They Used Dark Forces (47 page)

‘He will. The stars foretell it. But also that I shall outlive him. Moreover, neither you nor I is fated to stay here until he dies. Before I gave myself up I hid for three days and nights in the ruined Schloss at Sassen. I had left most of my astrological impedimenta there and I slept for less than six hours. Through all the rest of that time I worked on foretelling the future course of the war, and on my horoscope and yours.'

‘Why on mine?' Gregory asked.

‘Because I already knew that our fates continued to be intertwined. You saved my life at the cottage, as I predicted; and in a new partnership we shall leave this place. It will mean our going into great danger, but we shall be given an opportunity to strike a mighty blow against the accursed Hitler.'

‘Have you a plan then?'

‘Alas, no. I know only that the rapport we have established between us will prove the key to this business, and that I must use to the utmost my powers as an occultist to make myself regarded by our captors as a special case. With that as my object, I have already made a start by reading the hands of several men in my hut and that of the fellow who is our guard. Palmistry is a sure lure to every kind of person.'

At that moment one of the Capos bellowed from about fifty yards away:

‘You two at the end there! You've been long enough. Back to work now.'

‘Meet me here again this afternoon,' Malacou said quickly. ‘But leave it till about half past four. The guards always get slack towards the end of the work period.'

This totally unexpected meeting dissipated Gregory's depression and invigorated him as would have a sea breeze suddenly sweeping across a torrid desert. Malacou might be guilty of murder, incest and practising the Black Art, but his blood made him a deadly enemy of the Nazis and he possessed powers which, although their source might be evil, were granted to few. To co-operate with him might lead to freedom,
and Gregory could hardly contain his impatience till their next meeting.

Immediately they were seated side by side on the pole above the unsavoury trench, the Satanist said, ‘Your first step must be to get yourself transferred to my hut, so that we can talk whenever we wish and begin working together.'

‘How will I do that?' Gregory enquired.

‘Have you done any carpentry, bricklaying or plumbing?'

Gregory shook his head. ‘No. I'm not much good at anything like that; although I suppose I could lay bricks after a little practice. Years ago I helped a friend with whom I was staying in the country to build some garden frames.'

‘That will serve. Good craftsmen are rarely criminals. All the men doing such jobs on those new huts over there are amateurs. As you may know, before the war Himmler started a huge industrial concern known as D.E.S.T. It supplies bricks and cut stone for all Hitler's great architectural projects and is run entirely with slave labour. Sachsenhausen is one of D.E.S.T.'s largest depots and huge gangs are marched out every day to the brickfields. The whole of this camp was built by prisoners and an order was issued that those capable of doing technical jobs should receive better treatment and rations. All such prisoners in this section are in No. 1 hut and I got myself put in there as a carpenter. You have only to volunteer as a bricklayer and I'm sure you will be transferred to it.'

‘I'll certainly apply to be.'

‘Good. Now palmistry. Do you know anything about reading the human hand?'

‘Nothing whatever.'

‘That is a pity. Many people take it up for amusement at some time in their lives and I had hoped that would be the case with you. But no matter. You will soon learn.'

Gregory looked dubious. ‘I shouldn't have thought that likely. Surely, to predict people's futures one must have a certain amount of occult power, and I'm not specially gifted in that way.'

‘You do not have to be. Just as a doctor, having made a full examination of a body, can tell the patient's state of health and much of his past medical history, so a palmist who has learnt
the meaning of the shape of the hands and the lines on the palms can speak with authority about a person's character, health, abilities, sexual powers and tell a great deal about his past.'

‘But to foretell his future …'

‘That, of course, is very different,' Malacou agreed. ‘The future of everyone is written in the lines of their hands, but to interpret them accurately one must have clairvoyant powers and an ability to achieve rapport quickly with one's subject. In your case that is unnecessary. To these people here you can say the first thing that comes into your head, provided you do not predict for them any event in the near future which when it failed to occur would show you to be a false prophet. Once you have mastered the geography of the palm you will be able to tell them the things they are best at, how many times they have had relationships with women that amount to marriage or its equivalent, the number of children they have and much else. People are always amazed that by these means a stranger should be capable of uncovering what they know to be the truth about themselves, and the superstition inherent in human nature causes them to regard such a soothsayer with a special respect. It is that which I aim at for both of us.'

‘I see the idea,' Gregory murmured, ‘but not where it will get us.'

Before Malacou could reply one of the Capos shouted at them; so they had to pull up their trousers and rejoin their gangs.

About his ability to become a convincing palmist Gregory still had grave doubts, but he was confident that after some practice he could become a passable bricklayer. From the little experience he had had he knew that anyone, provided he was not in too great a hurry, could lay bricks accurately, and that if one did it day after day the speed at which one worked must soon improve. That evening he used his jam ration to bribe his Lagerältester to speak to their Blockführer and next morning, after roll-call, his transfer was effected.

Fortunately he was not called on to expose his very amateur status right away, as there were sufficient bricklayers already available for the work in hand; instead he was put on to carry
bricks and mix cement. But Malacou lost no time in starting to teach him palmistry and the first evening they were together he explained its rudiments.

