Faked Passports (2 page)

“That's it; and we didn't even try to bring you round. The farmer and I wanted to bathe and bandage that wound of yours but the young woman who was with you wouldn't let us. You were all for taking her back to England with you but she wouldn't go, so you said that in that case you were damned if you'd go either.”

“Oh God! Erika—Erika—” Gregory moaned as the airman went on:

“Apparently she felt that she'd never be able to make you leave her once you came round again and she was desperately anxious to have you safely out of it. She insisted that we should bung you in the plane and that I should get off with you while you were still unconscious.”

Gregory lurched forward. “Look here, Charlton,” he said thickly, “you've got to turn round and take me back. I'm not going home yet—I can't. You must find that farm again and land me. Understand?”

“Sorry; can't be done,” Freddie called back with boyish cheerfulness. “I'm the captain of this bus and you're only a passenger. If you've got any complaints you can make them when we land at Heston early in the morning.”

“Now, listen.” Gregory laid his good hand on Charlton's shoulder. “That girl we left is Erika von Epp or, to give her her married name, the Countess von Osterberg. She's the grandest, bravest thing that ever walked, as well as the loveliest, and I'm not leaving her in the lurch. It's unthinkable!”

“She'll be all right; she said so.”

“She won't. You don't understand. She's von Pleisen's niece and she was up to her neck in the conspiracy. If it hadn't been for her I would never have been able to deliver a letter from
the Allied statesmen, guaranteeing Germany an honourable peace and a new deal if the Generals would out Hitler and his thugs. Just think …”

“I don't care who she is or what she's done,” Charlton cut him short. “We're not going back.”

“We must! Von Pleisen was a splendid fool. Instead of taking the advice of most of his officers and mowing down the Sons of Siegfried before they had a chance to utter he insisted that they should be given an opportunity to surrender peaceably. Von Pleisen's chivalry cost him his life and gave the Nazis just the breathing space necessary to draw their guns. A lot of them fought their way out of the trap and were able to rally their men. When I left Berlin the streets were running with blood, but it's anybody's battle; and Hitler escaped the bomb in Munich.”

Gregory's head was aching dully but his brain was moving now, and he went on speaking slowly but firmly. “If the Gestapo get the upper hand there'll be a more terrible purge than anything that even Nazi Germany has ever witnessed. Every officer who's in this thing, and hundreds of others who are only suspected, will be shot; their families will be proscribed and thrown into concentration-camps. Erika will be right at the top of the list and God knows what those swine have in store for her.”

“Easy, easy,” Charlton murmured, “you're letting your imagination run away with you.”

“I'm not! You
must
believe me! Grauber, the Chief of the Gestapo Foreign Department, U.A.-1, bagged her just before the
Putsch
and it was only by the luck of the devil that she was still alive when I reached and freed her.”

“Well, since she
is
free, what are you worrying about?”

“Damn it, man, Grauber's aware of the part she played so he'll put scores of his agents on to hunt her down again. If I can rejoin her there's a sporting chance that I might get her out of the country. If I can't, I could at least shoot her myself, and I'd rather do that than have her fall into his hands; if he gets her he'll kill her by inches. I've
got
to go back—I've definitely
got
to!”

“Now look here, old chap,” Charlton turned his head again and spoke in a more reasonable tone, “I
do
understand what you're feeling. You're in love with her. That was as plain as a pike-staff although I only saw the two of you together for a few minutes. Naturally it hurts like hell to have to leave her behind
in such a sticky spot, but what the devil could you do, wounded as you are, even if you were able to rejoin her?”

“The wound's not much. Grauber got me in the fleshy part of the shoulder but fortunately there's no bone broken and the bullet went out the other side. I only fainted from loss of blood and I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't had to go on fighting and chasing about all over Berlin for an hour or more after I was hit. It'll be all right in a day or two.”

“That's as maybe, but if you want it to heal quickly you'll have to lie up, and you can't do that while searching Berlin for your girl-friend. Another thing: if this Gestapo man you speak of shot you himself he presumably knows who you are.”

Gregory started to laugh but choked and began to cough violently. When he got his breath back he replied:

“Know me? By God he does! We've been up against each other for the last two months. He darned nearly murdered me in London and I near as dammit laid him by the heels in Paris about a fortnight ago; but he got away to Holland and the authorities there put him in prison for travelling on a forged passport. Thinking that he was safely out of the way I impersonated him when I did my second trip into Germany and went swaggering round the country as
Herr Gruppenführer
Grauber in the smartest all-black uniform you've ever seen. Lord, how they kowtowed to me! ‘Yes,
Herr Gruppenführer
' ‘No,
Herr Gruppenführer
.' ‘May it please Your Excellency.' ‘Will you honour us by accepting this damned good meal while we sit here and starve?' The poor saps! But Grauber turned up in Munich to spoil my little game. I had the last laugh, though, when I cornered him in a bedroom at the Adlon this evening. My gun was empty so I hurled it in his face and smashed his left eye to pulp.”

“Fine!” murmured Charlton. “Fine! But hasn't it occurred to you that Grauber will be a little peeved about losing that eye of his; and that with the whole of the Gestapo behind him it's he would have the last laugh instead of you if I landed you again in this accursed country?”

Gregory straightened himself. His head was clearing with the cool night air and he was feeling distinctly better. “To hell with that! I'm prepared to chance it. If they get me that's my affair; the one thing that I flatly refuse to do is to go back to England while Erika is left to fend for herself in Berlin.”

