They Used Dark Forces (26 page)

‘Who's going to command the big show?'

‘Eisenhower.'

‘What do you think of him?'

‘Grand chap. Mind, he has yet to prove his abilities as a General. Alex ran the show for him in North Africa. But as a person you couldn't have a better. He has buckets of charm, has the sense to listen to what other people have to say and is determined that there shall be no jealous bickering. He's told his own staff that if any of them don't get on with the British they'll get a ticket for the first ship home.'

‘Oh come, now,' Gregory smiled, ‘you can't really mean that you approve of one of our Allies?'

‘What's that? Insolent young devil! Nonsense! I've never said a thing against the Americans. Splendid fellers. Their generosity is boundless and if you don't lay the law down to them they're eager to learn. Fight like tigers, too, once they've been shown how. It isn't their fault that most of their top men have nothing but sawdust in their heads.'

At that moment the door opened and Erika was shown in by the parlourmaid, who also brought the second magnum. With cries of joy, the lovers embraced while Sir Pellinore opened the champagne and soon Gregory was telling Erika of his escape from Malacou.

Stefan Kuporovitch arrived shortly afterwards. Twelve days earlier his wife had presented him with a son; so Gregory had got back in time to act in person as one of the boy's godfathers, Sir Pellinore having agreed to be the other, while Erika was to be godmother. In due course the four of them enjoyed a lunch that few restaurants could have provided in the fifth year of the war, and with the dessert they drank a bottle of Imperial Tokay to the health of Madeleine and the small Gregory Pellinore Kuporovitch.

The following day Gregory saw a specialist who said that Dr. Zetterberg had done a splendid job on his leg and that, although he might suffer some pain from it from time to time if he overtaxed it, in another few months it should serve him as well as the one that had not been injured. It would, however, always be about half an inch shorter than the other.

In order to correct that he went to Lobbs in St. James's Street and ordered himself several pairs of shoes, the sole and heel of the left one of each pair to be half an inch thicker than the right, so that when he wore them his limp would not be noticeable. After three days in London he returned with Erika to Gwaine Meads.

The greater part of the lovely old house had been lent by Sir Pellinore to the R.A.F. as a hospital, but he had retained one wing to which he sent a few special guests who needed a quiet time to recover from particularly arduous service in the war. Gregory always stayed there after his missions and Erika had lived there permanently since she had escaped from the Continent. Although in the early months of the war she had
trained as a nurse, she greatly preferred administrative work; so she had taken on the job of supervising the non-medical staff, dealing with rations, arranging recreations for the patients and other such tasks. Madeleine, having been a professional nurse in France before her marriage, had worked there up till Christmas as a Sister and was soon to resume part-time duty.

Early in February Kuporovitch took a fortnight's leave from his job of translating Russian documents in the War Office, and on his first Sunday at Gwaine Meads the baby was christened in the local church. Sir Pellinore came up for the ceremony and presented his godson with a gold-and-coral rattle and a cheque for a thousand pounds, then he ordered up from the cellars champagne for the whole staff of the hospital and its patients.

After their generous host had departed the following morning for London the four friends settled down to as pleasant a time as was possible in view of the bitter winter weather. Several days of snow and sleet, followed by biting winds, kept them largely to the house and, as none of them was a keen bridge player, to amuse themselves they resorted to various pastimes such as bezique, dominoes, Monopoly and guessing games.

In mid-March, a shade regretfully yet eager to be again in the swim of things, Gregory returned to London and once more put on the uniform of a Wing Commander. Both his uniforms dated from August 1942, so he thought it time he had another. When he was measured for it at Anderson and Sheppard's he told his cutter that he was in no hurry for it, as he did not mean to use it until he next went on leave. To order it proved a waste of money, for he never went on leave again.

