Читать книгу The Schneider Papers - David M Thomas - Страница 11

Chapter 7: Monday, 21st September 1936

German Wehrmacht begins its largest war game manoeuvers since the Great War.

It was late afternoon wen he arrived at the flat. Henrietta Street was very convenient. He had inherited it from a maiden aunt, God bless her, and with him now living on the south coast, it was very handy for Charing Cross railway station. He liked the flat and the location.

Mason ate early. He decided to go to Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, an old favourite. His parents first took him there when he was about nine or ten years old, when Pa was a visiting chemistry lecturer, and he remembered how overawed he was by the setting, the woodpanelled walls, the fascinating chess memorabilia on display, the views over the Thames and the attentive army of white aproned waiters. And when one of the waiters spoke to him personally about choice of vegetables, well it had made his day. Yes, Simpson’s was a nostalgic favourite.

It was not hunger that drove him out of the flat, but the excitement of the future unknown, and he needed to be occupied. Spending time in a restaurant was not a bad option. He ordered a half a bottle of the house Bordeaux to accompany the mushroom omelette and tomato salad. He smelt rain in the air as he mingled with office workers hurrying to catch buses and ones heading for Charing Cross railway station and its southbound rail tracks to suburbia and all stops to the south coast. He enjoyed the short stroll back through the now empty Covent Garden to the flat. He opened the building’s front door and walked up the two flights of stairs to the first floor. The apartment door was to the left. He turned the key in the Yale lock and moved sideways to enter.

‘Good evening Mason,’ said a gruff authoritative voice to his right. He froze, key in hand. A sharp tingle of electricity ran up his arms and shoulders. The small entrance hall was in darkness, and so was the little kitchen in front of him, and his bedroom to the left, but he saw that a table lamp was switched on in the sitting room. ‘Come on through, nothing to worry about,’ instructed a calm, deep voice. Mason walked slowly in to the sitting room and stood staring at the shadow sitting in his armchair close to the window, with the table lamp between his uninvited guest and the window.

His mind raced, thinking of attack and defence options. He moved quickly, two paces to his right to get a better view of this intruder. He stood legs apart, body balanced and fists clenched, sitting room ornaments already identified as weapons to use on this intruder. In the armchair sat, and quite comfortably so, a middle aged man, his black overcoat open, revealing a three piece brown suit, with his hat resting on his right knee. ‘I am not a burglar, Mason,’ he said reassuringly and with a chortle.

The front door had been left open, and Mason sensed another person now in the hall. He turned sharply. ‘Alright Johnson, it’s perfectly alright, stay outside,’ commanded the sitting figure. Johnson wordlessly retreated, and closed the front door with a locking click sound behind him.

‘So Mason, good evening again. Do you mind if we have a little chat?’

‘Who are you? And what do you want?’ protested Mason quietly, realising there was no threat; he sensed a Civil Service bureaucrat or perhaps a policeman.

‘Shall we have a drink? I see you have a bottle of Springbank in the sideboard. Your Isle of Bute malt is a particular favourite of mine, and always a pleasure, don’t you agree? Why don’t you pour us both a glass? Or shall I be host?’ The confrontation was over.

The intruder was, Mason reckoned, in his sixties, with thinning, well-oiled light brown hair, sporting a chevron mustache below a prominent aquiline nose. ‘We’re on the same side, name’s Cartwright, Foreign Office. Sorry but I won’t give you my card.’

Mason wordlessly went to the kitchen, opened a top cupboard next to the Belling oven and picked two from a row of crystal whisky glasses, a long forgotten Christmas or birthday present. He returned and poured both a drink, and following Cartwright’s gesture, sat on the sofa.

‘Now Mason,’ Cartwright began. ‘You were summoned last week to a meeting with Group Captain Starling of Air Intelligence. The meeting started at eleven thirty or thereabouts and finished officially at three. You and Matthews stayed and Starling gave you both assignments. This would involve your liaising with Group Captain Lefoy, the Deputy Air Attaché at our Berlin Embassy. Okay so far?’

