Pilgrim Soul (21 page)

‘How long?’

‘A week. Maybe two.’

I weighed up the situation. We could hang around and get the pick-up. We could follow it all the way through to Scotland. Roll up the whole network. But every hour, every day we spent here was high risk. They would check our story. There would be other questions. One of us would talk in his sleep; me probably. I needed names of the twenty who’d gone through already. How many were still in Scotland? I’d made my mind up to jump Günter and drag him back to Hamburg for interrogation, but suddenly he was on his feet.

‘OK, boys. I need to fix some things. I’ll be gone for a little while. Stay put and I’ll be back soon. Then we can get things moving. OK?’

He slid out of the bar. For a big man he could move fast and silently. Now we waited. We talked in a low murmur. In German still. The barman watched us and occasionally smiled.

Half an hour went past and we heard the sound of a truck trundling along the cobbles. It stopped outside and I heard doors open and close. Then it went quiet. Steps sounded on the pavement. At least two sets. They stopped at the door. I also heard a door creak behind the bar. The barman had disappeared.

‘Guns out!’ I whispered fiercely. ‘Get hold of this table.’

We heard running steps outside.

‘Now!’

We lifted up the solid oak table and crashed it on to its side to form a barrier just as the front and back doors slammed open.

‘Front’s yours!’ I called to Will and faced the rear.

Men with shotguns burst in from both sides, weapons up, swinging about, seeking targets.

I put a bullet in the man who’d crashed through the back door. Collins got off two shots. I glanced round and saw a man tumbling to the ground. There was a roar from the back door and Günter barrelled through, blasting away with his shotgun. We ducked and the table rocked as the blast hit it. I dived to the side and got a shot in under the flap over the bar. Günter bellowed and fell back clutching his leg. His shotgun boomed again and smashed through ceiling plaster.

A fourth man made it through the front door, exchanged shots with Collins, and dived back out. In the echoing silence I heard him running off on the cobbles.’

‘Get him! Don’t let him take the truck!’

Collins sprinted to the door. I scrambled to my feet and charged the bar. I slid over the surface and found Günter sprawled on the floor, cursing and trying to reload.

‘Drop it! Drop it, Günter, or your balls are gone!’

My pistol was aimed directly at his groin. He got the message and lowered his shotgun. With his left hand he was gripping his thigh. Blood soaked his trousers and ran through his fingers.

I heard shots and a cry. I prayed it wasn’t Collins going down. I twisted and took aim at the open front door. Collins walked in, grinning. He gave a thumbs-up.

‘Well done, man. Let’s get this pig out of here. On the truck.’

We wrestled Günter out through the bar flap, dragging him by his feet. His head bumped on the flagstones and then crashed on the doorsill. His groans cut out. Outside, a man lay face down by the door of the truck.

‘Good shooting, Will.’

We dragged Günter over the cobbles and flung him on the open back of the truck. It was like hauling a sack of coal.

‘Drive, Will! I’ll look after Hoffmann.’

I jumped up on the tail. Collins climbed into the cabin. He tried the engine twice before it spluttered into life. Then we were off, rattling and banging, careering round the corners, heading for the harbour. Something like glee coursed through me. We hurtled out along the dark line of the pier. I prayed we didn’t skid off into the drink. Günter was awake again, groaning. His leg was thick with blood. We slammed to a halt by the dear old
Swan
.

Way behind us flashlights split the dark. Shouts bore down on us. Together we grabbed our unwilling passenger and dragged him off the truck and on to the ground. The tide had gone out and the deck of the boat was some six feet below. By luck we’d left enough play in the mooring lines or
The Swan
would have been dangling from the pier. We looked at each other. The hue and cry was closer. We took shoulders and legs and swung him over. He seemed to fall for ever before landing with a massive thump and a yelp on the mound of tarpaulin. I tugged at the lines and together we wrenched them clear.

‘Jump!’ I called. We landed on deck, and sprawled in a heap. Gunter was alive and groaning. I didn’t feel sorry for him. I just wanted him alive long enough to give me some names.

