SS-GB (39 page)

‘Don’t underrate the importance of a negative result. A few billion dollars would be a cheap price for discovering that the Nazis can’t destroy New York City overnight.’

A slow smile came over the face of the American.
‘You’re the police Superintendent,’ he said. ‘I suddenly realized who you are. You’re the goddamned Scotland Yard dick I’ve heard so much about.’

‘Never mind who I am,’ said Douglas, surprised and annoyed. ‘Are you empowered to bargain about the King?’

‘I like your style. Do you know that? I like your style. Barb said I would like you, and dammit, I do.’ He smiled. ‘That’s the first time she’s got anything right, from the day I married her – or the day before that maybe.’

‘You’re Danny Barga!’

‘Lieutenant Commander Daniel Albert Barga in person.’

‘So they commissioned you into the US Navy,’ said Mayhew, examining the ash on his cigar.

‘The State Department insisted.’

Mayhew nodded. Putting a man into uniform was no different from enrolling striking workers into the army. It was a way of ensuring that he did exactly as he was told.

At that moment a servant hurried into the room and whispered a lengthy message to Sydney Garin who nodded, his face growing more solemn. When the servant had departed, Garin said, ‘I’m afraid the Germans have found pieces of our friend’s parachute.’

Danny Barga got to his feet. ‘They had to cut it; it was tangled into a tree, and they couldn’t reach some bits of the cord.’

‘Someone must have spotted you coming down. There’s a platoon of infantry walking line abreast searching my fields.’

‘Will they come here?’ asked Mayhew.

‘Certainly they will,’ said Garin calmly. ‘Soldiers are methodical, German soldiers particularly so. They will search every house in the neighbourhood, this
one included.’ He tried to smile but it was not easy for him.

George Mayhew stubbed out his cigar, as if he didn’t want the Germans to catch him smoking it. ‘We had better be sure our stories agree.’

Danny Barga stood up. He said, ‘I’m on their damned Sonderfahndungsliste.’

‘Haven’t you got identity papers in some other name?’ said Garin.

‘Papers are waiting for me in London. Washington forgeries are always weeks out of date.’

‘Can you hide him, Garin?’ Mayhew asked.

Before Sydney Garin had a chance to answer, there was a rumpus in the corridor that grew louder until the door of the drawing-room opened. A servant rushed in, head lowered like a charging bull. He half-recovered his balance, just stopping himself falling into the fire, and turned to face the man who had propelled him so violently into the room.

‘My name is Dr Oskar Huth; Standartenführer.’ He looked at the men. ‘Ah, Superintendent Archer, I thought I might find you here…and Colonel Mayhew, and Mr Sydney Garin. All faces I recognize from my confidential files.’

No one spoke. The servant rubbed his wrist where Huth had twisted his arm up his back. Huth walked across the room behind the men, but none of them turned to watch him. They heard him say, ‘A parachute was found nearby, Mr Garin. Did you hear of that?’

Garin did not reply. Huth barked like a parade-ground martinet. ‘Did you hear about that parachute?’

‘My servants told me,’ said Garin softly.

‘And you did nothing?’

Garin shrugged. ‘What could I do?’

‘And you, Colonel Mayhew,’ said Huth. ‘You
contained your curiosity too? How can I not admire this renowned British restraint?’ An SS-Scharführer looked in through the door. ‘All in order here, Scharf,’ said Huth. ‘Make sure there are no servants in the out-buildings, then get everyone together down in the servants’ sitting-room.’ The Staff Sergeant clicked his heels and moved off down the corridor.

‘And you,’ said Huth coming close behind Danny Barga. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m an American citizen,’ said Barga.

‘Sit down, American citizen,’ said Huth, applying sudden pressure upon Barga’s shoulders. This caught Barga unawares and, weakened by his twisted ankle, he tumbled back into the soft chair.

Huth moved towards the fireplace, and then turned to face the others. ‘I don’t trust any of you,’ he said. ‘You act like guilty men.’

‘You burst in here –’ said Mayhew.

‘Shut up!’ said Huth and Mayhew was quietened. ‘I’m arresting you all,’ said Huth. To Mayhew he said, ‘And don’t argue with me.’

Huth turned to watch the movement of the skeleton clock’s pendulum. Everyone was quite still and now that the wind had dropped, there was no sound but that of the clock.

