Alphabet House (11 page)

‘During the late summer we estimated our total earnings at over a million marks. It was a fantastic business until a
kapo
– one of those pathetic concentration camp prisoners-turned-guard – inadvertently knocked down an official from Berlin during inspection, smashing his glasses. The
kapo
instantly fell to his knees and begged for his life, as though it were something they could be bothered to deprive him of. He wept and begged and clutched the official, who desperately tried to wrench himself free with the result that the man simply held him tighter. Finally the
kapo
screamed that he could tell him all about the running of the camp, if only his life were spared.

‘Naturally, what he knew was very limited, but before we could pull him away and take care of him, he managed to shout out that the food rations had been fiddled with. And by then it was too late.

‘As a result of the audit everything we’d put to the side was discovered and confiscated. For over a month we sat in the jail in Lublin, waiting for our death sentences to be carried out. Apart from the course the war was taking, we don’t know what it was that altered our sentences, but someone had changed his mind and we landed on the Eastern Front.’

James gradually sorted out all this information in his mind, bit by bit. Small fragments of information here, a tale there, and endless bragging made up the story of the malingerers next to him.

Dieter Schmidt, the thin one who lay furthest away from him, often spoke very quietly and many things were difficult to understand. In an extreme situation like that, it was hard to determine whether he was subdued by nature or if it was due to the fear of discovery. But it was obvious that the longer the bouts of electroshock, the more hazy he became, whereas neither Kröner nor Lankau seemed to react much to the treatments and exchanged stories undaunted.

James prayed that sooner or later a nurse would hear them. Then the three fiends would be exposed and his nightmare would come to an end.

Until then he would simply have to make sure none of them became suspicious of him.

While the malingerers’ story was certainly horrifying, it was also fascinating. Like the films and novels James re-enacted in his mind, it absorbed him more and more.

To him, the scenes seemed large as life.

Dieter Schmidt always referred to his anonymous superior as the Postman, a nickname that came from his habit of using bits of human skin when writing messages of congratulation. ‘Isn’t it the wish of everyone in the camp to be sent away from here?’ Schmidt’s superior had asked.

He described the Postman as cheerful and inventive, as someone who had made their life in the concentration camp comparable with conditions at home in every respect.

But after they were demoted and transferred, it was the end of their little game and their time of plenty. The means had become fewer, the responsibility someone else’s, and the supervision of their work was officious, distrustful and thorough.

And yet their chance had come in the form of a fantastic coincidence.

‘One day, when several sections of the front had collapsed – which in Berlin they preferred to call “front contraction” – the Postman got an idea,’ said Schmidt. ‘You know how everyone’s always screaming for reinforcements and fresh supplies in a situation like that.

‘
Obergruppenführer
Hoth, general of the 4th
Panzer
Army, was furious that day. He insisted that a whole goods train with spare parts for armoured vehicles had disappeared and ordered our unit to recover these parts immediately.

‘Three days before Kiev was conquered by the Russians, we did in fact find the goods wagons in a corner of the city’s railway yard. Hoth was happy and ordered the Postman to personally supervise their immediate transportation to Vinnitsa, where damaged military equipment was waiting for spare parts.

‘In Vinnitsa hundreds of heavy wooden cases containing bits of motors, caterpillar treads, axles and smaller spare parts were unloaded into a warehouse. It was almost dark at the back of this enormous warehouse where thousands of cases were already stacked in complete disorder. There were countless objects and materials sticking out everywhere that attracted our attention and made us curious. The Postman and I, we were thunderstruck by the sight. It seemed a huge amount of war spoils were being stored here, waiting to be taken back to the Fatherland when there was a goods train available.

‘It didn’t take long before we found out our hunch was right. Throughout all of 1943 any object valued at over 3,000 Reichmarks that had been stolen from neighbouring churches, official offices, museums or private collections had been stored here. Now, as the fronts drew nearer, it was clear that this enormous booty was going to be evacuated as soon as possible. And that’s when the Postman had the fantastic idea of taking a couple of hundred cases and stacking them on their own, about fifty yards further to the back of the warehouse.

‘Then one could always wait and see what happened.’

The Postman and Dieter Schmidt were thrilled when they returned to the warehouse five days later. Their trick had worked. All the cases had already been removed.

Except for the ones they had set aside.