‘Bind his leg. I’ll get going.’ I darted to the wheelhouse. The boat was already swinging out from the wall but we were being pushed backwards by the tide towards the enemy lights. I turned the big motor over and it rumbled into life.
You beauty
. I pushed the throttle halfway open, not wanting to stall, and started steering us away from the wall. We were making progress but it didn’t seem enough. The shouts were getting closer and the first shots were fired.

Steadily we began to gather speed. I put the throttle full forward and heard the engine groan and lurch. A bullet shattered the window behind me, but I could see the line of the end of the harbour wall. Ever faster we pulled away and finally we were chugging out to the main river. I kept the throttle wide open until we were sure we weren’t being followed. I thumped the wheel. This was what it was about. Not endless rounds of interrogation.

‘We did it, Will! We did it! Well done, man!’

There was no answer.

‘Collins! Will! Are you all right back there? Has he stopped bleeding?’

I called a couple of more times. I could see Günter lying flat on his back. Collins had turned a rope round his thigh above the wound. I couldn’t see Collins. Then the cabin door pushed open. Collins slumped across the frame.

‘Sorry, sir. Sorry. Caught a stray.’

I knocked the throttle back and let the boat steer its own course. I knelt down. I dragged him further inside.

‘Will, Will? Where are you hit? Point to it.’

He brought his arm up and levered himself on to his side. ‘Back. In the back,’ he grunted.

I turned him to the light and could now see the hole in his old jacket and the surrounding stain.

‘Will, you need to hold on. Can you lie down in here? Let me help.’

I eased him fully into the cabin and pulled him so that he could lie out fully. He was moaning softly now, and I could see the blood leaking all round him. I found a rug and jammed it under his head. There was no exit wound on his chest. I was helpless to stop the internal bleeding. I turned back to the wheel and gunned the engine to its max. I was careless of obstacles. His one chance was getting back to Hamburg as fast as possible. But it was eight hours away.

I kept glancing at him. He coughed once or twice and blood came up. Then he lay quietly for some time. I though he was gone. His eyes flickered and he called to me.

I shut the throttle down and knelt by him. His hand was out, groping. I took it and held it. I eased his blond mop back from his forehead. I lifted up his head and shoulders and cradled him in my lap.

‘Sir?’

‘Douglas. It’s Douglas.’

‘Douglas. It was worth it, wasn’t it?’

‘It was, Will. It surely was. Now just hold on. We’ll get you home.’

He smiled and gripped my hand tight. Then slowly it slackened and his body sank in on itself in a great sigh.

So many men under me had died. I’d thought I was inured to it. It seemed to get worse. I thumbed the wet from my eyes and laid his head down gently.

I left him there and went out to see how Günter was. He was alive. His leg seemed to have stopped bleeding. I undid the rope so his leg didn’t drop off and stuffed the wound with a silk flag from the locker.

‘Cold. Cold,’ he managed.

I went back into the cabin and took the blanket off Collins. I tossed it over Günter. Then I dragged the tarpaulin right over his body. If he lived, I’d make bloody sure he coughed up every sordid detail of the northern rat line. To make Will Collins’s death worthwhile.

I went back into the wheelhouse and pushed open the throttle. If we hit a wreck, so be it.
The Swan
’s bows bit into the water and flung white spray back at me as we sped on to morning.

THIRTY-ONE

I made an untidy landfall. To be precise I rammed the pier. But it got attention. The sergeant and a squad of men came running. They found me lying in the wheelhouse half dazed from the crash, half mad from lack of sleep. They got me to my feet, and I dangled between two troopers.

‘Take care of him,’ I croaked as they manhandled Collins’s still body out on to the pier. ‘Be gentle.’

‘We will, sir. We will. What about this fella? Who’s he?’

I turned and looked back at the pile of tarpaulin with Günter’s head sticking out. He wasn’t moving. I called out to the man uncovering him. ‘My prisoner. Is he dead?’

‘Not quite, sir.’

‘Get him to the guardhouse. Get him a medic. Before he dies I want some information from him.’ I turned to the sergeant. ‘The biggest mug of tea you can manage. With a big splash of something strong in it.’

It took two days before Günter was well enough to be interrogated. I was waiting for him on Friday morning in the little room next to the cells. He’d been transferred here the day before. And it was here, in the cells, that I missed Will Collins most. I even turned to look for him sitting behind me.

