Read Flight from Berlin Online
Authors: David John
‘How extraordinarily interesting.’
Still he held Sir Eric’s hand. ‘India, a nation of half a billion people, ruled by only four hundred English public servants?
Erstaunlich.
’ Astonishing.
It occurred to Eleanor how wrong-footed most people would have been by such remarks, but Sir Eric was an old hand.
‘Lives of a Bengal Lancer . . .
My wife’s seen that only once, I think,’ he said. ‘She’s a Gary Cooper fan, too.’
The gaze swept across Sir Eric’s poker face, but nothing could be read.
Dodd was next, and made a remark about the American team being mightily impressed with the Olympic village. At that, a bothersome memory seemed to pop into the dictator’s head.
‘Yes-sy Oh-vens,’ he said, looking straight through Dodd.
It was at that moment that Eleanor understood with a shock that she was about to be introduced. She had not expected this at all and suddenly felt a powerful aversion to the thought of those lips kissing her hand. There was no backing out, but was there a moment to be seized? Surreptitiously she prised open her handbag.
No one realised what she was doing until the very last moment, when the guard standing behind her darted forwards.
But it was too late.
There was an audible gasp from the people around her.
She had lit a cigarette in the Führer’s face.
D
enham was woken from a dreamless state by the voice of a man sitting at the end of his cot. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep under the harsh electric light.
‘They’ve patched you up, I see.’
He opened one swollen eye and saw the sheen of a jackboot. Fear surged through him, and he shrank against the wall with a moan.
‘It’s all right,’ Rausch said, reaching over and putting a hand on his arm. There was a stink of wine on his breath. His hair was dishevelled and his uniform was undone at the collar. ‘I’ve come to say a friendly hello, that’s all. Just a friendly hello.’ The man’s nails were bitten to the quick, Denham saw, and stained yellow from those noxious Murads.
Rausch leaned back, his head hitting the wall with a soft thud. ‘Do you know what trouble this is bringing me, Denham?’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Have you any idea what could happen to me? I’ll be thrown down here with you, that’s what. The Obergruppenführer is most displeased. Wants to have a go at you himself. Wants to twist it out of you. You wouldn’t want that, believe me, Denham. You wouldn’t want that.’ The blue eyes dilated, struggling to focus.
‘This started so well.
Outstanding
intelligence work. That’s what he said. Should have got me decorated . . .’ Rausch folded his arms and started shaking gently, so that whether he was crying or laughing Denham couldn’t tell. Spittle foamed at the sides of his mouth, and when he spoke again his voice was ill-controlled. ‘I was this close . . .’ He held his thumb and forefinger with a tiny space between them. ‘And then you entered the picture.’
Denham thought of protesting the truth once more, but getting the words out would have cost him too great an effort. And what was the point?
‘You’re one of those types, aren’t you, whom beatings only make silent. Isn’t that so? I’ve seen it before.’ He sighed. ‘You and I both, Denham. We’ll hang for this . . .’ His face reddened but he suppressed the rising sob.
A strange silence opened between them for a while.
‘This dossier . . .’ Denham whispered. ‘Why?’
Rausch slumped forwards and cupped his forehead in his hands so that Denham thought he was about to vomit, but then he said in a distant voice, ‘Wish I knew.’
He sat up, remembering something, fumbled in his tunic and pulled out a cigarette packet. ‘HBs,’ he said, opening it and offering one. ‘Your brand, I believe.’
‘Water,’ Denham croaked.
Rausch struggled to his feet and opened the cell door, swaying. ‘Water in here.’ Seconds later he was handed a jug. Denham sat up despite the hot knives stabbing at his ribs, and reached for it. It sloshed over the rim and onto Rausch’s hands, dripping to the floor. Cool, clear water.
But Rausch didn’t give it to him.
‘Tell me now, friend,’ he said, standing in the middle of the cell, his feet set wide apart to steady himself, ‘and spare us both. Once and for all. Where is it? Please . . . tell me where.’
Denham shook his head sadly without taking his eyes off the jug.
