The pain in his face, the loss of blood, and the sound of gunfire shook his nerves, but he made no mistakes.
He poured petrol over Hirsch’s great body half-hidden under the desk, put his own uniform and boots nearby. He splashed petrol over the walls and fittings. Then he straightened up, looked once more into the compound. No one would recognise this filthy object now. His face had disappeared under the blood-soaked bandages. His moustache had gone. His S.S. uniform had been replaced by the khaki battledress.
David Ellis was ready to welcome the liberators of Belsen. Edwin Cushman, renegade, was about to disappear for ever in a blazing pyre.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Mr Justice Tucker began his summing-up on the third day of the trial. During the course of his direction to the jury he said: “Now, what did this man, Inspector Hunt, say? He was a Detective-Inspector and he said that he had known the prisoner since 1934; he had not spoken to him but he had listened to him making political speeches from time to time, and he said he knew his voice. He said that on the 3rd September, 1939, he was stationed at Folkestone and he was there till the 10th December, 1939. He said. ‘I then returned to London. While at Folkestone I listened to a broadcast. I recognised the voice immediately as the prisoner’s . . .’ ”
The few members of the public who had succeeded in getting into the packed court had spent the night on the stone steps of the Old Bailey. They had come to feast their eyes on the prisoner who had, for so long, sneered at and taunted them over the German radio in what he had imagined to be perfect safety. Well, they had him now, and no legal arguments, nor the endless quotations from the hundreds of law books overflowing on the solicitor’s table, would save him.
The evidence given on the first day of the trial had revealed how easily he had walked into a trap:
“On the 28th May of this year in the evening, you were in company with a Lieutenant Perry in a wood in Germany, somewhere near the Danish frontier at Flensberg?”
“I was.”
“Were you both engaged in gathering wood to make a fire?”
“We were.”
“Whilst you were engaged in doing that did you see anybody?”
“We came across a person who appeared to be walking in the woods.”
“Who was it?”
“It was the prisoner!
“Did he do or say anything to you?”
“He indicated some fallen wood to us and said to us, ‘Here are a few mores pieces.’ ”
“In what language did he speak first?”
“He spoke to us in French, and then afterwards in English.”
“Did you recognise the voice?”
“I did.”
“As what?”
“As that of the announcer or speaker on the German radio.”
And now in his summing-up the Judge again referred to the prisoner’s voice.
A fat woman in a dusty black coat and a shapeless hat adorned with decaying feathers, sitting on the public bench, leaned forward, grunted.
“As if anyone wouldn’t recognise ‘is voice,” she whispered to a man in a shabby brown suit who was wedged against the wail next to her. “I’d know that voice anywhere. The times I’ve ‘eard it. “Orl right,” I said to myself, time and again, “talk as much as yer like. It don’t make no difference. It don’t upset me — you and yer silly lies," I said. “But you’ll larf the other side of yer face when we catch yer," and that’s wot ‘e’s doing now — larfing the other side of ‘is face.”
The man to whom she was speaking shrank from her. He was a screwed up, bitter figure, below middle height, fair, with a yellow-white complexion. There was a livid scar running from his right eye to his chin that interested the woman.
“Been in the wars yerself, ‘aven’t yer, matey?” she whispered. “Cor luv me, yer poor face is a proper sight.”
The man with the scar (who called himself David Ellis) nodded, kept his eyes on the Judge who was talking now about British and American nationalities. How they had wrangled about that! There would be no question about his nationality if they ever caught him, he thought bitterly. There’d be no backdoor for him if they ever tricked him into that dock.
“I recognised the voice immediately as the prisoner’s.”
Well, he had thought of that. He wouldn’t be caught as easily as the prisoner. He knew they would recognise his voice again if they ever heard it and he had taken precautions.
This Inspector chap had recognised the prisoner’s voices. The Captain of the Reconnaissance Regiment had also recognised it — recognised it the moment he had heard it. What a mug the prisoner had been to have spoken to the two officers. What had he been thinking about? Asking for it, that’s what it was, asking for it.
