They Used Dark Forces (45 page)

Then the 23rd of the month had proved a truly black day for Germany. King Michael of Rumania had carried out a
coup d'état
, disarmed the German troops in Rumania and gone over to the Allies. Simultaneously there had been a rising against the Germans in Slovakia and on General Le Clerc reaching Paris with an armoured spearhead the population of the French capital had risen and set about massacring its German garrison. A few days later the Finns, who, with extraordinary bravery, had for five years fought as Germany's ally and kept a large Russian Army occupied on their front, had at last thrown in the sponge and asked for an armistice.

It was clear that Hitler's ‘Europa' was cracking right and left, if not yet in the centre. But Gregory's mind was by then more seriously occupied about his own situation. Admiral Canaris had been put in his hut and, being greatly interested in the little Admiral's career, Gregory had taken special pains to cultivate him. It had, however, transpired that, even while confined at Sachsenhausen, the ex-Chief of Abwehr Intelligence had special sources of information. One day when they were employed in their morning chore of cleaning out the hut, the Admiral had whispered:

‘Number 541, I gather that you are on the camp register as Prince Hugo von Wittelsbach zu Amberg-Sulzheim. But I know you are not. Who are you?'

Rigid with alarm, Gregory had whispered back, ‘You are right. But if it is found out who I am it will cost me my life; so I beg you to keep my imposture secret.'

Canaris had agreed but Gregory was badly scared. Since the Admiral had found him out others, less discreet, might do so. Moreover, the thought had never ceased to nag him that, sooner or later, the story of the false Prince Hugo's car smash would reach Munich, and an enquiry be set on foot that would lead to his detection. Escape, except in the event of some unforeseen circumstance, being out of the question, he decided that, somehow or other, he must rid himself of his dangerous identity.

To do so would be difficult, but it might be achieved if, owing to some mix-up among the prisoners, he could get himself transferred to another section of the camp under a different name. The only place in which such a mix-up might be stage-managed was the camp hospital and, as he was on the camp register as Prince Hugo, it occurred to him that he might get himself admitted by making use of the well-known strain of madness in the Wittelsbach family.

The following day, in pursuance of this plan, at the midday meal he poured his soup over his head. His companions showed surprise, while the guards only laughed. But he followed this up by a variety of eccentricities, including violent outbursts of speech in which he declared himself to be the King of Bavaria. Forty-eight hours later these tactics had the desired result and he was escorted, violently protesting, to the camp hospital.

There was no special hospital for the
Prominente
and that which served the whole camp was some distance from their quarters. Although it was a big building, with at least twenty wards, it could not have accommodated a tenth of the internees who should have been receiving hospital treatment.

By far the greater part of the prisoners were Jews, foreigners or middle-class Germans who had been arrested as socialists, pacifists or just for having been heard to grumble at the hardships brought about by the war. When, from malnutrition, tuberculosis, cancer or other diseases, these political prisoners became too weak to be any longer driven to work they were shot or left to die. Only those who were still strong enough to be useful, but had met with some accident temporarily incapacitating them, were sent to the hospital for treatment. The majority of its inmates were criminals who had received sentences and had been evacuated from the bombed-out prisons of Berlin to a special section of the camp. As Germans who were assumed to be politically ‘clean' they were still protected by the old laws so, if seriously ill, sent in; but often not until they were at death's door. The two types could be distinguished on sight, for below their identification numbers on coat and trousers the political prisoners had triangles of red cloth, while the criminal prisoners had triangles of green.

In due course, an elderly overworked doctor gave Gregory a brief examination. As he had confined his violence to speech and had not attacked anyone, the doctor decided that he was not dangerous but inflicted with periodical fits of insanity; so would probably recover in the course of a few days, and sent him to an ordinary ward for observation.

He found, as he had expected, that manpower now being so short in Germany, the hospital was greatly understaffed and that conditions in it were appalling. There were no female nurses. The scant care given to the patients was by medical orderlies, all of whom were too badly crippled by old wounds to be sent back to the Front, and of these there was only one to each ward of forty beds. To assist him each had two ‘trusties' who, helped by the inmates of the ward who were not bedridden, took round the food and kept the ward free of its worst filth.

The lack of supervision in this death house—for it was little else—was most favourable to Gregory's project and he set about it without delay, for his best chance of carrying it out successfully lay in doing so before the hospital staff became familiar with his features.

Being allowed to move freely about the ward he tried to put the awful stench of the place out of his mind and spent the afternoon going from bed to bed, finding out the circumstances of the other occupants. Several of them were obviously dying and it looked as if two or three of them would not last out the night. One of these, wheezing terribly, said that his name was Franz Protze and that he was a Lubeck lawyer who had been sentenced to three years for having forged the will of one of his clients. Having sympathised with him on his harsh fate, Gregory moved on among the other beds until he had completed the round of the ward. He then decided his purpose would best be served by making use of the dying lawyer.

About six o'clock a doctor, who was himself a prisoner, made the round of the ward; but he was evidently so inured to being unable to cope with its perpetual horrors that he spoke only briefly to a few of the patients, here and there handing out a couple of aspirins and giving the others no more than a glance. One man was found to be dead and the doctor told the two trusties to remove his body. No night garments were issued to the patients, so those in bed were all lying in their soiled underclothes. The trusties unceremoniously stripped the dead man and carried away his naked corpse.

When the doctor had gone bowls of bluish, heavily watered milk and slices of bread with a smear of margarine were passed round. Then, when darkness fell, to economise electricity, only one low-power electric light was switched on, and those patients who had been capable of moving about began to undress. The crippled medical orderly also started to undress and it became evident that he did night as well as day duty, occupying a bed near the door. That gave Gregory some uneasiness, but he felt that the chances were that, after their long day's work, the orderly and the two trusties would all sleep soundly, so prove no impediment to his plans.

