Читать книгу Our Only Shield - Michael J. Goodspeed - Страница 10

4

London, 6 January 1940

RORY LOOKED AT HIS WATCH as he waited on the sidewalk for Ewen Crossley, his immediate superior and an old friend from the Great War. It was not at all like Crossley to be late; the man was normally a stickler for timings. Rory shoved his hands into his coat pockets and shrugged, loosening his neck muscles. A minute later when his friend arrived, Rory was surprised to see that he had brought with him another man.

Crossley beamed. “Very sorry. I’m running late, Rory. Shall we walk?” Crossley swept the three of them along and set off at a brisk pace. His smile disappeared and he looked around furtively. “Let’s talk a little ways on, shall we?”

It was early morning, still cold and damp, with wispy remnants of the night’s smog lingering in the alleys. The closeness of the city unnaturally amplified the sounds of their footsteps. Despite the recent imposition of petrol rationing, London’s air was no more breathable than it had been before the war. Rory thought that wartime London’s streets had a severe feel about them, as if the entire metropolis was consciously readying itself for the coming struggle. Depressingly, it seemed almost everyone in London was once again wearing some kind of uniform. It wasn’t at all the same city Rory had known even five years ago. When he was last here, the city had the jostling self-assurance of one of the world’s great capitals. Now, like a failing invalid determined to beat a mortal illness, London had become grim and resolute.

Ewen Crossley seemed mildly apprehensive this morning. Rory’s old friend had at last been given a title in his new organization. His papers had come through. He was no longer officially a member of the Secret Intelligence Service working under cover of the Foreign Office. His new designation was the deputy director of operations in the Ministry of Economic Warfare. Crossley walked slowly beside Rory.

Beside shared military service, the two men had much in common. Both bore scars from their time in the trenches: Rory’s less obvious glass eye, and Crossley’s jagged scar, which ran from his left cheek to his ear. Rory was pleased to see that over the years the contour from Crossley’s wound had faded from a disfiguring angry red slash to a more subtle white line. Despite the scar, Crossley’s face was open and perpetually cheerful. His obvious good nature overshadowed the scar’s testimony to his violent past.

From appearances alone, the two friends might have been from different generations. Rory, wearing a stylish black fedora, strode forward with his hands thrust deep in his trench coat pockets. Crossley was bare-headed. His hair was still a thick disordered thatch but had uniformly turned grey – quite a difference from the shock of red curls on the man Rory had known two decades before. The other man was much stouter. He also wore a fedora, as well as a heavy wool coat and thick, round, tortoise-shell glasses. He said nothing and stared straight ahead as the other two talked.

Crossley swivelled about, looking up and down the street. Satisfied that there was no one within earshot, he slowed his pace and said, “Rory, I want you to meet Harold Thornton. Like me, Harold’s come over to join us from mi6. He’s part of the recruiting team, and I thought if we had our meeting while we walked to Aston House, we’d save time and get a lungful of fresh air while we’re at it.”

Rory and Thornton shook hands hastily. Rory nodded impassively and grinned as if at a private joke. He’d been expecting some kind of interview but was surprised at the matter-of-fact way his new employers had chosen to spring it. “Fresh air here in London? You’re kidding me, Ewen. Northern Manitoba, now, there’s fresh air.”

Crossley put his head back slightly and gave a good-natured obligatory laugh to the light-hearted but not very funny observation. “I suppose you’re right. Rory, now that we have some time, maybe you can give us an indication of what you’ve been up to for the last twenty-odd years.”

“Okay. Can I assume then that your interview’s officially begun?”

“You can’t have been a policeman all these years and still think I really wanted to go for a stroll to chat about old times, can you?” said Ewen, smiling. “I’ll be honest, Rory, I have to make a report to Harris. He needs to confirm what kind of work he can task you with. All the others are getting the same routine – only, with your background, we have much higher expectations.”

Crossley and Rory had known each other on and off since the Great War. Back then, Ewen Crossley had been in charge of training Rory for a clandestine mission in Imperial Germany. Their contacts had been infrequent in the intervening years; in fact, apart from Christmas cards, they had only met twice on business, but there was still a strong bond of trust between them.