They both held and stared at their drinks.

Cartwright continued in that distinctive deep, resonant voice, ‘The afternoon was taken up with a run through a ‘us versus them’ exercise in terms of air power and machines capability. Logan has a tendency to overstate the obvious, I must agree. Your task, Mason, as Starling told you, was to find out what the Luftwaffe is planning and thinking in terms of future aircraft design and what they’ve already got.’ Cartwright clapped his left palm down on his knees. ‘Right, that was that.’

Mason did not answer, but sipped his whisky. He sensed there was more to come. Cartwright continued.

‘Did you notice anyone, shall I say, out of place at the meeting?’ Cartwright answered his own question. ‘It was the civilian who sat through the whole session and didn’t say a word, an observer,’ he emphasised. ‘Like me, a Foreign Office man, but unlike me, he quite admires Herr Hitler,’ he said quietly.

‘Shall I begin at the beginning? Before I do, let’s both have a top-up.’ He got up from the chair, took off his overcoat and laid it down next to Mason, and went for the bottle of whisky now on the little coffee table in front of the sofa. He poured a generous measure, like a father about to impart controversial or bad news to his son. He stared to pace, slowly, up and down the length of the room; as if the small steps he took were related to the information points he wanted to dissipate. Like a metronome.

He was tall, and walked with a slight stoop and a limp. War wound, guessed Mason.

‘We have to start in 1918, and the Armistice. The German generals had never fully accepted the principle of disarmament or the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty, which limited them to a small army with no tanks and no aeroplanes. This was supervised by the Allied Control Commission. So in the 1920s we had the bizarre situation of German pilots sent to Soviet Russia for training in air warfare.’

Harry Mason nodded, he knew about this business, and the Rapallo Treaty.

Cartwright talked as if he was conducting a tutorial, left thumb in his waistcoat pocket, the other hand holding his glass of whisky, and a tendency to whisk from his top pocket his reading glasses and swing them around to make a point or to compliment a feeling expressed, then stow them back in the pocket.

‘In 1926, when Germany applied for admission to the League of Nations, they also asked for the abolition of the Allied Control Commission. ‘The Allies,’ Cartwright stopped, and pointed his whisky glass at Mason, ‘through a thought process unbeknown to us mortals, agreed.

‘Now the gloves were off. The financial demands of the Generals were insatiable, especially with Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff von Hindenburg, ex-Chief of the General Staff and now President of Germany, in control.

‘If Germany was to evade the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty, which it was determined to do, then, concluded Hindenburg, it had to be done openly, but cleverly.’ Cartwright bowed, holding the whisky glass up above his head, ‘May I introduce the pocket battleship Deutschland, laid down in ’29, launched in ‘31. Followed by the Admiral Graf Spee in ’34.’

Cartwright, was now getting into his stride.

‘The Treaty did permit Germany to build warships, but only up to ten thousand tons displacement, and guess what they did? The cunning Reichsmarine, as it was then called, devised a plan to equip armoured cruisers with eleven-inch guns, thus creating a ship which, according to its advocates, could outrun anything that could defeat it, and defeat anything that could overtake it. Even when Germany went through one financial crisis after another, the pocket battleship budget was protected. Now, of course, we can forget the ten thousand tons displacement limit; I refer you to the new Hiller Class heavy cruiser.’

Both took another sip of Springbank. ‘You’ve been pretty well brought up to speed on our assessement of the Luftwaffe, albeit we do have serious gaps in intelligence. Do you know how much Germany is now helping Franco in Spain?’

Mason said nothing.

