Midnight in Berlin (19 page)

The next morning, the ambassador's meeting was an ill-tempered affair. For the first time that anyone present could recall, an open discussion on policy verged on disagreement about the stated aims of the government in London. Sir Nevile had begun with a poorly judged metaphor about the weather. It was only May, he said, but outside summer had arrived and the temperature was rising to an unbearable degree.

His staff looked at him blankly. The weather outside was normal. It was a warm day in late spring. The ambassador tried to explain. “I am talking about the political temperature,” he said.

“Oh, I see,” said Buckland, scarcely trying to conceal his sarcasm. “Well, you are quite right, Ambassador. Have you heard the announcement from Prague this morning?”

“No,” said the ambassador, wondering why no one had warned him of what was clearly going to be more bad news.

“It's a news agency flash, just come in,” said Buckland, waving a copy of a cable. “Prague claims that five German divisions are on the move close to the border and an invasion is imminent.”

“Macrae?” said the ambassador.

“German spring manoeuvres always take place at this time of year. The Czechs are understandably very jumpy right now. I will check further.”

“I thought your job was to warn us of these things in advance.” Sir Nevile was determined not to let this meeting slide away from him like the last.

“My job is to keep you as informed as possible, consistent with the willingness of my informant to take risks to provide the information.”

“Exactly who is this informant?” said the ambassador, knowing immediately that the stupidity of the question would be obvious to everyone. “I mean, not his name, obviously, but an idea of rank and status would be helpful,” he added.

“Not to him I fear, Ambassador. I have given my word that his identity will never be revealed, even to that extent.”

“Very well. You had better go to the border region and report back.”

“I've already made the arrangements. I'm leaving after conference with a driver.”

And you have not asked my permission, thought the ambassador. The man was intolerable. He had received no answer to his request for Macrae to be transferred. He would send another cable to the Foreign Office. In the meantime,
the man was better off out of the office swanning around the Czech border. It was obvious that Hitler was only rattling his weaponry to get his way, as usual. The issue of the three million or so ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland region was simple. They should be incorporated into Germany under the terms of the Versailles treaty, which allowed for self-determination of such ethnic groups. That would satisfy Hitler.
Si vis pacem, para bellum,
as the old saying went. Macrae wouldn't understand that. If you want peace, prepare for war. He wouldn't understand that either.

Macrae slipped a note to Halliday as the ambassador turned to the subject of an international hunting expedition organised by Göring for sportsmen around the world.

The note said,
Joseph Sternschein interned camp called Buchenwald. Can confirm status – alive or dead?

Halliday raised an eyebrow. Macrae put a finger to his lips and rose to leave the room.

For the next week, Macrae travelled through what the international press called Sudetenland but what was in fact an area made up of the old territories of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. These had once been principalities within the Holy Roman Empire, which Macrae, along with every schoolboy of his generation, had been taught was not Holy nor Roman nor an empire. These were Hitler's “lost lands”, which abutted the mountainous region along the central border between Germany and Czechoslovakia.

Where the mountains folded into valleys, the soil was rich and farming prosperous. The abundance of fast-flowing water powered hydroelectric plants, which turned the wheels of important industry in the area, especially chemical plants, fertiliser factories and glass and china works.

No foreign visitor to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin escaped without a lengthy harangue about the crime that had placed the area in the hands of the Czechs. These brainstorms, as they were described by many shaken ambassadors, did not concern the riches of the Sudetenland, although the Germany military had long cast covetous eyes on the chemical plants. What drove the chancellor to such rages was that the vast majority of the inhabitants were German-speaking and could trace family roots back to medieval times. And they were now living under the control of Slavonic peoples of the east, a race Hitler viewed with almost as much disgust as the Jews.

For the first three days, Macrae toured the German side of the border and found no evidence of troop movements or any military build-up. He was driven by a locally employed driver who had been on the embassy staff for over twenty years and was judged to be both discreet and loyal.

