Читать книгу The Women in His Life - Barbara Taylor Bradford - Страница 20

The forests of the Mark Brandenburg, once the domain of the conquering Teutonic knights, stretch for miles in the marshy region of Prussia where they are located. Drained by three rivers, the Havel, the Spree and the Oder, this area has many lakes and is also crisscrossed by countless canals and little waterways which connect its quaint villages.

At the edge of one such old and charming village stands the great Schloss of Graf Reinhard von Tiegal. The back facade of this ancient and picturesque castle faces sloping lawns and formal gardens, and beyond these are the pine forests which are part of the immense von Tiegal estates, owned by the family since the sixteenth century.

On this Sunday morning, early in January of 1939, these forests looked quite magical, completely garbed in white. Snow and dripping icicles covered the trees, weighted their branches down in places, and underfoot the narrow, winding paths were obscured by new layers of snow which had fallen during the night and then frozen. In the brilliant, golden sunlight streaming in through the trees everything glistened as if it had been dusted with silver.

The only sound in this vast and silent white wonderland was the crunch of heavy boots sinking into the crisp snow as Sigmund and Kurt ploughed forward through the forest on their morning walk. Both men had come to the Schloss to join their wives for the weekend, Sigmund driving down to the Mark from Berlin on Friday evening, Kurt on Saturday afternoon.

Heavily bundled up though they were, in thick green loden coats, Tyrolean hats, woollen scarves and gloves, and with their trousers tucked inside their ski boots, they nevertheless moved at a relatively brisk pace since there was an icy, cutting wind.

Neither of them spoke for a while, wrapped in their own thoughts yet perfectly comfortable in their mutual silence, as old friends frequently are.

It was Kurt who finally broke this silence when he said, ‘I have news for you, Sigi.’

Sigmund looked at him alertly. ‘You do? Please, tell me quickly.’

‘I will have the exit visas for you tomorrow or on Tuesday. However, there has been a slight snag. I can only get three.’

‘Oh no!’ Sigmund’s heart sank. He came to an abrupt standstill and stared at Kurt, unable to keep the dismay from showing on his face. ‘What happened? What went wrong?’

‘Nothing went wrong. Very simply, my contact feels he must move carefully. For the moment, at least. To avoid arousing suspicion.’ Kurt took hold of Sigmund’s arm. ‘Come, let’s keep walking. We don’t want to freeze to death out here.’ The two men set off again, and the prince continued, ‘Eight visas are a lot to get all at once, Sigi, and especially since only a week or two ago my contact managed to help a large family leave, after numerous delays. Nine people, actually. But quite aside from his own sense of caution, his contact at the Foreign Ministry is somewhat nervous just now. Nonetheless, my friend promises to have three more exit visas for you in a couple of weeks, and the last two by the end of the month. No later. Please don’t worry, it’s going to be all right. Now, we need to know who will be using the first three visas. I presume you want to get Ursula and Maxim out immediately. Will you go with them?’

‘Ursula and Maxim must go at once. But I cannot,’ Sigmund said without hesitation. ‘I must stay behind until everyone else has left.’

‘I rather thought you’d say that,’ Kurt murmured. ‘So who will accompany Ursula and Maxim? Your mother?’

Sigmund shook his head. ‘My mother wouldn’t go, not without my sisters. She would never leave her daughters behind, I can assure you of that. She will tell me that she is an old woman, that her life is virtually over anyway, and she’ll refuse. Adamantly. And so I think it will be best if Theodora travels with Ursula and Maxim. In two weeks, when you have the second set of visas, Sigrid, her husband, and Hedy can leave. I will take my mother out with me at the end of the month.’

‘I guessed you wouldn’t even contemplate leaving Germany until the entire family was safely in another country,’ Kurt said. ‘I should have the three relevant passports back in my hands by Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. I will bring them to you at the house.’

‘Thank you very much, Kurt. Ursula is prepared, and she can leave immediately. Your contact –’ Sigmund broke off, hesitating, then said, ‘Your contact is fairly certain he can get the other visas, isn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ Now it was Kurt’s turn to stop, and he swung to face Sigmund. The look he gave him was one of great directness. ‘He is absolutely sure, I promise you, Sigi.’

Sigmund returned his friend’s gaze unwaveringly.

Their eyes locked and held.

For a fleeting moment Kurt thought he saw a flicker of doubt or worry, or perhaps a mingling of both, at the back of Sigmund’s light blue eyes, and he said, ‘You must believe me, my source is extremely reliable. He wouldn’t say he could get the visas if he thought he couldn’t, if he had any reservations whatsoever.’

There was a small silence; finally Sigmund nodded. ‘As long as you have confidence in him, Kurt, that is good enough for me.’

Even though they were now in the depths of the forest, Kurt dropped his voice to a lower pitch, more from habit than anything else, and said, ‘Look, to make you feel more secure about everything I will tell you who is helping me. And you. It’s Admiral Canaris.’

Sigmund’s jaw dropped. He was thunderstruck and he gaped at Kurt. ‘Wilhelm Canaris! But he’s head of the Abwehr.’

‘Yes. As head of German Military Intelligence he is invaluable to me. And in many more ways than I can ever tell you.’

‘Canaris,’ Sigmund repeated wonderingly.

It was patently obvious to Kurt that Sigmund was genuinely stunned by what he had just told him, and he said, ‘By birth, upbringing, tradition, instinct and conviction, Admiral Canaris detests Hitler and all that he stands for, as do many of the men who work under him. And, incidentally, there isn’t one ministry in the entire Government that doesn’t have two or three men, sometimes even more, who feel the same way.’

‘Like the admiral’s contact in the Foreign Ministry?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I must admit, you startled me, took my breath away, when you mentioned the admiral,’ Sigi said. ‘Who would guess he is an anti-Nazi?’

‘His hatred of them is quite known … in a select circle. You could say it’s a sort of … well, it’s an open secret really. And there happens to be a number of generals who think exactly as he does. But it would be useless for them to work openly against Hitler, not to mention extremely foolhardy. Each of them would find himself swinging at the end of a rope if he did.’

‘So Canaris and the others are fighting Hitler from within … on the inside,’ Sigi asserted.

‘That’s correct. Canaris believes that Hitler will eventually bring about the total collapse of Germany. I happen to agree,’ Kurt said with a heavy sigh. ‘And he and I are both convinced that Hitler will definitely go to war with Britain sometime this year … a lot of people believe that, actually. He wants to engulf the West.’

‘You sound ominous, Kurt.’

‘I feel very ominous.’ The prince shook his head. ‘The future looks bleak, very bad; war is inevitable. And Germany must lose that war if it is to survive as a nation, and regain its humanity.’

‘Yes,’ Sigi said laconically, in the quietest of tones.

They walked on together, each of them momentarily preoccupied with dire thoughts, but after only a few seconds Sigi volunteered, ‘If Hitler forces Chamberlain’s hand and Britain does go to war, France will join in the fray as England’s long-standing ally, and co-signer of the Munich Pact.’

‘Undoubtedly.’ Kurt shook his head and cursed mildly under his breath, before exclaiming, ‘That fool Chamberlain! He always buys Hitler’s talk of appeasement … empty words … of no value. There’s only one politician in England who genuinely understands Hitler’s warlike intentions, his eventual aims, and the overall situation, and that’s Winston Churchill.’