartly.

‘Heil Hitler, Standartenführer! We’ve just had a message from the RSHA over the car radio. Said to pass it on to you immediately, sir . . . Number 7 command has just completed operations successfully.’

The Standartenführer nodded his head, as if well satisfied. His eyes glittered behind his spectacles.

‘Very well, Müller. Tell them that I want the prisoners to be held in the strictest secrecy. No one is to interrogate them before I arrive. I’ll be with you in a moment.’

Müller saluted again and left the room. The civilian turned to the assembled officers.

‘I thank you, gentlemen, for the entertainment. It has been most enlightening . . . I have to be going now, but I feel sure we shall meet again . . . Heil Hitler!’

He followed Müller from the room. The officers looked at one another apprehensively, no longer so sure of their own omniscience.

‘What the hell was all that about?’ demanded Brockmann. He strode across to the door, opened it and shouted. ‘Sergeant!’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Find out who that man was and let me have the answer within five minutes if you don’t want to end up in trouble.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Brockmann came back into the room and laid down his riding crop with a hand that was not quite so assured as it had previously been. Schmidt licked his lips.

‘Gestapo?’ he suggested, nervously.

From the silence, he knew that he was right. It had to be the Gestapo. Schmidt wiped a plump pink hand over his brow and felt a sudden constriction across the chest. There were some sausages and some cases of ham, Italian haricot beans and one or two other little bits and pieces that he had been hoarding up, ready for the butcher in Lübeckerstrasse . . . and with the Gestapo on the premises, one never knew . . . one never felt quite safe . . .

Muttering his excuses beneath his breath, Schmidt left the room and hurried on trembling fat legs to his own department. Within a matter of moments the whole depot had been turned upside down, as Schmidt’s staff dropped whatever they had been doing and rushed to carry out new orders. Twenty minutes later, two trucks left the barracks full to overflowing with ham and haricot beans. They were deposited in a safe place with Schmidt’s opposite number in an artillery regiment, and the whole operation cost Schmidt several pounds in weight and nineteen cases of champagne. The nineteen cases of champagne cancelled out all the profit he would make on the ham.

Not everyone in the barracks knew that the Gestapo had been there. And even amongst those who had heard rumours, not everyone flew into a blind panic. A certain Obergefreiter, supposed to be on guard duty at the time, was even chatting quite amiably with the driver of the Mercedes. They were discussing business together, and had been doing so ever since the Standartenführer had entered the building.

‘Well, come on!’ urged the SS driver. ‘Out with it! How much do you want for the—’ He glanced round suspiciously and lowered his voice. ‘For them?’ he substituted.

On his right sleeve he wore a white armlet with the letters RSHA.

‘They’re worth quite a bit,’ said Porta. ‘How much are you prepared to offer, that’s more to the point?’

The man hesitated. A crafty expression appeared in his eyes.

‘A thousand?’

He plunged a hand deep into his pocket and came out with a bundle of notes. Porta laughed in his face.

‘You lost your marbles?’ he jeered. ‘What do you think this place is, a bleeding charity home? A thousand! You must be joking!’ He pushed back his helmet, settled his rifle more comfortably and pushed both hands into his pockets. ‘You know, nobody ain’t forcing you to buy the goods,’ he said, kindly. ‘I mean, you don’t HAVE to have them if you don’t want ’em . . . I only offered ’em to you on account of I thought you might be smart enough to handle ’em. No good letting an amateur get his mits on them, he wouldn’t know how to get rid of ’em and like as not he’d land us all in trouble. But being as you’re obviously a chap what knows his way around . . .’

‘Look, I could get the bleeding things for free if I really wanted ’em that bad!’

The driver turned and spat contemptuously upon the memorial for the glorious dead of the first world war.

‘How do you reckon that?’ sneered Porta. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday, mate, it’s no good thinking you can take me for a ride!’

And by way of retaliation he took a hand from his pocket, bent over the Mercedes and vigorously blew his nose on the SS flag which fluttered from the bonnet of the car.

The SS man pretended not to have seen. He simply turned and spat for the second time on the glorious dead of the 76th Infantry Regiment.

‘Seems to me,’ he said, ‘seems to me you don’t know who I am or who I work for.’ His chest swelled out as he spoke. His face glowed with simple pride. ‘That’s my boss that’s gone in there just now. Gone to speak to your CO, he has.’

‘So what?’ said Porta, coldly.

‘So you’ll change your tune a bit when I tell you who he is. I reckon you’ll be so shit scared you’ll give me your precious fags for free.’ The SS man smiled unpleasantly and held out his right arm, displaying the letters RSHA for Porta to see. ‘I can be bought – at a price,’ he admitted. ‘Say, twelve pipes of opium?’

‘Bought?’ Porta leaned forward and spat on the SS flag. ‘Why the hell should I want to buy a creep like you?’

‘Silence, pal. You don’t buy me, you buy my silence.’

‘Sod that for a laugh!’ Again Porta spat. The swastika pennant, flying so bravely a few moments ago, was beginning to sag under the weight of so much moisture. ‘You can keep your flaming silence! You think I care two hoots for an idiot like you?’

The SS man curled up his top lip in a self-satisfied sneer. He felt very sure of himself. He leaned out through the window of the Mercedes.

‘You’d better care, that’s all I can say . . . Because if you don’t watch your step you’re liable to land yourself in real hot water . . . My chief is none other than Standartenführer Paul Bielert!’

A note of triumphant reverence entered his voice as he pronounced the name. His eyes blazed with the devout fervour of a missionary telling a bunch of habitual drunkards about Jesus Christ.

Porta walked up very close to the car and spat yet again on the pennant.

‘I don’t give a monkey’s crutch piece for Paul Bielertl’ he declared. ‘Paul Bielert can go and get stuffed . . . Sod Paul Bielert!’

The SS man narrowed his eyes and regarded him in stupefaction.

‘You dare to say that about the Standartenführer?’ He shook his head, bewildered. ‘You must be a raving nut . . . a certifiable bloody lunatic . . . you can’t go round saying sod Paul Bielert and get away with it! Bielert’s just about the biggest bastard in the whole of Germany! He’ll have your guts for garters if he ever gets to hear of it . . .’ His voice took on a note of pious wonderment as he spoke. ‘Even SS Heinrich shits blue bricks whenever he hears the name Bielert. Only one man I ever heard of what could stand out against him and that’s Gruppenführer Heydrich . . . and we all know what HE’s like.’

Porta leaned against the side of the car and looked down at the earnest driver.

‘How about you, then?’ he said, casually. ‘If he’s as bad as you say, you must be pretty scared of him yourself?’

‘Everyone’s scared,’ retorted the driver. ‘And so would you be, if you had any flaming sense . . . And just remember this, pal: it’s all very fine and grand standing out here cursing and blinding, but you won’t be so bloody cocksure when the time comes!’

‘Time?’ said Porta, innocently. ‘What time?’

‘The day of your reckoning, that’s what time, mate . . . the day when you have to stand up and face the Standartenführer.’

What makes you think I ever will have to?’

‘I don’t think, I know . . . because I can go to the authorities any time I damn well feel like it and spill the beans about your drug trafficking. And when you’re standing in front of Bielert you’ll wish you’d never tried to push your luck so bleeding hard . . . Only the other day he had nine men executed, just for the hell of it. When I say executed, I mean heads off, down on the old chopping block . . . Nine at a blow! Nine heads rolling about in the basket! I’m telling you – you get in his hands, you don’t stand a chance. He doesn’t have men butchered because they’ve committed crimes, he has ’em butchered because it amuses him!’