“I haven’t seen you, Ewen, for what, five years now? But you know, even back then, in one way or another, we hoped the Nazis would somehow just disappear. We were all wishful thinkers. Somehow we hoped that the German people would simply overthrow them. I guess the signs were there to read if we’d cared to. Doesn’t seem like five years though, does it?” He paused and they walked in silence for a short distance.

“There’s no point in playing games,” Crossley said. “So, Rory, for Harold’s sake, let’s start where we left off at the end of the war. You left England in 1919, and now, twenty years later, you’re here. What happened in the meantime?”

“Okay. I’ll give you a brief outline and if you have any questions, just ask.” Rory looked upwards and vigorously rubbed his chin as if he were about to make some kind of a decision. Instead, he said nothing for a few moments. “When I demobilized, I went back to Montreal. I suppose the biggest surprise to everybody was that I didn’t join my father’s firm. He was disappointed; still is. The last I talked to him, he still wanted me to quit the RCMP, go back, and help run the business for him. He’s getting on, and things are picking up for him now that there’s another war on. He runs several small- to mid-sized textile and manufacturing companies that have been quite successful. But it’s never had any interest for me.”

Rory paused, as if he didn’t really believe what he had just said. “So, to make a long story short, in 1919 I ran into a friend of a friend and I ended up in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They even let me in missing an eye and two fingers on my left hand. They made a number of exceptions for otherwise fit veterans in those days. I’ve been in the RCMP for nineteen years and served mostly in Western Canada. Spent a lot of time in the North and in isolated locations. I liked it. I liked the people. It was useful and challenging work.”

“I envy you,” Crossley said. “You sound like you’ve had a more interesting time of it than I have. Tell me more about your police work.”

“I’ve been reasonably successful as a police officer. Of course, I started as a constable, and that raised a few eyebrows. Some of the people I knew thought I was taking a step down from being a major, but I never looked at it that way. I’ve always figured that if you’re going to learn a new line of work, you learn it from the ground up. Besides, I was young and I had no other choice, and my fellow constables were top-quality people. Since then I’ve had a variety of very good jobs. Worked with some wonderful people in and out of uniform. Put some not so wonderful people away where they belong. I never specialized in anything. I preferred it that way. I’ve been a general investigative officer, initially running a beat in northern Manitoba; later on, I had several commands in rural and isolated areas, and in small cities, mostly in the Prairies and the North. I’ll probably not make the highest ranks. I don’t have the right instincts, and to tell the truth, I’m just not that interested in doing some of the administrative jobs that will get me there, although the war probably rescued me from a posting to Ottawa. Who knows? I might have liked that.” He shrugged. “I’m happy where I am, or where I was a month ago, anyway.”

Crossley smiled briefly. “I can see you being a police officer.”

“Yes, well, I’ve preferred to work in the field. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. How am I doing so far, Harold? Is this the kind of thing you were expecting to hear?”

“Pretty much. You know I’m going to have to ask you later to commit a brief summary of this to paper.” Harold had a wonderfully crisp, theatrical voice and a Liverpool accent that he made no attempt to conceal. “I’m sorry, but they also have psychologists vetting our new officers now. This is one of these new wartime efficiencies. I had to go through the same silliness when they brought me over from mi6. This interview is the first step in screening and everybody gets it.”

Crossley nodded. “Rory, tell us about your family life.”

“I don’t have one now, apart from my elderly parents. My dad is working himself into the ground and my mother does volunteer work in Montreal. I was married for nine years. We didn’t have any children. My wife died a few months ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Thornton said. “Of course, I knew it. I am sorry just the same. I read it in your file. How are you getting on?”

“I’m all right. It was so fast but it was still a terrible thing watching her go the way she did. I miss her tremendously. But I suppose you need to know if I’m sufficiently recovered from my grief to be of any value in operations. I think so. In fact, I think doing something will focus my mind more than it has for a while. I’m physically fit and emotionally sound. Going through the normal grieving period, I guess. Not really out of it yet.”

“Are you angry at all?” asked Harris.

“Not now. I was, but I’m pretty much over that. There was a time when I thought, ‘Why her, why us?’ But I suppose that I’ve come to accept it. It seems there’s a randomness attached to suffering and death. I don’t understand it. I never have.” He shrugged. “I don’t pretend to.”