Douglas stepped over to the commode, quickly opened the top drawer and took out the .45 Colt automatic that the American had brought with him. He pointed it at Huth.

‘No, Standartenführer,’ said Douglas.

Huth turned to see him. He smiled as if Douglas had committed some inexcusable gaffe. ‘Don’t be a fool, Superintendent Archer. I have a Sturm of SS infantry with me.’

‘Give me the silencer, Mr Garin,’ said Douglas. He took it and fitted it to the gun.

‘Put the gun down and I will forget about it,’ offered Huth.

‘If you make a sudden move I will shoot you,’ said Douglas.

‘You haven’t got nerve enough,’ said Huth but he did not make a sudden move.

‘Get the Standartenführer’s pistol, Colonel,’ said Douglas, ‘and stand well aside from him as you do so.’

‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, old boy?’ said Mayhew.

‘I’ve never been more sure,’ said Douglas, although inside him he could feel his heart pumping blood enough for three men, and his stomach was knotted in anxiety. By the time he had second thoughts Mayhew was undoing the fastener of the leather pistol holster, and reaching for Huth’s gun.

‘I hate to see you signing your own death warrant,’ said Huth.

‘How many vehicles?’ Douglas spoke to Garin’s servant but did not take his eyes off Huth.

‘Five lorries and a motorcycle with sidecar,’ he replied. Douglas nodded; that seemed about right.

‘Phone downstairs, using the house phone,’ Douglas ordered Huth. ‘Tell your Scharführer to get his men into their transport, and be ready to depart.’

‘And what about me?’ said Huth.

‘Do as I say,’ said Douglas, bringing the house phone to where Huth was standing.

‘No,’ said Mayhew. Douglas paused, gun in one hand, phone in the other. ‘Standartenführer Huth and I can probably reach an accord,’ said Mayhew. ‘Can I speak with you in private, Standartenführer?’

‘How can I refuse?’ said Huth. Mayhew looked at Douglas. Douglas nodded.

The two men were closeted together for nearly half an hour. When they emerged Huth said, ‘Very well.’
He looked round the room. ‘Very well,’ he said again. ‘Colonel Mayhew has provided me with an explanation for your presence here this night. For the time being, I’ll take no action.’ He picked up his pistol from a side table and put it into his holster. ‘But I warn you…’ He turned and stared at Mayhew. ‘I warn you that I expect my quid pro quo.’ He walked across to the door, rattled the door handle and then turned to face them. ‘Colonel Mayhew has persuaded me that no one in this house was in any way connected with the parachute drop. But perhaps you would circulate the information that the Luftwaffe have radio detection equipment that follows the movement of aircraft night and day, and in any sort of weather.’

After they had seen the lorries, and Huth’s motorcycle, depart up the long avenue of lime trees, Mayhew said, ‘He’ll overlook the business with the pistol, Archer. He’s promised, and I believe him.’

‘What did
you
promise him?’ said Douglas.

Mayhew was evasive. ‘The moon and the stars; I promised him anything he wanted, in exchange for a little more time. Now we must get the King out of German custody.’ He looked at Danny Barga. ‘And we’ll show our American friends that a President with an atomic bomb can get re-elected even if he does have the King living there in exile.’

The Metropolitan Music Hall, in the Edgware Road, was warm, noisy and smoky with an audience who’d packed in to see Flanagan and Allen, and to hear Vera Lynn sing.

By the summer of 1941 the lyrics of her songs had become a motif of the repression felt by the people of Occupied Great Britain. ‘Wishes are the dreams we dream when we’re awake,’ she sang, and ‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when,’ was a promise cherished by the thousands of men and women who had their loved ones in some distant German prison camp.

At the end of the first half, she’d come on the stage in a simple white dress, not beyond the purse and ingenuity of any shopgirl, to a roar of applause that forced the orchestra to play the opening bars of ‘Wishing’ two or three times before she could be heard above the uproar. And when Flanagan and Allen joined her with the full company on the stage to sing ‘There’ll be blue birds over the White Cliffs of Dover, tomorrow just you wait and see. There’ll be love and laughter, and peace ever after, tomorrow when the world is free,’ the audience sat transfixed.

The first half ended with the whole cast throwing paper streamers, wearing funny hats and popping balloons that descended from a great wire basket suspended from the ceiling.

