The Leader And The Damned (53 page)

Hartmann grabbed Paco by the forearm, slowed her down. They had reached the far side of the hill where it plunged down into another gorge. He saw a narrow steep gulch descending like the start of a stream bed. He pulled her with him, feet slithering on a gravelly surface. The dried-up stream bed zigzagged between more boulders.

They came to an overhang of rock protruding far out, providing a natural roof. Panting for breath, Hartmann paused, let go of Paco and looked back and up. Lindsay was close behind. At his heels Reader followed, waving the sten as he staggered on the uneven surface.

'Get your breath back here...' Hartmann said.

'We're safe here from the mortar bombs. Sit down on that rock...'

Paco was trembling. He sat on another rock himself, took out a handkerchief and wiped sweat from his forehead. Lindsay, silent and withdrawn, had perched on another rock while Reader sagged against the rear wall.

'In a minute we'll have to get moving and fast,' Hartmann told them. 'Is there a way round into this gorge from the other one?' he asked Paco.

'Yes. This hill is like a lozenge,' she explained, 'cut off from the rest of the countryside by roads. Where the Germans came in there's a fork...'

'So, from the point where you saw Jaeger he could backtrack, take the other fork - and he'd be coming along the gorge below which we have to cross to escape?'

'You're right,' Paco said, studying Hartmann. 'Except that I can't believe Jaeger has caught up with us, that the Germans will think of such a manoeuvre. They must be in a terrible mess.'

'If it's Jaeger he'll think of it, and he'll come,' Hartmann said firmly.

Lindsay was in a state of semi-shock. Locked into the cockpit of a Spitfire was one thing. But this was his first experience of real ground warfare. Illogically, he cursed his own slowness, the fact that it was Hartmann who had saved Paco was something he deeply resented.

Reaching automatically for a cigarette, his hand touched the hard outline of the diary in his pocket. That was all - was everything - which counted. He must get the information back to London. It was a hollow reflex thought. At that moment, watching Paco, he didn't really care what happened next.

The surviving Partisans had reached the edge of the hill and were fleeing into the gorge below down other gulches. Between the steady thump of the mortar bombs - like a martial drumbeat - Hartmann could hear on both sides the slither of fleeing feet, the slide of stones. He stood up.

'We must get moving - before they trap us...'

It was weird, thought Lindsay. Hartmann seemed to have taken command of their little group quite naturally. Even Paco was accepting his leadership. And poor Milic was dead, a man with only half a head. Milic who had - speaking not a word of German - travelled all the way to Munich as part of Paco's rescue team. A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him roughly.

'Have you gone into a bloody trance? The others are half way down to the gorge...'

Reader, of course. Always Reader.

'I'm handing over command to you, Schmidt.' Jaeger gave the order as he stood in the back of the half- track studying a local map with the aid of a shaded torch. 'There's a fork barely a kilometre behind us. Remember? We took the right-hand turning. According to this map the left-hand one leads round the far side of this mountain. I'm going to trap the whole of this bloody Partisan group...'

'You'll get there in time?'

'That's why I've assembled this mobile force...'

Jaeger had achieved the apparently impossible twice over. He had - by cunning use of the mortar teams - converted potential destruction of the column into disaster for the Partisans. Now he had conjured up his mobile force - the half-track armed with a swivel-mounted machine-gun and a team of six motorcycles with side-cars - the side-cars each carrying a man armed with a machine-pistol and grenades.

The half-track was crammed with infantry also armed with machine-pistols and grenades. This, Jaeger was convinced, would be close-range - maybe hand-to-hand - fighting. As the first group of two motorcycles and side-cars headed back for the fork he gave final instructions to Schmidt.

'Get the men out of the death-trap they should never have been led into. Forget the transport, abandon the tanks. Save the men! They're to move - well spread- out - fast until they break out into the plain beyond. Regroup there and I'll rejoin you when I can.'

'Good luck, Chief.'

'Luck doesn't come into it,' Jaeger shouted as the half-track turned through a hundred and eighty degrees prior to moving back to the fork. 'It's fire-power, mobility and getting there..

Before he turned to face the way they were going, Schmidt was already kicking the starter of a borrowed motorcycle ready for his swift journey along the column to issue the order. Evacuate!

Something very peculiar happened. At the time it made no sense to Lindsay, no sense at all. They had stumbled after Hartmann to the bottom of the serpentine gulch. The road along the gorge was little more than a rock-strewn track. Lindsay suspected it was a tumbling torrent in winter.

They had crossed the road as a rearguard: the more experienced Partisans were already on the far side, scrambling up another steep slope. They could hear the German motorcycles and side-cars coming. They could see them coming as they roared forward with headlamps blazing

Paco waited until they were several hundred metres above the road. They had reached a rock ledge at the mouth of a shadowed cave when, from underneath her jacket, she produced a Luger pistol and pointed it at Hartmann.

'If you make any attempt to signal our whereabouts to your compatriots I'll shoot you...'

'Shoot me!'

Hartmann began shaking with laughter. Lindsay thought the Abwehr officer's nerve had broken, that the strain had proved too much. The German extended a hand towards the pistol, suddenly stern.

'Who do you think got you off that hilltop? Who realized what was coming? Who just - but only just - saved you from the bombardment? Give me that gun immediately.'