Well, he hadn’t been such a fool. Of course the bandages had helped, but then that was part of his plan. When they had finally taken them off he had kept his mouth shut, said nothing. They had been kind to him. Suffering from shock was what they called it. Then when he came up for questioning, when he had to speak, he was prepared. It was amazing what a small pebble under the tongue could do to alter a voice. The thick, stumbling speech was all part of the symptoms, they said, and they hadn’t suspected him for a moment. But he couldn’t carry a pebble about in his mouth for the rest of his days. That worried him. The memory of the British public was long. One false move and he’d be where the prisoner was now. It was so easy to forget that people knew your voice. You spoke suddenly, without thinking. You asked for a packet of cigarettes, for a newspaper, ordered a meal, and the next second you found people looking at you, a puzzled expression in their eyes, and you realised that you’d forgotten to put the pebble in your mouth.
After he had been in London for two or three days, and suspected that he had more than once betrayed himself by his voice, Ellis decided he couldn’t afford to take any more such risks. Until he could think of a more permanent plan he posed as a deaf-mute; going so far as to learn the deaf and dumb alphabet. But you couldn’t go around talking with your fingers to people who didn’t know the signs. That might do for the few, but the pebble had to do for the majority. He would have to do something permanent about his voice, but what, he had no idea. He hadn’t realised how easily his voice could betray him. He hadn’t realised how sharp these people were. Look at the prisoner. He had only said, “There are a few more pieces here,” and they had pounced on him; shot him, too.
He had come to the trial prepared for trouble. Old Bailey was a lion’s den if ever there was one. The place was stiff with police and Army Intelligence officers. He couldn’t afford to make a slip here and he kept the pebble tucked up between his gum and his cheek and hadn’t once taken it out.
The fat woman was speaking to him again. “All this fuss. Why don’t they ‘ave done with it? They know ‘oo ‘e is, don’t they? That voice is enough. Why don’t they get on with it?”
Ellis scowled at her, tried to shift away, but her fat body wedged him in and he couldn’t move.
“ ‘Ere ‘ave a sandwich,” she said generously. “They’ll be at it all the afternoon. It’s ‘ungry work, listening to all them words. Wot are they getting at, anyway? Think ‘e’ll wriggle out of it?”
Ellis shook his head, put out a grubby claw, took one of the sandwiches. He had had no lunch and his insides were rumbling, but he did not intend to miss one word of this legal battle. But for his own shrewdness this could easily have been his own trial. The atmosphere of the court, the words, the reactions of the speakers fascinated him. It was like attending one’s own funeral service. He accepted the sandwich gratefully, turned away to slip the pebble out of his mouth into his hand.
“That’s right,” the woman whispered, nodding and smiling. She had a round, red, jolly face. Her small brown eyes twinkled. “Tuck in. I got plenty. I believe in feeding meself, not that you can get the food these days. Queue . . . queue, all the time.”
Ellis nodded. He wasn’t going to open his mouth now, no matter what she said to him. He bit into the fresh bread, chewed slowly. Cheese and pickles. The poor know how to look after themselves, he thought bitterly. Cheese and pickles while a man was waiting to die.
The Judge was reading from the prisoner’s statement,
“I take this opportunity of making a preliminary statement, concerning the motive which led me to come to Germany and to broadcast over the German radio service. I was actuated not by the desire for personal gain, material or otherwise, but solely by political conviction.”
Ellis winced as he heard these words. They bit unexpectedly into his conscience.
“I was actuated not by the desire for personal gain . . ."
He couldn’t say that for himself. What he had done had been for personal gain. They could prove that all right, no matter what he said. But what else could you expect? In this country they never gave you a chance. You had to be a public school type or at least look presentable before you could earn more than ten pounds a week. Brains and ability didn’t count. Never mind how hard you worked at night school to improve yourself. It was who’s your father? What’s your school? Let’s look at your suit.
