They Used Dark Forces (6 page)

‘All the same, I will say nothing of our business in front of him, just in case he might repeat it,' Gregory commented.

‘Such caution is wise,' she replied. ‘We, too, observe it. We are also careful in front of the farm hands and servants. They are peasants and I believe all of them to be loyal to the family. But, like most Germans, they still look on Hitler as a god; so to criticise him in front of them would be dangerous. I am thinking now more of your companion than yourself, as he will have to mix with them.'

‘You may rest easy about him. Janos and I have done this sort of thing before, and both of us know that by failing to guard our tongues we would risk our necks.'

‘It is a great comfort to me that you should be so experienced,' she sighed. Then, after a slight hesitation, she went on, ‘Lastly, there is Herr Hermann Hauff. He does not live
with us but he comes frequently to the Manor. On his own account he farms one of the largest properties on the estate, but he also acts as our bailiff and handles matters for me that I would find difficulty in dealing with myself. He is shrewd and ambitious. He was among the first in this part of the country to join the
Partei
; so has for long been the chairman of the local Committee in Sassen and holds the rank of Sturmbahnführer in the S.S. He is also a member of the area committee at Greifswald. Most of these Nazi officials make their Party work a full-time job, but to produce as much food as possible has been so important since the war that he was encouraged also to continue as a farmer. Having such an influential Nazi in our employ is a great asset to us. To him we owe it that we get top prices for our produce, a much bigger allotment of fertilisers than we are entitled to for our acreage and in winter of cake for our cattle; also he sees to it that no investigation is ever made into the amount of meat, butter, eggs and so on that we keep for our own use.'

‘What a friend to have in these times,' Gregory remarked drily. ‘And does he do all this simply out of devotion to the memory of your late husband?'

‘No,' she replied quietly. ‘He does it because he hopes to marry me.'

‘Then I congratulate you on your conquest.' There was no trace of sarcasm in Gregory's voice, but she immediately took him up:

‘Were I as I was half a dozen years ago you might have some reason for supposing that I had made a conquest, but you surely cannot think that I now have any illusions about my looks? Herman wants me for his wife only because that would make him master of Sassen.'

‘I'm sorry,' Gregory murmured. ‘In that case, the situation must be awkward for you.'

‘Not at the moment. Fortunately, he has a wife already. But it would become so should he succeed in getting rid of her.'

‘Could he do so legally, or do you mean …?'

She nodded. ‘His wife is an invalid, so more or less at his mercy. Habit has made these local Party chiefs like Hauff completely unscrupulous. They think nothing of having Jews
and people against whom they have a grudge beaten up so savagely that they die from their injuries. Anyone who holds life so cheap is capable of hastening the death of an unwanted wife.'

‘That's true. But you told me your father is a doctor, and presumably in a small place like Sassen there is no other; so he attends Frau Hauff. Surely he would become aware of it if Hauff gave his wife an overdose, or something of that kind. And even Nazis cannot murder their wives with impunity.'

‘My father is not a general practitioner. He is something of a recluse and goes out only twice a week to hold a clinic in the village. For that he is much respected because he is a very able physician and treats everyone who comes to the clinic free of charge. But he never visits patients unless called on in an emergency.'

They fell silent for a few minutes, then she said, ‘You must do your best to gain Hauff's good will. Flatter him and imply that you have important friends in Berlin who might further his career if you put in a good word for him. In doing that lies your best hope of finding out what you want to know. Like most of these Nazi officials he is very vain and likes to make out that he is more important than he really is. That leads him to become boastful and, at times when he has had a good drop to drink, indiscreet. Everyone about here has known for years that there was an experimental station at Peenemünde, and more recently that there has been a great increase in the activity there. But the area is very closely guarded; so hardly anyone knows what the scientists are working on, and it was from Hauff that I learned about the rockets.'

‘I'll certainly do as you suggest,' Gregory agreed, ‘and, as I have met both Goering and Ribbentrop, I should have no difficulty in leading Herr Hauff to believe that they are good friends of mine.'