“How do you feel about the war?”

“When I was last over here, when I returned to Germany five years ago and had a good look at the Nazis, I thought it was inevitable. I had no doubt that we were headed for another major war, and felt we should have fought sooner rather than wait and fight it on Hitler’s terms. We didn’t have the moral courage to do it then. Now, God knows where this one will end. So far, it sounds as if we’re likely to lose – at least, we’ll probably lose Europe initially. Generally, I agree with what Harris has to say. I think he’s painting the worst case, but I agree, it’s also the most probable case.”

“Do you think we should make some kind of accommodation with the Nazis? A lot of people are suggesting that. Some say that’s what Prime Minister Chamberlain is secretly holding out for. They say war has become too dangerous. We’ve too much to lose, that sort of thing. What are your thoughts on that?”

“Absolutely not. You can’t come to terms with someone who has already made up his mind that he’s going to destroy you and knows he has the power to do it. I know a lot of people here feel that somehow we can avoid a fight. The Nazis are as much a scourge as the Mongols were. They have to be stopped. Unfortunately, those who don’t see it that way are mostly wishful thinkers, and refuse to believe the truth because it means something horribly unpleasant becomes a certainty. There are a few others opposed to the war, but they’re a minority we’ll have to deal with. A few days after we declared war, we locked up the mayor of Montreal as a fascist sympathizer. Lots of people are howling over that; but if we’re going to win against these people, we have to do it with all our efforts focused.”

Crossley nodded knowingly while Thornton made a face that could have indicated perplexity or lack of interest.

Rory went on. “I really am in favour of free speech, but this is a war for survival. The time for debating has long passed. We should have acted against Hitler a long time ago. Intellectually and morally, I’ve no problem with fighting if you have a just cause. I don’t want to fight, but I believe that now we have absolutely no choice. The issues have probably never been so black and white.”

Thornton interrupted. “Ewen tells me you served in a clandestine role in Germany in the last one. You’re part German. How has that affected you?”

“I don’t think my clandestine work or having a German parent made much difference to me. I was more affected by my time in the trenches. That was a nightmare, but those of us who survived got through it.”

Rory stopped walking and looked around him. They were across the street from a bus stop and a small crowd had gathered, patiently queued up on the sidewalk. “I’ve often thought about the killing and the deaths of good men. It haunts you. I don’t think I’m different than thousands of others. I was lucky. I guess I always have been. I often wonder why I survived and others didn’t; but in the end, I survived and I was fortunate enough to get on with my life. Now, it looks like we’re going to do it all again. I don’t want to do it, but when it’s over, we have to get it right this time. The thing that angers me is that we should never have fought the Great War.”

Thornton and Crossley exchanged worried looks.

Rory shrugged his shoulders. “Sacrilege, right? I know what you’re thinking, but in hindsight we were all so foolish. The Germans, the French, the Russians, us: nobody understood what was coming. What were the great ideals we were fighting for? The Germans weren’t so different than we were in 1914. Yes, they violated Belgium’s neutrality to get at France; but they were forced to fight a two-front war. We probably would have done the same if we were buying time to prevent a Russian army from occupying our capital.”

Thornton and Crossley glanced at each other again.

“So, we all made a mess of that one. We made a mess of the peace treaty, and as a result we now have two of the most malicious and murderous ideologies in history to contend with: one in Russia and one in Germany. Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about the Russians for the time being, but they’re going to be another mortal threat to us.”

Rory stopped and looked hard, challengingly, at the two men beside him. Crossley nodded as if in reluctant agreement, but Thornton said nothing. He forced a cough, covered his mouth, and broke eye contact.

“As you both know,” Rory went on determinedly, “five years ago, I spent three months on an assignment for your previous employer. I came to London and then went on to Germany to find out information for the War Office. Like so many others, I reported at the time that Hitler and the Nazis were a deadly menace. Nobody in power listened to me or to the scores of others who returned with exactly the same report. I went back to Canada and continued to work in the RCMP. I was promoted to chief superintendent and given command of D Division in Manitoba. The rest you know… What else can I tell you?”

The two Englishmen looked at each other knowingly. “Rory,” said Thornton, “we aren’t fighting the Russians. Why are you so concerned about them?”

