That sounded like the Austrian Corporal all right: ‘unalterable will’ was one of his favourite sayings and a mantra adopted by those who worshipped him and his creed, as though the mere application of willpower could achieve whatever was desired, regardless of obstacles. It was an uncomfortable truth that, up till now, against all the odds, the little moustachioed bastard had been right.
‘Most of his senior generals are terrified of what he proposes and fear that he will use his leader’s speech at Nuremberg to declare his intention to invade.’
That was only a few days away. ‘Will they act if he does?’
‘If your country was at risk like mine, would you rely on a group of German generals to save you?’
‘No. Is there any prospect of help from elsewhere?’
‘The Polish jackals will not give us aid, they will not even let the Soviets cross their land to help us because they are itching to take back the Teschen coalfields, this while the Hungarians are circling like vultures too, waiting to feed on our carcass. Without help from the West we are doomed.’
‘You’re still negotiating.’
That produced a snort, which was supposed to pass for a laugh. ‘Let me tell you, my friend, a few days ago our president called in the two deputies Henlein has appointed to deal with us. He gave them a blank sheet of paper and a pen and asked them to write for themselves the conditions by which we could avoid a conflict, guaranteeing to accept whatever they wrote in advance.’
‘That sounds like surrender.’
‘It was not quite, but I think they were shocked. Oh, these men, they wrote such a list and Benes accepted it in a bid to avoid our country being smashed. Then we had a riot up north in Moravia, engineered by the German deputies, in which they claim a policeman struck a deputy with his whip. You will not yet have seen your English papers reporting this, but suddenly we are again, in Germany, killing innocents even if no one died. And what happened to those terms that our president agreed to?’
‘Don’t tell me, no longer acceptable.’
Then, surprisingly, he reverted to his grammarless English and the previous point. ‘If we you give proof absolute of what Hitler planning, what with it would you do?’
‘What kind of proof?’
‘The details of attack.’
That required a long pause; was he being offered such proof? ‘Get it back to London, put it in the hands of those who could make use of it.’
‘The newspapers also?’
‘Perhaps. That would not be for me to decide.’
Even in the gloom Cal saw the smile. ‘Politicians the newspapers fear when they do not them control.’
‘Why do you speak in English when your German is fluent?’
‘Not fluent my English, is it, like Vaclav?’ Finally the young man had a name. ‘I am wound, but practise I must, my friend, if I need flee. If Germans come, a bullet only I can expect.’ The switch back to German was seamless as was the change of subject. ‘There are only four places where this truth you seek exists.’
I seek, Cal thought. So this is where he’s going?
‘Naturally, the entire plan is at the headquarters of the German army in Berlin, along with those for defending at the same time the Rhineland from a French invasion.’
‘I hope you’re not going to suggest I go burgling in the Bendlerstra? e.’
The idea of Cal picking the locks on those Berlin offices tickled him and caused him to chuckle, before going on to say where other plans were kept, equally impossible to get at: Hitler’s Bavarian retreat, the Berghof, high in a large fenced-off and SS-guarded compound in the Obersalzberg, another set with the designated field commander who was, at this moment, engaged in training his troops for the invasion under the guise of autumn manoeuvres.
‘You seem to know a lot about something supposed to be a secret.’
Moravec was too wise to fall for that bit of fishing. He obviously had good sources right at the top of the German state but they were not going to be discussed. ‘Case Green…’
‘Which is?’
‘The name of the plan for the invasion of Czechoslovakia; the one for the defence of the West is Case Red. The Sudeten German Party does not have the plan but it holds documents given to Henlein by Hitler only five days ago relating to the invasion plan for Bohemia and Moravia, so that they know what to do when it comes.’
‘Such as?’
‘What assets to seize or destroy, where the Wehrmacht columns will seek to penetrate our defences so that they can cause mayhem in the rear areas, as well as their own targets to attack, like roads to block, certain bunkers and the Czech police stations.’
‘Is it not lunacy to give the details to such amateurs? From what I know they are not soldiers but street fighters at best.’
‘That is what has happened and it also proves that Henlein is in Hitler’s pocket. The man is no more than a puppet.’
Cal was trying to imagine that on the table of Chamberlain’s cabinet room and the effect it would have; it would blow the appeasement policy out of the water and expose the Sudeten German leader as a fraud.
‘And you know where this is kept?’
‘It is in the possession of Henlein.’
‘Then why don’t you just break in and steal them?’ Cal asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.
‘That riot I told you of, the man who was supposed to have used his whip, was dismissed. So was the police chief and six more of his men.’
That was followed by a deep sigh and a long and windy explanation of the constraints Moravec was under. He had strict orders himself from the president’s office to do nothing that would make a bad situation worse while the British envoy, Lord Runciman, was in the country; in short, nothing that would antagonise the Germans or give the democracies an excuse to walk away from supporting Czechoslovakia.
To launch an assault on the building in which those documents were located was out of the question when the slightest act like an arrest, even for the proper imposition of order as it had been in Moravia, was blown up by the German press into an atrocity, another excuse for Hitler to rant on about the ‘plight’ of his racial brethren. That impacted in the West, weakening the hand of those trying to press for a policy of standing up to him.
The police in the Sudetenland had even stricter orders now to avoid provocation. Following the riot and the dismissal of Czech officials, they had been required to stoically bear it when the more rabid Nazis took to the streets to taunt them.
They had been backed up by the Sudeten German Freikorps, a group based on Hitler’s SA, who had hurriedly rushed to their side, with their uniforms, flags and arms, to parade through the streets where the riot had taken place singing ‘ Deutschland uber Alles’ and the ‘ Horst-Wessel-Lied’.
Konrad Henlein would not take part in the negotiations with the Czech Government or any other body — Moravec suspected that was again on Hitler’s orders — and nor would any of the other top men in the SdP like Frank. It was becoming increasingly clear there were no concessions which would satisfy the Sudeten German Party: every time their terms were met they upped their demands — this, he was sure, on instructions from Berlin, so the Fuhrer would have his ‘excuse’ to invade.
Not that standing off made any difference; Goebbels, or at least the German newspapers and radio stations he controlled, just made things up. They screamed daily about fabricated Czech atrocities: the beating of innocent civilians, children included, women being molested and in many cases raped, brutal police raids in which houses were reduced to rubble and furniture thrown out into the streets to be smashed, assassinations of activists and all the usual claptrap of Nazi propaganda.
‘My hands are tied, I cannot move, for if I even attempt to do so against the express orders of the Government, someone in my department will leak my intentions before I make a move, perhaps even to the Germans, and next day it will be banner headlines in the Volkischer Beobachter.’