Now they had to get busy. When the transport reached Berlin the fact that a couple of hundred cases were missing would be discovered during the unloading and counting. ‘And that’s why I’ve been ordered to try and contact you, Herr
Obersturmbannführer
Kröner,’ Dieter Schmidt explained, as they were sitting in the car behind the pub in Kirovograd. ‘We need the help of a superior associated with the SD. Nobody around here wants to mix themselves up in the security police’s business. Apart from that, units that work with the security police have a number of advantages, such as mobility and determination. We came to the conclusion that you might be the right man for us.

‘You,
Herr Obersturmbannführer
, work on the same section of the front as us. We know you have displayed exceptional initiative in a number of cases. You’re talented and imaginative, but what struck us first and foremost was your total lack of scruples. You must excuse me for making myself so plain, but there is no time for the usual niceties.’

They began planning.

Kröner was to see to it that Russian slave workers were transferred to Vinnitsa. Then Lankau was to have them load the relics, icons, altar silver and other valuables onto a goods wagon the Postman had had sidetracked a few hundred yards from the warehouse. The carriage was to be used for ‘collecting spare parts’. No one would miss it.

The subsequent removal of the slave workers could safely be left to Kröner and Lankau.

Dieter Schmidt would then see to it that the wagon was furnished with false transport papers ordering it immediately to a village in the heart of Germany where it was to stay locked up on a siding and unnoticed until after the war.

Not until the goods were on their way was Kröner to report to headquarters about Lankau’s ‘liberation’ from the Russian ‘partisans’. Then he was to be declared mentally disturbed and sent back to Germany, precisely as in the original plan.

After some initial doubts, Dieter Schmidt was even enthusiastic about the insanity aspect. Of course there was the risk of being discovered or done away with. He himself had given the order for hundreds of mental cases to be liquidated when he’d been helping run the concentration camp. But the degree of madness was the decisive factor. One had to make sure the condition wasn’t diagnosed as incurable and then there would be a fair chance of success.

What alternative was there, anyway? During recent weeks the war had become hell on earth. Resistance had been incessant and terribly effective. The war could not be won. It was a question of survival at any price, and it would be of considerable advantage to be as far away as possible if their swindle was discovered.

The idea of feigning madness fitted like a glove. Why should anyone suspect some shell-shock victims, thousands of miles from the front, of having stolen several tons of valuables? Dieter Schmidt was confident. They had to simulate mental illness. All of them! Himself, Kröner, Lankau and the Postman.

The plan worked like a charm. Apart from the enormous profit they expected to make, each had his own particular motives for getting away.

‘Operation Insanity’ would be put into operation when the Postman sent out the code word, ‘
Heimatschutz
’. As soon as they received the code Kröner would see to it that all the inhabitants of a couple of Ukrainian villages were wiped out and pretend that Lankau had been found there and liberated.

Afterwards Kröner was to contact Dieter Schmidt, supposedly to agitate for special treatment of SD auxiliary troops in the difficult and acute supply situation.

During this meeting they had to find a way to be alone in the afternoon when the Soviet artillery were usually hammering the Germans’ rear. As soon as the bombardment drew nearer they would seek cover and blow up Schmidt’s quarters. It would look as if a stray Soviet shell had hit it. Later, when they were dug out the ruins, Kröner and Schmidt would be found totally paralyzed by shell shock. They would remain in that condition until the war was over.

The Postman would make his own preparations. ‘I’ll show up when the time comes,’ he’d told them. It took a while, but Dieter Schmidt succeeded in convincing Kröner and Lankau that the Postman was not someone who let his friends down.

The previous night was the third time in barely a week that James had slept badly. His whole body was clammy.

I’ll get us out of this, Bryan, I promise you!
he told himself. He shook his head to banish the remaining dream images, and in the process banged the back of his head on the bars. The sudden pain made him open his eyes wide. Pock-Face was already awake, lying on his side and propped up on his doubled-up pillow. He was looking straight at James, who instantly reacted with his toneless humming. Feeling Kröner’s cold gaze upon him, he turned around and blinked at the strips of morning light that cast a red gleam through tiny gaps in the bomb shutters. It reminded him of mornings on the cliffs at Dover, many years ago.

Bryan’s family had a house in Dover where James loved to come. Even in the middle of the week the entire Young family would impulsively jump in the car and drive the fifteen miles through the beautiful countryside out to the coast. The house stood ready all the year round, ever since Mr Young’s bachelor days. The caretaker couple saw to that.

Mr Young loved the sea, the wind and the view.

There was rarely a weekend visit where James didn’t accompany them.