The interrogator staggered backwards, his eyes closed, as if seeing his own doom. His nostrils flared, and a drunken roar came from his chest. With a wide arm he bowled the jug, smashing it against the wall behind Denham’s head, covering him in water and pieces of earthenware. The next moment Rausch was on top of him, punching and screaming.
T
he morning after the Chancellery reception Eleanor and Gallico found standing room only at the back of the tearoom in the old Hotel Kaiserhof on the Wilhelmplatz. The place was full of foreign correspondents and newswire photographers. It was a humid day, and the room already smelled of sweat, cigarette smoke, and whisky hangovers.
Willi Greiser entered to a barrage of shouted questions.
‘Sir, was Liebermann forced to compete?’
‘Can you confirm that her brother was shot while resisting arrest?’
‘Is she in custody? Sir?’
Eleanor noticed that he did not flinch but brazened the onslaught with an urbane smile, dismissing the matter of the Liebermann broadcast with a wave of his hand. Let’s not waste anyone’s time over such a thing.
This guy’s good,
she thought. Speaking smoothly in English with his German-American accent, he said, to popping flashbulbs, ‘After the great strain that training for these Games has taken on her mentally and physically, Fräulein Hannah Liebermann is now convalescing at a private sanatorium. She sincerely regrets any misleading impressions she may have given in her pressured state of mind, and has personally asked me to express her deep gratitude to the German Olympic Committee for once again allowing her the honour of defending her title for Germany.’
‘Boys, don’t fall for it . . .’ Eleanor mumbled.
Greiser then took questions only from the German reporters in the room, who, right on cue, got his propaganda machine rolling with something more palatable. The
Völkischer Beobachter
was eager to know whether Ilse Dörffeldt had recovered from her disappointment in dropping the baton in the women’s relay.
‘She was upset,’ said Greiser, ‘but the Führer himself sent a car full of flowers to console her.’
He answered two more servile questions from the
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
and the
Berliner Tageblatt
while his eyes scanned the room, noticing that the foreign press corps had ceased their shorthand and become restless, whereupon he suddenly thanked everyone and turned his back on the instant uproar of unanswered questions about Liebermann. As he was striding towards the exit, a female voice carried high over those of the males.
‘Has the Gestapo tortured English reporter Richard Denham for speaking to Liebermann?’
Greiser was halfway through the double doors, but Eleanor saw his back tense and his neck stiffen. He’d heard the question.
The room fell still.
She had the sensation of a tide turning as every foot and chair scraped and shifted around and faced in her direction. Faces looked at her eagerly, notepads on knees and pencils at the ready. Then all the questions began at once.
‘Ma’am, who’s this guy? Colleague of yours?’
‘Did he get an interview with Liebermann?’
‘How long’s he been in the cells?’
And Eleanor found herself giving her own press conference, with Gallico standing behind her, amused and shaking his head at the ceiling. The room filled with the dry rustle of 150 pencils taking shorthand.
‘Did you say the Gestapo have got Denham?’ said a lanky, grey-haired Englishman pushing his way through the pack, his pipe smouldering like a paddle steamer’s. ‘Well, who the bloody hell’s getting him out?’ he shouted.
E
arly that evening Gallico rang the bell at the Dodds’ house on Tiergartenstrasse and invited Eleanor for a stroll. The humidity still hadn’t lifted. They bought ice creams from a stall near the Tiergarten and walked along the edge of the park, up the Hermann-Göring-Strasse towards the Brandenburg Gate. Cries of parakeets and howler monkeys reached them from the zoo.
‘So you gave Brundage a hard time?’ she asked.
‘Well, he denied everything of course and looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him up. First time we’ve ever seen him break a sweat . . .’
Gallico’s voice trailed off.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Sweetheart, listen,’ he said, hesitating. ‘You may as well hear this from me first . . .’
‘What is it?’ She felt her stomach turn cold.
‘There’s a report on the wire of an interview your husband’s given to the
New York Post
. Said your behaviour on board the
Manhattan
embarrassed him. Made him think you weren’t the blushing flower he married . . . He doesn’t want you singing with the Herb Emerson Orchestra anymore. Says he needs time apart.’
Eleanor exhaled loudly and realised she’d been holding her breath.