‘It was dubbed Unternehmen Feuerzauber, Operation Magic Fire. Purely a transport and training mission, I’m told. The planes, Junkers Ju 52s transports and Heinkel He 51 bi-plane fighters, left Germany last month, through Italy and then across the Mediterranean to Spain. We were tipped off, and our man in Hamburg watched the ground crew, all in civilian clothes, shipped out down the Elbe, waving to well-wishers under the auspices of a Kraft durch Freude – Strength through Joy, the German Government Tourist Agency. An innocent tourist trip. About eighty of them, pilots, mechanics and ground crew. We’re trying to find out where they are right now.

‘What the future holds for Spain, and its possible domino effect in the rest of Europe, we can only guess, and plan for the worst. That is why the Royal Air Force is all in a tizzy.

‘Now let’s move closer to the real objective of your trip to Berlin.’ Cartwright shifted in his seat, make himself more comfortable. He looked at his wrist watch before continuing. ‘It’s getting dark. Don’t put on the ceiling light.’

‘Now, let’s talk Hitler,’ and he shifted his weight in the armchair. ‘The Weimar Republic appeared to have no idea how to solve the problems of the depression. One economic crisis after another. Hitler, on the other hand, promised salvation. He promised to make Germany proud again – it was exactly what people wanted to hear. He promised jobs, the rebuilding of infrastructure, and stability. Music to the ears of the whole spectrum of German society, from major industrialists to the lowly unemployed, and especially the military. The saviour has arrived – Der Führer.

‘So you see how it all comes together; the dissatisfied, the lowly paid working class, the six million on the bread-line unemployed, and the rich industrialists who crave for business and economic stability. Herr Hitler was in the right place at the right time. Cleverness, cunning, and luck all played a part for him to seize, and that is exactly what he did, the Chancellorship three years ago, in 1933. You now have to understand Mason, the state of this country. Those of us who appreciate the situation are fighting a war already, and against two opposing, and differently motivated, factions.

‘There are individuals who sincerely believe that war with Hitler would be a mistake. They are the ones who remember the last war, and don’t want to see that suffering and destruction ever again, at whatever cost. At whatever cost. Unfortunately, blinkered and dangerous thinking. And then, we have the other category, the real sympathisers with the creed of National Socialism; the antisemitic, anti-Bolshevik believers in a strong totalitarian government that is not hindered by a misguided democratic process – oh, yes! Believe me Mason, I know them, we are members of the same clubs. You should listen to their views on the General Strike of 1926. Workers should not be given ideas and most certainly not express views, or use our democratic system to promote such obvious communist ideology. Herr Hitler and his National Socialist policies strike a chord with a particular type of person. They are small in number, but, unfortunately, are in the right place to influence and hamper practical Government thinking and policy. We know of particular Nazi sympathisers in the Foreign Office, the aristocracy, Parliament, and industry. It therefore follows that there are other like-minded individuals out there,’ and he waved his arm towards the window, ‘whom we don’t know who they are, and therefore, where they are.’

Cartwright paused. ‘Well actually, there is a third category. They’re the ones who want Germany and Russia go to war. Fight each other, and leave us liberal democratic countries in peace.’ He shook his head. ‘What a blinkered, unreal world some people live in.’

He clenched his hands together and bowed his head, as if in prayer.

After a second or so, Major Alastair Cartwright MC raised his head and started intently at Squadron Leader Harry Mason, his eyes now cold and focussed in deadly determination, ‘We, us, have to move forward, and do what needs to be done. Quietly, but firmly.

‘Your trip to Germany is to talk with certain people, Germans, who are most certainly not in league with Hitler; in fact, they are part of an uncoordinated attempt to bring Hitler,’ and Cartwright lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘down.

‘Lefoy will be your coordinator, he is one of us, and he will get you to meet an industrial-scientist type and a Luftwaffe technician who have information. I don’t know exactly what, but they are anxious to talk to us. Meanwhile Matthews will do the same, but on the banking, economics side. By the way, did you know he has an economics degree from Cambridge?’

‘No, I did not!’ said Mason, quite surprised by this revelation.

