That made Cal Jardine stiffen, it being the kind of question that might have unpleasant undertones. His last departure, not that long past, had been a close-run thing and he knew there were people in Germany who would dearly love to get him in a cell with a couple of rubber truncheons in their hands and some bare electrical wiring. Yet looking at MCG and his bland expression, it seemed as if the question was an innocent one.
‘Quite some time, but it is a country I am fond of.’
‘You will find it much changed, Herr Moncrief, and for the better. I feel we could do with a dose of what the Führer has done in Germany here in Greece, particularly the way he has dealt with the communists.’
Not wanting to go there, Cal decided to change the subject. ‘I forgot to ask you, Herr Constantou-Georgiadis, how is your lovely wife?’
MCG looked as if he had just been slapped, and as much as it was possible for the skin of his face to tighten it did just that. Did he know what had happened that night he stormed out of the Grande Bretagne?
‘My wife,’ he hissed, ‘is where she should be, mein Herr, looking after my affairs.’
‘She’s very good at looking after affairs, I should think.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The train north was the Arlberg Orient Express, direct from Athens through Belgrade, Bucharest, then, after a change at Vienna, the journey north through Czechoslovakia to Germany and Berlin, where, once over the border, he was subjected to the usual continual checking of papers en route that went with the thorough Teutonic bureaucracy that existed in a country with more uniform per square metre than anywhere else in the world.
He spent a night in the Adlon Hotel, luxurious and central, but reputedly not much loved by the Berlin Nazis, who preferred the Kaiserhof. Even then, having checked in as Herr Moncrief, he ate in his room and had a careful look round the following morning before exiting to hail a taxi to take him to catch the train to Celle in Lower Saxony.
With eighty million Germans, the chances of running into anyone who knew his face were so slight as to be non-existent, but he had always been of the opinion that it would be a stupid mistake to ignore the risk, because you would feel a damn fool if it went wrong, and in his case, in this country, it could prove fatal.
Celle was a pretty place, very conscious of itself, once part of the electorate of Hanover which had produced the Georgian kings of England – a fact that was immediately mentioned to him as he checked into the Fürstenhof Hotel and they saw his British passport. Provincial in the extreme, it was miles away in time and thinking from Berlin, sharing only the very recognisable features of the totalitarian state: the ubiquitous swastika flags and banners, the exhorting posters, as well as the loudspeakers on lampposts and buildings which would play martial music as well as deliver messages from the propaganda ministry, just in case the populace did not know how great their country was.
From there it was another short journey to Unterlüss and the Rheinmetall-Borsig Werk. With three factories this was the one he had been told to go to; what they did not make here would be brought from the other plants in Kassel and Düsseldorf – the whole, once inspected and accepted, would be shipped up to the Free Port of Hamburg. Peter Lanchester had a cargo vessel on the way to dock there and wait, provided by one of his secretive backers, who was obviously in shipping.
Unterlüss was a typical small German town, dependent on the factory, with tall half-timbered buildings with steep sloping roofs and the serious-minded Saxon inhabitants. Reputedly the hardest workers in the country, their neighbours had a saying for them, that in a Saxon household ‘even if Grandfather is dead he must work; put his ashes in the timer’.
The name he had been given was that of the factory manager, Herr Gessler, and having rung from Celle he was expected. Gessler was very correct, dressed in a grey suit that hugged his thin frame, with rimless glasses and his party badge on his lapel, an object he was given to frequently fingering. A tour of the factory was obligatory and it was something he would report back on, this being the manufacturing works for not only small arms and flak artillery, but for small-calibre naval guns.
Gessler had obviously been told to treat him as an honoured guest, an instruction which had no doubt come from above, but he was nervous in a way that made Jardine jumpy, given there seemed no reason for him to be. He was also a walking technical encyclopaedia who wanted to impart all his knowledge in a sort of breathless litany that left even a man with a professional interest in the subject wondering whether he would ever shut up.
The nerves had an explanation, which was provided as they approached the head office building having finished their tour. The Mercedes standing outside had a swastika pennant on its wheel arch and beside it, standing to attention, was a driver in the pale-blue uniform of the Luftwaffe.
Inside Gessler’s office they met the passenger – a full colonel, sharp-featured and wearing a monocle, in a beautifully tailored uniform, boots so shiny you could have shaved in them, and a pair of grey gloves in one hand which he slapped into the other – who, having clicked his heels, introduced himself as Oberst Brauschitz.
‘Herr Moncrief, I have come from Oberbefehlshaber Göring who wishes to meet with you. I am ordered to convey you to his hunting lodge at Carinhall.’
He did not want to go; it was like the lair of the wolf and he was aware that the excuse he offered was a feeble one. ‘I daresay that will involve an overnight stay, Herr Oberst, and my luggage is at the Fürstenhof.’
Brauschitz responded with a thin smile. ‘Please credit us with some sense, Herr Moncrief. Your luggage is in the back of the car. But I assure you, were it not, you would want for nothing, given the person who is going to be your host.’
‘I cannot think I warrant the personal attention of the supreme commander of the Luftwaffe.’
For the first time the genial mask dropped and he almost barked. ‘It is not for you to decide, it is for you to do as you are requested.’
There was no point in saying it did not sound like a request, even less in continuing to refuse. ‘Herr Gessler, I thank you for my tour and I am sure I will be seeing you shortly in the near future.’ That was followed by a keen look, to see if he agreed; if he did not, Cal knew he was in trouble. All he got was a sharp nod, which left him still guessing.
‘Shall we go? My superior does not like to be kept waiting.’
That was an absurd thing to say; Cal did not know exactly where Carinhall was but it lay in a totally different region of Germany, further away even than Berlin. That was when he found out how they were going to get there.
‘I take it you have no exception to flying?’
‘None.’
The plane was a Fieseler-Storch, and once his case was in, there was not a lot of room. Brauschitz had replaced his service cap with a flying helmet and they were airborne very quickly. The noise inside the cramped cabin made talking extremely difficult, so Cal just sat back and admired the scenery as they flew fairly low over the countryside. On landing there was a second car waiting and now the colonel could talk.
If he was urbane, it was in a German way; correct and, in his case, slightly boastful. By the time they reached their destination Cal knew he was part of a military family that went back a long way, and that he was related to very many senior officers in the German army, including one on the General Staff. Fortunately, with it getting dark and the road being through thick forest, which shut out what light was left, he was unable to see the look of boredom on his passenger’s face.
The so-called hunting lodge looked more like a low-lying Florida to Jardine; thatched roof, white walls and two storeys high. It stood in extensive grounds, proved by the time it took to travel past the steel-helmeted Luftwaffe guards at the stone-pillared gate and get to the house itself, which was lit up like a luxury hotel. Dominating the gravelled courtyard was a bronze statue of a huge wild boar. Inside, Cal’s first impression was of overdecoration, not that he had long to look; a white-coated valet came in carrying his case and the colonel indicated he would take him to his room.