The Versailles Legacy
(Work in Progress)
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Chapter 1
September 1945
The drive from the military prison took a good part of an hour. His two guards sat in stiff silence the whole time. He was glad of it. He was weary of watching his words, watching for double meanings, wondering what they would finally do with him. Shake his hand and send him home? Put him against the wall?
Deliberately he shut his mind to it. This was not under his control.
He tried to see out the small rear window of the prison van. A red double-decker bus filled the frame, until it fell back at a bus stop. Then a line of black taxi-cabs dodged for position. Nothing out there seemed different. Goebbels’ propaganda machine boasted that London was virtually obliterated by the Blitz in the first year of the war, but now, straining to look out, Erich could see only bits of damage. Among the intact buildings, the space of one destroyed building opened like a missing tooth. Then a small field of neatly piled rubble between rows of shops. A little farther on, a crane swung a twisted steel beam out of a giant pit in the ground. After that, just the half-remembered stones of old London.
Nothing to compare with the miles and miles of pulverised wastelands of Berlin and Dresden and Hamburg and …
Don’t think. Hold on.
He’d had a bath and a shave this morning. That was a bonus. Wash water was not always available to prisoners-of-war. Rough treatment, that was the thing. Rough, harsh and fair. No visitors, no mail, no escape, no suicide. Keep the monsters isolated. The higher the rank the greater the guilt. Let them suffer, make them crawl. It had been a vicious, disgusting war. An indefensible war. In the POW camps they’d lined him up with the others and forced upon him the appalling photographs and motion picture films taken of the Jew-camps, hard evidence that the Nazi regime had tried to obliterate entire populations of people. Death camps, the Americans called them. Hundreds of death camps. Hundreds of thousands of dead Jews
Why hadn’t he known? How had they kept such secrets? Everyone knew the Jews had been shipped somewhere east for resettlement, but nobody knew where, and nobody really cared. No-one had associated ‘resettlement’ with ‘annihilation’. In casual conversation someone had once called it a ‘final solution’. It meant nothing at the time.
But he had known. Nobody ever talked about it, but they had all known. In the mess they’d even had a stupid joke about it, “I know just enough to…”
Don’t think, don’t think.
The van braked and came to a stop against the curb.
“Here we are,” said one of the guards.
As they bundled him out the rear door of the van he recognised the War Office on their left and the Admiralty across the street. They were in Whitehall. The mythical Whitehall. He caught a glimpse of Trafalgar Square up the way, Lord Nelson at the top of his column. A few civilians passing on the pavement turned to stare with mild, incurious eyes. He felt naked before them in this grimy Wehrmacht uniform and battered boots, constantly worn over six long months. In a defiant gesture he slapped his service cap on his head, see this, you Limeys. He tugged to straighten his tunic and folded his greatcoat over his arm to conceal the red lapels.
“Come along then,” said the guard.
He forced his mind blank as they marched him through the hallways of the War Office. Busy servicemen and civilians scarcely looked up to mark the passing of an enemy officer. Up three flights of stairs, out of condition and short of breath at the top, then through a set of doors marked ‘MI-6 Admin’. The doors swung closed behind them.
And almost silence.
MI-6, the branch of Military Intelligence that controlled field operatives. The unconscionable cause of many of his troubles, and probably the end of his road.
An army corporal signed the guard’s clipboard. “General von Schellendorf?”
Erich nodded.
“This way sir.”
Was it habit, mockery, or courtesy, the ‘sir’?
He followed the corporal into a room without windows. Metal bookcases and banks of filing cabinets ranged along two walls. In the middle of the room several folding chairs were staggered around a large work table covered with files. The corporal tapped at a door and stepped into the office beyond. Erich heard a murmur of men’s voices, then a sharp, “Oh fine!” and a British army colonel appeared in the doorway. “General? Come in, please. We’ll have to sort you out.”
They measured each other across a large desk stacked with more papers. The brass plaque on the desk revealed, ‘Col Churchill Officer Commanding’. The colonel was tall and spare, with wavy grey hair and an open face. Rosenberg would have called him the perfect Aryan type. He wore his army uniform in the English manner, casually rumpled, not quite spit-and-polish. The public-school, old-boy tradition. One must never appear studied. His cool, blue eyes ran up and down Erich’s uniform, registered a flush of distaste, and quickly recovered. He waved to a chair close to the desk. “Sit down, sir, will you please.”
Erich hitched the chair back from the desk and sank down on it. The colonel paused briefly, then sat down too, and folded his hands on the desk. The corporal had marched off somewhere.
“Lazarus,” said the colonel. It was not a question.
Erich nodded in relief. “Hasselbad.” To finish the code.
“Sorry for all the knocking about. Had to be certain whom we were dealing with. Didn’t help that you’d lost your papers.” Again his eyes ranged over Erich’s grimy tunic. “We’ll find some proper clothes in Stores for you. This Wehrmacht uniform has seen rather enough mileage.” He flashed a smile. “In every respect.”