By the time the second half began the audience was overcome with a rare euphoria. Even ‘Professor Zingo’ did not lessen the contentment, and that says a great
deal, for there are few things more exacting than watching the anxious efforts of a magician who has not quite mastered his black art.

Gala evenings were not popular with the cleaning staff, for the festivities left the theatre in a chaos of litter that had to be salvaged for re-use. A cobweb of coloured paper ribbons entangled the big-breasted caryatids, and a few surviving balloons were bobbing around in the aisles. The bar was the only place unaffected by gala nights. It was a long, narrow room at the back of the stalls. Glass windows permitted thirsty patrons to see the stage, but the sound of the music was heard only faintly, except when the door opened. Here in the bar a man could have the best of both worlds; he could watch the legs of the dancing girls while hearing his own voice.

‘Suppose he doesn’t turn up?’ said Harry Woods. He finished his pint of watery ale and signalled the barman for another.

‘He’ll turn up,’ said Douglas. He waved away the offer of another beer. Two pints of that stuff was about as much as his bladder could take and he’d learned not to mix police business with hard drink.

‘You get many Herberts in here, Percy?’ Harry asked the barman.

The man continued to wipe the counter, mopping up the spilled beer and wringing the cloth into a bucket on the floor behind the bar. ‘No,’ he said. He opened the damp cloth, shook it and spread it on a beer barrel to dry. ‘The Germans have their own shows, with big name stars from Germany. It only costs them sixpence. Here you have to pay that to get into the “gods”. Anyway they can’t understand the songs and the patter.’

Harry lit a cigarette and offered the barman his packet. He took one gratefully. ‘You looking for a German?’

Douglas turned his head to see the act on the stage – Professor Zingo was making endless coloured handkerchiefs appear from a seemingly empty tube – but really he was anxious about how much Harry would reveal about the meeting.

‘Meeting one: an officer from the army post office – talking to us about mailbag robberies.’

‘Oh yes,’ said the barman.

‘It’s an important matter,’ Harry told him as if trying to engage his interest.

‘Yes, of course,’ said the barman, beginning to rinse the dirty glasses that were lined up on his sink. Harry had certainly done a good job in diverting the barman’s curiosity about the meeting.

Professor Zingo was opening and closing the hinged sections of a large black japanned box, accompanied by the pizzicato of the orchestra’s six string players. He looked at the audience and at his pretty girl assistant and then he rapped the metal blade of a circular saw. The Tchaikovsky swelled as the door opened and Captain Hans Hesse entered. Thank God he wasn’t wearing that overcoat with the astrakhan collar; he’d be surrounded with autograph hunters in a place like this.

‘What are you drinking, Hans?’ Harry asked him as if they’d known each other for years.

‘Beer,’ he said, taking off the broad-brimmed black hat and placing it carefully on the shelf. It was illegal for anyone to buy a drink for a member of the occupying army, and illegal too for the barman to serve them. But the beer arrived immediately. Hesse sipped it, winced, smiled and put the beer down on the counter. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘Can you be ready?’

The girl was in the box by now. Again Professor Zingo opened the gaps to show that her torso was
there to be bisected. ‘Blue-jacket do you mean?’ Harry asked Hesse. It was a fine code word for King George the Sixth, the sailor king, nautical and classless. It would be right for the history books.

‘Blue-jacket, yes. Will you be ready?’ Hesse followed Douglas’s gaze to the spotlighted magician. The circular saw was whirling now, its vicious teeth sparkling in the pink footlights. The girl’s face contorted as she feigned fear. The Captain found the conjurer’s act banal. He turned away.

‘We’ll be ready,’ said Douglas without taking his eyes from the stage.

‘The girl draws her legs up to her chest,’ said the Captain as he took another sip of the warm, watery, English beer. ‘The circular blade goes nowhere near her.’

‘We’ll collect him from the Tower,’ said Douglas. He’d been given all the details by Mayhew.

‘There will be one of my fellows there; a little man with spectacles, wearing the uniform of a veterinary officer. Do everything he says. Do it immediately and without question. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, I understand,’ said Douglas. In the shadows at the side of the orchestra pit, the emergency doors opened quietly. Two soldiers came into the theatre. In the pink light from the stage, Douglas saw the shine of the metal gorgets that German military policemen wore across their chest while on duty. The two policemen moved very slowly up the slope of the aisle, systematically studying the faces in each row of the audience before moving on.

‘Your people,’ said Harry. He cleared his throat and sipped some more beer.