The Black Baroness (38 page)

It was that thought which stirred him into fresh activity. While the old man had been talking to him his imagination had conjured up a ghastly picture of his beautiful Erika, her golden hair in wild disorder, her blue eyes open but dull and blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, as she lay crushed and broken among those ruins. In the last half-hour that nightmare vision had kept returning to him and he knew that he must exorcise it from his brain if he was to retain his sanity. The only way to do that was to work and to kill Germans—that was it—work and kill—work and kill—so that his mind should be occupied for every moment of his waking hours. Then when he dared to think of her again he must think of her only as he had seen her in Munich, or on that first evening that he had played
butler to her in Brussels—as bright, laughing and unbelievably beautiful.

He had walked some distance without even thinking where he was going; but now he checked himself and turned down the hill towards the centre of the town. When he reached the broad Boulevard Anspach he halted opposite the Metropole Hotel. There were three cars outside and at that moment a porter came out carrying some luggage; so the hotel was evidently still open and had not yet been taken over by the Germans.

As he stepped forward to enter it a fresh wave of pain engulfed his whole mentality. It was here, barely a fortnight ago, that he had said good-bye to Erika. For a second his footsteps faltered; he thought of turning round and making for the Grand, but he knew that now, if ever, he must be firm with himself. Bracing his muscles he went in, reclaimed the suitcase which he had left there under the name of Colonel-Baron von Lutz and asked for a room. There were plenty of rooms available, as four-fifths of the guests had fled bag and baggage the previous day, but the desk clerk told him that most of the staff had also left, so he would have to put up with certain inconveniences. He said that he did not mind that and the clerk gave him the key of a room with directions how to find it, as there was no page available to take him up.

Once upstairs he turned on a hot bath, stripped and got into it. For over an hour he lay soaking there, keeping up the temperature by adding more hot water from time to time. He had not done too badly for sleep since his escape from Holland—a good night at Harwich and about six hours in the cottage outside Brussels where he had wakened that morning—and his exertions since leaving England had not been great; so he was not particularly tired after the seven or eight miles that he had walked since dawn; but the hot water helped to relax his mind as well as his limbs and while he lay there he tried to plan what his next move should be.

During his days of imprisonment and of subsequent travel the Black Baroness had never been far from his thoughts. The fact that when he had run her to earth Grauber, of all people, had been in her suite, and that the Gestapo Chief had treated her with great deference, fully confirmed his belief that she was not only hand-in-glove with the Nazis but regarded by them as an ally of considerable importance. That she had got the best
of him in their first encounter only made him the more determined to find some way of putting a stop to her activities; but the question was how to set about it.

Her meeting with Grauber in Rotterdam, only an hour before ths
Blitzkrieg
was due to open, indicated that her work in Holland had been completed and that she had met him to receive fresh instructions for future operations in some other field; so the probability was that when she had flown out of Holland she had gone to France or Britain. For Gregory to reach either, now that he was behind the German line, presented certain difficulties, but these, he felt, were by no means insurmountable. He had crossed the battle-line in safety only that morning and as long as the contending forces remained in a state of fluidity he saw no reason why he should not cross it again without any greater risk than that which is run by a soldier who is engaged in open warfare; but it would mean another long and tiring journey on foot and when he got through to friendly territory he did not quite see what he was going to do there.

Now that he had lost touch with Paula and Kuporovitch he had no means of getting fresh information about the Baroness’s movements, and by this time she might be anywhere from Edinburgh to Monte Carlo; so it seemed that he might spend weeks snooping about in city after city without coming upon any trace of her and, meanwhile, close at hand the greatest battle in history was raging. The more he thought it over the more certain he became that he could serve his country to much more useful purpose at this hour of crisis by remaining where he was and learning anything he could of the Germans’ intentions, before endeavouring to recross the firing-line, than by setting off now, empty-handed.

Having shaved and dressed he went down to the restaurant, and found that it presented a very different scene from when he had last entered it. There were now few civilians at the tables but many groups of German officers and, not for the first time, he thought with some bitterness of the enormous advantages reaped by the enemy from being the aggressor. Just as in the last war the Germans could, and did, render any town or village within range of their guns either untenable or dangerous, while in a retreat they deliberately razed every house to the ground so that our men should not even have the benefit of roofs under which to shelter; whereas, since we always fought in friendly
territory we had to respect property, even to some extent in the actual battle area, and when the enemy made a victorious advance he could use captured towns as safety zones for troop-concentrations or to give his men rest and enjoyment with complete immunity, as there could never be any question of our shelling such cities as Brussels, Oslo or Amsterdam.

In spite of the shortage of staff an excellent meal was still obtainable, as no food stocks had yet been commandeered and the supply in Brussels was abundant; but for once in his life he took no interest in ordering his meal and accepted the waiter’s suggestion without comment, asking the man at the same time to bring him any papers that were available.

The waiter returned with the single sheet of an emergency edition which had been run off the press about ten o’clock and was the only paper that had been published in Brussels that morning. From a small sketch map he saw that the bulge south of Sedan had considerably enlarged and was spreading towards the west, while in the south the Germans had nearly reached Rethel. Liège and Namur were now both surrounded but were fighting on. The most alarming news, however, was a report that the Belgians had abandoned Antwerp. That seemed to Gregory an extremely serious matter as the great fortifications of the city formed the bulwark of the northern end of the Allied line, and if the Germans once broke through there they would have outflanked the Northern Armies.

