Graham Greene (7 page)

His only reply was to stoop down and seize me by the nose—then with his free hand he thrust a sponge into my mouth. That ended the conversation, of course, and I could only flap helplessly about on the floor like a fresh-caught salmon on the bank.

He slid the cord over the hook on the door—fixed the noose round my neck, tested the knot—and then began to hoist!

God! it was a horrible business. I dug my chin down into my chest as hard as I could, but I felt myself being drawn up in steady jerks.

Suddenly I left the ground and the cord tightened round my neck—the hook hit me on the back of the head as he gave a last heave on the cord—and there I was, dangling in the air while he lashed the end of it to the door-knob.

He supported my weight for a moment while he undid the cord that bound my hands to my sides and the curtain sash that tied my feet—then he let me drop.

The second my hands were free I was clawing at my neck, but the noose was tight about it and I couldn't get my fingers in. I couldn't shout because the sponge was in my mouth, and even when I wrenched it out I could only gurgle horribly.

Through a haze of pain and dizziness I could see Essenbach as he stood there studying me with cold deliberation. Then he tipped the bathroom chair over just out of my reach and I heard him say:

“Suicide—suicide of Colonel Thornton.” After that he left me.

DENNIS WHEATLEY

carce had I touched the seat when, of its own accord, it tipped backwards and my legs went high into the air. It seemed set upon a pivot, so that anyone, seating themselves in it, would be thrown entirely off their balance.

I grasped the air in wild indignity, but ere I could realise what had happened the two ruffians, who had sprung forward, had slipped cords upon my wrists and ankles, and next second I found myself bound to the seat hand and foot.

“What do you mean by this, you scoundrels!” I shouted in anger.

But the pair only laughed aloud at my helplessness.

“What have I done that you should hold me thus?” I demanded, in an instant realising that I had fallen into a trap.

“Look sharp!” cried the man who had admitted me. “See that he is secure. We must fly while there is yet time!”

“Time for what?” I asked.

“Time for us to escape,” replied the man with the beetling brows. Then he added quickly, with a sinister laugh, “See that lamp upon the table? Well, within is a powerful explosive. Three minutes from now the oil will be exhausted and then it will explode, and you, together with this house, will be blown to atoms!”

“You fiends!” I shrieked, glancing at the innocent-looking table-lamp, “then you intend that I shall die! This is a dastardly plot.” I struggled frantically to free myself. The chair had not, however, recovered its proper position, and my legs, being up in the air, rendered me entirely helpless.

I lay like a trussed fowl while the two hired assassins laughed in my face.

“Quick!” cried the beetle-browed man to his companion. “Let us get out of it!” And they both hurriedly left, locking the door behind them—left me there to my terrible fate!

I was horrified. I shouted for help, but to my appeal came no response. My eyes were fixed upon that fatal lamp. It seemed to possess a weird fascination for me. Only a few moments remained, and I should be hurled into eternity.

WILLIAM LE QUEUX

t was on the very eve of our departure that I received a signal from Moscow marked “Top Secret and Priority.” I decoded it personally and took it at once to the Chief of Staff, Voitenkov. The C.O., General Kraft, had left for the Soviet Union that afternoon. Voitenkov spread it out on his desk and his eyebrows twitched a little. He nodded, but said nothing.

The signal read: “Render harmless Agent 063, found to be a British spy.”

Now Agent 063 was no ordinary agent. Before I left Moscow I had decoded many reports supplied by him which were of the highest value to the Soviet Union. Agent 063, I discovered when I arrived in Sinkiang, was actually the Chinese Governor of Yarkand, a huge man who could hardly squeeze his fat legs into an ordinary chair. He was a well-known figure to most of us, and came frequently to our headquarters with his adjutant to visit General Kraft. On these occasions he wore Chinese-style trousers, top-boots which had to be specially made for him, and a light leather civilian top-coat. Owing to his eminence, he met all important visitors to the district, and was able to supply us with a mass of inside information about missionaries, traders and others who were said to be carrying on pro-British propaganda. There is no doubt that Agent 063 had given immense help to the Soviet expedition. It is also certain that he had acquired an intimate and accurate knowledge of our activities.

As for the rest of the signal, “render harmless” is a recognised formula used in secret communications with places outside the Soviet Union; it simply means “execute.”

