London Dawn (15 page)

“What you’re doing is high treason.”

“As high as it gets.”

A waiter came to their table.

“Coffee,” said the baron. “William?”

“Yes, that would be fine. And a sweet roll, please.”

The baron folded his hands on the tabletop. “When next you write to Albrecht, you must advise him to speak with less venom about the Third
Reich. He can be critical but not inflammatory. If he does not tone it down you can be sure Berlin will begin to pressure Swiss authorities.”

“To do what?”

“Who knows? Throw him in jail. Deport him.”

“Switzerland has always prided itself on its democracy and neutrality.”

“Of course. But they see what is developing on their doorstep even if the rest of the world ignores it—a war machine. Who knows? Despite the estimate of a million casualties, Herr Hitler may decide an invasion of Swiss territory is worth the risk. Certainly some officials in Bern will be thinking along those lines. So if Berlin complains about Hartmann’s books and public speaking and rattles its saber a bit, Albrecht will be asked and then ordered to cancel all speaking engagements and book publications. They will muzzle him.”

Lord Preston frowned. “If he disobeys—”

“As I said, if he disobeys they’ll throw him in prison. Or out of the country.”

“Out of the country isn’t so bad, is it? He can bring his family to England.”

“So long as war hasn’t broken out in Europe. If it has, the journey to England will be hazardous. Once German troops are out in force, the SS will be with them. Should Albrecht be spotted he will be arrested and returned to Germany for trial.”

“In which case they will hang him.”

“If he is lucky.”

The coffee arrived and a sweet roll for Lord Preston.

“I will certainly write him.” Lord Preston poured cream into his coffee. “I shall let him know what’s afoot. Whether I’ll have any success in persuading him to quiet down, well, it’s doubtful.” He leaned back and drank from his cup as traffic whizzed past. “Speaking of quieting things down, what has become of your daughter?”

The baron shrugged. “Eva is a daughter in name only. She despises me for locking her up in that castle and discrediting everything she tells others about my activities. She screams that I have put the Jews ahead of her, that vermin matter more to me than my own child.” He looked at his cup of coffee but didn’t drink it. “Of course she is partly right. We still get Jews out of the country who are at risk. We still have safe houses. But she
matters as much to me as they do. It’s just that I know how to help them. But her.…I don’t know how to help.”

Blaring trumpets and loud drums momentarily halted their conversation. A column of young men, four abreast, in white shirts and shorts, swastika armbands on their sleeves, were marching along a street beside the hotel. The baron turned in his seat to watch, and Lord Preston craned his neck. There was no singing or chanting. They marched with a force and a strength, it seemed to Lord Preston, that needed no other voice than the harsh stamping of their feet.

“William.” The baron pointed. “It’s strange. That tall fellow there looks like one of your grandsons.”

At one in the morning the table was still there, as well as the chairs. Nothing had been stacked, and waiters continued to serve the men and women who drank and smoked by candlelight on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Cars moved past, headlights slicing at the night.

Kipp came through the front doors and sat at the table. Five minutes later a man with a walking stick made his way along the sidewalk and joined him.

“Another gold medal for Owens today,” the man said by way of opening the conversation. “Astonishing.”

“Do you mean astonishing, Buchanan, or do you mean astonishing for a black man?”

Buchanan laughed. “Well, he wouldn’t have pulled it off but for our Nazi athlete Luz Long giving him advice about the long jump, would he?”

“Our athlete?”

A waiter came and lit the candle at their table. Both ordered coffee. Buchanan opened a silver cigarette case and offered it to Kipp, who shook his head. Buchanan took a cigarette, placed it between his lips, and lit it with a silver lighter with an eagle engraved on its side.

“The British Union of Fascists failed to put anyone in Parliament in last year’s election,” Buchanan said. “Sir Oswald has big plans for thirty-six and thirty-seven. Good things are happening even across the sea in Canada and America. But I don’t think much will come of any of it if Germany doesn’t remain strong. Should Germany continue to go from strength to strength, other nations will adopt fascist ways in due course.
Especially with the good things happening under Mussolini’s leadership in Italy and Franco’s in Spain. All this to say I have decided to relocate. I’ve been offered a post with Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda. I shall be making radio broadcasts starting in October.”

“You’re going to live in Berlin?”

“That’s right.”

“And that Lady Kate of yours?”

Buchanan drew in on his cigarette. “She likes Berlin.”

“She didn’t accompany you here.”

“She is visiting family in America.”

The waiter set down their coffees as well as a bowl of sugar and a small pitcher of cream. Buchanan put three teaspoons of sugar into his cup and stirred, the spoon making a clicking sound. Kipp brought his coffee toward him but did nothing with it.

“Look here, Lord Tanner,” Kipp blurted. “You can live on the moon with your marching bands and swastikas for all I care. But I want my son back in England where he belongs.”

Buchanan drank, set down his coffee, and drew in on his cigarette till the tip was bright red. “Your son? I’m his father, Danforth. You’ve been no more than a wet nurse all these years. I’m grateful, of course, but now he and I have a lot of catching up to do. He will be enrolled in a fine school in Berlin this fall and go on to Humboldt University a few years after that.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what? Be Charles’s father? I’ve been denied that role long enough. You can take it up with the courts here in Berlin if you wish. But I don’t think you will get far. They’re Nazi courts, after all, and I am an aide to Joseph Goebbels while you…well, you are no more than an Englishman with decidedly anti-fascist tendencies.”

“The British courts—”

“Come, Danforth, do you seriously think Britain will have a row with Germany over a custody case? Even if it is Lord Preston’s grandson? And do you really want the scandal between your wife and myself to run the length and breadth of Britain?”