“The war’s expanding. Russia just occupied half of Poland. We entered the war because Germany invaded Poland. Do you think for a moment that with Russia and Germany staring at each other across an imaginary frontier in Poland, things will remain settled on that front? Hitler hasn’t moved against France yet. Ask yourselves, why hasn’t he done that? The second most hateful thing to the Nazis after the Jews is Communism. Nazism and Communism are mortal threats to each other. Sooner or later Germany and Russia are going to be at war with one another. I’d take Harris’s theory a step further. Hitler is probably biding his time, deciding whether he’s going to attack us in the west first or go after Stalin in the east.”

Both Crossley and Thornton looked annoyed and uncomfortable.

“Have either of you read Hitler’s book?” Rory asked. “It’s all in there.”

The other men looked sheepish. Thornton spoke. “We don’t read German. I know about it from what I’ve read in the papers. They say it’s not worth reading.”

“It’s not great literature, but it is Mr. Hitler’s philosophy spelled out for you. At the risk of being patronizing, I think you should read it. If our enemy has provided us with a complete overview of his philosophy and a summary of his plans, we should at least take the trouble of reading and studying what he has to say. We’re in the business of estimating what our enemy intends to do and defining our options. Several years ago, every politician, army officer, newspaper editor, and intelligence officer should have read Hitler’s book very closely. How foolish can we be? You can’t even buy a paperback translation of it anywhere; not in Britain, not in Canada, not in America. In some ways, we don’t deserve to win. Instead of making a tough decision, we’ve chosen to believe what we want to believe: that maybe things will somehow work out all right. We’re going to pay a heavy price for that kind of thinking.”

The three of them walked on in silence for a few moments. “Forgive me for getting on my soapbox,” Rory said. “You wanted to know what I think and why I came over. First off, Hitler wants to build a greater Germany, which we’ve already let him do. The next thing he wants is Lebensraum in the east and he wants to create a new German Empire. He wants to dominate Europe and unite all the Germanic peoples in a Third Reich. People like Mr. Chamberlain and France’s Daladier have already given him the first of these. We went to war because of the second, but he’s not finished. He’ll want more than half of Poland, and he’ll go after the third objective soon enough. That’s why I figure we have this period of phoney war. He hasn’t decided what he’s going to do yet: finish off his plans for Lebensraum or conquer his Third Reich.”

Rory pulled his coat collar up higher around his neck. “I’m sure that Stalin hasn’t overlooked that, and we can bet that the Soviet intelligence services have read and translated a copy of Hitler’s book. As for your earlier question about coming to some kind of accommodation with the Nazis, if you think you can be safe living with a violently lunatic Nazi Empire that’s armed to the teeth and eventually extends from Moscow to the English Channel, then by all means let’s cut a deal with Hitler.”

“Very interesting,” said Thornton. “You know, Rory, you do have allies outside, people like Harris and ourselves. There are people around here who think like you do about the Nazis. More people are coming around to your line of thinking every day – people like Winston Churchill. He’s been a voice in the wilderness for ten years; it’s just that Churchill’s not running things. What do you think’s going to happen next?”

“Harris has it right. We have no choice. We dig in here in England and get ready for a long war.”

* * *

“GENTLEMEN, THE REICH’S ENEMIES are larger and physically stronger than our German army, but we are in many ways much better prepared to destroy them. So please, let us make no mistake about it: we will destroy them.”

The man droning on at the podium was Karl Dortinger, one of the National Socialist Party’s founding members. But as far as Reinhold Neumann was concerned, Dortinger’s lecture didn’t have the ring of destiny nor what the papers described as the new Nazi speaking style. Instead, the lecture sounded more like a country parson’s sermon. Nonetheless, it was still a break from the seemingly endless stream of bureaucratic directives read out by senior police officers here at the new SS Police Academy’s Führerschule.

Neumann looked about him. Most of his fellow students were men just like him. They were police volunteers recently inducted into the Schutzstaffel, more popularly known as the SS, the Nazi Party’s most privileged security organization. All the others were intently focused on the elderly party functionary. Neumann and his colleagues sat in the comfortable lecture hall on the third floor of Berlin’s Natural History Museum. The museum’s auditorium was now temporarily being used as the Third Reich’s recently created Security and Police Services Staff College. Natural history, they were told, would now have to wait for the ultimate triumph of National Socialism.

