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Chapter Twenty

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« on: May 12, 2023, 11:30:13 am »

GOEBBELS’ eight friends arrived at the concentration camp; a group of pampered, arrogant men who hid their uneasiness behind a screen of defiance. The Camp Commandant looked them over and decided he did not like them, after which they ceased at once to be pampered, their arrogance vanished, and even their defiance wore thin.

In one part of the camp there was a row of cells with a warders’ room at the end which was sometimes used for interviewing prisoners. It was a bare, ugly room with a wide window in front looking on to the parade ground; at the back of the room was a row of horizontal ventilating windows well above eye-level, set wide open on this sunny May morning. Outside the back wall of this room, below the ventilators, a wide garden bed ran the whole length of the row of cells, and here one of the prisoners, with a line, a dibber, and a can of water, was setting out young cabbages.

He heard talking inside the room but took no interest at first in what was said. Nothing that anybody said could ever make him less of a Jew, and as that was the only offence he had committed there was no atonement possible. He had a large share of the fatalism of his race; he knew perfectly well that compared with most of his fellows he was extremely lucky so long as the same Camp Commandant remained, and he had sunk into an uneasy apathy with his lot, broken only by occasional frenzied attacks of craving for freedom, freedom, and the air again. So he worked on placidly, sometimes murmuring to the cabbages about their roots, till his attention was attracted by a voice raised higher than before.

“Of course they were planted, Herr Goebbels! The police brought them in.”

Goebbels. Talking to his prisoner friends, no doubt. The gardener moved even more quietly than before and listened.

“Not the police,” said Goebbels’ incisive voice. “That swine Lehmann.”

There followed a confused murmur, presumably of assent, and presently Goebbels went on:

“I have been looking up his past. He joined the Party at Munich in the early days, he was a curator in the Deutches Museum then. Before that again, in ’18, he worked in the Naval Establishment at Hamburg. It is known that he came there from a hospital at Ostende, so presumably he had been wounded, but what branch he served in or where he came from, I can’t find out. The hospital staff scattered and the books were lost or destroyed when we retreated at the end of the war, and he never talks about himself.”

“Sounds like a thoroughly worthy citizen,” said somebody, with a sneer.

“It does seem as though there’s nothing in his past to bring up against him---unlike most of us,” said Goebbels, with a sardonic laugh. “Besides, if there were it wouldn’t do any good, the Leader trusts him.”

“So you’ve just got to sit down under it,” said a deep voice, “while we rot in here.”

“I can’t attempt to get you out while he’s in office,” said Goebbels, “but I’m certainly not going to sit down under it, Tietz. I’m going to do something very definite quite soon; in July, to be exact. If I don’t, he’ll frame me next, and then where will you be?”

“Showing you round the camp, I expect,” someone said, and laughed.

“There is a very important commission going to Danzig in July,” said the voice of Goebbels, “they are going to---er---arrange and expedite future events. They are arriving unostentatiously, so they can’t have the usual conspicuous guards, but as they are very important I think I can persuade the Führer to send the Chief of Police with them in person. While he is there he will be assassinated by the ill-mannered Danzigers.”

“How will you persuade them that he’s the right man to assassinate?”

“I shan’t attempt it, of course, I shall send two men to do it, and the Danzigers can take the blame. The anti-Nazi Danzigers, that is. I’ll send Schultz for one, he’s done one or two little jobs for me before, and I’ll find someone to go with him.”

“Thought Schultz was at Aachen,” said another voice. “Wasn’t he roped in with the rest?”

“No, he wasn’t at home that night when they called for him and the rumour got round. He hopped on a motor-cycle and left for Berlin, he’s there now.”

“Why wait till Lehmann goes to Danzig?” asked the deep voice. “Why not do it now and let us get out of this filthy hole?”

“Do you want a heresy-hunt started in Berlin, with everyone looking round to see whom Lehmann has annoyed recently? Don’t be a fool----”

Two guards turned the corner and came strolling down the path towards the cabbage-planter, who suddenly awoke to the fact that he had not done a stroke of work for ten minutes, so he hastily went on planting. The guards passed him without comment, but stopped a little farther on to discuss some matter of dog-breeding, he had to appear industrious in their presence. In a few minutes the voices in the room ceased and he heard a car drive off, the interview was over. He ought to have been grateful to Goebbels, who had given him that priceless boon in a prisoner’s life, something fresh to think about, instead of which he spent many hopeful hours invoking new and ingenious curses on the sleek black head of the Minister of Propaganda.