They stayed in small inns, where Macrae ate dinner alone, reading a detective novel and drinking the occasional glass of wine, which always seemed to amount to a full bottle by the end of the meal. He found reading difficult. His mind kept wandering from the page back to Berlin. He had said a brief goodbye to Primrose and received a peck on the cheek and a “Good luck, darling.” He could not say she was pleased to see him go, but then she didn't evince any enthusiasm for his presence when he was there.

She seemed to have become his wife in name only, leaving him with a marriage that lacked any meaning or emotion. It was hardly a new state of affairs, but as he sat in a remote inn in Saxony eating yet more venison stew and drinking deeply of the local red wine, the bleak state of his marriage assumed the proportions of a breakdown.

His wife was leading a secret life. She was having an affair. Almost certainly her lover was Koenig. No wonder he had
been so difficult to get hold of recently. Macrae gloomily concluded that he had lost both his wife and his main contact in the army.

Then there was Sara in the Salon. The memory of that strange night in the Tiergarten had not receded. A carousel of images went round in his mind: the way she had placed the cigarette in his mouth, the two glowing fireflies in the dark as they smoked, the soft touch of her lips, the sight of her naked, the rounded breasts, the curve and cleft of her buttocks, the flat stomach falling to the dark triangle …

“More wine, sir?”

Macrae looked up. A young waitress was standing beside him holding a carafe of wine. His driver had long gone to bed, as had most of the drinkers and diners. There was the usual blowsy barmaid and a few old men muttering into their beer and blowing smoke at the ceiling. His wineglass was empty.

“Why not?” he said.

He raised the glass, drank and considered the questions that came at him every night demanding answers: had Halliday found any information about her brother? What would she do if he had died in the camp? The boy would be young and fit, but those were the ones the guards were ordered to break. They beat them mercilessly. She would try to escape if she found he had died. They would catch her and kill her. That was as certain as an invasion of the damned Sudetenland. Hitler was going to take it and then move on to the whole Czech nation. That was blindingly obvious to everyone except the ambassador and the mandarins in London.

What was it that some Frenchman had said in the eighteenth century after visiting Berlin? “Prussia is not a country with an army, it is an army with a country.”

And Prussia, the heart and soul of the German state, had captured Berlin. Bismarck, that towering military genius and
empire-builder of the last century, had been replaced by a corporal with a silly moustache. But both were driven by a psychological urge to wage war. Bismarck had done so repeatedly. Hitler would surely do the same. Macrae would go back to Berlin first thing in the morning.

Miss Daisy Wellesley was the scion of a famous British family that had used its influence to secure her a senior secretarial post in the Foreign Office after an unfortunate affair with a married Member of Parliament. The resulting abortion had been bungled and she had spent several days close to death in a London hospital. Her survival had given her good reason to rejoice in whatever life provided, and at the age of forty-six she was, if not the youngest, certainly the most cheerful of the ambassador's staff.

Her formal position placed her above that of the secretarial assistant to the three defence attachés in the Berlin embassy, but she looked after them all the same, just as she did the ambassador.

Miss Wellesley, who could trace her ancestry to the great Duke of Wellington, felt it only fitting that she had become a social aide to Sir Nevile, attending the various lunches, dinners and cocktail parties he hosted. The organisation of such events was time-consuming and required a delicacy of touch that only a member of a good British family could provide.

Daisy seemed to know exactly where to seat people at lunch or dinner and flitted around cocktail parties making sure that the right people were introduced to each other. It was further remarked that despite the obvious favouritism bestowed on Daisy by the ambassador, she remained popular with other members of staff. Above all, Daisy wore her grand lineage lightly. She was not, in the words of one of the three cipher clerks, at all “stuck up”. She joined them for beer in a local inn after work on Fridays almost every week, providing the ambassador had no social duties that night.