His affability put Erich more on guard.
“I’m Harry Churchill,” said the colonel. “No relation to our former P.M.” A wave of his hand took in the cluttered desktop. “These papers are bumph the Section collected about you through the years. Not to worry, I don’t need any further details at the moment. P/Admin will process you later today, but in the meantime I’ve got the job of classifying your status for MI-6, Rank level, etcetera. I aimed for light colonel, but it’s Acting Major in accordance with King’s Regs, given seventeen years time served.”
At least they still believed it. It gave him the slightest edge.
“We weren’t sure,” the colonel said, “how to handle you coming in. Whilst you were on our roster we’ve held many a conference about you.”
“Truly.”
“Well it’s plain you provided some valuable service to the Crown. Back in ’twenty-nine you pinned down the Krupp connection to rearmaments, and the flight training squadrons in Russia. But it’s been up-and-down with you, hasn’t it. You warned us about Czechoslovakia, all well and good, but you knew at the time there wasn’t a bloody thing we could do to…”
“If you’d stood firm on your treaty with Benes we could have stopped Hitler at that point.”
“Aaaah.” He pushed back in his chair, bracing his hands on the desk. “Ah yes. Well.” He studied Erich another moment and then relaxed again. “The last few months you were in Berlin you rendered us an amazingly cogent service.”
“Yet you made no use of it.”
“How so?”
“You halted your ground advance and let the Russians roll over us. We wanted you to meet them east of the Polish frontier. You didn’t, and now they occupy half the country.”
“We won the war, that’s all that counts.”
“It depends on where you stand, I suppose.”
“And where exactly do you stand, General?”
“I stand alive, Colonel.” With effort he suppressed his hostility and kept a faint smile on a blank face. “And I thank God not a Russian POW, out of sight, out of mind.”
A tap at the door. The corporal put his head around the corner. “Tea sir?”
“Damn it Higgins!”
“Sorry sir, you said …”
“No, bring it in.”
They watched as the corporal set the tray on the desk between them and poured tea from a brown crockery teapot into two crockery cups, and with nervous fingers repositioned a tiny jug of milk and a bowl of exactly four sugar cubes.
“Thanks Higgins.”
“Sorry sir.” He ducked out of the office, gently clicking the door shut. Erich smiled within himself. The orderly had broken the cardinal rule of never crashing in at the wrong moment of an enemy interrogation.
The colonel sighed. “Do help yourself to, ah…” He poured a splash of milk into his tea and nudged the other cup closer to Erich.
Erich waited. He did not touch the tea.
“By special Order-in-Council,” the colonel said, “and with the approval of my namesake, the former Prime Minister, we have the necessary authority to continue your service with MI-6. You may well prove useful to us in future, but the problem at the moment is that we have nothing for you actively to do.”
“Special order-in-council?”
“However, the situation threatens to change.”
“In what way?”
“Not at liberty, ‘Eyes Only’, that sort of thing. For the moment I’ll establish a suitable function for you from which we can reactivate your service when we need you.”
“Do I have anything to say about it?”
“Well of course it’s entirely voluntary.”
“Of course.” Voluntary? Twenty years of blackmail?
The colonel took a sip of tea, considering Erich over the edge of his cup. “Questions?”
He shook his head.
“Yes, well. I want you to understand that first and foremost we do not abandon our people. But if you so desire we can terminate your service, detain you as a regular prisoner-of-war, and see how the chips fall. On the other hand, our American cousins have given us an answer for your unique case, sir, but it’s entirely up to you.”
“Which is?”
“In America they’ve put a group of Nazi generals to work writing up their military memoirs of the Third Reich. Under the command of Colonel-General Franz Halder, your former Chief of Staff.”
He couldn’t suppress the smile. “So he survived.”
“Friend of yours?”
“The Gestapo arrested him after the July bomb last year. We heard nothing after that.”
“Well our thought was to have you write your own history for us. That would keep you on without breaking your cover, whilst holding you as a POW, on parole as it were, until the dust settles. But … you know … free to come and go. An added inducement, shall we say.”
He could not think of this. His weariness from the past year had just caught up with him. It was over, and he was done. He tasted the tea. Without milk or sugar it was bitter and dry and acid on the tongue. “Colonel …” he ventured, and paused.
“Yes, General.”
“Among all these papers…” He paused to find a way to say it. “I’d be willing to continue on with MI-6 on one condition.”
“Ah yes?” The colonel smiled and leaned back in his chair, teacup between his hands.
“That you remove all references to my wife from those records. My ex-wife. So that she is no longer a factor in the equation. In any case, as she is no longer a factor in my life.”
“Your wife?” His eyes were genuinely puzzled. He set down the cup and scribbled a note on a pad. He cast a puzzled glance over the papers on the desk. “No trouble,” he said doubtfully. “The divorce, you mean?”
“No. The other. You know what I mean.”