‘He learnt to fly in the University Air Squadron, and received his commission in 1926. You met him in 1927. Young sprog. You paid the mess damages bill I’m told! He completed his short term commission and moved onto the reserves list, like you. Currently employed by Lloyds Bank in Lombard Street. Good man, very bright.’

Cartwright then covered aspects of this new Nazi creed, this new religion as he called it. The Hitler quest for expansion to the east; how the Poles were regarded as Asiatic and therefore were not of the same racial purity, that is to say Aryan, and therefore inferior. Thus Poland as a country was inconsequential to Germany’s expansionist plans.

By the time the bottle of Springbank malt whisky was nearly empty, it was very late. He got the distinct feeling, or was it hope, that Cartwright was preparing to leave. But no, Cartwright got up slowly from his chair.

‘We’re nearly there,’ he said with a smile and a nod, having read Mason’s thoughts, and again started his pacing, past the fireplace to the half open door leading into the hall, and then back again to his chair by the window.

‘The military machine is growing, and it will be used. My question is very simple: where is the aviation fuel going to come from, to feed the aircraft we have now all agreed are to be built? Aviation fuel is different from low grade gasoline or diesel that will supply the Werhmacht, and the fuel oil for the Kreigsmarine.

‘Your main assignment is synthetic aviation fuel. Location of plants, and how much can be produced, and future plant expansion plans. Volumes and crucially, timing schedules can help us guess what he’s up to. You will be introduced to someone in Germany, probably outside Berlin.’

‘Synthetic fuel? What does that mean? I know nothing of this!’ Mason became alarmed. He was asked to investigate something he knew nothing about.

Cartwright raised his hand in mollification. ‘You’ll be briefed in Berlin, all to be revealed. You’ll also meet someone who should help in identifying interesting design aircraft on the Air Ministry, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, the RLM drawing board. We have a leap of faith in our new Hurricane and Spitfire fighters. Hurricane production started in June, and the Spitfire prototype only flew in March. It looks good, but at least a year away from production status. We need to know what the Hitler strategy is, what’s the thinking.’

‘I should,’ he started hesitatingly, ‘give you a bit of background to our Military Intelligence and various committees. It has been in the past, a bit of a problem for us, obstructive even.’ Mason looked up at him with a look of astonishment in his face. Cartwright held out his hand, in another placatory gesture, and continued.

‘The role of the Air Intelligence Directorate is to judge the nature of the German air threat,’ and he used his left hand fingers as counters. ‘One, provide current estimates of German strength; Two, long-range predictions about future growth; and Three, build a picture of likely strategy doctrine.

‘It has unfortunately fallen down in all three categories.’ Mason, who had slowly sunk down into the comfortable envelope of the soft cushioned sofa, now readjusted himself and sat up, knees together, and reached for his glass of whisky.

‘Up to this year, Mason, in the air strength and prediction line, Air Intelligence had been using information supplied in May 1934 – two years ago! – by the French, the Deuxième Bureau. Before that it had nothing to work with, and we had nothing! What do you make of that? The French informed us that the new Hitler rearmament programme was to supply, by 1935, some 500 new aircraft in various roles. Let’s just take that as our starting point, even though certain influential individuals within the various intelligence and defence committees did not agree or trust the number. The French also said that the figure would be for one, as the Germans call it, air division or armada, and the Germans wanted to increase the number of divisions to four or even five and six. But no timeline is known.

‘The Air Ministry answer to this … this fireball of information, was to stress and rely on the term ‘efficiency.’ The Air Ministry, based on our own aircraft building efficiency – in peacetime and in a benign international environment – concluded, wrongly in my mind, that it would take the Germans up to possibly ten years to achieve this maximum number of air divisions. In other words, Mason, the Air Ministry, calculated our peacetime production capability, applied it to the Germans and extrapolated. This grave miscalculation is up against a German reality of seemingly unlimited funds, the support and encouragement of aircraft manufacturers and suppliers and, of course, the gung-ho expansionist plans of the Nazi regime.’