‘Oh,’ she said, almost wanting to cry with relief, but started giggling instead, to Gallico’s bemusement. ‘I thought you were going to tell me Richard had been . . .’ She put her arms around him and hugged him. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’
‘You’re not upset?’
‘Not at all. If anything, it just made my life a whole lot better.’
When they reached Unter den Linden Eleanor suggested a coffee at the Adlon. The first person she saw in the lobby was that lanky Englishman, Rex Palmer-Ward, talking to a group of reporters near the fountain. He spotted her and approached trailing a veil of sweet-smelling smoke.
‘My dear,’ he said. ‘There’s been a development.’
S
earchlights lit Berlin’s new showcase airport, creating a theatrical effect from the blood-red flags, silver eagles, and rows of regimented windows: the hallmarks of the brutal new style.
‘I haven’t packed,’ Denham mumbled to the three SD men escorting him in the BMW.
‘You’re going straight on the flight.’
One of the men showed Denham’s passport at the desk, then escorted him past the brass rail, out onto the runway, and towards the steps of the plane. Its silver fuselage glinted under the lights. The baggage hold was closing and the fuel truck reversing away. The propellers began to turn. In the door of the plane a young stewardess was beckoning for them to hurry.
Denham reached the steps just as the engines began to roar, but before he could climb inside, the SD man grabbed his elbow. With his other hand holding on to his trilby he yelled, ‘Make any attempt to reenter the Reich and it’s straight back to the cells. Understand?’
‘I’m not coming back,’ Denham said, taking his passport from the man’s hand.
He hobbled through the door of the plane and said hello to the stewardess, seeing the effect of his ravaged face in her eyes. Pretty eyes, too. Iceberg blue. Inside the cabin were about sixteen tall, upholstered seats, all occupied, except one. In their haste to flush him out of their Aryan paradise, Denham guessed they’d bumped someone off the flight. At least he had a window seat. He eased himself in with care, trying not to faint from the hot pokers in his ribs.
The plane began to move. It rumbled along the runway for a minute; then the engine noise swelled in pitch, there was a sudden acceleration, and they were away, up out of the Reich. Trying not to rest his stitched-up brow against the window he watched the spider’s web of illuminated streets radiating from Potsdamer Platz station, the long line of car taillights passing along the Tiergarten, the dark mass of the zoo and its lakes. Drifts of cloud slipped over the wing. A few minutes later they were over the western districts of Wilmersdorf, Charlottenburg, and Spandau, and Berlin was stretching away behind them.
Iceberg Eyes asked if he’d like a drink. He winked at her and asked for a triple whisky, neat, and some aspirin.
‘I’ll have the same,’ said an American voice. ‘Without the aspirin.’
Eleanor stood in the aisle, smiling at the man seated next to him, asking if he wouldn’t mind swapping seats. Denham had never seen her look so lovely. She was in a navy suit with a marocain blouse and had her hair held up by a black felt band with a ribbon.
He blinked, fearing another hallucination like the ones that had haunted his cell. Maybe in truth he was still there, doped on morphine and comatose, incapable of breaking through the surface to reality, and not wanting to.
‘You sure took your time,’ she said, sitting down next to him.
He touched her forehead with his finger.
‘It’s me, Richard. I’m real. This is real.’ She kissed him gently on his swollen lips.
‘How did you . . . ?’
But it didn’t matter for now. He put his arms around her, and pressed his face to hers, ignoring the agony in his hand, cheek, and ribs. He began to cry.
‘I don’t look too grand, do I?’
She took his bandaged hand and kissed it. ‘I think you’re the grandest person on earth.’
They downed their drinks, and Eleanor said, ‘Sleep for a while. Then we’ll talk.’
Denham drifted off to the hum of the propellers and the stewardess announcing, ‘Our flight time over the Reich is one and a half hours; we land at Croydon Airfield, London, in four hours . . .’
He awoke with the word ‘home’ on his lips and realised that Tom had been swimming through his dream. The cabin lights were off, and he looked out of the window at great ranges of clouds, towering white in the moonlight and plunging into silvery canyons and crevasses.
Where are you hiding, son?
‘The stars look like ice crystals, don’t they?’ Eleanor said softly. She was curled sideways into her seat, watching him, a blanket wrapped around her.