SS-GB (40 page)

‘Feldgendarmerie,’ said Captain Hesse. ‘Probably no more than a routine check.’

Even through the glass they heard the drum-roll.
The spinning saw moved towards the girl in the black lacquered box at a frightening speed. The two soldiers did not look up at the stage. Their heads moved very slowly from left to right and back again, like spectators at some slowed-down tennis match.

‘Jesus!’ said Harry Woods. He saw the girl throw back her head, as if in a convulsion of terrible pain.

‘She pretends,’ explained the German. ‘It’s a part of the act.’ He reached for his hat and put it on, pulling the brim down on that side of his face nearest to the two military policemen.

‘We’ll be in an ambulance,’ said Harry Woods. ‘Your people specified that it should be an ambulance.’

‘Registration number?’ said Hesse.

‘No registration,’ said Harry Woods. ‘They’ll have to remove the number plates. Hardly worth putting false ones on; no one is going to stop an ambulance because it’s got no plates. And if anything goes wrong the absence of any kind of number might give us an extra few minutes.’

‘You are right,’ said Hesse. He smiled, and the sudden brightening of the stage lighting made his face shine in the reflected light. ‘Now do you see?’ he said. ‘The girl is quite all right.’

‘Blue-jacket won’t be wearing handcuffs or anything, will he?’ said Harry.

Hesse smiled. ‘We Germans are not barbarians, Mr Woods. Why should he be manacled?’ There was a chord from the orchestra and a roar of applause as Professor Zingo took the pretty girl assistant by the hand and helped her from the black box that was once more joined up into one piece.

‘We’ll have no one with us who could handle locksmith work,’ said Harry.

Captain Hesse leaned back against the carved mahogany bar and clapped his hands. He was staring
at the stage and squinting as the smoke from his cigarette drifted up into his eyes.

The door of the bar opened and the two ‘chained dogs’ looked in, the metal gorgets that gave them their nickname glinting in the harsh light. Hesse, Douglas and Harry Woods kept their eyes on the stage as if unaware of the military policemen standing in the doorway. ‘Any soldiers in here tonight?’ one of them called to the barman in a sing-song way that showed he’d learned the phrase parrot-fashion.

‘Nix,’ said the barman. He put two glasses on the counter and placed a bottle of whisky alongside. The military policemen stared once again at the three men at the far end of the bar, exchanged a look with each other and then came to the bar and poured themselves a drink. Douglas stole a glance at them and could now see that they were not Feldgendarmerie but ordinary soldiers appointed to police duties wearing the Kommandantur gorget.

The barman moved away from the soldiers, and stood behind the three men at the other end of the bar. ‘See that?’ said the barman as the magician and the girl came back to take another bow. ‘Same thing happened on Monday night, first house. She’s limping. See the blood on her foot. If she doesn’t get her knees right up to her neck, the saw catches her.’

Now the others could see it too. Her white ballet shoe was torn at the toe and there was a little blood there. ‘Goes to show,’ said the barman. ‘You can rehearse and rehearse, but there’s always the chance that it will go wrong.’

The three men sipped their drinks and didn’t answer him.

The Tower of London. Douglas could taste the fog; its soot got into his nostrils and dried on his lips. Even at ten o’clock in the morning, visibility was down to a few yards. Here at London’s river the ambulance was reduced to a snail’s pace. At Tower Hill, the soldiers at the first checkpoint had marked their position with flares. Six flames tore a yellow tunnel through the green swirling clouds. Beyond them, the Tower was no more than a grey shape painted on the soft fog.

Only when the wind ruffled the river could they see the strings of yellow lights that marked the rigging of the light cruiser
Emden
, anchored on the far side of the bridge.

‘They picked a good day for it,’ said Harry Woods. ‘They must have seen the forecast last night, before Hesse came to meet us.’ He lowered the window as they approached the second perimeter of sentries.

An officer came quickly out of the guard hut, and stepped up on the running board. He held a handkerchief to his face and sneezed into it. ‘Damned filthy country,’ he said. ‘It’s not fit for human habitation.’

On his shoulder straps his Leutnant’s stars were accompanied by the serpents of the veterinary corps. ‘Drive straight on,’ he said. ‘Over the drawbridge and through the towers. I’ll talk to anyone who tries to stop us.’