According to James’ mother, Dover wasn’t a town you stayed in, it was a town you drove through. Still, to her it also represented something unknown and adventurous. She was anxious by nature, which was why James had never told his parents about their experiments with smoke- and stink-bombs or about his and Bryan’s splendid inventions that included a raft made of herring barrels and a giant catapult made of plaited bicycle inner tubes.

If Mrs Teasdale had known her son could fire a brick with such velocity and precision that it could penetrate a sack of corn at fifty yards, she would scarcely have been overjoyed.

For the boys, Dover was a true oasis. ‘There go Mr Young’s
sons!’ people used to say, when they strolled along the seafront promenade.

It had always pleased them to be taken for brothers and they usually reacted by slinging their arms round each other’s shoulders and singing their battle song at the top of their lungs. It was a banal ditty that one of Elizabeth’s suitors had heard in a film that he and Bryan never managed to see.

The song continued in a similar style, listing various scenarios that always ended with the contrary refrain, ‘I’m against it!’ They yelled it, singing these lines again and again, driving everyone in the neighbourhood crazy. The song had another verse or two.

But they never learned them.

During their beloved teacher Mr Denham’s excellent history lessons the boys had been initiated in the exploits of courageous men and women. Cromwell, Thomas Becket, Queen Victoria and Mary Stuart were all conjured up. Knights in armour thundered past the teacher’s desk.

This was the boys’ favourite class.

It was here, inspired by Jules Verne, that the boys penetrated the earth’s core, dove into the ocean and flew in strange, wonderful machines.

As soon as one of them made a brief sketch, the other caught on immediately. They elaborated on each other’s ideas, hour after hour, without saying a word.

During this delightful time they invented a gigantic drill that could bore out a mineshaft or a tunnel to France, and an automobile that could transport whole towns to places where the weather was good.

In the boys’ eyes all these things could be done. The question was why on earth it hadn’t happened long ago. So they tried themselves.

Once, during an autumn storm, Mr Denham had measured a wind force of twenty-seven yards per second. Bryan and James had looked dumbfounded at the little anemometer. Sixty miles an hour!

It was an enormous figure.

On the way home from school they’d sat a while on the curb in front of the corn exchange, not even noticing the passers-by.

At a speed of sixty miles one could fly to France in half an hour, if there were favourable conditions. Being blown across the ice in an iceboat would probably take twice that long.

Before the day was over they’d outlined the venture that was to shape their destinies. They would sew together a balloon, so that the wind’s fascinating energy could be put to the test.

They wanted to fly.

During the weekends they stole sailcloth, piece by piece, from building sites down by Dover harbour. Mr Young unknowingly provided the transport back to Canterbury. The space under the back seat was very roomy.

The lads worked on the balloon in the Youngs’ old shed for nearly a year. No one was to know, and it had to be done quickly. Fate would catch up with them after the holidays, for they were to leave King’s College in Canterbury and continue their schooling at Eton.

Then the weekends in Dover would be few and far between.

On the third day of the holidays they put the finishing touches on their work.

It was Jill who inadvertently came to solve the problem of getting the balloon transported back to Dover, where the cliff and the wind awaited them.

On 10th July 1934, Jill would be eighteen. In her part of the country it had become the fashion for girls her age from better-class homes to begin preparing themselves for matrimony, which had been conventional for daughters of the servant class for centuries. Before the wedding it was customary to collect silverware and china. According to Jill and her friends it was essential to have a glass case in which to keep such treasures. She had seen an advert in the newspaper: ‘Glass case for sale. Possibly in exchange for a lady’s bicycle of reputable make and in good condition. Enquiries to Briggs & Co.’ The boys got excited when she read out the address.

They were going to Dover.

Mrs Teasdale’s bicycle was to be sacrificed. They packed it in the balloon cloth.

When they reached their destination the boys hid the cloth under a loading ramp while Mr Teasdale and his daughter took care of their errand.

The glass case had already been sold. Jill was inconsolable. On the way home James had to pat her hand several times. ‘Want to borrow my hanky?’ he finally offered. Jill looked incredulously at the remains that were stuck to it. Then she burst out laughing. ‘Seems like you might have more use for mine instead, little brother.’

James could still recall her dimples.

The handkerchief she’d handed him was blue, with a border Jill had embroidered herself.

Bryan had been amazed to see James tying this talisman around his neck every morning.

