SS-GB Read online

  ‘To the Yard?’

  Huth replaced the phone without replying.

  Douglas had a hasty shave without wakening Barbara. Even when it was time for him to go downstairs she was still asleep, the sign of an easy conscience.

  It was a big BMW motorcycle, with an airship-shaped sidecar, and an axle that connected the two rear wheels. With a machine like that, he could climb a mountain. It had SS registration plates and a London SS HQ recognition device. Douglas climbed into the sidecar and gave the rider a nod. Then he had to hang on tight to the machine-gun mounting, as they roared down Grosvenor Place with noise enough to wake half London.

  In the air there was the green, sooty fog typical of those that London suffered, but the rider did not slacken speed. A Gendarmerie foot patrol was marching through the Victoria railway station forecourt but they ignored the SS motorcycle. The fog was worse as they neared the river, and Douglas caught the ugly smell of it. After Vauxhall Bridge, the motorcyclist turned right, into a street of squat little houses and high brick walls, and advertisement hoardings, upon which appeals for volunteers to work in German factories, announcements about rationing and a freshly pasted German–Soviet Friendship Week poster shone rain-wet through the fog.

  Once on the south side of the river the motorcyclist parked in a hastily constructed official compound – no more than a section of the street surrounded by coils of barbed wire and sentries – outside an ugly little building marked ‘Brunswick House, Southern Railway’. The fog was much thicker on this open land that extended down to the warehouses and granary on the riverfront. From the Pool, they could hear the noises of ships preparing for the high tide that would come in half an hour.

  Outside the house, rigid as statues and oblivious of the swirling fog, were two SS sentries, complete with the white gloves and white belts of a ceremonial guard. The rider went with Douglas as far as the door of the house. To the corporal of the guard he said, ‘This is Superintendent Archer, for Standartenführer Huth.’

  An elderly SS officer examined Douglas’s pass and then spoke in excellent English. ‘You have to go to the far end of the marshalling yards. Better if you keep your transport. One of my people will go with you to make sure you get through.’

  Not many vehicles could have done the short journey: the wheels thumped against the train lines, and were hammered by half-buried wooden sleepers. Douglas had never been here before – Nine Elms, one of the largest freight yards in Europe. It was a desolate place, the ground strewn with debris that leapt out of the headlight beam; rusty train wheels, smashed crates, and, worst of all, the switch gear that lunged at them like spearmen as the rider twisted between the long lines of goods wagons that clanked and groaned all round them in the dark green fog.

  Ahead they saw floodlights and SS infantry wrapped in the huge ankle-length sheepskin coats that were usually reserved for more northerly climates. A railway checker’s hut had been converted into a guard post. At the barrier Douglas’s pass was again scrutinized before they phoned to announce his arrival. He was permitted to traverse the final 200 metres with armed escort. They went across the rails and ducked under the couplings of a goods train. Only then did Douglas see his destination. A line of rectangular yellow lights stretched away until swallowed by the fog. It was a train.

  They passed another passenger coach drawn up alongside, and heard the hum of air-conditioning and Franz Lehar. The music came from a wind-up gramophone in the compartments assigned to the sentries. From there came also the smell of fried onions.

  Now Douglas could see the train to which he was going. It was very long, with flat-cars where helmeted men at full readiness manned heavy machine-guns. ‘What train is this?’ Douglas asked the SS man.

  ‘Nearly there now. No smoking,’ said the man.

  They climbed up the steps into a coach, but this was no ordinary train. The fittings were exquisitely designed and finished in chrome steel and leather. Chairs and writing tables were made to fold away so that when the train was moving this coach could be changed into an observation car. Douglas sat down in one of the soft leather armchairs.

  He had waited two or three minutes when a door opened at the far end of the coach. Huth looked in. He saw Douglas and nodded before disappearing. But before the door was completely closed Douglas saw behind him a man in shirtsleeves. His head was turned away and the hair cut so short that the white of his scalp showed through it. Just as the door was closing the man turned to say something to Huth. Douglas found himself looking straight at the round face, stubble moustache and pincenez of the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler.