Ten minutes later they entered Sassen and, having driven through it, turned into a courtyard flanked by the backs of tall barns, at the far side of which stood the manor house. It was a large, two-storey building about a hundred and fifty years old and typical of the homes of the Prussian
Junker
families.

Leading the way into a low hall, on the wooden panels of
which hung a number of motheaten stags' heads and foxes' masks, Frau von Altern rang a brass hand bell. An old, bald-headed servant answered her summons and she said to him:

‘Friedrich, here is our guest, Herr Major Bodenstein, about whom I spoke to you. His servant will take his bags up to his room. Show him the way and to the room he is to occupy himself, then take him down to the kitchen quarters.'

The old man shuffled away, followed by Kuporovitch, while she took Gregory into a long, low living room. The furniture was German Victorian and hideous. Evidently aware of that, his hostess remarked, ‘As my husband was an Army officer he came here only for the shooting, so he would never spend any money on the place, but I hope you will not find your bed too uncomfortable.' As she spoke, she opened a pinewood chiffonier and added, ‘We have just time for a drink before the evening meal.'

The choice was limited to
Branntwein
, schnapps and parsnip wine, so Gregory chose the brandy and water. His hostess had only just poured the drinks when a tall, flaxen-haired man of about thirty-five limped into the room. He was a strong-limbed fellow and had the ‘barber's-block' good looks so often seen in the Teutonic male, but they were sadly marred by a terrible scar high up across his forehead.

Gregory guessed at once that he must be Willi von Altern and when they had been introduced the German said slowly, ‘A friend of my cousin's? No, I do not remember you. But you are welcome.'

His pale blue eyes then wandered to his cousin's wife. Screwing up his face he stared at her for a minute with a puzzled expression then, evidently remembering why he had come into the room, he exclaimed in a sudden burst of anger:

‘Khurrem, your drinking always makes you late for meals. To keep them waiting is not right. They have had a long day's work and are hungry. Come now!'

Frau von Altern merely shrugged her thin shoulders; but she tossed off her drink, waited for a moment until Gregory had hastily swallowed his, then led the way through a long corridor, in which the walls were stained with damp, to a barn-like hall with a timber roof at the back of the house. In it about a dozen
women, three elderly men and a few young boys were standing on either side of a very long, solidly built table. Their mistress took her place at its head, with Gregory and Willi on either side of her, and said a brief grace; then, except for some of the younger women who scurried into the adjacent kitchen to return with steaming dishes of food, they all sat down.

Gregory had been aware that at large farms in the more sparsely populated parts of Europe some families who had lived on them for generations still followed the ancient custom of feeding with their farm servants, and he noticed with interest that an empty space of several feet had been left between himself and the nearest labourer; for it was there that in mediaeval times would have reposed the dish of salt. Kuporovitch, of course, was below it, but had placed himself between two fresh-complexioned, if bovine, land girls.

The food was plain but good and plentiful; the dishes with the best pieces being offered first at the top of the table. Willi filled his plate high with masses of meat and vegetables and gorged himself throughout the meal in silence. Khurrem von Altern barely touched her food but carried on a desultory conversation with Gregory about crops and the farm problems with which she was called on to deal.

He later learned that her first name was Turkish for ‘Joyous', but few appellations could have been less suited to her. In the present company she seemed particularly out of place, as she never even smiled, whereas at the other end of the table the clatter of knives and forks was constantly punctuated by giggles at some farmyard jest and bursts of uninhibited laughter. With the exception of Gregory, too, everyone else at the table was a Nordic, so Khurrem's dark-complexioned face contrasted strangely with the apple cheeks, blue eyes and corn-coloured hair of the other women. Had she had black hair the contrast would have been even more strongly marked. That it was red Gregory put down to her having had a Circassian mother, but that in no way disguised the fact that she was an Asiatic.

When they had finished eating, Willi bade them an abrupt ‘Good night' and went up to bed. Khurrem apologised to Gregory that time had not allowed her to suggest that he might
like a wash before the meal, then took him upstairs and showed him first an eighteen-foot-square bathroom which had an ancient bath in one corner, in another an unlit wood stove and in a third a small basin; then, some way down a gloomy corridor, the room he was to sleep in. There she left him.