“But … Blow me, I’ve read every word of this, and the only record we have about your wife is her maiden name, her family background, and the divorce.” He shot a wry, puzzled smile across the desk.
His brain swam. No mention of the shooting, no mention of …?
“Lovely woman,” the colonel’s voice penetrated through the wall of weariness. “I spoke with her in Heidelberg last month. No news of the missing husband. She’s bearing up quite well with the American Occupation. She sent this over for you.” He opened a drawer and lifted out a box and came around and held it out to Erich, then lounged one hip on the edge of the desk. His brown army oxfords had a mirror polish. “She sent your camera bag as well. It’s somewhere here about the Section.”
The box was the size of a library bible, polished wood, brass hinges, brass latch. Cautiously, as if it might explode, he set it on his knee and raised the lid.
On a bed of black velvet, in correct order, lay his service badges and ribbons and Imperial combat medals. And his wedding ring. The Nazi decorations were not there to bear witness against him.
His mind was numb. He shut the box and placed it gently on the desk. He surrendered his mind and he breathed. And breathed.
No record of the shooting?
Was this a trick?
He could not think through the weariness. He breathed in mute struggle not to speak the wrong word, not to weaken, not to give in…
“We’re in no rush,” said the colonel. “Decide at your leisure. Either way, seventeen years of hazardous-duty pay is accumulated in your accounts record.”
“What?”
“Whether or not you continue with us. Perhaps not enough to retire on in your customary style, but quite a tidy spot of cash.”
Spot of cash? Seventeen years of hazardous-duty pay in British pounds sterling?
No, it must be a trick.
He would play this fellow’s game until he could get safely back to his own proper place. Until he had at least a place to go. He heard his own voice say, “Yes, I’ll go along with that.”
“Fine.” The colonel shifted off the desk. “Before anything else we must get you out of that damned uniform. Afterwards we’ll come back here and get you signed in.”
Erich roused and pulled himself up from the chair.
They rode in the colonel’s staff car across central London to a modest building beside a small city park. On the way he tried to orient himself, but beyond sight of Trafalgar Square he was lost. Riding on the left side of the street alarmed him, and it gave him no familiar memory. “I haven’t been back in England since the first war,” he said. “We still took hansom cabs back then.”
“Dreadfully long time.”
“A lifetime.”
“Yes, I can imagine.”
That was their whole conversation.
Inside the building the colonel checked in at the front guard-station with barely a pause for his signature, and they walked along a narrow, hushed corridor. The colonel opened a dim elevator and worked the mechanism himself and they trundled two floors down to the cellar level where there were no lights at all. In the corridor he flicked a switch which brought life to a few small bulbs strung along a concrete ceiling.
“Stores,” said the colonel cryptically. “This underground served as an air raid shelter during the Blitz for certain junior members of government. Three feet of reinforced concrete over our heads here.” He led the way onward past several closed doors. Dampness and dust gave off a smell of emptiness. The colonel stopped to shake out a key-ring and unlocked a door and pushed it open to a dark room. “This is where we outfitted our field agents before we dropped them into enemy territory.” He turned on the lights to a large warehouse filled from floor to roof with rack after rack of clothing. “Take your pick. Most of this will be turned over to charities in the near future. It’s all surplus to requirement now. You can put together a whole wardrobe. Whatever you like, whatever fits. I believe the gentlemen’s civvy suits are over this way.”
They wandered the racks picking up one thing and another, underwear, socks, shirts, a grey pullover, a cardigan, all previously worn and well-washed for the authenticity of a spy in enemy country. Among the ties he found one with his Heidelberg colours, which he grasped as at a life preserver. “Go on, go on,” urged the colonel, picking up several more at random. “Take at least two suits and extra trousers and socks. You’ll find the shortages brutal on civvy street. One of the chaps will pack it all up for you and deliver it over.”
In the end he changed from his uniform into fresh underwear and white shirt and a neat grey suit with a Bosch label, vintage 1937. Pair of black Dutch-made Oxford-style shoes, rumpled grey raincoat, fedora hat, leather gloves. The colonel picked up a club bag to pack up the extra clothes. “The Man in Grey,” he quipped, viewing the pile. Then, to explain, “It’s a film currently showing at the cinema, James Mason, ‘The Man in Grey’.”
Everything Erich had chosen was grey. He’d lived his life in field-grey.
“Just leave the uniform here,” the colonel said. “One of the chaps will chuck it out for you.”
“No! I …” How did he justify keeping the uniform? “I’ll bundle it up, my tatters of history. The boots may be useful if ever I should ride a horse again.” He laid the boots together and shook out the grimy breeches with their General Staff red stripes and wound them around the boots, and he shook out the battered tunic and wound it around the breeches around the boots, then wrapped the roll in his dusty greatcoat, and laid his service cap as a crown on top.
“Ready,” he said.
Then he walked out of Supply, disguised as a civilian, carrying his life under his arm.
*