Michael Ridpath - Shadows of War

He heard the two vehicles accelerate off.

He looked up, couldn’t see any Germans in the wood, and so, at a crouching run, scurried to the edge of the trees to take a look.

One of the cars was speeding to the shattered Dutch barrier. The other car halted next to Klop’s body lying in the road. Two men slung him into the back. Payne Best and Stevens were being frogmarched towards the border with Germans holding machine pistols at their backs. Schämmel accelerated past them in his own vehicle. The big black dog stood in the road barking.

Shouting came from the Dutch customs house, but no sign of armed soldiers yet. Within a few seconds, all the Germans and their captives were under the black-and-white German barrier, which swished downwards.

The often-uttered words of Colonel Rydal ran through Conrad’s head. What a shambles.

Whitehall, London, 10 November

Conrad sipped the cup of coffee thoughtfully provided by Mrs Dougherty as he sat and waited outside Sir Robert Vansittart’s office. He was tired and hungry.

‘You don’t happen to have a biscuit, by any chance, Mrs Dougherty?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid not, Mr de Lancey,’ said the Chief Diplomatic Adviser’s secretary, with a look that suggested horror at his temerity and determination to take decisive action if he tried to question the Foreign Office’s policy on biscuits. Didn’t he know there was a war on?

It was sixteen hours since the Germans had snatched Payne Best and Stevens, sixteen disorienting hours. After being interviewed by Dutch military intelligence, Conrad had been bundled on to an RAF Lysander at The Hague and flown to Hendon Aerodrome, from where he had been driven straight to Whitehall and the doors of the Foreign Office.

The telephone on Mrs Dougherty’s desk buzzed and she picked it up. ‘Sir Robert will see you now.’

Van looked harassed. Sitting in one of the two chairs in front of his desk was a large man with a florid face and hair brushed back over a wide, shining forehead. His eyes were small and bright blue.

‘Lieutenant de Lancey, this is Major McCaigue of the Secret Intelligence Service. Major McCaigue is responsible for counter-espionage. As you can imagine, he is very interested in this affair.’

Conrad saluted the major and took the seat offered by Van.

‘Who is responsible for this fiasco, de Lancey?’ Van asked.

‘I don’t know, Sir Robert. It was a mistake to meet Schämmel so close to the border when we were not sure he was genuine.’

‘That would be Stevens’s mistake?’

‘I really couldn’t say,’ said Conrad.

‘And you never met Schämmel?’

‘No,’ said Conrad. ‘Venlo would have been my first meeting.’

‘Hmm.’ Van tapped his desk with his pen. ‘Do you believe Schämmel was an impostor?’

‘Once again, I don’t know. That seems the most likely explanation to me.’

‘Is there a chance he might have been genuine?’ asked Major McCaigue. He had a deep rich voice with a trace of Ulster. ‘Perhaps von Hertenberg warned his superiors that there was a plot against Hitler, and they arrested Schämmel and our men as a result?’

‘I really don’t think so,’ said Conrad. ‘It’s not just a question of Theo being my friend. We know that Theo was prepared to risk his life last year to get rid of Hitler. Why betray a conspiracy that he is most likely at the heart of?’

‘I take your point,’ said McCaigue. ‘But our two countries are now at war.’

‘This is the most almighty disaster,’ Van said. ‘Stevens knows a lot — too much. He visited most of the Passport Control Offices in Europe before he took up his post in The Hague. After the Gestapo have got hold of him, we can assume that our European intelligence operations are blown.’

‘I did get a message from Theo just as Payne Best was about to pick me up to take me to Venlo,’ Conrad said. ‘He wanted to meet me in Leiden. I have no idea what he was going to tell me. Perhaps he was warning me.’

‘Go back to Holland and talk to him,’ Van said. ‘We need to know how much Stevens and Payne Best have told the Germans. We need to know whether Schämmel was genuine. We need to know whether the coup is going ahead. Did you hear about the Munich beer hall bomb?’

Conrad looked blank. ‘Haven’t had a chance to read the paper in the last day or so.’

‘Hitler was speaking at a Party rally in a beer hall in Munich. Ten minutes after he left, a bomb went off. It would have killed him if he had stayed as planned.’

‘Who planted it?’

‘That is another question for Hertenberg. The Germans are saying it was us. They seem to be pinning the blame on “British secret agents”, meaning Payne Best and Stevens, presumably.’

‘Was it us?’ Conrad asked.

‘No,’ said McCaigue. ‘But was it the German generals? That’s the question.’

‘I’ll ask Theo,’ said Conrad. ‘I saw him in Leiden the day I arrived in Holland. He didn’t know anything about Schämmel at that point, but he did tell me the date of the planned coup. And the offensive.’

‘Really?’ said Van, leaning forward.

‘The fifteenth of November. Theo said that’s when the Germans will attack through Holland and Belgium, and that’s when the generals will strike against Hitler. Halder, the Chief of Staff, is going to arrest him.’

‘That’s less than a week away!’ said Van.

‘Is he certain about the coup?’ asked McCaigue.

‘Not entirely,’ Conrad admitted. ‘I mean he was sure that those are the current plans. But he’s not confident that the generals will see them through.’

‘And he said Holland as well as Belgium?’ McCaigue asked.

Conrad realized that was an important point. In the last war, only Belgium had been invaded and Holland had managed to stay neutral throughout. But not this time, it seemed.

‘He did,’ Conrad confirmed. ‘I’m certain of that.’

‘Did he give any other details?’ McCaigue asked.

‘No,’ Conrad shook his head. ‘Just that it would be like 1914, only worse.’

‘He’s right about that,’ said Van. ‘Thank you, de Lancey. You have done a good job. Contact me or Major McCaigue from Holland directly if you need to, but bear in mind that anything you say might be overheard. Mrs Dougherty will give you the details. Otherwise report to me when you get back.’

‘And you had better stay clear of our people in The Hague,’ said McCaigue. ‘If they were not compromised before, they certainly are now.’

‘Stevens or Payne Best may have told the Gestapo all about me,’ Conrad said.

‘They may have,’ said McCaigue. ‘So I would be careful, if I were you.’

‘Can you get back in touch with Hertenberg?’ Van asked.

‘I think so,’ said Conrad.

‘Good,’ said Van. ‘Speak to Mrs Dougherty about getting back over there as soon as possible. And in the mean time, Major McCaigue will debrief you more thoroughly.’

Westminster, London

Sir Henry Alston, baronet, Member of Parliament and merchant banker, strode through St James’s Park, with Freddie Copthorne struggling to keep up. Alston liked to walk through London; he frequently covered the distance from his flat in Kensington to Westminster or even the City on foot, and with taxis so hard to find in these days of petrol rationing, he was getting plenty of exercise.

St James’s Park, once the prettiest of London parks, had changed over the previous few months. Part of it was the season: the flowers had been slain by autumnal frosts, and wind and rain had stripped the trees of their leaves. But the war had taken its toll too: the lake had been half drained, the railings had been removed from the pathways for the munitions factories, and green spaces were scarred with waterlogged zigzagged trenches, into which people were supposed to dive if there was an air-raid warning. No one did: the ditches were wet and filthy, and besides, not a single German bomb had yet fallen on the city.