He hung on to the mirror fitting, as Douglas manoeuvred the ambulance between the narrow spaces of the Outer Ward, round the buttress of the Wakefield
Tower, past the Bloody Tower and up to the Inner Ward where, like a vast cliff of Caen stone, the White Tower was beheaded by the fog. He followed the line of streetlamps, their gas flames showing brightly. A couple of ravens, startled by their approach, lurched drunkenly across the path and flapped away noisily. The ambulance picked its way round the massive Keep and parked outside the chapel.

‘Wait,’ said the little German officer. He stepped off the running board and disappeared into the gloom, coughing and sneezing his way across Tower Green, and almost stumbling over the ‘Keep off the Grass’ sign.

The pea-souper had brought an unnatural quiet. The air activity, almost unceasing since the start of martial law, was suddenly no more, the spotter planes grounded by the fog. The grumble of a heavy lorry, going across the bridge in low gear, faded away and there was complete silence. ‘Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?’ said Harry.

Douglas looked up at the painted notice. In German it said, ‘King’s House. Here Anne Boleyn spent the night before execution and Guy Fawkes was interrogated here before his confession and subsequent trial at Westminster Hall.’ Douglas nodded but didn’t answer.

From the White Tower there was the sudden noise of footsteps. Someone with a broad Silesian accent said it was cold, and another man chuckled as if appreciating a witticism.

‘Here they come,’ said Harry.

The white ambulance was almost invisible in the fog and the men nearly collided with it. There were five of them. Leading the way were two booted cavalry Leutnants. Behind them, flanked by two smiling acolytes, came a Deputy Gauleiter of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, the Nazi trade union movement.

His tailor had tried to conceal the pot-belly and heavy hips under a magnificent overcoat, with coloured facings and gold badges, but he could do nothing for the unmilitary swagger, jovial curses and coarse laughter.

‘Bloody hell – an ambulance! Do I sit with the driver, or stretch out in the back?’ The Deputy Gauleiter laughed loudly, coughed and then spat. ‘Bloody fog gets in your throat, eh?’

The two DAF officials stopped laughing at his joke for long enough to join in his complaint about the fog. ‘Your car is over here, sir,’ said the cavalry Leutnant coldly.

‘You know your history, Leutnant,’ said the Deputy Gauleiter, turning to the second of the army officers conducting the party. ‘All those stories about Sir Walter Raleigh and Lady Jane Grey…Goddamn it, you bring it all to life for me.’ He tapped the officer on the chest. ‘And Sir Thomas More was always a hero of mine…’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the officer.

Douglas and Harry Woods watched the DAF men driven away in the sort of Rolls-Royce that was used for important visitors. Unaware that they were overheard, one of the army officers hissed his contempt through clenched teeth. ‘Agriculture Ministry officials, Health Service Commissioner, Deputy Chief of the Women’s League, Chief of Staff to the Reich Sport League…and now these pigs from the DAF. This is supposed to be a maximum security prison for the King of England not a
Zirkus.’

The second officer spoke more quietly and was difficult to hear. ‘Patience, Klaus, there is a method to all this, believe me.’

‘A method?…What motive could there possibly be?’

‘I have a bottle of schnapps in my quarters, Klaus.
What do you say to breaking the habit of a lifetime, and taking a drink before lunch?’

‘What did that Nazi pig mean…Sir Thomas More was always a hero of his? Thomas More was a scholar, a man who defied tyranny.’

‘Calm down, Klaus. Our orders were to be back in our quarters by ten-thirty
A.M.
and we’ve only a few minutes to go.’

‘Why back in our quarters?’

‘Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do or die. Into the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred,’ misquoted the officer in an uncertain English accent.

‘You know your history, Leutnant,’ said his friend, imitating the ponderous Silesian accent of the Deputy Gauleiter. ‘Goddamn it, you bring it all to life for me.’

It was ten-forty before the veterinary Leutnant returned to Douglas and Harry Woods. He was wheeling an invalid’s wooden chair. In it there sat a still and silent figure, hunched slightly as he looked at his tightly clenched gloved hands. He was dressed in a cheap tartan-patterned dressing gown, under which could be seen a brown, polo-neck sweater, grey flannel trousers and scuffed shoes. On his head there was a khaki-coloured knitted helmet of the sort that had become popular with the British soldiers during that first winter of the phoney war.

Harry Woods opened the two doors at the rear of the ambulance. Douglas stood ready to assist the King up the folding step. ‘You’ll have to help him,’ said the veterinary officer.