When Macrae returned to the office, Daisy greeted him with a smile, hung up his coat and put the coffee percolator on a small gas ring. He looked tired and worried, she thought. If she had a favourite among the staff, it would be the figure that now sat wearily at his desk, running a hand through his greasy locks. He had not had a bath for days, she thought. He needed to look after himself, or rather his wife did.

“I have two messages for you,” she said. “And an anonymous note came in yesterday. Which do you want first?”

“The note, please.”

“Shall I read it?”

“Please do.”

“‘A pair of rare Siberian tigers have arrived at the Berlin zoo – a male and female.' That's all. Does that make any sense?”

“Was there a date or time in the message?”

“No, but I have checked and they are going to present the beasts at a private viewing tomorrow at noon. There will be a light buffet afterwards.”

“And you've got me an invitation?”

She smiled and nodded. That was Daisy. Bloody efficient, thought Macrae.

She gave him his coffee and waited while he tasted it.

“Very good,” he said.

“Sir …?” she said hesitatingly.

Macrae had given up trying to get her to call him Noel.

“Yes, Daisy?”

She sat down in front of his desk and leant forward.

“I do not wish to be disloyal or break confidences,” she said, “but, having thought carefully, I think you should know this.”

She told him that it was gossip among the cipher clerks that the ambassador had twice asked for Macrae's recall from Berlin in telegrams to the Foreign Office. On both occasions, the reply had been couched in classic Civil Service jargon to the effect that his request had been noted and the matter would be considered by the appropriate authorities at the appropriate time.

“I thought it best that you knew,” she said again.

“Thank you, Daisy. You said there were two messages.”

“Oh yes, I forgot, sorry. Mr Halliday will be away for a few days. He said to tell you ‘He's dead.' Said you would know what he meant.”

She watched him sit back in his chair and take a deep breath.

“Someone you knew, sir?”

“No, no, not at all. Thank you, Daisy.”

The lions and tigers at the zoo were housed in a covered enclosure that allowed the animals to move from internal cages, where they slept and were fed, into large open-air cages, where they were viewed by an admiring public. About two hundred people had gathered under a large awning opposite one of the outdoor cages to observe the new arrivals. White sheeting had been draped over the cage, to shield the occupants from view. A microphone had been set up on
a dais for speeches. Macrae noted an unusually heavy police presence at the entrance to the zoo and around the carnivore enclosure.

Judging by the number of armbands and bemedalled uniforms, there were several senior Nazis present. Macrae scanned the crowd, looking for Koenig. With his height he would have stood out, but there was no sign of him. He thought of Sara and how he was going to break the news of the death of her brother. He would wait until Halliday returned and ask for details, not that such information would help the girl. Her brother would have met a miserable end, tortured, beaten and starved to death.

Around Macrae, well-dressed ladies with fashionable hats and their husbands in smart suits or uniforms talked and gossiped carelessly, arranging dinner that night or a visit to the opera later in the week. And in camps such as Buchenwald men like Joseph Sternschein were choking on their own blood in the last minutes of their young lives. Macrae suddenly wished he had brought his hip flask with him. Or a grenade. A decent Mills bomb would wipe out a good half of those present. Then they could lie screaming in agony on the ground, blood seeping into their smart clothes, life ebbing away. Macrae rebuked himself. It was too easy to let emotion master the mind. It was too easy to feel pity and sheer rage. That was the trouble with Berlin in 1938. It was hard not to succumb to such emotions.

The crowd fell silent and parted to allow the official guests to take their seats behind the dais. To Macrae's surprise, the bulky figure of Field Marshal Hermann Göring strode through the crowd and onto the dais. He wore a peaked cap and a cream suit, from which hung a veritable constellation of medals. It was a standing joke in Berlin that if there was a power cut the city would be illuminated by the sparkle from
Göring's many decorations. The man looked like a music hall comedian from the 1920s. He had acquired almost as many titles and responsibilities as the ribbons and medals that crowded his chest.