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  ‘The murder of ten thousand Polish officers by the NKVD was a terrible crime against humanity, but I know now that compared with the actions of our Einsatz Kommandos on the Eastern Front, it was almost a misdemeanour.’

  ‘You’re very frank, but then with Martin Bormann for a friend you can afford to be.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of that.’

  ‘You’re being coy again, Doctor. Need I remind you that in 1933

  when Martin Bormann took over the management of the Führer’s personal funds so thoughtfully provided by Krupp and other industrialists, he came to you for advice, and that through your Swiss friends you were able to suggest some very profitable investments? You see,’ Kastner said casually, ‘I know a great deal about you.’ He pointed to the silver-framed photographs on Osler’s desk. ‘Your son Joachim, for instance, was a Stuka pilot until he was killed in an air battle off Dover in July 1940, your 43

  daughter Irmgard is a doctor practising in Leipzig, and your other son, Karl, is serving with the Flak.’

  ‘You are well informed.’

  ‘I try to be, but sometimes I wonder if I really am.’ Kastner leaned forward in his chair. ‘You puzzle me, Doctor,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I ask myself why an intelligent man such as yourself should become involved with a petty criminal such as Lehr. Surely, if your friend Gerhardt wished to disappear, you could have arranged a more subtle method? Or was somebody supposed to hush it up?’

  ‘I don’t think I understand you,’ Osler said hesitantly.

  ‘Oh, come now, we can afford to be frank with one another. I know that it has become politic for our leaders to insure themselves against certain eventualities. Why, even our Heinrich keeps a few tame Jews under his personal protection as a bargaining factor should the worst happen. You follow me?’

  ‘I’m beginning to.’

  ‘Gerhardt is safely in England.’

  ‘He is?’

  ‘We keep a very close watch on the British Embassy in Stockholm, Doctor.’

  Osler said nothing, his eyes were on Kastner, searching for a sign that he was about to strike. If events followed a logical pattern, he would shortly be arrested and then it would only be a matter of time until he appeared before Judge Roland Freisler charged with treason. The news-reels had given Osler a very clear idea of the treatment he could expect to receive there. He recalled the pathetic figure of Field-Marshal Witzleben as, hollow-cheeked and gaunt-eyed, he had stood before the People’s Court, obliged to keep his hands in the pockets of his trousers because they had removed his braces, and Freisler had jeered at the Field-Marshal and asked who was this dirty old man who played with himself.

  ‘You know what I think?’ said Kastner. ‘I think that maybe our Party Secretary is up to something.’

  Osler stared at him. ‘What did you say?’ he whispered.

  ‘On the 10th of May, 1941, Rudolf Hess took off from Augsburg in a Messerschmitt 110 and flew to Scotland, apparently hoping to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the war. At the time, we knew he had undoubtedly been influenced by his old mentor, Doctor Karl Haushofer, head of the geopolitical institute in Munich. He had also been in touch with you. It now seems likely that Martin Bormann as Hess’s former secretary was also aware of his intentions. At least, that is my supposition.’

  44

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I think Bormann is using Gerhardt as a special emissary.’

  Kastner leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on Osler’s desk. ‘At any rate, Doctor,’ he said softly, ‘I’m inclined to believe that that may be the case and hence, I’m prepared to wait. You understand?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘I want to see what happens. If events go a certain way, I want you to remember that I did my best to protect you. In a sense, you are my investment in the future, but I should point out that I intend to cover myself against all risks. I shall have someone watching you all the time—so please, let’s have no more indiscretions.’ Kastner stood up. ‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you,’ he said smoothly, ‘please don’t bother to get up, I can see myself out.’

  ‘That man …’

  ‘Who? Lehr?’

  ‘Yes. What will happen to him?’

  ‘Don’t worry, your name won’t enter into it, Doctor. Lehr has been up to his ears in any number of rackets. We’ll keep him on ice in a concentration camp.’

  Long after Kastner had departed, Osler was still sitting at his desk. He found it almost impossible to believe that he was still at liberty and he wondered at the mentality of a man who, presented with an open and shut case, had chosen to ignore the evidence before him because of the tenuous association which Osler had with Martin Bormann. He was unaware that Kastner’s seemingly inexplicable behaviour had also been influenced by the BBC.