The furniture was in keeping with that downstairs, the principal item being a big, brass-headed double bed having only one blanket but two huge, square, down-filled cushions—such as were commonly seen in German houses in the last century—taking the place of an eiderdown. Dubiously he explored it to find, as he had expected, that instead of a spring mattress it had only a thin one of horsehair and below that a criss-cross of thin iron bands.

Kuporovitch had already unpacked for him, so, having made certain that the suitcase containing the wireless was still locked, he collected his sponge bag and walked along to the bathroom for a cold wash. Twenty minutes later he went downstairs and joined Khurrem in the long, low sitting room.

She had started a gramophone and was listening to a Beethoven symphony; so without remark he sat down opposite her. Once again she had a glass in her hand and by this time any normal woman must have shown signs of the amount of brandy she had drunk. That she did not he put down to the probability that she was an habitual ‘soak'.

He thought it a little strange that, having consulted her father before agreeing to receive himself and Kuporovitch at Sassen, she had not yet presented them to him. But as she had said that the doctor was something of a recluse that would account for his taking his meals in solitude rather than in the communal dining hall; and it might be that he spent his evenings in study, so was averse to being disturbed.

For the moment Gregory was amply satisfied with the progress he had made. To have spent a night at the
Königin Augusta
in Grimmen without arousing the least suspicion that they had entered Germany clandestinely, to have successfully made the most promising contact in the area that S.O.E. could suggest and found her willing to co-operate, to be established already as a welcome guest in the home of a deceased Prussian aristocrat and have a lead to a Nazi official who must know
quite a bit about what was going on at Peenemünde, was considerably more than he could have reasonably hoped for in so short a time; so, as the shadows fell, he settled down to listen to the records Khurrem put on until it should be time to go to bed.

But his experiences for that day were not yet over. Soon after darkness had fallen Khurrem suddenly got up, switched off the gramophone, stood as though listening for a moment, then said, ‘My father now wishes to see you and your companion.'

Without waiting for him to reply she went out into the hall, rang the hand bell for the old houseman and sent him to fetch Kuporovitch. Immediately the Russian joined them she threw open the front door and beckoned them to follow her. As they crossed the courtyard she satisfied their curiosity at her having left the house by saying:

‘We have not far to go; only a few hundred yards up the road to the old Castle in which the von Alterns lived before they built the Manor. The greater part of it is now a ruin. But my father likes solitude so we made a few rooms in it habitable for him and he is looked after there by his own servant.'

The moon had not yet risen, but, as they advanced, they saw a little way off the road, silhouetted against the night sky, the jagged outline of a crumbling tower and below it a huddle of uneven roofs. Leaving the road, they followed a winding path through some tall bushes until they came out into a small clearing adjacent to one side of the ruin. The light was just sufficient for them to make out a low, arched doorway mid-way between two arrow slits. Stepping up to it, Khurrem grasped an iron bell-pull and jerked it down. A bell jangled hollowly somewhere inside the ancient ruin. Almost at once the heavy door swung open and a swarthy hunchback of uncertain age silently ushered them in.

Without exchanging a word with him she led them down a dimly-lit stone-flagged passage and opened another heavy door on the right at its end. Momentarily they were dazzled, for the room into which they followed her was brightly lit by a big, solitary, incandescent mantle which, from its faint hissing, appeared to be powered by some form of gas.

The burner stood on a large desk in the middle of the room.
Behind it a man was sitting, but the bright light prevented his visitors from making out his features until he stood up and came forward. They then saw that he was tall and gaunt, looked to be in his late fifties and had a marked resemblance to Khurrem; but his hair was black flecked with grey, his nose more hooked but thinner, his complexion darker and his full mouth more sensual. His eyes were black and slightly hooded, but his smile was pleasant as Khurrem said, ‘
Herren
, this is my father, Dr. Ibrahim Malacou.'