The shape of the hands proclaimed their owner's nature; short, thick hands were the lowest type and brutal, square ones useful, knotty ones philosophic, conic ones artistic, very slender ones idealistic. The three sections of the thumb from the palm up, according to their construction, showed the capacity for love, logic and will. The nails gave indication of hereditary weaknesses; almond-shaped a tendency to lung troubles, square ones towards bad circulation and diseases of the heart, shell-shaped ones towards paralysis. Straight square fingers gave practical ability, long pointed ones an artistic temperament, very thin smooth ones psychic powers, those with big knuckle joints a good brain for mathematics. The first finger represented Jupiter—ambition, pride and a love of power; the second Saturn—earnestness, prudence, a liking for solitude and study; the third Apollo—imagination, grace of mind and an appreciation of all things beautiful; the fourth Mercury—quickness of thought, the gift of tongues and a desire for change and travel. If one finger was a little long in comparison with the others it indicated that the qualities of the Planet it represented dominated the rest. The little mounts at the base of the fingers if well developed reinforced the strength of the Planets relative to that finger. Hairy hands betrayed vanity; a thin dry palm, timidity; a thick soft one, sensuality; one that was firm and elastic, energy and quickness of intellect.

As Malacou explained, hands had an infinite variety and before a judgement could be formed each characteristic had to be weighed against the others; but that was not difficult after a little practice. Generally, any special characteristic showed plainly and most people had one. But the most fortunate had no abnormality which indicated excess; the flesh of their hands was resilient when pressed, their palms square and their fingers long; giving them intellect and the vitality and practical ability to put their gifts to good purpose.

Going on to the lines of the hand Malacou said that, with the one exception of the Health Line, these at their best should
be long, clear and unbroken. From them one could gain additional information about the subject's character, the main events in his past and, without the aid of clairvoyance, something of his future; as, for example, liability to blindness or mental trouble and length of life.

Gregory found this all surprisingly easy to assimilate and on his second evening in hut No. 1, Malacou set him to work reading the hands of some of their companions. But, with some cunning, having already read these men's hands himself, he first tipped Gregory off about what he would find in their hands and what he should say to them. In consequence Gregory had only to confirm what his instructor had said while reaping the benefit of examining a number of hands; and as he did so he was again surprised to find how simple it was to assess people's major characteristics in this way.

He was, however, still puzzled by one thing, and afterwards he whispered to Malacou, ‘As you can do this sort of thing far better than I can, why do you wish me to do it too?'

‘Because the stars decree that you are to be my partner,' the occultist replied, ‘and I have need of one. I am highly skilled in my special arts, but I lack the ability to put them to the best purpose. I need a resolute man like yourself to talk to others on my behalf, and with a practical mind to plan how we may best use my gifts to our advantage.'

‘I see that,' Gregory agreed; ‘but every plan should have an object. What is to be ours?'

Malacou shook his grizzled head. ‘I don't quite know. I think mainly to impress those over us. If we could succeed in becoming soothsayers to the Commandant of the camp it is certain that we should be given better food and special privileges.'

For a few minutes Gregory thought this over, then he said, ‘Just reading hands won't get us far. What we need is some startling prediction. You told me that while you were last at Sassen you consulted the stars on the course of the war. If you have real faith in the results of your endeavours could you not predict some major development that you expect to take place in the course of the next few weeks? A German victory somewhere would be best, although that seems unlikely.'

‘That is an excellent thought,' Malacou smiled. ‘In fact, it is just the sort of idea I hoped that you might produce. For your suggestion, it so happens that there are two things we might use. As the Russians have callously refused to go to the aid of those gallant Poles who rose against the Germans in Warsaw, I feel certain that very soon now they will have to surrender. The Germans will also achieve a triumph over the British, and that within the next few days. No news has yet trickled through about it, but at this moment there is a desperate battle going on in Holland, I think in connection with the bridges over the Scheldt, and the British will get the worst of it. Tomorrow I'll predict those two items to as many people as I can.'

‘No,' said Gregory promptly. ‘We can do better than that. We'll hold a séance in the evening and invite the Blockführer in to it. I will act as though I were putting you into a trance, you can mutter a few meaningless phrases of gibberish, then I'll pretend to interpret and announce your predictions. If only they are on the mark, that will really put up our stock.'

Malacou willingly agreed and the séance proved as successful as they could have hoped. Their fellow prisoners showed great interest and, although the Blockführer regarded the performance with cynical amusement, he was obviously intrigued.

The séance took place on September 20th. During it Gregory gave out a fuller account of Malacou's prediction. It concerned a great number of British parachutists being dropped too far behind the German lines for support from ground troops to reach them, so that they remained cut off and those of them who were not killed being forced to surrender.

Some days later the prediction was fulfilled by the failure of Montgomery's rash use of airborne troops at Arnhem. Then Goebbels announced in vindictive triumph that after many weeks of desperate resistance the Poles in Warsaw had surrendered and that, as saboteurs, those who survived were to be shot.

As Gregory had foreseen, this double achievement of Malacou's made a great impression on all who knew of it, and S.S. men from all over the camp began to come to the hut in the evenings to have their fortunes told. But there was no reaction from the Commandant.

Meanwhile Gregory found that his new situation had both
its advantages and disadvantages. He certainly fed better and lived in slightly greater comfort, but he found mixing cement and carrying hods of bricks for eleven hours a day so exhausting that he had difficulty in concentrating sufficiently in the evenings to do his best when reading hands.

Nevertheless, he drove himself to persevere with it and after a time became quite expert at reading character without having had any previous information from Malacou. He had, too, mastered the meaning of finer lines—little crosses, stars, squares, islands, offshoots and breaks—that indicated marriages, children, accidents, salaciousness, self-consciousness, a crooked mentality and other traits. On some points his subjects declared him to be wrong, but in the main they usually agreed that he was right about them; and he was interested to find that he could always do better with some guard or newcomer to the hut whom he had never previously seen than with a man whom he had come to know quite well and about whom he had formed an often erroneous impression from hearing what the man had said about himself.

With regard to the future, as a matter of principle both he and Malacou always endeavoured to cheer their subjects up by predicting their survival from the harsh life they led and better times ahead, with a safe return to wives who were remaining faithful to them and loved ones who had them constantly in their thoughts.