  Earlier that night, at Ashby’s request, the German language news broadcast had ended with a quotation from Goethe which translated read: Over all the mountain tops is peace.

  45

  6

  MIST SHROUDED THE Welsh hills and the fine rain had soaked through the rough serge battledress, and his boots were no longer waterproof because the long, wet grass had wiped off the protective dubbin. The damp woollen socks were chafing the skin and as a result there was now a painful blister on the heel of his right foot and Ashby was aware that, with each passing mile, his limp was becoming more pronounced. He had planned this cross-country march of thirty miles with the object of sorting out the weak from the strong but, with less than half the distance covered, he was already fast approaching the limit of his endurance. Sheer will-power alone kept him going. Behind him, strung out over the best part of a quarter of a mile, a line of men followed on in single file, their shoulders bowed under the weight of the equipment they carried.

  Way, way at the back, Gunther Albach, the forty-five-year-old lawyer from Berlin, was on the point of collapse. He had concealed the fact that he had been running a temperature before they’d started out on the march and now he had good cause to regret his quixotic behaviour. His body felt as if it were on fire and his legs were like ton weights which refused to move beneath him.

  He knew that his corpulent figure, balding head and myopic eyesight had ensured that he would always be the butt of every joke and he felt this keenly. Albach had spent the greater part of his life indoors behind a desk and when he’d been in practice, he had gained a reputation for never walking when he could ride in comfort. To add to his misery, the Lee Enfield kept slipping off his rounded shoulder and when it wasn’t doing that, his rolling gait caused the rifle butt to bang painfully against his hips. Sweat trickled into his eyes and made them smart and this, coupled with the raindrops on his glasses, made it impossible for him to see the pothole until it was too late; his left foot plunged into it and there was an agonising wrench on the calf muscles as he toppled forward and lay face down in the grass. When at last he found the strength to get up again, the others were no longer in sight.

  Cowper moved easily on legs that were strong and supple. In the disastrous retreat of June ’42 he’d walked two hundred miles 46

  through the desert to get back to his own lines after his half-track had gone up on a mine. Compared with that experience, a march through the Welsh hills on a wet day was a mere stroll.

  He was twenty-five, lean, dark, fit and supremely confident, and although he was some three inches shorter than Ashby, he was conceited enough to regard himself as the bigger man in every sense. Unlike the others, he walked with head erect. No one in the Special Operations Executive had seen fit to explain precisely why he, Quilter and Stack had been loaned out but he could hazard a guess. Apart from Gerhardt and Frick, and of course Quilter and Stack who made up the rest of the British element, there wasn’t a soldier among them. They had to be whipped into shape and it was clear to him that Ashby, who obviously had never heard a shot fired in anger, was not the man for this task.

 
Something drastic would also have to be done about the leadership if this rabble, which someone with a perverted sense of humour had called Force 272, was ever to see action. It suddenly occurred to Cowper that he could always report his misgivings on this score to SOE and, in that instant, he decided to put Ashby on the rack.

  At the age of forty-one, Gerhardt was still physically at the peak. Throughout his service he had made a point of keeping fit, and although he did not excel at any particular sport, he had followed, with almost religious fanaticism, a schedule of exercises which included a two-mile run before breakfast. It had not been possible to continue this routine while confined in Aylesbury Prison and at Abercorn House, but this lapse of a few weeks had made little difference to his condition. Other men might allow the physical effort of marching to so dull their minds that they thought only of when it would end, but not Gerhardt, his thoughts ranged far into the future.

  If the war ended in unconditional surrender, then in all probability there would be no standing army in postwar Germany and the outlook for the officer class would be very bleak, but the situation would be entirely different if he could bring the war to an honourable conclusion. Germany then would need some kind of a paramilitary force if only to safeguard internal security.