It was nearly a week later that the camp had another distinguished visitor, the Herr Polizei Oberhaupt. He drove his own car, an Opel saloon, and went a little out of his way to drop the Fräulein Ludmilla Rademeyer at the small house where her friend, the Frau Beckensburg, was living in terrified obscurity.

“I am very unhappy about Christine, dear. She has aged so you would hardly know her, in fact she seems to be breaking up. I am really afraid if you can’t do something soon she won’t live much longer.”

“Tell her to be brave and hold on,” said Tommy. “I hope it won’t be much longer now. I am going to the camp this afternoon mainly to see the Beckensburgs and have a look round the place, I hope that may give me an idea. It’s not easy, even for the Chief of Police, to get two Jews out of a concentration camp.”

“I know, dear, I know. I feel a tiresome old woman to keep on worrying you about her, but we have been friends for nearly sixty years. After all, you must have much more important things to deal with----”

“Don’t talk like that,” said Hambledon almost roughly. “I haven’t forgotten a winter’s day at Dusseldorf when we were cold and starving. Someone gave us firing and food---do you remember the real butter? When I forget that----”

“Klaus dear,” said the old lady, “I wish it wasn’t so public, I should like to kiss you.”

“Better not, I should probably run us into a lamp-post. Here you are, give her my love and tell her to hold on a little longer. Shall I call for you on my way back?”

“No, don’t bother, I’ll take a taxi. Had I better take the rug with me?”

“No, why? It’ll be all right in the car---I’ll throw it in the back.”

“Well, don’t lose it, Klaus. I shall see you this evening, then.”

The guards at the gate of the camp stood to attention as the Chief of Police drove his car past them and up the drive. He pulled up outside the Commandant’s office and went in without delay; he had various matters to attend to besides the welfare of the Beckensburgs, with whom he wanted a short interview. He also wanted a much clearer idea than he had previously had about the way the camp was run, it would be quite impossible to make even the simplest plan for getting the Beckensburgs out until he knew exactly what he had to cope with. Induce the Commandant to talk, that’s the idea. Quite a decent fellow, by all accounts, considering his job . . .

Hambledon was so deep in thought that he saw without noticing a prisoner who was wandering about the drive with a sack over his shoulder, armed with a stick which had a long steel spike at the end, his job was to collect any stray bits of paper which might be blowing about. The prisoner recognized the Chief of Police, and his face lit up, but he made no move to attract Hambledon’s attention and merely went on with his work while the Chief of Police disappeared within doors.

The sun shone and the wind blew. Two warders came up with two prisoners, father and son, the Beckensburgs, summoned to an interview with the Herr Polizei Oberhaupt. The guards at the gate left off looking up the drive and turned their attention elsewhere, in the distance a line of men were digging, watched by armed warders. Their bodies moved rhythmically, their spades flashed in the sun; a peaceful scene if one did not know what was hidden behind it. The man with the spike worked gradually nearer to the car.

Presently a raucous bell clanged from a turret on the top of the office; the diggers straightened their backs, shouldered their spades, and marched off out of sight. All over the camp unhappy men ceased work and gathered in long sheds with trestle tables down the middle, for it was the hour of what passes for supper in a concentration camp.

The scavenger ceased work with the rest, cleared a few fragments of paper from his steel spike into the sack, and walked towards the car, he had to go that way, there was nothing suspicious about that. When he was close to the Opel he cast an anxious glance at the guards by the gate, but Providence prompted an enthusiastic young Air Force officer, passing overhead, to loop the loop at that moment, and the men were watching him. The prisoner dodged round the car, opened one of the rear doors, and shot in, taking his sack and his unpleasant-looking weapon with him. He threw himself on the floor and, by putting one foot against the door-post, managed to shut the door properly without slamming it. After that, he covered himself, the sack and his tool completely with Frau Rademeyer’s rug, made himself as small and flat as possible, and waited with a beating heart for the car’s owner to return.

