Papua (23 page)

Dougal accepted the gift with a grateful sigh. It was his boss’s way to know what his employees’ needs were. ‘Is it all right to talk in front of the lad?’ he asked as he lovingly turned the bottle over in his hands to read the label.

‘Said he wanted to work his way down in my companies,’ Jack replied with a wry grin. ‘Sounds like from your reports last year that’s what we might all be doing if it is as bad as you say.’

‘It’s that bad,’ Dougal said as he took a seat and Lukas was sent to fetch an appropriate glass so the Scot could partake of his country’s traditional drink. ‘To put it in a nutshell, the gold has run out on the company’s leases and we are dredging mud and nothing else.’

Jack felt as though the weight of that same mud was bearing down on him. When the New Guinea administration had finally granted mining leases Jack was quick to stake his claims along the stretch of river he and Paul had originally panned illegally. It was a rich stretch, promising many years of production with the right equipment. He had not expected the gold to run out so early and had invested a lot of money back in 1925 in purchasing the expensive heavy dredging plant required to exploit the type of gold field he had leased. The machinery had to be flown in bit by bit by aircraft, technology which had opened up island transport like nothing else before.

At first the assembled dredge had produced gold in payable amounts, but each year since MacTavish’s reports had been more pessimistic, until the one just before Christmas that said he needed to brief his boss personally. Dougal understood loyalty and knew that if the news got out that the gold lease was drowning investors’ money in the mud of the jungle, Jack might go under. He would not trust his report to paper but instead wanted to speak to Jack in person before any decisions were made.

Lukas returned with a glass and Dougal immediately poured himself a generous tot then leaned over to pour one into Jack’s empty beer glass. ‘To the good ship Hindenburg and all who sail with her,’ he said as he raised his glass.

Jack responded accordingly. They had named the dredge the Hindenburg to honour the men who had died fighting on that part of the frontline in 1918. ‘To better times.’

‘What are you going to do, Jack?’ the Scot asked bluntly when he had refilled his empty glass.

‘You don’t think there is any chance of coming good?’

‘None. It’s been played out.’

Lukas was not aware of the course of the meeting but he could see the stricken expression on his father’s face. He had never seen such barely concealed anguish before and wanted to ask what was wrong. But he knew it was not his place to do so for the moment.

‘We continue mining for at least another couple of months,’ Jack said quietly. ‘By then I hope to be able to transfer funds to pay out the operations up here. I have something going down in Sydney and all going well it will get us out of trouble. Just so long as the investors don’t get a whiff of anything wrong I will be able to keep up the supposed returns for their money. Then at the right moment, close down and sell off the equipment.’

‘Do you think you are in a position to pull it off?’ Dougal asked.

‘Like I said, so long as the word does not get out that the mining operations have gone belly up.’

‘I’m your boss man up here and I swear on the Cross of St Andrew, and the finest breweries in Scotland, that not a word will come from me.’

‘Thanks, Dougal,’ Jack said, as he slapped his mining manager on the shoulder. ‘I can promise that you will be well looked after when we get clear of this mess.’

Dougal nodded and the three sat on the verandah as the heavy rain clouds overhead opened, drowning out conversation.

The next day Jack and Lukas checked out of the hotel and sailed south for Australia. Jack well knew the fortune that had its basis in the gold of New Guinea now relied on his skills as a businessman rather than those of a prospector. Just so long as there was no leak. Otherwise how easily it could all come tumbling down around him.

G
erhardt Stahl closed the door against the bitter winds of a Munich winter and slumped in the big leather chair that smelt strongly of tobacco. He badly wanted a drink but was too tired to go to the cabinet to pour one. The January elections of 1933 had secured yet more seats in the Reichstag for Adolf. And yet his friend of their earlier days would not even see him anymore!

The rebuffs he had received made Gerhardt seethe with anger. He and Adolf had shared the hardest times over the last decade before his so-called former comrade in the struggle had risen to his present powerful position in German politics. Had he not been a friend and devoted follower of Adolf’s from the day they had met, just after the war? On the streets back in ’23, had they not faced the bullets together, and had fled for their lives? And had he not visited Adolf in his cell after his arrest, and listened to his tedious dictation of his book
Mein Kampf
to that odd and colourless man Rudolf Hess? But over the years he had been quietly shuffled off to low ranked jobs in the party. His current job in the SA’s Intelligence Unit amounted to little more than procuring homosexual partners from the Gisela high school for Adolf ’s good friend Ernst Rohm. Gerhardt did not like Rohm one bit but he feared him greatly too. He was a coarse, brutal, battle scarred man whose desire for young boys was well known to all. He even openly boasted of his wickedness and yet Adolf not only tolerated him but also took him into his inner circle.