  Survival, Gerhardt thought, was everything because even if the Bormann plot failed it would matter little so long as he was still alive. When the time came to re-build Germany, he was quite certain that the Allies would look favourably upon anyone aspiring to political leadership who was a known anti-Nazi, especially if that someone had a conservative outlook. Whatever the outcome, there was a good chance that one day he might become the Foreign Minister or better still, the Minister of the Interior. Control of 47

  the police and intelligence agencies was a secure base from which to reach out for power. In becoming the Postmaster of Freiburg, Gerhardt’s father had fulfilled a lifelong ambition; his son, however, aspired to greater heights.

  Because he was lost in thought, it was some time before Gerhardt realised that they were circling in a westerly direction and were therefore starting on the return leg to camp.

  Quickening his stride, he caught up with Ashby. ‘I see we’re turning for home.’

  Ashby stopped and, slipping the rifle off his shoulder, sat down on a mound of earth. ‘We’ll take a breather,’ he said, ‘and give the others a chance to catch up with us.’

  Gerhardt took out a packet of Players and lit one. ‘It’s strange,’

  he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Me, dressed in British army uniform and tramping the Welsh hills.’

  ‘You’re not the only one who thinks it’s a strange business, General.’ There was an insolent smile on Cowper’s lips. ‘Or shouldn’t I call you that?’ he said softly.

  ‘I don’t think it’s very appropriate in the circumstances, do you?’

  ‘You have a point, one must be correct.’ Cowper turned his back on Gerhardt, ostensibly to watch the rest of the team as they closed up on them. ‘I see we’ve lost a Kraut,’ he said in a flat drawl, ‘that fat fellow—Apbach, is it?’

  ‘Albach,’ Ashby said coldly.

  ‘Oh yes, Albach. I’m very bad at remembering names, Colonel.’

  He faced Ashby and smiled brightly. ‘It’s one of my failings, you know.’

  ‘Lack of tact being another?’

  Cowper looked puzzled—as an act it was almost convincing.

  ‘Did I put my foot in it?’

  ‘Kraut?’

  ‘Oh, I see—well, my apologies, but it is just a nickname—you know—sauerkraut. Your people eat a lot of that stuff, don’t they, General?’

  Ashby glanced at his wristwatch. ‘It’s time we moved on,’ he said curtly.

  ‘What about Albach, don’t you think someone ought to go back and look for him? He could get lost in these hills.’

  ‘The idea is that we should march thirty miles in under eight hours.’

  ‘Oh quite, but haven’t we done more than half the distance already, Colonel?’

  ‘So what if we have?’

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  ‘Well, I was thinking that if Mr Quilter, Sergeant Stack and myself went back the way we came, we’d cover more than thirty miles, and if we picked up Albach en route it’ll save us organising a search party later.’

  ‘In case you’ve forgotten, Captain Cowper, I’ve said this is a forced march.’

  ‘Would it help if we got back to the camp at the same time as your party, Colonel?’

  Cowper’s tone of voice stopped just short of being insubordinate but Ashby was forced to concede that he had a point. If Albach didn’t make it back on his own, he would have to send out a search party eventually. His authority was being challenged obliquely and he needed to reassert it and make it clear to Cowper that he was in command, but on this issue he was not in a very strong position to do so. If he dismissed Cowper’s suggestion out of hand, he would be acting like the worst kind of martinet.

  ‘All right,’ said Ashby, ‘you go ahead and take Mr Quilter and Sergeant Stack with you.’

  Cowper nodded; the gesture seemed to indicate that, in accepting his advice, Ashby had acted wisely. ‘We’ll get cracking then,’ he said. Turning about, he set off at a fast lope with Quilter and Stack close on his heels.

  Gerhardt waited until they were out of earshot and then said,

  ‘He means to reach camp before we do.’

  ‘You may be right.’

  ‘If he does, you will have made a big mistake. You should have made him come with us.’

  ‘Did I ask your advice?’

  Gerhardt flushed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but in the circumstances I …’

  ‘Then please get the men on their feet,’ Ashby said mildly,

  ‘we’ve lost too much time as it is.’

  Ottaway took one look at the bleak rain-shrouded hills and said,

  ‘Jesus, what a dump. Are you sure this is is the right place?’

