The Fox in the Attic (31 page)

At that he ceased to struggle. He drew up his knees to his chin in the primal attitude and lay there, letting himself drown.

So Hitler slept at last.

The sergeant had hayseed down his sweaty neck and had taken off his cap for a good scratch. What lovely clear cold weather this was! The invisible frost fell on his baldness out of the bright sky like minute pinpricks, and he stood for a moment relishing it before putting his cap on again. The snowy mountains above Garmisch glittered in the evening sun: it was early for really good snow, but how he wished he was off up there now for a Sunday's skiing! The Ettaler-Mandl above Oberammergau was caught in a particular gleam.

“No rest for the wicked,” they say, but it's the wicked rather who allow policemen no rest. They had spent half this lovely Sunday afternoon searching the American lady's farm: they had probed haystacks, turned over the fodder in the mangers, crawled through apple-lofts, climbed in and out of cornbins, tunneled under woodpiles (which fell in on them), crept under the beds of maidservants (who boxed their ears), ransacked cupboards and tapped walls: and now those damned dogs of theirs had broken into the beehouse and the whole lot were howling. Lord, what a din! All the same, through the open door he could still hear the Lieutenant bawling the old girl out for trying to telephone—the silly old trout.

When her mother-in-law's voice was suddenly cut off like that Helene put back the receiver slowly. So this was the end! They had left it too late now.

Today she couldn't make Herr Hitler out. At lunch he had seemed better after his rest: he had joked with little Egon, who was much impressed with the figure Funny Uncle cut in the vast old blue bathrobe of Daddy's he was wrapped in. Then when the baby had gone to rest Hitler had begun to wax furious about the Bechstein car not coming: yet, when she offered to have him whisked over the pass to Austria with the plumber's motor-bike concealed in the sidecar (transport far less likely to be searched at the frontier than the big Bechstein Limousine), he would have none of it. So she had thought up all sorts of plans for hiding him in the forest, in some wood man's hut the police would never think of; but he would still have none of it. It was the Bechstein car in style, or nothing.

So now it was—nothing.

Hitler was sitting upstairs in a daze again dreaming of suicide when his Mother walked into the room. She told him the world was ended, and then took out of his hand something ... it was something he didn't really want.

That woman who had come into the room was Helene, of course. And when she told Hitler the police were at last on their way here he had gone apparently demented: still wound in the big blue bathrobe he began turning like a top in his efforts to draw his revolver with his one good arm: “Those swine! Never shall they take me alive!”

She grabbed at the gun in his hand, but with only one arm to use and all wound up in the bathrobe for a moment Hitler still seemed to struggle demoniacally. And yet it was no real struggle, for when she let go of him and told him not to be so silly he gave up, and let her take it. Disarmed, too, the frenzy suddenly left Hitler and he realized who this really was. Yet he hardly seemed to realize what had just been going on here though he himself was still panting from it: he looked at her wonderingly, surprised to see the beautiful Helene of all people just a wee bit disheveled. Then he sank into a chair and hid his head in his hands and groaned.

To give him something to think about she urged Hitler to compose his political testament while there was yet time; and leaving him scribbling she quietly dropped the revolver into that open barrel of flour harmless. It sank in the soft flour without a trace.

Dark had just fallen when there was a sudden roar of powerful engines: then a screech of brakes, and the ominous whining of big dogs. Hitler sprang to the window: he saw there was a truck down there—two trucks, with greenfly swarming on them.

Helene slipped quietly downstairs and told the girls to keep Egon in the kitchen with them. As soon as the door of the lighted kitchen was closed she felt her way in the pitch-dark to a shuttered window giving towards the street.

Meanwhile the police had surrounded the house, each man with a dog at his side. Except for one light upstairs the place seemed to be in darkness and downstairs all the shutters were closed. The sergeant vaulted the wall and crept close to a window, hoping to peep in where he thought he saw a chink, and flashing his torch found himself staring straight in a woman's eyes. Startled, he jerked the leash in his hand; and startled in its turn his dog barked. That set them all off and soon the quiet village sounded like a kennels at feeding-time.