The sitting room in Henrietta Street went silent. Both sat and stared straight ahead. One trying to take in what had been said, the other embarrassed by what he had said.

Cartwright continued slowly and quietly, confessing a dark family secret. ‘Not a pretty picture. Our intelligence sources are lamentably poor and the Air Ministry’s blinkered thinking inexcusable. I am not even going to offer an opinion on our politicians. We are getting better. But we need to do much better. Our lives and lives of our countrymen depend on it.’

Cartwright, by this time, had spoken with emotional highs and lows in his monologue, and he was tired. Not just by the emotional drain of his delivery of familiar information and chronology of unsavoury events and conclusions he had lived with for a number of seemingly unrewarding years, but compounded by deep disappointment and anger of how he had been betrayed by the very system he worked within.

He took a deep breath, and to an observer it would seem he had regained his stamina and his optimism.

‘So now we are on track. The Air Ministry has, how to put it, come to terms with its past shortcomings and acknowledges a gap in Germany’s favour between German and British industrial production capability. So it’s now all hands to the pump!

‘The Foreign Office has its own intelligence unit, the Secret Intelligence Service, the SIS. But it’s not very effective for what I want to achieve. It lacks resources and sources. We were approached earlier this year by a source inside Germany. Actually, one of yours, Royal Air Force retired, and now a respected businessman, married to a fraulein and living in the Reich. He seems to have excellent Luftwaffe contacts, and his information has been doubly checked where we can, and it holds water. That is all I am prepared to say to you for now.

‘I don’t want be too pessimistic, Mason,’ he said, and gave an encouraging smile, followed by a quick draining of his glass.

‘Sir,’ said Mason, now, more comfortable in the company of the intruder, ‘why me?, if I am to meet with Group Captain Lefoy, and be briefed by him, why doesn’t he do all this himself?

‘Well for one, he is my Germany country manager, and I want to keep him there, and in pristine condition. You will go and come back, it’s an in and out job, and you have all the attributes;’ and he ticked off the points, with the fingers on his right hand, ‘you have pilot instructor qualifications, to intelligently quiz and understand, and ask for the relevant information from the RLM technical chap; you have a degree in chemistry, ideal for a discussion on synthetic fuel; and lastly, and equally important, you speak German like a native – ha! – all thanks to your history. Our people in the Embassy and consulates in Germany are obviously known to the security services, and are followed – they say periodically, but let us assume often.’

The word ‘expendable’ came to mind, confirmed by, ‘We cannot afford to be compromised. The Government is highly sensitive to anything or anyone who might upset Herr Hitler. That’s the way it is.

‘Now I want to talk about you.’ Cartwright settled himself back in the armchair and crossed his hands together over his stomach. ‘You were born in Dresden, and moved to London in 1913 when your father took up a position in the Chemistry Department of University College, London. Your parents and of course yourself obtained British citizenship in 1919. You were educated at University College London and graduated with a First Class degree in Chemistry in 1923. Therefollowed a period in the Royal Air Force where you attained the rank of Squadron Leader.’ This was said in a definitive oration of indisputable facts.

Mason nodded, having no idea where all this was going.

‘Last year, October 1935, and as a serving officer in the Royal Air Force, you were sent on a mission on behalf of the War Office to confirm or contradict the fact that the Italians were using chemical weapons in Abyssinia. By that I mean chlorine and or mustard gas. The objective was the civil-military Berca aerodrome at Benghazi where, information would have it, there was a chemical bomb dump. A transit place before transportation to Eritrea. You were to fake an engine problem and land, whilst in the air you were to take reconnaissance pictures, and whilst on the ground snoop around a bit. Crazy idea, I grant you, Mason. Nothing to do with me, I assure you!