Voitenkov quickly drew up a plan to implement Moscow's instructions. A Chinese interpreter whom we knew as “Peter”
and who was on good terms with the Governor, was at once sent to invite him to visit our headquarters that evening, as General Kraft wished to say goodbye before his return to the Soviet Union. It was not likely that the Governor would refuse such an invitation from the Soviet Commander, and he duly appeared.

As soon as he entered he was seized and bound, and was taken to the interrogator's room. The interrogation lasted about fifteen minutes. Though I was not present I later saw the brief interrogation report, which indicated that Agent 063 had been accused of being a British spy but had denied it. Apparently he had been completely dumbfounded by the charge and by the speed of events.

Meanwhile three of my wireless operators had been given the task of digging a large grave in the earth floor of the corridor outside our office.

Agent 063 was carried out, his mouth gagged and his hands bound behind his back and was laid face downwards in the corridor alongside the grave. While the engine of a motor-truck in the nearby courtyard was accelerated with tremendous din, one of the interrogator's assistants fired three revolver shots into the back of his head. Above the noise of the truck engine I heard the sound that came from him as the bullets were fired into him. It was something between a long gasp and groan; I will not easily forget the sound. His great bulk was then rolled into the grave and petrol was poured over him and set alight to make his body unrecognizable. Then the earth was filled in and stamped down again, and the bamboo mats were replaced in the corridors.

It was my concluding task to report to Moscow that their instructions concerning Agent 063 had been carried out to the letter.

VLADIMIR PETROV,

DESCRIBING HIS EXPERIENCES WITH THE O.G.P.U. IN THE CHINESE
PROVINCE OF SINKIANG IN 1937

r Herman Goertz, a lieutenant on the reserve of the Luftwaffe, was dropped by parachute in County Meath on the night of 5/6 May 1940. He was fifty years old and in 1936 had been sentenced to four years' imprisonment for spying, conscientiously but not very usefully, on RAF airfields. In Maidstone gaol, where he served his sentence, he met several members of the Irish Republican Army. His mission in 1940, which seems to have been loosely if at all defined, had some connection with an unpractical plan, code-named
Kathleen,
for a German invasion of Ireland; this had been submitted to the
Abwehr
in Hamburg by an emissary of the IRA.

Goertz was dropped—in the wrong place—wearing German uniform and carrying military identity papers made out in a false name. He failed to recover the parachute and container with his wireless set and other equipment in it, and set off to walk to a rendezvous in County Wicklow, seventy miles away. He swam the River Boyne “with,” as he afterwards wrote, “great difficulty since the weight of my fur combination exhausted me. This swim also cost me the loss of my invisible ink.” Soon, exhausted by hunger and strain, he was in worse case, and discarded his uniform; “I was now in high boots, breeches and jumper, with a little black beret on my head … I kept my military cap as a vessel for drinks and my war medals for sentimental reasons … I had no Irish money and did not realise that I could use English money quite freely.”

Although with Irish help he established wireless contact with Germany and was not arrested by the Irish police until November 1941, Goertz—out of depth in the intricate crosscurrents of IRA politics—achieved nothing. In 1947, when told
that he was to be repatriated to Germany, he took poison; the reasons for his suicide are not known … The lonely, brave, baffled figure trudging across the empty Irish landscape in jackboots, with a little black beret on his head and a pocket full of 1914–18 medals, is a reminder of how far the German intelligence effort fell short of those standards of subtlety and dissimulation which were expected of it …

PETER FLEMING

o the casual glance of the passer-by, there was nothing to differentiate him from any other young fellow of his apparent age and station; and, therefore, it was quite out of the question that the policeman who was beginning his night's work by flashing his bull's-eye into the doorways, and trying door handles and shop shutters, should bestow more than a passing glance, quite devoid of interest, upon him as he strode by. He was sober and respectable, and seemingly making his way quietly home after a decently spent Saturday evening.

There was nothing to tell the guardian of the peace that the most dangerous man in Europe was passing within a few feet of him, or that if only he could have arrested him on some valid pretext that would have enabled him to lock him up for the rest of the night, and then handed him over to the Criminal Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard—the officers of which had been hunting for just such a man as he for the last twelve months—he would have prevented the commission of a crime which, within twenty-four hours, was to plunge a whole
nation into panic and mourning, and send a thrill of horror through Europe …