As soon as they were quiet again the Lieutenant knocked. It was Frau Hanfstaengl herself who answered, and taking the sergeant and one man with him he followed her up the stairs. She opened a door—and bless me, there the blighter stood, dressed up like one of the Christmas Magi! So he must have been here in the village all the time—not hidden at all!

When the officer rather apologetically told him he would be arrested for “Treason” then Hitler really did let fly. For at the sight of those three rosy faces goggling at him his brain had cleared. He felt his “Power” returning: it was a fire in his bones, it was mounting in his throat till it overflowed, it was new wine in a barrel without a vent. Moreover, speech might be the last shot in his locker—but surely this his last bullet was a silver one! For you just had to press the right button as so often before, pull the right lever ... these three should be his first new converts, he'd march back to Munich at their head!

“Wiry little chap, yon,” thought the sergeant: “but he don't look as though he meant to put up a fight ... though
Mutter-Gottes
what a noise he's making! Voice like a jay ...” For a flash the sergeant was walking with his Gretl in the June woods and the jays were screaming.

Not for one moment did it occur to the sergeant that he might hear what the prisoner
said
, any more than the jays: for policemen have invisible scramblers in their ears whenever “the Prisoner” speaks. In the context of his arrest every man is a thing only, so any sounds he makes are mere meaningless noise such as all things tend to make—doors slamming, rivers roaring, jays ...

June, and Gretl in her dirndl with him in the woods
... the sergeant's mind's arm gave his mind's Gretl a hearty, a corset bursting squeeze. But just at that moment the spate of sound ceased abruptly, and the prisoner stood there looking like ...
Pfui
, for all the world he resembled in spite of his queer get-up (and rather as some comical mimicking insect might) any popular platform-speaker waiting for the applause! One hand was still held aloft, as if ready to pluck fresh arguments out of the lamplit air. Whereon the sergeant stepped forward and clapped him briskly on that drooping shoulder.

The night was bitter and the trucks open ones so they took Hitler downstairs still wrapped in the bathrobe (though he refused a beret), and trailing Putzi's prized English rug by one corner like a child who has been playing Indians (but his whip was forgotten). Then the men closed in and hustled him expertly into the foremost truck, jumped up after him and drove him off to Weilheim jail.

Egon had run out, and the last the sleepy baby saw of dear Uncle Dolf once his pale face had vanished among them was that empty whip-hand, helplessly thrumming the air. Indeed that was all there was to be seen of him; for now they were all “things” together those were bigger things than he was.

The trucks left Uffing with Hitler jammed among his captors' bodies too tight to move; and for a minute he felt curiously at peace. But as the fact sank in of this his incredible constraint by
things
and so of his utter impotence always over deaf adders who chose to stop their ears his belly griped suddenly as in a colic-cramp. He felt in his rage as if he was being assaulted by climbing snakes; though these were only the cramps running up and down him from head to foot, his own rebellious muscles each writhing of their own volition all up and down his skeletal frame.

But that too soon passed, overwhelmed by the nausea of weariness once more. Damn the woman for taking his gun! Even in that he had failed.

Did Hitler attempt to speak again, in the back of that truck? Who cared? Who possibly knows? For one of them had brought his accordion and they all began to sing. The sergeant had a lovely baritone, and the song was sickly-sweet.

That Sunday of Hitler's arrest was November the Eleventh: everywhere throughout England they had been celebrating Armistice Day. The fifth anniversary of the day
all
war had ended ... but how had that lovely belief arisen, and why did it linger? Perhaps for no better reason than that nothing less seemed counterweight to the load of death all their boys had died.

In the morning, everywhere the solemn two-minute silence. It fell like an enchantment: indoors and out no one spoke, nothing moved: the cars and buses and drays in the streets halted, the carts in the lanes, the cowman in the stall stood still. Then, as the buglers in the churches everywhere sounded the last note of the resurrectional Last Post, came the moment of release—like the prince's kiss. Men in their civvies ramrod-stiff at attention relaxed and smoked. Women spoke, children ran, cars started, hooves trotted.