When the King looked up at the two men, his head scarcely moved, it was no more than a flicker of the eyes. He said nothing.

‘We’ll help you, sir,’ Douglas told the King.

Then Harry Woods leaned over and lifted the King
bodily, as a mother might lift a tiny baby. Holding him in his arms, Harry stepped into the ambulance and laid him full-length upon the stretcher that was locked into position there.

‘Strap him in,’ said the veterinary Leutnant. ‘He’s completely exhausted. One of you should stay in the back with him.’

‘I’ll stay here,’ said Harry.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ Douglas asked nervously. He wondered if he should say ‘Your Majesty’.

The King gave an almost imperceptible nod and moved his lips, as if he was about to speak. Douglas waited, but when no words came he nodded to Harry and closed the rear doors.

‘I’ll ride with you through the outer perimeter,’ said the Leutnant. ‘After that he’s your responsibility.’

‘Yes,’ said Douglas.

The Leutnant blew his nose noisily.

‘Is he drugged?’ said Douglas.

‘He’s sick,’ said the Leutnant. ‘Damned sick!’ He wiped his nose again. As the ambulance was going along Lower Thames Street he stepped off the running board with no more than a grunt of farewell.

They were in Lombard Street, heading towards Cheapside, when the first sign of trouble came. The communication flap behind Douglas’s head snapped open, and he heard Harry say, ‘You want me to drive, Doug?’

‘It’s the ignition,’ said Douglas. ‘The power fades when I press the accelerator.’

The ambulance moved slowly past the Bank of England, its armed sentries just visible through the gloomy fog. The traffic lights had failed and a policeman was directing traffic, his dark shape visible only because of the flare that burned beside him. He beckoned them on, and they got down as far as St Paul’s Cathedral
before the engine stalled again. It started after a couple of tries.

‘We’ve only got to get as far as Barnet,’ said Harry hopefully. ‘There will be another vehicle there for him.’

‘Do you know anything about car engines, Harry?’

‘Perhaps we’ll see a garage,’ said Harry.

In St Paul’s Church Yard there were four cars and a lorry abandoned in the fog. A uniformed policeman walked over to the ambulance. ‘You can’t leave it here, sir,’ said the policeman. He had that sort of blunt manner that sometimes afflicts young policemen. ‘This is a Schnellstrasse; no parking or waiting permitted under any circumstances.’ He looked at the licence disc, sniffed and then stared at Douglas.

‘There’s something wrong with the ignition,’ said Douglas. ‘Can you direct me to a garage that will do repairs?’ Behind him he heard the King cough.

‘You’ll get nothing like that done today,’ said the Constable. ‘Can’t you understand that the fog has brought everything to a standstill?’ He looked at the ambulance and wiped a gloved fingertip in the condensation on the windscreen. ‘Get on to your people to send a mechanic.’

‘Can I leave it while I phone?’

‘Don’t play silly buggers with me,’ said the policeman. By now he’d decided that ambulance drivers did not merit a deferential approach. ‘I’ve told you once, and if I have to tell you again I’ll run you in. Do you understand? Now sling your hook!’ Douglas swallowed the rage he felt. He nodded and drove on.

‘Nasty little sod, wasn’t he?’ Harry said quietly as they pulled away.

‘I never did like coppers,’ said Douglas.

‘How’s…?’

Before Douglas could think of an appropriate form
of address, Harry said, ‘Still the same. He hasn’t said a word. He might have dozed off.’

‘Could you get him into a taxi?’

‘Cab drivers stay at home in this kind of weather,’ said Harry. ‘It would take half a day to earn one fare.’

Douglas nodded. Harry was right, of course. He’d not seen a taxi anywhere. ‘I’ll phone Barbara,’ said Douglas.

They found a phone box in Fleet Street. Barbara was out. The window cleaner answered the phone and offered to leave a message but Douglas said he’d phone again later.

Douglas phoned the office of the Commissioner General for Administration and Justice, what once had been the Home Office. Sir Robert Benson was at a meeting but his personal assistant seemed ready, even anxious, to help when Douglas identified himself.

Sir Robert wouldn’t be back until after lunch, according to his
P.A
.

Douglas told him it was very urgent, and after some hesitation the man divulged that Sir Robert was lunching at the Reform Club.

‘We’ll go there,’ Douglas told Harry when he got back to the ambulance. ‘I think I can get this thing as far as Pall Mall.’