Gregory's colleagues in the War Room were mainly other Wing Commanders, Lieutenant-Colonels and Commanders R.N., all middle-aged or elderly men specially selected from the host of officers who had served in the First World War and had been eager to serve again. As they were all intelligent and charming people the War Room could be described as a ‘happy ship'. They welcomed Gregory back with drinks in the tiny mess and invitations to lunch at their clubs, but were much too discreet to ask him where he had been during the past ten months.

Neither did any of them go out of their way to pass on to him such information as they had picked up about the plans for ‘Overlord'—the codeword for the coming invasion of the Continent—but from conversations with senior officers and Cabinet Ministers who looked in at the War Room late at night, and usually seemed to assume that only very special secrets were kept from its staff, Gregory soon had a very good idea of what was going on and he discussed such matters with Sir Pellinore, who was always extremely well informed.

They had resumed their arrangement that Gregory should have supper with the elderly Baronet every Sunday evening. Like everyone else, Sir Pellinore's household was subject to rationing, but he had tackled that problem with his usual vigour and every week had sent up from Gwaine Meads supplies of non-rationed items, such as poultry, turkey eggs for omelettes and home-smoked eels. So after meals that were treats to Gregory they retired to the library and, stimulating their minds with ample potations of pre-1914 Kümmel and old brandy, reviewed every aspect of the war.

Sir Pellinore continued to deplore the fact that as the Americans had more men and more money they were in a position to dictate how the Allies' forces should be employed. Among their major stupidities he counted their flat refusal, in spite of Churchill's most desperate pleas, to spare a single Brigade to take over Rhodes from the Italians before the Germans had a chance to get there; thus having ruined our excellent prospects of persuading Turkey to enter the war as our allies.

The reason the Americans gave was that they needed every man they could lay hands on, not alone for the cross-Channel operation but to stage a subsidiary invasion of the south of France. And for this project they also intended to rob General Alexander of the best Divisions from his Army in Italy.

In the meantime things were going no better there. With a resolution that could only be admired, the Germans were obeying their Führer's order that there should be no withdrawal. They had clamped down like a vice on the country and terrorised the Italians into continuing to keep the railways and their supply services going. Meanwhile, the Anzio beach-head continued to be boxed in.

After the great battle for Cassino in January there was a temporary lull. But it had flared up again in mid-February and, although the American General Mark Clark had the historic monastery reduced to ruins by bombing, that got the Allies no further.

On the 16th of the month the enemy made a ferocious assault on the Anzio bridgehead and it was again touch and go whether the seventy thousand men now crammed in there were to be driven into the sea. They succeeded in clinging on to their few miles of Italian soil, but only at the cost of terrible casualties. In mid-March there came the third great battle for Cassino, but the Germans held the heights and the Allies were again driven back with fearful losses. Strategy had gone by the board, the Allies were now paying an appalling price for entering Europe by way of Sicily and the Italian campaign had degenerated into the same ghastly war of attrition and futile sacrifice of life that had been waged for so long by the bone-headed Generals of the First World War on the Western Front.

Each time Sir Pellinore and Gregory met, after deploring the situation in Italy the Baronet asked gruffly, ‘Got yourself out of this habit of thinking about that Black Magician feller yet?'

But Gregory always had to shake his head and say, ‘No. Whenever I'm at a loose end for a few minutes during the daytime, or when I wake in the mornings or am dropping off to sleep at night, he still comes through. I just can't help it. And, to be honest, in a way I don't want to. To know what's happening to him holds an extraordinary fascination.'

Through these occult communications he was convinced that in March Gottlob von Altern had succeeded in obtaining a court order to become Willi's guardian and take over the Sassen property. Malacou had then tried to come to an arrangement with Gottlob to retain the ruined Castle as a tenant. This had looked like going through, but, early in April, Malacou had found himself in further trouble. Gottlob's accountants had been going into the financial transactions at Sassen since Ulrich von Altern's death and unearthed the fact that Malacou had sold several of the outlying farms for a very considerable sum. When called on to repay the money he had been unable to do so because, although it was still unknown to the lawyers, believing that Germany was certain to be defeated and the mark become almost worthless, he had smuggled the money out to Sweden.

