Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens (34 page)

Mr. Calder thought about it. They were now about three hundred yards from the camp. The night was very still. With any luck they would not have been missed. What they needed to do was to complete their getaway as inconspicuously as possible.

“We shall have to push the car over that next crest,” he said. “We’ll set the wheels as straight as we can, and both get behind her. And we won’t try to do it all at once. I’m not as young as I was.”

Mr. Calder soon realised one thing. Hans was the right man for this job. Mr. Calder himself had surprising reserves of strength in his barrel chest and thick arms, but Hans was twice as strong as he was.

It would have been easier if the surface of the track had been harder and smoother. After forty yards, Mr. Calder demanded a breather. The sweat was pouring down his body inside his shirt.

He said, “Did you ever play rugby football?”

“Rugby football,” said Hans. “I have watched it. It seemed a very rough game.”

“You’d be an asset to any team in the second row of the scrum.”

“Those are the ones who put their heads between the bottoms of the other ones and push?”

“That’s right.”

The thought seemed to amuse Hans. He said, “Perhaps I will try it.”

Then they resumed their labour. Mr. Calder thought with sympathy of Sisyphus. By the time they reached the second halt, some twenty yards from the crest, something seemed to be troubling Hans. He said, “Have you considered, Herr Calder, that the keys of the car are missing. How shall we start it?”

“You don’t need keys to start a car. Just a small piece of wire.”

“Is that so? That would be the way in which a car thief would operate?”

“Certainly. I’ve stolen a lot of cars in my time.”

“Indeed?” said Hans. Clearly his opinion of Mr. Calder was now very high.

At the top of the rise the passage of vehicles in either direction had thrown up a low ridge of packed earth.

“We’ll have to move that,” said Mr. Calder. “There should be a kit of sorts in the back.”

Armed with a jack handle and a large spanner they started to dig out the obstruction.

The men in the tent were taken totally by surprise. The first sign was the eruption of fifteen armed men into the marquee. A hard voice said, in German, “You are advised to make no stupid moves,” and repeated this in English.

Everyone swung round.

Captain Bruckner said, “Who are you? You have no right here. Lay down those arms at once.”

When the newcomers made no move to obey him, Lieutenant Brunz, who was the only man who was armed at that moment, put his hand onto the gun in his hip holster. The man who had spoken raised his own machine pistol, and shot the lieutenant through the shoulder.

“You see,” he said, “we mean business. We do not shoot to kill, unless we have to. But a bullet in the shoulder or the knee can be painful. It can also cripple you. If anyone wishes to try whether I mean what I say, he is at liberty to make the experiment.”

His men had spread themselves along the far side of the tent, and were covering every angle of it.

Mr. Behrens stepped forward slowly. He said, “You will all do exactly what this man tells you. There is a first-aid box in the corner. Albert, would you get it, and see what you can do for the lieutenant.” Brunz was sitting on one of the chairs by the table. His left hand was clasping his right shoulder and his face was contorted.

The leader of the newcomers had been looking curiously at Mr. Behrens. He said, “I think I know you. But I have forgotten your name.”

“I have not forgotten yours, “said Mr. Behrens. “You are – or you were –
Obersturmfuehrer
Otto Lessner. You were, for a time, in charge of the guard at Ravensbruck camp. I did my best to get you hanged. I am only sorry that I was unsuccessful.”

Lessner came forward and peered into Mr. Behren’s face. He was smiling. It was not an agreeable smile, more a lifting of the lips.

“Behrens, of course,” he said. “This is indeed a reunion. Where is your inseparable friend Calder?”

“He died two years ago, otherwise I’m sure he would have been happy to be here. It would have given him great pleasure to see you in such an uncomfortable position.”

“Uncomfortable, Herr Behrens?”

“Certainly. You have shot and wounded a police officer in the presence of a number of witnesses. Forty years ago you might have got away with it. Not now, my friend. Not now.”

Lessner had taken off his left-hand gauntlet, and was holding it loosely in his right hand. Now he swung it, hitting Mr. Behrens in the fac”Running true to form,” said Mr. Behrens. “A bully and a coward.” He was speaking in German, loud enough for the newcomers to hear. They were a curious mixture, some of them hardly more than boys, others as old as Lessner, or even older. Mr. Behrens ran a sardonic eye over the representatives of the resurgent Nazi movement. “This is a curious platoon you’ve brought along,
Obersturmfuehrer.
Half from the kindergarten and half from the old folks’ home.”

Lessner’s face was dark red and his hand was sliding towards the butt of his machine pistol when he stopped.