  The driver, a shrivelled-looking gunner in his early forties, said,

  ‘This is trousers all right.’ His voice contained an appropriate note of gloom.

  ‘I wanted Trawsfynydd.’

  ‘That’s what I said. The only thing you’ll see around here, mate, is sheep and Land Army girls and they’ve been here that bloody long, you can’t tell the difference between them and the sheep.

  Come to that, the ATS aren’t much better either.’

  Ottaway opened the door and stepped out of the Hillman pick-up into the driving rain. ‘Well, thanks for the lift anyway,’ he said.

  49

  ‘Don’t mention it, chum.’ The dead cigarette clinging to his lower lip moved up and down as he spoke. ‘I expect I’ll see you again some time.’

  The gears grated as he shifted into first and the car leapt forward like a startled fawn when his foot slipped off the clutch. The elderly gunner, so Ottaway thought, was about the worst driver he’d ever encountered, and that was saying something.

  The camp was just a collection of Nissen huts dotted about haphazardly on the only flat piece of ground in sight, and the spider’s web of cinder tracks which branched off from the main path in all directions added to the confusing maze. Ottaway checked his movement order again and then looked round for a unit signboard which would indicate precisely where in this God-forsaken hole he might find Force 272. His eyes lit on the camp post room and he moved hopefully towards it. He tried the door, found it opened and stepped inside the hut. A girl, her back towards him, was busily stoking the fire.

  He had often thought that the ATS uniform had been designed by a misogynist determined to make every woman look a frump but this was one girl who had defeated that aim. Even the thick khaki stockings and the heavy lace-up shoes could not disguise the fact that her legs were very shapely, and the skirt, instead of flaring out like a bell tent, had been tailored to fit hips and thighs snugly.

  ‘If that’s you, Maggie,’ she said abruptly, ‘the post hasn�
��t arrived yet.’

  Ottaway cleared his throat. ‘I guess I’m not Maggie.’

  The girl jumped and, still clutching the shovel in her hand, she turned and faced him. ‘I’m sorry, I thought it was someone else.

  Can I help you, sir?’

  The top of her head was about on a level with his eyes and Ottaway judged that, allowing for the low heels, she was still about five eight. The bone structure of her face was perhaps a little too angular but this slight imperfection only made her seem the more attractive. The elderly gunner could be right about the Land Girls and the rest of the ATS but he obviously hadn’t laid eyes on this girl.

  Ottaway said, ‘I’m trying to find Force 272.’

  She smiled warmly. ‘Would that be Colonel Ashby?’

  ‘Yes. You know him?’

  ‘Not very well. I’ve spoken to him once or twice, that’s all.’

  For some unaccountable reason, Ottaway was glad to hear that Ashby was only a casual acquaintance. ‘I wonder if you can tell me where I can find him?’

  The girl reached for a greatcoat which hung from a peg on the wall. ‘I think I’d better show you the way.’

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  ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘It’s no trouble, sir.’

  Ottaway made a wry face. ‘Can’t we cut out the sir business?

  What do I call you?’

  She smiled briefly as if amused. ‘My name is Corporal Bradley, sir.’ She walked past him and opened the door. ‘Perhaps you’d like to follow me?’

  ‘That I would,’ Ottaway said under his breath.

  Force 272 occupied two Nissen huts on the far side of the camp, one of which had been divided in two by a hardboard partition.

  One half served as an office, while the other was occupied by Sergeant Stack who slept apart from the Germans. A farmhouse, commandeered by the army in 1939, had been converted into a makeshift Officers’ Mess. The attractive Corporal Bradley pointed out the office and then left him to it.

  Ottaway tapped on the door and a languid voice said, ‘Come in,’ and then added, ‘you’ll have to give it a shove, it sticks in the wet.’

  The advice was well meant and Ottaway took it literally. He put a lot of force behind his shoulder and stumbled into the hut. A Captain, immaculately turned out in a gaberdine suit of battledress, was perched on the edge of a table, idly swinging one leg. He seemed amused by Ottaway’s undignified entrance.