  It was another five minutes until Huth emerged from the conference. Douglas was astounded by his appearance. The tall Italianate prince with his fine uniform was now bowed by fatigue, his eyes dark-ringed and red with exhaustion. His uniform was rumpled and stained, and the leather overcoat, slung across his arm, was ripped and muddy like his boots.

  Huth was not alone. With him there was a man Douglas recognized as Professor Springer, in SS-Gruppenführer’s uniform, complete with the silver-faced overcoat lapels, that was reserved for the very top ranks of the SS. In Himmler’s entourage – a collection of street-fighters, ambitious bureaucrats, unscrupulous lawyers and ex-cops – Professor Maximilian Springer was the only true academic. And yet, like so many Germans, Springer effortlessly assumed the demeanour of a Prussian General. He was tall and thin, with a leathery face and ramrod back. Once out of the Reichsführer’s conference, Springer snatched the spectacles off his face and tucked them away in his pocket. It was not soldierlike to wear spectacles.

  ‘Who is this?’ said Springer.

  ‘My assistant,’ said Huth. ‘You can talk in front of him.’

  Springer unrolled the papers he was carrying. It was the same chart that Douglas had found in Huth’s briefcase. Here were the magical symbols of water and fire, and the magical sword that symbolized ‘the omnipotence of the adept’.

  ‘Have you ever heard of an atomic bomb?’ Springer asked Douglas.

  ‘Before the war…there were newspaper articles but no one took them seriously.’

  Springer nodded and turned away. Only by dressing up the complexities in a mumbo-jumbo of Black Magic was he able to get much of a response from the Reichsführer-SS. Even now very few people would believe his estimates of the damage an atomic explosion could cause, and even fewer could follow the reasoning that led him to that conclusion. Douglas stood back while Springer talked with Huth.

  Soon it was obvious that Huth’s knowledge was no more than a hasty reading of relevant theories, skilfully applied to the fact of everyday problems. But even this was beyond the vocabulary of Douglas’s excellent and fluent German, and the ideas were beyond his grasp of science. But now he understood the way in which the two men had got the support of Himmler’s personal astrologer. With the aid of the Black Magic chart they had persuaded the Reichsführer-SS that the atomic explosion was part of a pre-ordained destiny, a means by which Himmler and his Führer would lead the German people to world conquest. But Springer and Huth had no illusions about Black Magic. They were concerned with more practical aspects of their future. ‘Do we know how far the army have got with their programme?’ Springer asked Huth.

  ‘The pile must have been running,’ said Huth. ‘It probably got too hot, and the reaction got out of control. That’s the only way to explain the burns on Spode’s body.’

  ‘The army have kept their secrets well,’ said Springer. ‘They must have captured the British work more or less intact.’

  ‘I’m hoping that we’ll be able to discover whether Spode’s burns were from uranium or plutonium,’ said Huth.

  ‘Not plutonium,’ said Springer. ‘If they’ve got as far as that, we’ll never get control of the programme.’

  ‘This officer is working on the Spode murder,’ said Huth.

  Springer turned to look at Douglas, as if noticing him for the first time. ‘Do you know what radioactivity is?’

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sp; ‘No, sir,’ said Douglas rather than hazard a guess for this forbidding man.

  ‘It’s the emission of radiation from unstable atomic nuclei – alpha particles, nucleons, gamma rays, electrons and so on. For the human body it can be fatal; we call it radiation sickness,’ said Springer.

  ‘Would it burn the skin?’ Douglas asked. ‘Like sunburn?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Huth, anticipating the next question, ‘Dr Spode was dying of it.’

  ‘Is it infectious or contagious?’

  ‘No,’ said Huth.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Springer, looking sternly at Huth. ‘But, if unshielded, any radioactive substance can kill an unlimited number of people.’

  ‘Should we search the house in Shepherd Market?’ asked Douglas anxiously.

  ‘We’ve done that already,’ said Huth. ‘There is nothing there. I have a special unit, with detection apparatus, on standby day and night.’

  Springer nodded. ‘I must go back to the Reichsführer now,’ he said. He rolled up the diagram. ‘I’m thankful that he has realized that this could mean the end of us all.’