But now it was tea-time. Mellton church was empty—only their guerdon of Flanders poppies and the carved names remained there, while at the vicarage the Vicar of Mellton munched fruit-cake and put the last touches to his evening Armistice sermon.

At the lonely Hermitage on the downs Nellie had just set the wash-tub in the new sink.

*

In Gwilym's sanatorium the nurses all wore poppies, and there were poppies pinned to the King's portrait on the wall. Gwilym was already putting his things in order—tearing up letters, and so on—ready tomorrow to go home; for he had been quite right of course, he was now so much better they
had
to let him go home. Gwilym had few possessions, but there was a pencil-sharpener he could give his friend in the next bed to remember him by. As an afterthought he gave him a red pencil too, and they both wept.

The Sister had told Gwilym well in advance that he was going, in the hope of distracting his mind from the death of his little girl. But it had been difficult for even the doctor to make him understand it must be months “before he could work again.” They put this down to his throat, for his throat is a preacher's most precious organ: in particular Gwilym
must
rest his throat!

As a matter of fact Gwilym's throat had been cauterized too drastically and the vocal cords had been completely destroyed. It was impossible he should ever speak again except in a whisper, but that they hadn't told him.

“How long must I rest it?”

“Oh ... six months, at the very least.”

(Gwilym, they thought, could hardly last six months.)

Six months! For someone expecting to die, so short a reprieve; but to Gwilym, expecting to live, an interminable time to have to wait for his health back. And yet it's a queer thing, this Spes Phthisica: though confident he would soon be a giant refreshed and raring for the pulpit at the same time Gwilym knew perfectly well he would never get better and was going to die. His mind just kept both bits of knowledge apart so they need not contradict.

At the times when he contemplated death his heart welled over with pity for poor Nellie. So soon would
he
find Little Rachel waiting on Jordan's further shore to greet him; he would enter his Maker's presence with that dear hand warm in his. But Nellie might have many dreary years to wait be-fore seeing her lost child again.
Two
children dead, and now her husband dying: poor emptied heart of Nellie's! Gwilym prayed with all his soul that little Sylvanus might grow to fill it again. Indeed Gwilym's mind dwelt much on this baby he had not yet even seen. As soon as he was fit again he and Nellie must visit Rachel's grave on the bare hill above Penrys Cross; and they would take Sylvanus with them, for he must be taught from the first to love and revere the sister he had never known—that little angel God had lent them for awhile, who now from heaven was loving him and watching him grow. They must teach Sylvanus to try to live always worthy of that angelic love: never to do anything or even think anything it would pain those innocent eyes to see. Bit by bit the boy must be brought to realize that always from heaven
his Sister was watching him
.

For, apart from religion, the happiest thing Gwilym had to dream about now was the joy of bringing up his son. He made endless plans for it (particularly in the evenings, after his temperature had risen): all the things he and the boy would do together, as the boy grew.

“The boy and he
together
”?—Ah, there lay the sharpest of all death's stings.

*

The Sunday paper discarded on Gwilym's bed carried little news of the Putsch in Munich—and spelled “Hitler” wrong. It was all of no interest to Gwilym, naturally. But in Mary's paper “Munich” caught her eye, though only because her brother must have been there about then. She jumped to the conclusion he'd have seen the whole thing and his first letter would be full of it: she'd better know what it was all about. But Gilbert would hardly look at the paragraph: Bavarian antics were of no conceivable importance to England, and a politician must always keep his eye on the ball. For these were crucial times! Baldwin had fore-stalled Lloyd George in calling for “Protection” and this had driven L.G. back onto uncompromising Free Trade, of course. Baldwin's change of heart moreover was a complete ratting on his party's election pledges only last spring, so it meant yet another General Election almost at once; and that closed the Liberal ranks willy-nilly—for the next week or two.

“What chance have we got of turning out the Tories?”—Today's cake had seeds in it, and absently Gilbert picked his teeth with the wire stem of his poppy while he pondered.