By nine o'clock the ward had settled down for the night,
but Gregory felt sure that the doctors and other staff would still be about in their quarters for some time to come; so he controlled his impatience as best he could and lay listening to the grim symphony of groans, coughs, incoherent ramblings and occasional cries of pain that came from the other beds.

At length, about one in the morning, he got up; but, instead of dressing, he put on only his shoes, pulling his socks on over them to muffle the sound of his footsteps. Carrying his outer garments he crossed the ward to Protze's bed. The lawyer was scarcely breathing and did not open his eyes. Taking his coat and trousers from under the bed Gregory got into them, then left his own, carefully bundled up so that the identification numbers with their large P should not show, in place of those he had taken. Turning away, he stole like a shadow down the faintly lit ward, glided past the snoring orderly's bed, eased open the door, stepped out into the corridor and closed the door softly behind him.

When he had been brought to the hospital that morning he had seen that no sentries were posted outside it. That was not surprising, as comparatively few of the patients were in any condition to leave it and, even if they had, their chances of escape from the camp would have been no better than from one of its many sections. He was, therefore, fairly optimistic about getting away from the building provided he was not caught while leaving by a door or window.

Still moving like a shadow, he made his way down two passages then halted at a partly open door. As he peered in there was just light enough for him to see that the room was a kitchen. Slipping inside he gave a quick look round. On several long side tables there were stacks of food left ready for preparing the first meal of the day, among them ham,
Leberwurst
and apples, evidently intended for the staff. Having crammed his pockets with a selection of these he climbed up on one of the sinks, opened the window beyond it and climbed out. A quick look round showed him that no-one was about and he made off into the semi-darkness.

Had there been the least chance of escaping from the camp he would have made the attempt. But he was already convinced that to do so would be suicidal. The whole of the vast area
that it covered was enclosed by two barbed-wire and electrified fences a hundred yards apart. The intervening space was floodlit by arc lamps and at intervals along it there were watch towers manned by sentries armed with light machine-guns. In addition, between the two fences a number of fierce Alsatian dogs were let loose every night; so even if a prisoner could have cut his way through the inner fence and the nearest sentries had been dozing, one or more of the dogs would have given the alarm and the escaper been riddled with bullets before he could reach the outer barrier.

Each section of the camp was also fenced off from its neighbours, but these fences were not electrified so could be got through without difficulty; and Gregory's immediate object was to get as far from the hospital as possible. During the next half hour he climbed through half a dozen fences and, while between them, kept as far as possible in the shadow of the huts. But there was little danger of his being caught, for no guards patrolled the interior of the camp at night because the brightly lit, well-guarded perimeter made escapes impossible.

Having put three-quarters of a mile between himself and the hospital, he found a tool shed in which the implements used by the slave labour in that section were stored at night. Groping about in it, he made himself a place to sit down with his back comfortably propped up then eagerly devoured the food he had taken from the kitchen. Replete from this unusually substantial meal he closed his eyes and fell into a doze.

When daylight came he remained where he was, praying that the next stage in his plan would prove equally successful. Sounds of the camp stirring into life filtered through to him then, at about seven o'clock, the shuffling of feet outside. A sharp order was given and a line of wretched, ragged prisoners filed in to collect picks and shovels. Some of them looked at him with dull, lacklustre eyes, but none of them spoke. A Capo, as the trusties selected as overseers were called, appeared, saw him sitting on the floor, yelled at him to get up and struck him with a whip. As he came to his feet one of the prisoners muttered, ‘He's not one of our gang.'

The Capo went out and fetched an S.S. man who proceeded
to shout questions at Gregory. Passing a hand over his eyes to give the impression of being bemused, he told him that he did not know who he was or how he had got there, but he thought that he had been wandering about for most of the night.

As there were so many thousands of prisoners in the camp living under such appalling conditions, he felt confident that from time to time there must be cases in which the mental strain caused some of them to have blackouts and lose their memories. The result was as he had expected. The S.S. man gave him a kick, prodded him with a Sten gun, then marched him off to the camp headquarters. There, after a short wait, he was taken in to a lean, scar-faced Untersturmführer and his case reported.

Apparently in a daze, he stood there staring at the floor; but he knew that the next half-hour would decide the success or failure of his plan. By this time Franz Protze would almost certainly be dead. When the hospital orderlies removed his body to throw it into one of the common burial pits they would collect his clothes and turn them in at the camp clothing depot. With such deaths taking place every few hours it was most unlikely that anyone would notice that the number on the clothes was not that under which Protze had been admitted.

Gregory's bed would be found empty. But as he had gone in as a mental case there would not be anything very surprising about his having wandered off in the night. The headquarters would be notified, but he had not been in the hospital long enough for anyone there to give an accurate description of him. Where his danger lay was in his disappearance being connected with a man being found who had lost his memory. His hope was in the vastness of the camp and that as it was understaffed no serious effort would be made to trace him. Anxiously he waited to learn how the Gestapo officer would react to the report about him.

The number on Protze's clothes was E1076 and Gregory had made very certain that the triangles they bore were green, for had they been red to take them would have been the next best thing to signing his own death warrant. The Untersturmführer wrote the number down on a slip of paper and sent an orderly with it to the camp registry. Gregory was marched to a corner of the room and ordered to stand there facing the wall
He remained there for ten anxious minutes. The orderly then returned and handed another slip of paper to his officer. After a glance at it the Untersturmführer said to the guard, ‘His name is Protze, and he's serving a three-year sentence.'