  Douglas wondered whether Springer was referring to the demise of the whole of mankind or only to the political career of his master and immediate circle. Springer gave a click of the heels and a jerk of the head before returning to the map room.

  ‘There’s a standing instruction,’ Huth told Douglas angrily. ‘All senior police officers provide a contact address, or phone number, day and night.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Douglas.

  ‘Day and night,’ said Huth again as if he was trying to provoke a quarrel. Then the anger went out of him. He slapped Douglas on the arm. ‘Let’s get out of here. I’m going to give you a lesson you’ll never forget.’ He opened the door of the coach and climbed down the steps. From somewhere on the far side of the yards a steam engine gave a grunt and a gasp, then there came a long trickle of metallic sounds, as a goods train settled its couplings and moved a few inches forward.

  When they reached the motorcycle, Huth pushed the rider aside. He threw a booted leg over the saddle, and stood tall to kick the engine into life. If he was aware of the dangers to a uniformed German riding the dark streets, he gave no sign of it.

  They began a hair-raising journey through the fog, as Huth craned forward over the handlebars like a witch riding a broomstick. He had pulled the silver cords of his peaked cap under his chin, and found goggles in the pocket of his leather overcoat. The dirt on his face corresponded to the shape of the goggles and his beaklike nose. He seemed oblivious of Douglas in the sidecar beside him. Within him there was an anger, a motive force that gave him the strength to continue long after his physical power had ebbed away.

  Douglas never did forget that journey at reckless speeds through the evil-smelling London fog that swayed in front of the headlight, sometimes blinding them with a wall of reflected green light, and sometimes moving aside to reveal long ghostly corridors that ended in miserable grey streets. And all the time there was the deafening roar of the engine. Exposed and unsilenced, the four cylinders bellowed and screamed at the narrow streets of south London, voicing Huth’s contempt and fury.

  Douglas feared for Huth’s sanity that night. Like a man deranged, he crouched over the handlebars, looking neither to right nor left but shouting at the world: ‘I’ll show you!’

  ‘Just wait!’ and ‘You’ll see what your friends are like!’ Although the wind snatched away his voice and mangled it, Douglas recognized the words, for Huth repeated them time and time again in a litany of wrath.

  The journey took them through the depressing urban sprawl south of the river, a wilderness silent and empty except for the tread and challenges of foot patrols. After Clapham they encountered more and more signs of battle damage unrepaired from the street fighting of the previous winter. Shell craters, and heaped rubble, were marked only by yellow tapes, soiled and drooping between roughly made stakes.

  Halfway up Wimbledon High Street – at the corner that makes such a perfect spot for an ambush – there was the blackened shell of a Panzer IV, a monument to some unknown youth who – with a Worthington beer bottle, filled from the service station at the top of the hill, and a box of Swan Vesta matches – passed into legend, and into songs that were sometimes crooned softly where no German ears listened.

  Wimbledon Common still bore the skull and cross-bones ‘Achtung Minen!’ signs that a company of Royal Engineers had made overnight and planted along the grassland, when, with no more than a dozen anti-tank mines remaining, they tried to prevent the spearhead of 2. Pz. Div. outflanking the defences that were being organized at the top of Putney Hill. The churned earth of the common showed how the bluff failed.

  They were at Motspur Park before Douglas realized that they must be headed to Cheam Village where he had once lived so happily. It was a small place, set amid parks, golf courses, sports fields and mental homes. For most people it is remembered as nothing more than the place they turn the corner, on their way to Sutton. Such transients knew Cheam only as the ugly modern houses that followed the main road, but behind that it was a pretty little place. The street where Douglas had lived then consisted of clapboard-covered frame-cottages, built long before the fire regulations prohibited such designs. That’s why they had suffered so badly from what the official diarist of 29. Infanterie Division (mot.) recorded as only Plänkelei, or skirmishing. In Sycamore Road, skirmishing infantry used flares and smoke grenades, and the resulting fires destroyed more houses than five previous Stuka attacks.