The boys waited two weeks for the wind to arrive. Finally the day came. The wind had risen. They’d stuffed their beds with pillows and blankets. It was so windy on the top of the cliffs that the seagulls could scarcely control their aggressive downward swoops towards them. The boys put their arms around each other’s shoulders as they paused to gaze out towards the Promised Land on the other side of the channel.

The wind direction was perfect.

They had fetched the wicker trunk, full of firewood, that they’d hidden the previous autumn among the trees on the slope behind the cliffs. They lashed the trunk, their magnificent gondola, under the open end of the balloon with five strong ropes. Then they arranged the wood under the tree whose crown the sailcloth was decorating. By dawn the fire had been crackling brightly for several hours under the expanding balloon.

The sun rose in a clear sky before the sailcloth was two-thirds full, and they now could just make out the outline of the European continent. Down along the row of bathing cabins on the public beach some boarding-house guests were already wading about at the water’s edge.

James never forgot their voices.

James made several mistakes in the critical minutes before their voyage was to begin. As soon as the morning bathers turned up he insisted they launch themselves before they were discovered. Bryan protested. The balloon wasn’t full enough yet. ‘Trust me,’ James said. ‘It’ll go according to plan!’

He felt sure of himself when the wind finally lifted the balloon the first inch. The cloth above them looked impressive. Oval, swollen and huge. Then he released the final mooring line and threw a couple of logs overboard.

The balloon’s giant silhouette swayed for a moment over the edge. Bryan looked up, frightened, and pointed at some of the seams that were letting warm air out in puffs. ‘Let’s do it another day,’ he said, but James shook his head and gazed out towards Cap Gris Nez. The next second, as though possessed by the devil, James flung the rest of the wood, their food supplies and extra clothes onto the plateau.

As the basket ascended gracefully the balloon flattened out, stretching like a sail in the unpredictable gusts of wind. At this point Bryan jumped to safety while James watched him, dumbfounded.

Then the balloon was snatched out over the edge.

Later, observers down in the town said the balloon had been instantly thrown against the cliff in the turbulence and with a tearing sound had caught itself on a jagged bit of rock.

‘Bloody idiot!’ James screamed up to Bryan, who’d stuck his ashen face cautiously over the edge of the cliff. The sagging dream above James’ head emitted a series of exhausted and ominous noises. The gusts of wind kept scraping the balloon against the rocks so that it gradually fell apart. No one had missed the stolen property because the sailcloth had already been mouldy.

After that, James gave up his ranting. Above him Bryan reluctantly stuck his feet out over the edge of the cliff and began to crawl down. There hadn’t been any accidents on that part of the cliff for years, but the western cliff had cost many a life in the past and both boys knew it. It was said that the victims were as flat as dried cod when they’d been gathered up.

The sailcloth slipped yet another a couple of feet with a noise like the crack of a whip, the loose ends like rags flapping in the wind. Bryan silently peed in his shorts without interrupting his dangerous rescue operation. The cascade passed unhindered out of his trouserleg and into the wind.

At the very top of the balloon was a brass ring through which the ropes – that had originally fastened a sail to a capstan bar – had been passed. Into this hole they’d bound a rope that was still hanging loosely in the middle of the balloon. As soon as their mission was accomplished they would grab the end of this rope and let the air out of the balloon so their descent would be fully under control.

While Bryan was hanging onto the chalky, porous side of the cliff, feverishly searching for the brass ring, James started humming their favourite tune.

With a sudden jerk the balloon tore apart some more.

Down below him James’ song struck the wall of the cliff with rhythmic thuds.

James didn’t remember much of what happened after that. With tears in his eyes Bryan managed to seize the rope end, pull it up and ease it down again in its full length. James’ trousers also had dark stains around the fly when they finally lay on the edge of the cliff. Bryan looked at his friend for some time as he tried to recover his breath.

James was still singing.

Memories of this episode had visited James often. During ‘Operation Supercharge’ in the African desert; on night flights; in their rooms at Trinity College during the arduous years at Cambridge.

James attempted to return to the reality of the German ward. It wasn’t easy. The first clinking sounds rose from the floor below. The air was heavy with reeking smells of the previous night. He turned his head cautiously and glanced over at Bryan. The curtains behind him were flapping a trifle, even though the shutters were closed. Only the puny, red-eyed man was awake in Bryan’s row. Looking straight at James, he smiled searchingly. When James failed to react he pulled the blanket over his face and settled down.

I’ll get you out of here, Bryan!
was James’ constant mantra as the ward’s torpor and the stifling after-effects of the electroshock gradually made him doze off.