Unendurable ages dragged past before he heard footsteps and voices, the Chief of Police being seen off by the Camp Commandant in person. They stood on the doorstep while the Commandant talked about his pet system of checking prisoners several times a day. “There is one call-over almost due now,” he said, “at the end of supper; would it amuse you to see it? It is rather----”

“If he does,” thought the prisoner, “if he does I shall be missed, they will hunt, I shall be found here, God of mercy, make him say no. Make him say no----”

“---staggered times for guard-changing,” continued the Commandant, “so that there is no moment of the day or night when all the guards at once are distracted from their duty.”

“Admirable,” said the Chief of Police, “quite admirable. The organization and management of this camp should be a model for every such camp in Germany. But no, my dear fellow, I mustn’t stay any longer, taking up more of your valuable time. Besides, I also have one or two unimportant matters to see to this evening----”

“I have detained you too long----”

“On the contrary----”

“I bore everybody with my systems----”

“Everything I have seen has been of absorbing interest.”

“But where is your driver?” asked the Commandant, laying his hand on the handle of the rear door.

“I drive myself,” said the Chief of Police, “whenever possible. It fidgets me to sit in state in the back of a car with someone else driving.”

“All really good drivers feel that. Will you not have the rug over your knees? These May evenings turn chilly.”

“No, thank you, your excellent Niersteiner---besides, it would be in the way.” Hambledon started the engine. “Auf wiedersehen, Herr Commandant, and thank you.” He moved the gear lever.

“A pleasure,” said the Commandant, standing at the salute, and at that moment the bell rang again. “That is for the call-over, will you not---no. Auf wiedersehen, Herr Polizei Oberhaupt.

“Oh, God,” whispered the prisoner under the rug. “Oh, God, all this politeness; oh, God----”

Hambledon let in the clutch, turned the car and went slowly down the drive. He had to stop at the gate to let some traffic go by, and one of the guards came up to the car to say something civil to the distinguished visitor. The prisoner broke into a perspiration so violent that he could feel it running off his face, till at last the car moved off, turned into the road, changed into second---third---top. Hambledon leaned back in his seat and said, “Thank God that’s over. Foul place,” aloud, but the prisoner did not hear him, for he had fainted.

He came back to consciousness with a violent start from a dreadful dream that he had been buried alive in a coffin too short for him, flung back the rug and sat up. The next instant he remembered where he was and sank back again at once. There was, however, no need now to stifle under the rug, at least not for the present, and he drew long breaths of the cool night air. Street lights appeared and the traffic increased, they were approaching Berlin. “I ought to have stopped him in the country,” thought the prisoner, “where we’d have been alone, it’s too late now, too many people about. If he opens the door himself it’ll be all right, but if a servant opens it----”

They passed swiftly through the streets, for the car of the Chief of Police was given precedence, occasionally the prisoner risked a glance out of the window and recognized buildings he knew. They went through the Government quarter without stopping. “Good,” said the prisoner, “he’s going straight home.” He lay down again on the floor and arranged the rug carefully over himself.

At last the car slowed down in a quiet street and came to a stop before the entrance to a block of flats. The driver switched off the engine, opened the door, kneeled upon the seat where he had been sitting, and snatched the rug off the prisoner with the words: “Hands up! I’ve got you covered!”

The prisoner obeyed at once, for he could see an ugly but familiar object in Hambledon’s hand.

“Now! Who are you, and what the devil are you doing in my car?”

“Squadron-Leader Lazarus, sir, and I’ve escaped from the camp.”

“Lazarus,” said Hambledon thoughtfully. “Lazarus. I’ve heard----”

“Sir, I must speak to you privately, I’ve something desperately important to tell you. Do let me speak to you and then let me go, I’ll take my chance, I don’t want to be a bother to you.”

“Squadron-Leader Lazarus,” repeated Hambledon, in the voice of a man trying to remember something. “Yes, better come up to my flat.” He opened the rear door of the car for the man to get out and walked up the stairs a little behind him, still unostentatiously keeping him covered with the automatic. “Ring the bell, will you?” said Hambledon, because it is not easy to hold a latch-key and a pistol in the same hand at once, or to watch a prisoner and look at what you’re doing at the same time. When Franz came to the door, however, Hambledon slipped the automatic in his pocket, though he still kept his hand upon it.