  The machine-gun mounting on the sidecar clouted Douglas on the side of the head, as Huth swung the heavy bike at full speed up on to the grass and through the remains of a neighbour’s house. Now Douglas saw it, the ruins of his home, ripped open to expose its charred interior. As he climbed out of the sidecar Douglas felt under his feet the crunch of ashes that even the months of rain had not washed away, the buried broken pieces of his life. And he smelled the unique and unmistakable odour of war; it is a curious mixture of organic smells, carbon, ancient brick dust, sewage-impregnated soil. This persists long after the stink of putrid tissue is gone. Douglas smelled this odour now and was grateful, for it alienated this place, so that his memories of it were subdued, as is a dream in fitful sleep.

  ‘Is it Jill?’

  Huth wiped his dirty face with the edge of his hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My wife. Is it something to do with my wife?’

  ‘No,’ said Huth. Douglas followed Huth’s gaze to where a German army lorry, an ambulance and a couple of cars were parked in what was once his neighbour’s garden. Now there was no sure way of knowing where one property ended and another began. From here, he could see the place where the next row of houses had been ploughed into the earth by counter-battery gunfire that destroyed two German 8.8cm guns. Their twisted barrels could still be seen.

  Here, on the edge of Surrey, the fog had cleared but low clouds raced across the moon, so that its hazy blur changed shape constantly and sometimes disappeared to darken the whole wasted landscape.

  Huth turned away to yell at a couple of engineers who were rigging an electricity cable. ‘Ladder! Give me a ladder, here! Right away!’ It was the peremptory voice of the parade-ground bully, and the SS soldiers responded to it with redoubled efforts. Two more men came running across the uneven ground, holding a reel by means of a metal spike. Behind them the cable paid out to where more men were struggling with the starting motor of a mobile generator.

  ‘Come with me,’ commanded Huth and without waiting for the ladder he began scrambling up the heaped rubbish. Douglas kept close behind him as they clambered over loose timbers, and scattered ash and plaster-dust into the air. Huth coughed, and then cursed as the belt-buckle of his unbuttoned overcoat caught in a tangle of rusty wire, and tore off. Huth kicked toe-holds in the plaster and teddy-bear wallpaper of what was once the bedroom of Douglas’s son, and heaved himself up to the almost intact balustrade of the upstairs landin
g.

  Huth was breathing heavily and made no attempt to help Douglas as he ascended behind him but he moved aside to make room on the precarious perch. As Huth put his weight against the wooden rail, Douglas heard the creak of breaking wood and grabbed Huth’s arm as a section of the flooring gave way. The two men hunched together, and heard the clatter of the broken timber falling upon the rubble below them.

  If Douglas was expecting thanks for saving the Standartenführer from a broken limb, or broken skull, his expectations were in vain. All he got was one of Huth’s cold humourless smiles that lasted only as long as it took him to get out his handkerchief and sneeze into it noisily.

  ‘Are you all right, Standartenführer?’ came a voice from the darkness below.

  ‘No more than a head cold,’ Huth called in reply, and blew his nose. Below them someone laughed softly. ‘Edge along to this side,’ said Huth.

  Douglas followed him as he disappeared through what had once been the upstairs linen cupboard. Its hot-water boiler, crushed almost beyond recognition, dangled into the room below. On this side of the house, the upstairs front, enough of the floor’s supporting beams survived to hold the weight of the huge brass bedstead that had been their wedding present from Jill’s parents.

  ‘Throw the cable!’ shouted Huth. Immediately a length of cord was tossed to him. With an easy expertise, he looped the cord and drew a hand-lamp up to where he could use it. ‘Give me light, damn you!’ he shouted when he found that he could not switch it on.

  ‘Immediately, Standartenführer, immediately!’ called some anonymous voice desperately seeking the extra few moments that a placatory reply provided.

  By now Douglas’s eyes had become accustomed to the shadowy remains of the bedroom. He saw the bed, its brass disfigured, the frame warped beyond repair and the springs a tangle of rusty wire. And yet, thought Douglas, some looter must have coveted it, for the great bed had been tilted on its end, and propped up where once the window of their bedroom looked out over the tiny front gardens of Sycamore Road. The fast-moving scud thinned enough to provide an extra glimmer of moonlight. And now Douglas saw something else. Someone was here with them. Uncaring of their voices the figure remained spreadeagled across the bed, in a pose that seemed to defy equilibrium.