He said, “I know you, Herr Behrens. I know your ways. You are an old fox. Why do you seek to provoke me? I answer my own question. You are playing for time. You expect assistance. It will not come. We have taken all necessary steps to ensure that. Nevertheless, we will waste no time exchanging compliments with you. Maybe when we have finished our work, we will have a little sport.”

He signalled to two of the young men, who laid down their weapons and stepped forward smartly. Mr. Behrens saw that one of them was carrying a length of wire rope fitted with a shackle. Evidently Lessner had studied Rudolf Sperrle’s manuscript and had come prepared.

The rope was passed under the exposed block of cement and fastened. The two men pulled. The block lifted a little, and fell back.

“Two more,” said Lessner. The remaining gunmen spread themselves out to maintain their arc of fire. Four men pulling together lifted the block clear of the hole and swung it onto the floor of the tent. Two of them unloosed the rope. The other two went outside and returned with a sledge hammer and a heavy steel chisel.

“Well rehearsed,” thought Mr. Behrens. He looked down quickly at his watch. Thirty minutes had passed. It might take them another thirty to crack the cement. Not quite long enough.

The men were using the hammer and chisel cautiously. It was more than half an hour before the metal canisters had been broken free of their concrete shell and were standing on the ground.

Mr. Behrens said, “Would it not be of interest to all of us, to ascertain at least that the recordings of the Fuehrer’s voice have survived.”

He noted the stir of interest which this produced from the listening gunmen.

“No doubt it would be interesting,” said Lessner, “but unfortunately we have not brought the necessary apparatus with us.”

“I have,” said Mr. Behrens. He went to the back of the tent, opened a suitcase, and brought out an old-fashioned dictaphone. “The description of the wire spools was detailed enough for me to be able to procure a machine which should enable us to play them. Would you care to try?”

There was no doubt about the sentiments of the audience, German and British alike.

“Ninety-nine per cent in favour,” thought Mr. Behrens.

Lessner hesitated. Then he said, “We have the night in front of us. I see no reason not to humour you in this matter.”

The canisters were fastened with stout padlocks which had rusted solid and which, as Mr. Behrens had hoped, took a lot of removing. In the end, the shanks had to be sawn through. The first cylinder contained bundles of papers, tightly packed, each wrapped in oil skin.

“It would seem that what we are looking for must be in the other one,” said Mr. Behrens smoothly.

Lessner hesitated again, and glanced down at his watch. He did not overlook the possibility that someone might have escaped and gone for help. But the nearest effective help was nearly fifty kilometres away, and all the camp vehicles had been immobilised.

He smiled thinly, and said, “Very well.”

This time they knew what they were about, and less time was wasted. There were packets of papers in the second canister. Under them was a wooden box, the size of a larger cigar box.

“Allow me,” said Mr. Behrens. He had set up his machine on the table, and now took one of the spools from the box and fitted it into the machine. He tried not to appear hurried, but he was wasting no time, because he had already heard the noise he was hoping for. It was faint as yet. Probably he only picked it up because he was listening for it. The attention of every other person in the tent was on the apparatus on the table.

A voice filled the tent. Harsh, staccato, unmistakable.

“To the people of the great German Reich, your Fuehrer speaks.”

Mr. Behrens looked round. The youngsters, newcomers and police were attentive. The older men were much more than attentive, they were rapt, spellbound. He noted, with sardonic amusement, that Captain Bruckner was holding himself rigidly to attention.

“We stand at one of the turning points of history. The storm clouds are rolling up, from the East and from the West. At this moment the sky overhead looks black.”

For God’s sake, thought Mr. Behrens, they
must
hear it soon. The three giant Hercules transporters had cut their engines as they came in at two thousand feet.

“But do not fear. Be of good courage. The sun will break through.”

At the last moment Lessner realised what was happening. He switched off the recorder, and raced to the entrance of the tent. Fifty parachutists were already on the ground. Another hundred were floating gently to earth under the full moon.

“I confess I was surprised that he dared to shoot that policeman,” said Mr. Behrens. “He couldn’t hope to get away with it. Unless he killed us all and buried us. Which seemed improbable.”

“If he had secured the contents of those canisters,” said Mr. Fortescue, “he’d have had every chance of getting away with it. I understand, unofficially, that there was enough material there to embarrass two of their High Court judges, a police chief, and a number of very successful industrialists. With material like that he could have bought his way out of trouble easily enough.”

“Do you think the authorities will use it?” said Mr. Behrens.

Mr. Calder said, “You remember what Sperrle said? ‘Put it to no evil use.’ Forty years is a long time. Let the dead bury the dead.”

Mr. Fortescue said, “It is a decision for them, not for us. But I hope that you are right.”