To get it back soon enough to satisfy the von Altern lawyers would have entailed a big risk of the authorities finding out what he had done and such currency offences were punishable by a heavy prison sentence. His efforts to secure time to pay had been unavailing and a fortnight later he had learned by his own mysterious means that a writ had been issued against him, charging him with having defrauded Willi. Knowing the verdict must go against him and that he would be sent to prison, he had decided on flight. With Tarik he had driven by night over the Polish border and, after various subterfuges to avoid being traced, had reached his house at Ostroleka.

As the spring advanced the preparations for ‘Overlord' increased in tempo. The work to be undertaken was immense. Hundreds of trains had to be earmarked for carrying troops
and stores to ports, roads widened, camps built, hards constructed in the estuaries of rivers for embarking into the many types of landing craft, shipping brought from all over the world and concealed, as far as possible, in the northern ports, Mulberry harbours made and camouflaged, thousands of maps printed, innumerable measures taken to deceive the enemy about the date and place of the landings and scores of conferences held. Yet, in spite of everyone concerned working day and night, D-Day had to be postponed from May to June.

While all this was going on the enemy was also extremely active. Although he still had no idea when and where the invasion would come, such vast preparations for it could not altogether be concealed. In consequence, from Norway right down to Biarritz, thousands of forced-labour gangs were at work strengthening the Atlantic Wall.

With grim determination, too, the Germans continued to press on the preparations to launch Hitler's great hope—the secret weapon. Owing to raid after raid by the R.A.F., they had been forced to abandon work on the big launching sites on the French coast first spotted by our reconnaissance aircraft. But they had since developed a smaller type which was much harder to find. Many of these were also destroyed, but hardly a day passed without new ones being discovered.

It was one night early in May that Sir Pellinore asked Gregory, ‘If “Overlord” is successful what do you reckon the chances are of the house-painter feller throwin' in the sponge shortly afterwards?'

‘None,' replied Gregory promptly. ‘Hitler is a maniac and will fight to the last ditch.'

‘That's my bet. But how about the German Army? D'you think that if they get a good lickin' in Normandy they'll rat on him?'

‘I doubt it. They would probably like to; but it's not in the nature of the Germans to defy a master. I should say the only chance of a sudden collapse is if someone bumps Hitler off.'

‘That's my view, too,' Sir Pellinore agreed gloomily. ‘Then if the war goes on into the autumn, it looks as if we'll have to face up to those bloody great rockets.'

‘But I thought that after Peenemünde they had abandoned work on them.'

‘So did we all. But we've recently had it through from the Polish Underground that they didn't. Seems the swine got goin' again on 'em as soon as they could up on the Polish marshes. New place is north-east of Warsaw and out of range of our bombers, so there's damn' all we can do about it.'

Soon afterwards Gregory had confirmation of Sir Pellinore's unpleasant news. The new menace and its possible consequences began to be hinted at in uneasy whispers by his colleagues in the War Room. Then a week later, when lunching with an old friend of his—who had been a Cadet with him in H.M.S.
Worcester
and, since 1941, had worked in the Deception Section of the Joint Planning Staff—he cautiously led up to the subject.

The other Wing Commander made a grimace and said, ‘As it is not a plan, there's no reason I shouldn't tell you what I know about it; although, of course, everything possible will be done to keep it from the public, so as to avoid a panic. There's no doubt about it that Jerry is banging off these things in Poland, and that in a few months' time we may get them here. The high-ups are fairly peeing their pants at the thought of what may happen to London.'

‘Has anyone found out yet exactly how much damage they will do?' Gregory asked.

‘Yes. There is quite a useful Underground in Poland, and I gather we've received a pretty accurate picture of these things from them. I was representing my little party only yesterday at a high-power meeting. It was called by the Home Office to discuss re-evacuating London and that sort of thing. Sir Findlater Stewart took the chair. He said that these rockets each weigh seventy tons and have a twenty-ton warhead. Just think of what that means.'