“Franz, show this gentleman into the study, and bring in some---what’ll you drink? Whisky and soda?”

“Don’t believe I’ve tasted it since ’18, I’d love some,” said Lazarus with a smile.

Hambledon’s face cleared, the reference to ’18 supplied the clue for which he had been searching. “Of course,” he said, “of course, I remember now. You were at Darmstadt the day the Allied Commission came to destroy your machines, Goering was there, you had a little trouble with him if I remember correctly.”

“Were you also a pilot?” said Lazarus, staring at him. “I am so sorry---I ought to remember you, no doubt----”

“No, no, I was---I merely happened to be there. I was not in the Air Force and had not the honour of being presented to you.”

The Squadron-Leader smiled bitterly. “I think that was the last day upon which it was an honour to be presented to me,” he said. “Now I am only a Jew, and who says Jew says muck.”

“Is that the only reason why you were sent to that camp? Have a drink.”

The man nodded. “You can see it in the records. Not too much, please, I’m not used to it now, and I have something to tell you.”

“Sit down and drink that first,” said Hambledon. “You look all in. Had a rotten time, of course.”

“Not too bad,” said Lazarus. “I was lucky. The Commandant was one of my Flight-Lieutenants, and he did make things as easy for me as he could. Never got anything really foul to do, gardening most of the time, gave me cigarettes sometimes, and the guards looked the other way if they caught me smoking behind the tool-shed---talk about catching me, how did you know I was in the car?”

“Saw you reflected in the driving-mirror when you sat up,” explained Tommy. “Knew you must have stowed away at the camp. Quite safe, nobody slays the driver of a fast car when it’s moving. That’s why I drove so fast,” he added with a disarming smile. “I was wondering whether you’d brought your spike with you, you were the man in the drive, weren’t you?”

Lazarus nodded. “It’s in the car, I had to bring it. And the sack, of course. Now, what I had to tell you was this. You know, of course, that eight of Goebbels’ men are in the camp?”

Tommy smiled. “I should know, I sent them there.”

“Yes? Well, Goebbels came down to see them the other day, he talked to them in a warders’ room there for privacy, but I was planting cabbages at the back and I heard a good deal of what was said.” He repeated the conversation as accurately as he could, and Hambledon listened intently.

“Schultz,” he said, when Lazarus had finished. “Schultz. It’s rather a coincidence that he should be looking for me, because I am looking for him. I have a little bill to pay Herr Schultz. It is also borne in upon me, Squadron-Leader Lazarus, that I am also deeply indebted to you. Even if I’d seen Schultz, it might not have occurred to me that he was after my blood. Wonder how he’ll set about it? Apparently I’m safe till we all arrive in Danzig---first I’ve heard of that, too. Thank you. I must do something about you first.”

“If I could get out of the country,” said Lazarus eagerly, “into Switzerland, say, but it doesn’t matter where, I’d be all right. I think I’d go to America and get a pilot’s job, fancy flying again----”

“Of course,” said Hambledon slowly. “You can still fly, can’t you? One doesn’t get hopelessly out of practice, does one? I know nothing about it.”

“No, at least, not for a long time, especially if you’ve done a lot, and I was a regular commercial pilot till they pounced on me two years ago. I’ve kept fit, too, I told you I was lucky, they never knocked me about, in the camp I mean.”

“Do you think you could fly a plane to Switzerland?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lazarus promptly. “I was on the Swiss route the last nine months I was flying.”

“Good. You’ll have to hide up while I make arrangements, you may have to fly two old ladies across the frontier---this way up, handle gently, fragile, do not bump, eggs with care, you understand?”

“They shall not know they’ve touched the ground,” said Lazarus with shining eyes, “till the bus stops.”

“In the meantime,” said Hambledon, “it’s the loft under the roof for you, I’m afraid, but we’ll make you as comfortable as we can. There’s a wireless set up there already, but we’ll add a few more amenities. Come along and meet a friend of mine who’ll look after you; his name is Reck.”

“So Goebbels is looking into my past and finding it inconveniently blameless,” said Hambledon to Reck, when Lazarus had been fed, stowed away, and provided with a few comforts. “I wonder how long it will be before it occurs to him to look up my fingerprints?”

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