“I didn’t meet with you to mix it up and come to blows. I’m here to ask you to stop what you’re doing and consider Caroline’s feelings—and Charles’s future.”

“It’s time I consider my own feelings, Danforth. And really, it’s up to Charles, isn’t it? Ask him yourself. ‘Charles, do you want to be in England with your mother or in Berlin with your father?’ After tonight’s march along the boulevard and the opportunity to meet Adolf Hitler, I believe I can predict what his response will be.”

With that, Buchanan stood and tossed a few Deutschmarks on the table. “That should cover it.”

“Remember that I met you here, Lord Tanner,” said Kipp. “Remember that I tried to reason with you.”

“What are you going to do, Danforth? Shoot me in the back as I walk away? Not very sporting of you.”

“There won’t be any shooting in the back. I’ll leave that up to your Gestapo and SS. But this doesn’t end here at a sidewalk café in Berlin, Lord Tanner. Bear that in mind.”

Buchanan leaned on his silver-headed cane. “There has always been enmity between my house and yours. But one by one I shall overcome you all. Gaining my son back is a sweet victory. Putting a swastika on his arm and rubbing your nose in it is sweeter still. But drawing Caroline back to my side will be the sweetest triumph of all.”

“Caroline! She’ll never return to you!”

“Oh, she will, Danforth, she will. You don’t know how weak Caroline Scarborough is, but I do. If I tell her she can be with her son again, and never be separated from him, she’ll do anything I ask. Live with me, eat with me, attend Nazi galas as my escort. That will indeed be the sweetest revenge of all.”

He took a drag on his cigarette, flicked it on the ground at Kipp’s feet, and walked away.

October, 1936

Terry and Libby’s house, HMS Picadilly, Plymouth and Devonport

“Look, we have another seven days before the
Hood
heads back to the Mediterranean, love—”

“Shh.” Libby put her fingers to Terry’s lips as they lay together on their bed in the dark. “Don’t use that word ‘Mediterranean’ again. I’ve come to loathe it.”

“The water is beautiful. Often enough it’s the color of your eyes.”

“Then I shall change the color of my eyes. All that horrid sea does is take you away from me. The winter exercises were bad enough. But now it’s war after war. First the Italians going after those poor Ethiopians. Then Franco and his fascists going after the Spanish people who don’t think like him. And whose side are we always on, Terry? The side of the bullies.”

“We never fired our guns in support of the Italians, and we won’t fire them in support of Franco and the Nationalists either. All we want is Gibraltar left unmolested and to have access to the ports on the Spanish coast. We believe the Nationalists can guarantee that and the Republicans can’t. It’s no more mysterious than that.”

“Oh, our sympathies aren’t mysterious at all, Terry. How the world must wonder. Whose feet shall we kiss next? Herr Hitler’s? The emperor of Japan’s?”

“You are wrought up, aren’t you?”

“I have every right to be. You and your ‘heart of oak’ and ‘jolly tars’ rot. I wish you were a carpenter in Ipswich.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. Imagine seeing one another all year round. But what do we have instead? No Christmas together again. And Jane growing up so fast, her second year at Oxford—”

“The three of us had a splendid summer.”

“We always have splendid summers. And like all English summers they are soon spent.”

Terry leaned his head back against his pillow and groaned. “I don’t know how to please you, love.”

“Well, I do. When I’m cross like this I need to be held much more tightly. You must also accept the fact that the more arguments you muster, the more I shall muster until you are awash in them, so it’s best to leave off early. And I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to kiss, I don’t want to do anything except lie in your arms and listen to your heart beating.”

“Right. I can do that.”

“Then do it. And you can make silly promises too. Even if I’m well aware that it’s not in your power to keep them. Daft, I know, but it works.”

“I guess I’m not sure what sort of promises you mean.”

“Well, is there any chance you might make First Sea Lord one day and be permanently based in England?”

“First Sea Lord! Libby, that is as far beyond me as the heavens are above the earth.”

“But it’s feasible, isn’t it? It’s remotely possible?”

“I suppose it is.”

“Promise you’ll try to make First Sea Lord.”

“Libby,” Terry protested.

She pinched him. “Promise me.”

“Right. I promise you.”

“You always say the
Hood
is badly in need of a touch-up.”

“Touch-up? She needs a rebuild! All these new German warships are quite beyond her in speed and armor plating. Worst of all, their guns can point faster and hit far more accurately. Naval gunnery is developing at a rapid pace and—”

“Excellent. So promise me you’ll come back for a rebuild. A long rebuild.”

“Certainly we need it.”

“Come on. Don’t be so slow to catch on. Tell me what I want to hear.”

“
Hood
’s coming in for a rebuild. The sooner the better. It’ll take a year. Perhaps more.”

“Wonderful.” She placed her head on his chest and closed her eyes. “More tightly, please.”

Terry tightened his arm around her back and shoulders.

“Very good, Commander. Now make more silly promises. Someday you’ll take me down to that horrid spot with you and we’ll be together all winter.”

“I will do.”

“Someday there won’t be any more running about with the Mediterranean Fleet, and you’ll be permanently stationed at a more suitable port like Portsmouth or Scapa Flow.”

“This is likely to happen any day now, love.”

“You’ll be home for Christmas. Your ship will turn around like it did last year and come right back home again with a propeller problem.”

“We do need an overhaul of the propulsion system.”

“Now we’re playing cricket. You’ll not only be home for Christmas, but after the propeller is fixed up and you’re off to that horrible puddle in the south, quick as a wink the war will be over, Franco will have lost, Spain
will be a republic once again, and you’ll be back in Portsmouth in April or May. Am I right?”

“Spot on as usual.”

She smiled, her eyes still shut. “Now, you see? I’m content, very content.” She kissed his chest. “And I love the steady, strong beating of your heart.”