It was as if Adolf wanted Gerhardt out of his life altogether. He shuddered, although a coal fire warmed the room. Was it possible that he may end up with a bullet in the head, that he knew too much about the party’s leader should Adolf acquire total control of Germany? The former German soldier who had fought for his country in the GreatWar was now in his mid thirties and at the prime of his life. For it to end now was not an option he wanted to entertain.

He had another good reason to fear the future too. Although Ilsa was not his daughter by blood, he had grown to love her as if she were. She was twelve now, and so different in temperament to her mother, who had made it plain from the day she was born that she wanted nothing to do with the girl. And it had been so since. The young girl grew up in the care of nannies whilst her mother – his wife – had lived a wild life of parties and picnics with high ranking party members.

Gerhardt rued the day that he had married Erika but she had appeared so vulnerable and desperate when she stepped off the boat in Hamburg. She told him about the baby and he had kindly sworn that it would never come between them. They had married in a quiet civil service in Munich and Ilsa was born three months later. At first he had to force himself to accept the child. All he knew about her heritage on her paternal side was that she was the daughter of some former Australian soldier who had raped Erika when she had been in Sydney. When she had recovered from the birth his wife was constantly out at night and had a steady supply of expensive presents from men she met as a result of the services she provided. It was well beyond his humble means to purchase the jewellery and new dresses she required to present herself at the lavish parties where, on behalf of the party, she solicited support from the industrialists to finance Nazi coffers. Gerhardt now doubted that his wife’s story about being raped was true. She was a born liar. But her striking beauty and innate sensuality had carried her further up the party ladder than his own loyalty to his friend Adolf.

Gerhardt had long desisted from becoming enraged and engaging in shouting matches over his wife’s obvious infidelities. He tolerated her now merely for the fact that she had contacts and if he continued as her husband she would ensure that he was at least employed by the party. This she had promised him during a truce a few years earlier. It had in fact been Erika who suggested that the job in the Intelligence Unit of the SA would be a good place to be when Adolf finally came to power. Now it seemed to be proving the opposite and sometimes Gerhardt wondered if his wife was actually setting him up for his own execution, horrifying as the thought was. It was time to consider a plan to ensure his very survival.

‘Papa, are you home?’ he heard Ilsa call from the bedroom upstairs in their modest detached house in the city.

‘Yes, my little love,’ he replied in a tired voice. ‘I am downstairs.’

He heard the patter of feet on the stairs and then Ilsa entered the room. She always took his breath away with her beauty, a physical replica of her mother but with a gentle soul and loving nature.

‘You look tired, Papa,’ she said and hugged him where he sat in his big comfortable chair. ‘I don’t suppose Mama will be home tonight,’ she sighed.

Gerhardt felt her gentle love momentarily wash away his brooding thoughts. ‘Is she ever?’ he answered with a weak smile.

Ilsa sighed again in sympathy for her father who had always been there for her whenever he could spare time from his important duties. ‘I don’t suppose so.’

But Erika did return later that evening. Gerhardt had revived himself with a half bottle of schnapps, providing him with enough belligerence to confront her as she stood by the fire in a body clinging black sequined dress, her hand glittering with diamonds and rubies. In one hand she held a slender cigarette holder, in the other a flute of champagne.

‘There has been talk that your loyalty is in question,’ she said coldly as she sipped the bubbling wine.

Gerhardt could see that she was in one of her moods where he would be belittled. ‘Who is questioning my loyalty?’ he asked in a tired voice. ‘One of your many lovers during some pillow talk?’

‘Don’t be so coarse,’ Erika flared, as he knew she would. ‘I was only telling you for your own good.’

‘Why don’t you just divorce me?’ Gerhardt said, quickly regretting his question. Despite all her faults he still desired her above all other women.

‘It suits us both that I am your wife,’ she retorted. ‘Until otherwise I will remain so. I will decide when that will be,’ she added in an icy, cruel tone.

Gerhardt did not know what happened next except that a red rage came over him. Too many years of his wife’s contempt and infidelity had accumulated. She was on the floor and he was standing over her as she held her hand to her face, red and swollen from the savage backhanded slap. The champagne glass had shattered into a thousand crystal shards against the fireplace. ‘You want a lover? You can have me,’ he snarled as he bent to haul her to her feet, ripping the front of her dress to reveal her small but perfectly formed breasts.