Karl Dortinger, a noncommissioned officer in the German army in the Great War, had been an early convert to the Nazi cause. Over the last three days, Neumann had become used to this sort of ideological intermission sandwiched between more practical lectures. It was the second time they had been exposed to Dortinger’s droning tirade.

The lecture hall was filled to capacity with a hundred middle-ranking police officers from across Germany and Austria. Behind Dortinger was a very large map of Europe, flanked by two swastika flags. Neumann couldn’t help but notice that every time Dortinger looked up from his notes, the stage lights reflected back from his round steel-frame glasses, making him look like one of those hapless characters in an American cartoon. He tried to suppress a laugh.

The good-natured Bavarian officer sitting next to him turned and grinned. “You find this clown as hopelessly boring as I do? That’s reassuring. Look around. Everyone’s pretending to be enthralled by this bullshit.”

Neumann immediately became mildly alarmed and whispered, “What? Herr Dortinger has interesting views on the destiny of the German people. I only hope we have time to hear him expound on them. I think the last time he spoke it was much too short.”

The officer beside him let out a long exasperated breath. “Absolutely. How could I forget?”

Neumann responded in a scolding tone, “Of course, he’s made some excellent points, especially about the nature of the threat posed by Germany’s traditional enemies.” He glanced around, but no one was paying any attention to this exchange. “No, Herr Dortinger is very good indeed. The future of the German people is not something to be taken lightly.”

At the podium, Dortinger continued. “Germany is now united in its efforts to realize the vast potential of this country. You have seen how in just a few short years National Socialism has brought the Aryan nation to life. Germany has pulled itself up from its near moribund state of unemployment, debt, and dishonour. We have united the Austrians and Sudetan Germans, and we have rescued our Prussian brothers, who were confined by the treachery and fraud of the Versailles Treaty and locked into an artificial Polish state. Can you imagine Germans having to live under the domination of Slavs!”

Reinhold Neumann looked about him. The faces of his fellow students were expressionless.

“Now,” said Dortinger, “our Führer, Adolph Hitler, has shown us that it is our destiny to take on the role that history has always demanded the Aryan peoples should rightfully assume. Our armies are ready, and in the last two years we have developed a doctrine for the occupation of hostile countries. We shall implement that doctrine in the neighbouring territories that will make up the new frontiers of the Third Reich. The army will conquer and the police and security forces will subdue and organize our new territories. You gentlemen will play an important role in that respect.”

The officer beside him shifted uncomfortably in his seat and looked over at Neumann. Dortinger went on. “So, in addition, don’t forget the part that you, the leaders of our police forces, will play in helping us solve the Jewish question. I can tell you that many solutions have been bantered about. I have heard that the Führer himself believes that all of Europe’s Jews should be deported. And I have it on good authority that Madagascar is one of the places they are considering deporting them to, although I have also heard that they may simply be removed to Russia when the time is right. For me, I say, let them colonize Siberia. Slavs and Jews deserve each other. They have polluted Europe and sapped Germany’s vitality for far too long. I could tell you stories about the Jews and the Communists.”

As Dortinger wound up his speech, fantasizing about ridding Europe of its undesirables and describing how Jews, capitalists, and Communists had desecrated Greater Germany, Neumann began to drift off into his own reverie. He kept his eyes fastened on the bespectacled old crank at the front of the room and wondered where all this was taking him. If, as they were telling him, the Reich expanded within the next two years, he would certainly have more opportunity than he could ever have dreamt was possible when he was a simple Anwärter der Schutzpolizei rounding up drunks on Vienna’s street corners. Now, the next step was to get himself onto the staff of the newly created Department D – the New Territories Police Agency. So far, things hadn’t gone badly. In the last three years, he had done incredibly well for himself. By being on this course, he was halfway to realizing his ambitions.