‘It was ascertained at the court of inquiry that because you could not confirm a chemical weapon dump at Benzhazi, you decided to do your own investigation. To wit, break into a hanger at Berca aerodrome, badly injure an Italian officer, then fly over and take aerial pictures of the Italian airbases at Massawa and Asmera in Eritrea, a detour from your authorised route down the Red Sea to Berbera in British Somaliland. Unfortunately, your aircraft really did experience engine failure and you came down in the Donakil Depression on your way towards French Djibouti. The hottest place on earth Mason. Good judgement!’

‘I had no choice,’ spat out Mason indignantly, ‘the engine was dead, and the terrain was all sharp volcanic rocks and boulders. We’ve been through all this in that damned inquiry.’

‘Your navigator cum cameraman was unfortunately killed in the crash. It took you a month to reach safety, with half the Italian army out looking for you. A journey by camel and on foot. Also the unanswered question of two missing Italian soldiers. You were helped by various Tigray and Afari tribesmen who have no love for the Italians, and you finally got to French Djibouti.

‘I think that is a fair summary, don’t you?’

Mason didn’t reply. He just stared blankly at his uninvited guest.

Cartwright continued, ‘You were censured by the inevitable Court of Inquiry; you had disobeyed orders, lost an aircraft, been indirectly involved in the death of a fellow officer, and to cap it all off, the Italians turned the whole episode into a public relations exercise, much to the embarrassment of our government, which was prepared to turn a blind eye to Mussolini’s invasion of a neutral country.’

‘Your escapade turned the spotlight on Abyssinia, and our government’s appeasement attitude. Due to the ensuing public outcry, and fanned by your escapade, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Samuel Hoare, had to resign. And now we have one of our own, Anthony Eden, as Foreign Secretary. So, to quote the bard: all’s well that ends well. That is why you’re off to Berlin in the morning.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, you don’t?

‘You did the right thing. You acted on your own initiative. The fact that you were a serving officer and answerable to your Service and it to the War Office, and it in turn to politicians, is a millstone around your neck Mason. I have removed it. You run better without it.

‘Recall the contract of service business Air Commadore Woodbridge got you to sign? The Active Service clause? What that means is whilst on the Auxiliary Reserve list you are paid by the Royal Air Force, but when you’re on Active Service, I pay you. You now move between the Royal Air Force and my world.

‘Now you see me, now you don’t!’ Cartwright moved his upper body from side to side, theatrically, imitating a boxer, and smiled.

‘When you are on active service, you answer to no one except me. It carries responsibilities. You will have the power to act as you see fit within the confines of your remit, and call on other government agencies for assistance, if and when appropriate.’ His voice hardened, ‘The only brake on your field operations is a constant reminder of what I would say, or do, to you,’ Cartwright raised his eyebrows in emphasis, ‘in response to your action or actions.’ Terms of engagement clarified. Rules defined.

‘That was the point of my monologue. I want to bring you up a level. To think strategically. The big picture, as someone once said simplisticly.’

‘When you said, ‘you will,’ you imply in the future, and not now.’

‘Yes, correct. This is your first mission under my jurisdiction, let’s see how you go. You answer to Lefoy in Berlin. No solo flying. Let me repeat that, no solo flying, Mason.

‘Right-o!, I think that’s it,’ said Cartwright, using both arms to lever himself up from the armchair, ‘I shall leave you now, lots to think about I’m sure. You fly out tomorrow?’ As if he didn’t know.

‘Yes, Deutsche Lufthansa, Croydon, via Amsterdam,’ answered Mason, also raising himself from his sofa.

‘See how the ’52 flies. Bon idee! Matthews goes independently, you may or may not met him in Germany. Keep things flexible,’ said Cartwright as he struggled into his overcoat.

‘See you soon, and God speed.’

Mason followed him to the front door, closed and double locked it. He stood there, staring at the handle on the Yale lock-piece, his mind recalling Cartwright’s voice and reliving some things said. He had been told a lot of secrets.

He slowly turned and went back into the sitting room, went over to the window, leant over the sidetable and the lamp, and with a few jerks pulled the curtains together.