Before he had joined the British Union of Fascists he had been earning thirty-five shillings a week as a clerk in a tin-pot estate agent’s office. He had tried to get a better job, but the white-collared swine, sitting smugly behind their desks, wouldn’t look at him. The news that his father was doing a twenty-year stretch for killing his daughter always damned his chances. It wasn’t his fault that his father was a reprieved murderer, was it? Anyway, if the old man hadn’t killed her, he would have wrung her neck himself — the dirty little bitch! He had seen her with his own eyes walking up and down Piccadilly, a torch in her hand and an inviting smile for any man who’d look at her. And she had pretended she had a decent job in the ladies’ room of a night club! No wonder she had money to burn. He had gone straight back home and told the old man, who’d gone after her. He could see the old man’s face now: white as mutton fat and with something in his eyes that made him look like a wolf. He had tracked her to a smart flat in Old Burlington Street, and after throwing the swine who was with her downstairs, he had broken her back across a table. Serve the slut right! The Judge had been sorry for him; so had the jury, and the Home Secretary had reprieved him. But the story wouldn’t die. “That’s the fellow ‘oo’s father done murder — killed ‘is daughter, ‘e did. Blimey! I wouldn’t put it past to murder someone ‘isself!” That’s how they had talked until he had put on a black shirt, then they shut their mouths. They were scared of him then. They knew he could whistle up Scragger any time he wanted him, and Scragger would take care of them.
He wondered about Scragger as he sat in the stuffy court, his mind darting into the past with lightning feints of a trapped bird. Good old Scragger! Nobody scared Scragger. Perhaps he was a little cracked, but he’d do anything for anyone he liked, “and he liked me,” Ellis thought. “Seemed to take an immediate fancy to me. Maybe it was because he was so big and stupid and I was so damned puny and smart.”
His attention suddenly switched back to the Judge’s voice.
He was still reading the prisoner’s statement.
“I decided to leave the country, since I did not wish to play the part of a conscientious objector and since I supposed that in Germany I should have the opportunity to express and propagate views the expression of which would be forbidden in Britain during time of war. Realising, however, that at this critical juncture I had declined to serve Britain, I drew the logical conclusion that I should have no moral right to return to that country of my own free will and that it would be best to apply for German citizenship and make my permanent home in Germany. Nevertheless, it remained my undeviating purpose to attempt as best I could to bring about a reconciliation or at least an understanding between the two countries.”
Well, he didn’t care about any understanding between Britain and Germany. They could both go to hell for all he cared. Nor did he care how powerful Russia became or how many Jews were born. All he cared about was looking after himself, making a bit of money, having a home and some comfort. They paid him five pounds a week for wearing a black shirt. They recognised his worth. He didn’t mind working for the money. No one could call him lazy. He would have worked for anyone if they’d given him a chance, but the B.U.F. were the only ones who hadn’t thrown his father’s crime in his face. They treated him fairly. They had encouraged him to study, taught him how to talk correctly, and that was more than the damned capitalists had done.
But the war caught him on the hop. They had advised him to get out, to go to Germany, but somehow he didn’t fancy going there. He’d heard too many stories about the Nazis. It was all very well admiring them from a distance, but he wasn’t such a mug as to get too close to them. In England you could stand up on your hind legs and call the Government all the names you could think of, and the Bobby, standing nearby, grinned at you from behind his hand. You could even bash a Communist — at least, he didn’t do the bashing, Scragger did that — and get away with it. But in Nazi Germany you kept your trap shut or else you got into trouble.
He didn’t want to go into the Army either, but he hadn’t the guts to be a conscientious objector. So into the Army he went: slap into the hands of the capitalists again. Commission? Not likely! (‘The fella’s father’s a murderer, ol’ man. George Cushman . . . you remember? Murdered his daughter . . . shocking case. Couldn’t have a chap in the Mess whose father did a thing like that, could we, ol’ man?”) No, they didn’t give him a commission; they made him a potato basher, attached to the cookhouse. That was all they thought he was fit for: peeling potatoes every day until his hands were raw and his nails broken. Then they sent him along with thousands of sacks of potatoes to France, and he had been caught up in the Dunkirk retreat.