When his food came he realised that he was still feeling too sick to eat more than a few mouthfuls, so he abandoned the uneven contest, paid the bill and went out to see if any of the shops were now open. He found that quite a number of the smaller places had taken down their shutters in preparation to doing business with such of their old customers as remained in the city or with the troops of the all-conquering Army, since shopkeepers must do their best to earn a living even when their city has been occupied by an enemy.

Having bought himself a few necessities he took them back to the hotel, then went out again, taking the road which led east towards Louvain. Nearly all civilian traffic had ceased, so he had made up his mind to a long, dreary tramp; but in the suburbs he was fortunate enough to see an empty farm-cart proceeding in the direction that he wanted to go, so he hailed the driver and secured a lift.

The man told him that the Germans had commandeered the
hay in his barn that morning and had made him take it in for them to a depot which they had established on the outskirts of the city, and that he was now returning home. Gregory said that he was a commercial traveller who had been caught in Brussels and wished to get back to his family in Hasselt, as he was acutely anxious to learn if his wife and children had escaped harm. The two of them then exchanged gloomy forebodings about the fate that had overtaken their country, as the farm wagon trundled on through the afternoon sunshine with the sound of the guns behind it growing gradually more distant.

As they proceeded down the long, straight road they soon came upon many signs of the previous day’s battle; shattered tanks, guns and Bren-gun carriers lay wrecked or overturned on the road and in the fields to either side of them. They had lost all their martial glory and looked now rather pathetic; as though they were just old toys that some gargantuan child had thrown down and kicked about in a fit of temper. The German mortuary units were evidently still occupied in burying the fallen from the holocausts that had taken place earlier, further east, as they had not yet come up. Here and there sprawled khaki or field-grey figures; some twisted or lacking limbs, others lying quite peacefully as though they had taken the afternoon off to sleep in the fields under the warm rays of the May sunshine. German and English dead and vehicles were inextricably mixed so that there was no pattern discernible in this aftermath of battle, except occasionally round an abandoned gun where a whole crew had been knocked out by a shell or machine-gunned from the air.

Gregory was not interested in the tanks, but he
was
interested in the bodies and, without allowing his companion to notice what he was doing, he carefully took mental notes about the position of several of the dead Germans who lay near enough to the road for him to see them clearly.

About six miles outside Brussels the farmer pulled up and said that his farm lay down a side-track to the left of the road. Gregory got down and, thanking him, continued on foot in the direction of Louvain; but when the wagon was out of sight he turned round and started to walk back again.

He kept a sharp look-out, as German staff cars and bodies of troops were passing every few moments in the direction of Brussels, and he knew that if he were caught at his ghoulish purpose he would be shot without argument. Leaving the road
he walked along behind the hedge until he was within ten yards of the nearest body that he had marked down. He was now able to get a much closer view of it and having taken in all the details he gradually worked his way back through field after field to look carefully at the others; then, having made his choice, as it was only six o’clock he lay down under a hedge to take a nap until darkness should cover his further operations.

When he awoke the moon had risen, but it was low in the sky so its light was just enough to be excellent for his purpose without being sufficient to make it likely that he would be seen by the troops that he could still hear every now and again rattling along the road. Going to the body he had selected he unbuttoned the dead German’s uniform and exerting all his strength forced back the arms, which were already set in
rigor mortis,
until he could wriggle the tunic off the body. He next dealt in similar fashion with the man’s breeches, gaiters, boots and under-garments until the body was stark naked. He then stripped off his own clothes, stuffed them in the dead man’s haversack and put on his outfit so that if he were searched at any time he would not be wearing a single article of clothing which would have given away the fact that he was not a German.

The boots were a trifle large but otherwise the uniform fitted passably well, as Gregory had taken great care to select a man as near his own height and build as possible. Before he had set out he had realised that it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to try to find a dead Staff-Colonel, as such minor war lords are not killed in every battle and, even if he had been able to do so, it was a hundred to one that the Colonel’s uniform would have proved hopelessly ill-fitting on himself; so fit being more important than rank he had despoiled an
Oberleutnant
with the reservation that he would adjust the matter of his rank later.

As the officer had been shot through the eye his uniform was undamaged and passably clean, but his steel helmet proved too small so Gregory had to find another which fitted him better. He then collected the dead German’s automatic, spare magazines, gas-mask, Zeiss glasses, and other gear. By the time he had finished hanging things on himself his appearance in every detail was that of an
Oberleutnant
of the 153rd Bavarian Infantry Regiment, fully equipped in battle kit. He then set out on the trek back to Brussels.

Ahead of him now, on the far side of the city, the night sky was constantly lit with the flicker of guns and shell-bursts, while along the road down which he was walking the never-ending columns of German troops went forward to reinforce their comrades, it was half-past four in the morning when he at last reached the Metropole, and the night-porter, not having seen him go out dressed as a civilian, had no reason to express surprise because he came in dressed as a German officer. With a gruff ‘
Gute Nacht
’ he crossed the hall and went up to his room, where he doffed his borrowed plumage and got into bed.

Not having left any orders to be called he awoke late on the following morning, and his first sensation was one of uneasiness. It seemed as though some dire calamity threatened him; yet for a few seconds he could not think what it was that he feared. Then, like a light being clicked on in a darkened room, the awful truth seared with a blinding glare through his brain. Erika was dead.

For some moments he lay almost stunned again, but after a little he recalled his resolution of the previous day and, getting up, dressed in his stolen uniform. It was nearly twelve o’clock by the time he came downstairs and he saw that a number of German officers were already congregated in the lounge, chatting and laughing over their
apéritifs
. He made a quick survey of them but to his disappointment there was no one of Colonel’s rank present so, seating himself at a small table where he could keep an eye upon the door, he ordered a drink and sent for the morning paper.