They brought in Günter Hoffmann. He was limping and his left leg was heavily bandaged. They plonked him down on the hard chair opposite me, on the other side of the table. He looked diminished. I was back in my true colours. Günter’s lip turned up when he saw me, saw my uniform.

‘I knew it,’ he sneered.

‘How? Not that it matters.’

‘The pair of you. Especially the pretty boy. You didn’t look like you’d been on the run for over a year. I’ve seen enough coming through.’

‘Was that it? Too healthy?’

‘The Totenkopf Division. You said the commander was Obergruppenführer Priess. He was the
second
last. At Linz it was Brigadeführer Becker.’

‘Don’t tell me you were there?’

‘No. But my brother died with them on the Warsaw front.’

‘I made a bad choice, then.’

He smirked.

‘But I have you. And I’m here to offer you a choice. Your neighbours in the other cells are camp guards from Ravensbrück. They’re on trial for their lives. Next week a number of them will be found guilty and they will be sentenced to hang.’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’

‘You can choose to die with them on the scaffold, or you can tell me all about the northern rat line.’

‘You can’t do that! I’m a civilian!’

‘You’re whatever I say you are. For the moment, you’re a spy. Your Nazi pals murdered our spies in Ravensbrück. Tomorrow I can prepare papers which show you were an NCO at Ravensbrück. We have enough witness testimonies to go round. I can have an inch-thick file made up for you showing the atrocities you committed.’

‘That’s illegal!’

I laughed. At first it was a forced laugh. But then it became genuine. I finally pulled myself together.

‘I had no idea you were a comedian, Günter. Let’s make this simple. We won. You lost. You take your medicine. And, by the way, I might just have you hanged anyway for the death of my friend.’

I watched him think. I watched the fear settle on his face and the realisation grow that I was deadly serious. The interesting thing is, I was. I was perfectly ready to concoct a case that would send this man to the gallows. What a long way I’d fallen.

‘So even if I tell you something useful, you might still do me in?’

‘Depends on the quality. Roll the dice, Günter. Roll the dice. I don’t really mind where they fall.’

I waited, arms folded, gazing at him, watching him do the calculations. Sweat beaded his brow and he reached for the cigarettes I’d placed in front of him.

‘Ask me,’ he said.

I reached for my pad and pencil.

‘Who set up this rat line?’

‘Our schoolmaster, Josef Erlichmann. He ran the Hitler Youth. He knew my opinions. Knew my brother died fighting the Reds. He said some good men needed help to leave the country. To keep up the fight against the Bolshies. He gave me money to arrange a boat.’

‘Where did a teacher get the money?’

‘He’d been approached. He said there was an organisation.’

‘Called?’

‘No name. I know nothing about it, except the papers came from Switzerland.

‘When did it start?’

‘Early ’45. He brought the first one to me. I hid him in my cellar under the bar. It took three weeks for the documentation to come through.’

‘Documentation?’

‘Passports, references from the Red Cross.’

‘The Vatican?’

He nodded.

‘Then what?’

‘We had to wait for the weather. Then the boat left on the night tide. It was a fishing boat. Plenty of fish in the North Sea.’

‘Where did it go?’ Though I could guess.

‘Scotland. Edinburgh.’

‘You mean the port of Leith?’

‘Exactly.’

‘That wasn’t their final destination.’

‘No. They were taken to Glasgow, then the Americas. You see, I asked if I could use the route. You know, in case they came after me. Left it a bit late, didn’t I?’

‘Someone was waiting at Leith?’

‘The teacher had a transmitter. He could warn them when the boat went north.’

‘Who was the local contact in Leith?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You used the same boat, same fisherman?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Doesn’t matter now. You shot him.’

Bugger. If I believed him. ‘One moment.’ I got up and walked out of the cell. ‘Sergeant!’

The duty NCO ran over. ‘Sir?’

‘Get a platoon together and send them to Cuxhaven immediately. I don’t care how you get there. Boat or bike. Both is better. Just get there as fast as you can. They’re to pick up the local schoolmaster, Josef Erlichmann. And the barman at the Angel’s Wing. Find out the names of the fishermen friends of the prisoner. Bugger it. Bring them all in. Every man who owns a boat. At the double!’