“It's not a matter of your refusing; you have no option. I've made eleven of these secret trips successfully since I set you
down outside Cologne two months ago and now I'm well away with this one I'm not going to risk losing one of Britain's planes and, though I sez it as shouldn't, one of her ace pilots by coming down again because you've fallen in love with a German girl.” Gregory tried to control the urgency in his voice but every minute the plane was taking him three miles further from Erika. “It's a lot to ask, I know,” he said persuasively, “but there's too much trouble going on in Berlin tonight for the anti-aircraft look-outs to be active. They'll all have heard of the Army
Putsch
by now and will probably be fighting among themselves. Anyhow, they'll be far too busy swapping rumours and hanging on for the latest news to bother about checking up on a stray plane.”

“Perhaps; but even if I were willing to take you back I couldn't. You remember how we landed outside Cologne—just one window of the farm-house was left uncurtained to light me in. The same drill is followed at the secret landing-ground east of Berlin but those windows are left uncurtained only for a short period on certain nights, and at stated times, by arrangement. There won't be any light showing from the farm-house now—in fact, it won't be showing again until ten o'clock next Sunday; and this is only Wednesday. So you see, it's absolutely impossible for me to attempt another landing there tonight.”

“All right, then; land me somewhere else—I don't care where—any place you like so long as it's inside Germany. Then I'll make my own way back to Berlin.”

“How the hell can I, with the whole country blacked out? You must see for yourself that without a single thing to guide me in it's a hundred to one that I'd crash the plane on a hillside or in a wood.”

“How far d'you reckon we are from Berlin?”

Charlton glanced at his dash-board. “I managed to pick up a few lights way out on our left, through a break in the clouds, a few minutes ago, and as I know this country like the back of my hand I'm certain they were in the town of Brandenburg. In another few moments we shall be passing over the Elbe so we're somewhere about sixty miles due west of Berlin by now.”

“That's not so bad.” Gregory murmured; “the province of Brandenburg is flattish country, mostly sandy wastes and farmland which is very sparsely populated. With a bit of luck we might find a spot where you could land me without much likelihood of running into trouble. Be a sportsman and go down low, just to see if you can make out the lie of the land.”

“No, Sallust; it would be absolutely suicidal. The antiaircraft people hereabouts haven't had much to do during the first few months of the war so normally they're pretty sleepy but, as you say yourself, they'll be on their toes tonight waiting for the latest news from Berlin; and this is a prohibited area. I never feel safe until I've climbed to over 30,000 and we're miles from that height yet. Even up here, if the Nazis pick up the note of my engine in their listening-posts, they may start blazing off at us. We're still well within range and I happen to know their orders. Fire first and ask questions afterwards!'”

Gregory moved uneasily in his seat. Somehow or other he was determined to get back to Berlin. He could, of course, let Freddie Charlton fly him home, lie up for four days and arrange to be flown out again to the secret landing-ground on the following Sunday night but in the meantime anything might happen and the one thought that agitated his now active mind was the awful danger in which his beloved Erika stood. Tonight Berlin was in utter confusion; almost certainly the street-fighting would still be in progress tomorrow. While the Germans were killing one another they would be much too occupied to do any spy-hunting. If only he could return at once he would be able to move about the city freely, for some hours at least, without being called on to produce any papers. While von Pleisen's officers were still holding their own he would be able to get in touch with some of those he had met and, since many of them knew Erika, ascertain through them the most likely places in which to look for her.

On the other hand, if he could get back to Berlin before Monday morning a decision would almost certainly have been reached by then. If the Generals had come out on top there would be nothing for him to worry about; but he was now extremely dubious about their chances, and if the revolt had been suppressed the old Nazi tyranny would be clamped down more firmly than ever before. Storm-Troopers and police would be challenging all who dared to put their noses out of doors, and without papers his arrest would be certain before he had been back in the Capital an hour.

There was no question about it; his only hope of rejoining Erika lay in returning to Berlin while the fighting was still going on. That meant that he must land in Germany again that night, and every mile further that he allowed Charlton to fly him from the Capital would make his task of getting back there more
difficult. He began to plead again—urgently—desperately—but Charlton continued adamant in his refusal.

At last Gregory fell silent, but that did not mean that he had abandoned his project. Instead he had begun to contemplate desperate measures—no less than an attempt to render Charlton powerless and take charge of the plane himself.

He felt confident that if he could get control of the plane he knew enough of aircraft to get the machine down without allowing it to plunge headlong to destruction. Landing was another matter. He did not flatter himself for a second that he could perform such an operation successfully when an ace pilot like Charlton declared that in the black-out a crash was inevitable; but modern planes are stoutly built so Gregory was prepared for a crash and to take a chance that if he could bring the plane down slowly with its engine shut off, once it had hit the ground, he would be able to get Charlton and himself clear of it without serious injury.

The idea was semi-suicidal and Gregory realised that it was extremely hard on Charlton that his life and freedom should be jeopardised by such an act; but if the airman would not help him by attempting to land of his own free will he must take the consequences. Gregory had risked his neck too often to worry about himself and now the only thing he cared to live for was Erika von Epp.

Leaning forward he peered down towards the hidden landscape in an attempt to assess the density of the darkness. For a few moments he could see nothing because they were flying high above a heavy cloud-bank, but after a little the clouds broke and far below he caught sight of a few tiny pin-points of light. The German black-out was still far from perfect. In spite of heavy penalties for slackness there had been a natural tendency to be careless about A.R.P. as the only enemy planes which had flown over the country since the outbreak of war had dropped leaflets instead of bombs.

The lights suddenly disappeared again but Gregory reckoned that once below the cloud-bank he would be able to pick up plenty more. The altimeter of the plane would give him his height until he was within a thousand feet of the ground. If he brought the machine down in a long, flat spiral he could watch the lights. If any of them blacked out he would know that the crest of a hill had come between them and him and so he would be able to zoom up again to repeat the process until, with luck,
he struck an area of flattish ground on which he could chance a landing with some prospect of not crashing too badly.