As for Dortinger, the old fool had some value. He was describing the official blueprint for career success in the Reich’s new police forces: crush the Fatherland’s enemies and transform the occupied territories into docile and productive colonies. These were achievable tasks, ones that he could see himself playing a useful part in. Neumann had already made up his mind, and going back to regular police work in one of the German-speaking cities was no longer an option. That would only be a ticket to a plodding, conventional career. Six weeks ago, who could have imagined him being here?

Things were quite different now. If he played his cards right, in a couple of years he might find himself head of a major department for all of the Third Reich, or better still, sent back to Vienna as a deputy chief of police. Wouldn’t that make Maida’s family cringe! She had no idea he felt so strongly about her family; but he’d often daydreamed about it. They had a thousand ways of putting him in his place. Neumann hated his overbearing in-laws and just thinking of the possibility of having one of his smug brothers-in-law arrested made him smile. A few hours of stiff interrogation by some thug of an underling would hurt no one. Then, of course, he would step in and release the brother back to Maida’s family with the wretched man telling them how grateful he was for Neumann’s intercession. The way things were turning out now, that kind of fantasy might just come true someday.

“But this is where you gentlemen come in.” Dortinger was finally summing up. He had walked away from the protection of his podium and changed his tone of voice. The old goat always seemed to cheer up at the end of a lecture. Maybe he was happy it was over. Neumann glanced at the lecture schedule in his notebook and mentally rolled his eyes. Over the next two days they had another two hours of this insufferable man on the timetable. There was a price for everything.

In the hallway on their break, amongst a milling, stretching, and chattering crowd of police officers, Neumann lit a cigarette. It would be a mistake, he thought, to look too bored by any of this. The Bavarian beside him had made a stupid mistake. In the worst case, simple boredom could be interpreted as disloyalty. One thing could lead to another, and disloyalty in the SS had only one punishment. At best, the other students would ostracize the Bavarian for being a know-it-all. There was a danger in that too, thought Neumann. Being isolated from one’s peers in this line of work could lead to problems down the road. He shook his head. In all other respects the Bavarian seemed intelligent. It never ceased to amaze him how naïve some men could be.

Neumann drew in a lungful of smoke and exhaled noisily. For some reason he felt jumpy. He’d been feeling that way a lot lately and it was hard to put his finger on why that should be. He knew he should just focus on what he was doing now, get his mind firmly settled on doing well on this course.

He flicked the ash from his cigarette. Perhaps he was putting too much pressure on himself, worrying about getting promoted. That was certainly part of it, but there was also the matter of Maida. She was really at the back of his mind. Maida had been out of sorts lately: distant and frequently surly, and she wouldn’t say why. It worried him. She was beginning to behave like the rest of her family. She claimed to be happy about being in Berlin, but even before they came here, he had begun to sense a gradual change in her.

Maida used to be a hot-blooded little vixen, but now most of the time she was cold and unresponsive. Some days she was downright sullen. It was a worry. She hadn’t made friends with any of the other wives of the officers on the course. He was certain she wasn’t having an affair. And then it struck him for the first time. Just possibly Maida had ceased to love him. Maybe whatever flame they had once shared was now gone. That wasn’t how things were for him. He had never seriously wanted another woman. He had always been faithful. He couldn’t imagine Maida with another man. He had done nothing to her to merit this. He had never been cruel or inattentive. He didn’t drink to excess. He was successful in his career. He was a good provider. He was a good father to their children. There had to be another explanation for her behaviour, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure it out.

Down the hall someone was announcing, “Time, gentlemen. Time. Cigarettes and pipes out. Your next lecture begins in two minutes.” At least the next hour would be more interesting than the last period of National Socialist hot air. The timetable indicated this one was to be given by an Oberführer Heinrich Müller from the Reich Main Security Office. It was entitled Gleichschaltung “Building the Reich: Night and Fog in the Occupied Territories.” Silly sort of name, Neumann thought, but it was probably going to be something useful. Not like this endless crap about the meaning of being Germanic, the greatness of the thousand-year Reich, and the wisdom of the Führer.

As a group of officers stubbed out their cigarettes in the hallway’s steel ashtray, Neumann nudged the Bavarian police officer who had sat beside him. “You know, about Dortinger, he’s not a good speaker, but he’s a man with insight and the ability to see things clearly. We need more leaders in the police with that kind of aptitude. Don’t you agree?”