He grasped the barrel, gently pulling it from Paco's grasp. He took hold of it by the butt and with a quick movement placed the end of the muzzle against Reader's skull.

'Hand over the sten to Lindsay. You've got three seconds and I've started counting... two...'

Reader surrendered the sten. The two men stared at each other. Hartmann gestured into the recesses of the cave. Reader shrugged, walked slowly into the shadows. Hartmann gestured again, this time to Lindsay.

'Go after him. Keep an eye' on him. You have the sten...'

'Why?' asked Paco.

'Maybe because his enemy is down there. We shall survive only if we hide. There is more than the motorcyclists...'

For the first time since they had started their brutal, aching climb Paco heard another, more sinister sound approaching above the erratic roar of the oncoming motorcycles. The power and the grind of rumbling caterpillars A tank? A half-track?

There was something macabre, almost comic, about the antics of the motorcycles. They kept dashing backwards and forwards like frantic ants, never in one place for more than a second. Darting over a short distance, screeching round on their wheels, skidding, driving back the way they had just come. Then repeating the same process. And all the time the sound of the rumbling caterpillar tracks came closer.

'Get back from the edge,' Hartmann commanded.

He grabbed her forearm and hauled her closer to the mouth of the cave as he spoke. Just in time. The soldiers riding in the side-cars began scouring the lower slopes with a ferocious barrage of machine-

pistol fire. They had, spotted the fleeing Partisans on the higher slopes.

A man screamed, screamed as the Germans had screamed in the other gorge. The sombre thought crossed Lindsay's mind that the sounds had been the same. A body, arms and legs cartwheeling, fell through the air beyond the cave to land on the rocks a few hundred metres below.

The rattle of machine-pistol fire continued. Random shooting across the whole slope. The hail of fire became insistent. But this was only the hors d'oeuvres. Colonel Jaeger, remembering the other gorge, was about to serve up the main course.

On the same day it was very quiet and the street was deserted as the little, middle-aged man with glasses locked the outer door of the offices of Vita Nova Verlag in Lucerne. To clear up a backlog he had been working late and now he crossed the street to the tram stop and waited patiently.

The weather was chilly and damp and he wore his overcoat and soft hat as he checked his watch and peered along the street in the direction the tram would appear. The quiet, the lack of pedestrians was deceptive.

'There he is,' a man concealed in a shop doorway remarked to his companion, another ordinary-looking civilian. 'Every day he follows the same routine, the same route home. Even if he is late today. He must be crazy.'

'He never varies the route? You are sure of that?' the taller man asked sharply.

'We have watched him for a week now. He gives no sign of being a professional...'

'You are sure that is Rudolf Roessler? A man like that could have a double. We all have a double. Did I tell you once...'

'His tram is coming.' The first hint of excitement appeared in the voice of the smaller man. 'Be ready. The other teams are in position?'

'Of course.'

The tram rumbled wearily towards the stop. It had started to rain, a gentle, wetting drizzle like a sea-mist drifting in off the lake. Roessler absent-mindedly fastened the top button of his coat, a pointless action since in a moment he would be inside the tram. It stopped, its sides gleaming with globules of moisture, and Roessler climbed aboard. As was his habit he chose a seat at the back. A woman hurried aboard and sat beside him, much to the annoyance of Roessler who preferred to be alone. He glanced furtively sideways. 'Anna...!'

'Shush! Keep your voice down. You are being followed. You see those two men sitting in the seat near the exit door, the ones who came aboard at your stop...'

Roessler was bewildered. First the unprecedented appearance of his wife who had never before met him on his way home. Now this absurdly melodramatic story... To get his bearings he performed an everyday action, taking off his rain-smeared glasses to clean them. He was going to use the corner of his handkerchief when his wife took them from him.

'Give them to me. You'll smear them, make them worse...'

Without his glasses the world was a blur. He stared at the vague silhouettes of the backs of the two men. He had not even noticed them boarding the tram. His wife had taken a tissue from her handbag to clean the glasses.

'What is happening?' he asked. 'I don't understand — we are in Switzerland. We are safe...'

'We
thought
we were safe,' Anna corrected him.

She handed back the glasses. With a sense of relief he put them on and the world came back into focus. Droplets of rain ran down the windows of the tram. He followed one droplet as it zigzagged an irregular course. He was frightened.

'What are you talking about?' he asked. 'You said earlier I was being followed. By whom?'

His coat smelt of damp wool. He should have brought a raincoat instead. But earlier in the day...

'I don't know,' Anna replied, keeping her voice low. 'The first thing I noticed several days ago was the men following you to work in the morning. I was watching from behind the net curtains as you went off to catch your tram. Two men had been standing on the opposite pavement, apparently talking to each other. It was raining heavily. Neither had an umbrella and they were getting soaked. It seemed odd...'

'You're imagining all this,' he muttered.

'Wait till I've finished! Then tell me I'm imagining it. I went on watching. You crossed the street and you were no more than one hundred metres away when they began to follow you. As you disappeared round a corner they broke into a trot to catch up...'

'The same men as those sitting in that seat?'

He was beginning to believe her. Ever since they had fled from Germany before the war, he had felt secure once they crossed the Swiss border. He didn't want to believe her.

'Not the same men. A different pair...'

'There you are!' He relaxed, sagged against the back of the seat. 'It's all a coincidence. I told you it was your imagination...'