The sudden explosion of Gerhardt’s temper had come as a complete surprise to Erika. For years he had been the butt of her scorn as a man she recognised as having no real future in the new Germany of Adolf. He had often expressed the opinion that what they had set out to achieve was going terribly wrong. There was no place in her life for an idealist. She was hungry for the trappings of power and had realised that it was through her links with the rising star of Adolf and his party that she would receive them. But Gerhardt was becoming a burden to her ambitions and she had often thought about how he could be removed.

Gerhardt hurled Erika’s dress across the room and gripped her by the throat. She was gasping from lack of air and shock. He was not surprised to see that she only wore long silk stockings and a suspender belt under the dress. He could see the fear in her eyes and felt a savage elation. Where was the scorn now? He thrust his hand between her legs and felt a wetness that was not hers alone.

‘Papa! Papa! What are you doing?’

He heard his daughter’s cry and felt the anger replaced by shame. As he released his grip Erika slumped to the floor. ‘You are an animal and I will see you dead if you ever touch me again,’ she gasped.

‘No more of an animal than most of the men you sleep with,’ Gerhardt said, rubbing his forehead to ease the throbbing. ‘I know the corruption, deceit and cruelty that has got your precious Adolf this far. I know that if we gain power Germany will not know peace in the next generation, that my daughter will become just like you and all the rest of the thugs who call themselves patriots.’

‘She’s not even your daughter,’ Erika said as she stood unsteadily. ‘She’s the daughter of a man twelve thousand miles from here.’

Ilsa had remained in the doorway and her mother’s statement now hit her. With a stricken expression she turned to her father. ‘What does Mama mean?’

‘Your mother is trying to hurt you,’ he pleaded. ‘She doesn’t mean what she has said.’

‘He is not your real father,’ Erika sneered at her daughter. ‘Your real father is not even a German.’

‘A Jew!’ Ilsa uttered, wide-eyed in her horror.

‘No, an Australian,’ Erika quickly countered. Even she could not let her daughter think such an unspeakable thing. ‘He was an enemy soldier who raped me.’

Ilsa turned on her heel and rushed upstairs to her room in tears. Gerhardt turned to his wife and for a moment she felt the terrible fear return when she saw the murderous expression in his eyes.

‘For that you will burn in hell.’

His tone frightened Erika. She shrunk away from him as he took a step forward. She had badly underestimated his tolerance for her ongoing jibes.

‘Touch me and I can promise you that you will never see Ilsa again,’ she spat defiantly. ‘I have enough power to ensure that.’

Gerhardt hesitated. His reasoning was returning and he stepped back. Time was running out for him and this violent confrontation had brought matters to a head. All he could hope for was that his ruse to lure her brother to Germany had worked. It was Ilsa’s only chance for a normal life away from what his beloved Germany was rapidly spiralling into.

A week passed and Erika remained bitter and aloof towards Gerhardt. And although Gerhardt had explained to his daughter that her mother had lied about her parentage, Ilsa had changed. No longer was she the warm young woman he had grown to love. Now she was withdrawn, but still cordial in all other matters. Furthermore, time was indeed running out in more ways than one, as Gerhardt was to learn when he was taken aside by a fellow worker in the Intelligence department.

‘Be careful, my friend,’ the colleague had warned in a meeting in the corridors. ‘There is some talk of your lack of commitment to the cause.’ The warning had been furtive and whispered. ‘It seems that your wife has been expressing her thoughts to people in high places about your opinions.’

The Intelligence man was also a former soldier who had fought on the Eastern Front against the Russians and then later against the Poles on the frontier after the war. He was a good man at heart but also a pragmatist. However, the goodness of his soul had won out against his fear of being seen to be on the side of a man whose loyalty to Adolf was in question.

The warning left Gerhardt with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. How long did he have? And how did they plan to do away with him? His intimate knowledge of the probable future leader of Germany meant that he knew too much. He knew that Hitler, who was so vehemently anti-communist, had once been an active worker for the communist cause after the war. That it was only through threats from the army that he had been planted as a spy in the very party that he manipulated and now controlled. And there was more that could embarrass the future chancellor.

Yes, he knew far too much. He doubted that the police, so cleverly infiltrated by the Nazi party, would be meticulous in investigating his ‘accidental death’. All he had was Ilsa and the hope that somewhere in a land hardly known to the world a letter had arrived causing enough intrigue to make a former soldier return to his country. If so, he could get Ilsa out and then it did not matter what they did to him.