Jack Ludlow: The Burning Sky

‘We are going to have to get into the docks without being seen,’ Cal insisted, ‘which means we can’t go through the main gates as planned, pretending to be normal passengers.’

‘False documents, I take it?’

‘Yes, but if they are on a special alert they might not pass muster, and our friends, when seeking out Jews, have a very simple method of establishing their religion.’

The girl was still arguing with her father, though in a hushed, assertive tone, so Lanchester said, ‘I should tell Bonny Lass what will happen to her if the Gestapo get their hands on her. Never mind them examining her father’s cock, I doubt the interracial sex laws will hold when they see her in her smalls. I have to say I wouldn’t mind interrogating her myself.’

‘It’s my job to help them, Peter, not terrify them.’

‘I was thinking of getting the sods to behave, on the very good grounds that we, I suspect, will be going out by the same route as they.’

‘Correct.’

The argument was not swift and it was not without raised voices, which reminded Callum Jardine of the apercu that two Jews in an argument were always good for at least three opinions, but eventually what he was insisting on seemed to be reluctantly accepted. A time was arranged and he signalled to Lanchester they could leave by the mere act of lifting his Gladstone bag. They exited to the sound of raised voices.

‘Now they can argue about who has to give up what!’

The next bus journey was longer and involved a change, taking them over the wide River Elbe to the endless warehouses and docks of Germany’s premier port, running along a series of high walls that enclosed the whole area until they alighted at what looked like a set of main gates. As soon as the bus disappeared Jardine spun round and led Lanchester away, walking quickly.

‘Even you can’t get through those main gates without papers, Peter.’

‘A British passport generally does the trick, old boy.’

‘Not without a seaman’s discharge book or a valid passenger ticket, and you must have realised by now how strict the Germans are about one having the right papers.’

‘Bloody nightmare, they behave as if everyone is an enemy of the state.’

‘In Hitler’s world everyone is.’

They walked a fair distance, all the while keeping to the dockyard wall until they came to a long street, dead straight and full of muddled, grimy warehouses, with Jardine slipping into the doorway of one, dropping his Gladstone, telling Lanchester to wait as he went ahead.

‘If anyone approaches me, whatever they are dressed in, take that bag and make yourself scarce.’

‘And then?’

‘British consulate’s your best bet; I take it you know where that is?’

‘I’ll find it.’

‘As I said before, I have no idea what the Gestapo know about me and my activities.’ That was followed by a very direct look. ‘You might know more about that than I do.’

‘Bits and bobs, Cal, that’s all I have.’

‘You knew enough to warn me I was about to be raided and I am curious as to how you got that information.’

‘A chap in the Berlin embassy, I was at school with him, passed on the stuff about you, but I hardly think this is the place to enquire about such things.’

‘So?’

‘As far as I know, you are under suspicion, Cal, but how deep that goes …’ Lanchester shrugged. ‘My chum did not expect you to be fingered so soon, but he intimated it would not be weeks before you were arrested and that I should warn you to scarper.’

‘Perhaps you were the cause.’

‘Can’t think why.’

‘Perhaps they thought you were a Jew, Peter.’

‘ Me ?’

Amused by the shock, Jardine added, ‘If I am not intercepted I will go in a doorway about fifty yards along. Wait a few minutes before following me and call out your name when you arrive.’

Jardine’s shoes echoed off the street cobbles and the high buildings as he walked along the street. About a hundred yards on some people were still working, well past the usual hour, loading a lorry, while the other warehouses seemed to have shut up shop for the day, giving the street a deserted air.

He knew that could be false and mentally he was working out the odds: those Brownshirts in the Reeperbahn did not matter — they tended to be dense thugs — but if the Gestapo was on his trail, and it would be wise to assume they were, then they would not want to take just him, they would want to catch him in the act of smuggling out Jews. Cue a diplomatic protest to HMG about British nationals interfering in Germany’s internal affairs and embarrassment all round.

The Ephraim family would be coming by car within the hour, and if this place were being watched, the Gestapo would wait and try to take them as well, giving them a banner headline locally about treacherous Jews being aided by outsiders. Common sense told Jardine that Peter Lanchester was right: he should walk away; the risk to him came from being here when they arrived. The Dutch captain he had already paid and he would not care if his passengers were two people or eight.

‘Why is it,’ he murmured to himself, as he pulled out a set of door keys, ‘I have never had any common sense?’

It was an office of sorts, dirty walls in need of fresh whitewash, a ceiling with holes big enough to show the naked wooden laths, a desk and a chair set against the back wall alongside a battered wooden filing cabinet and an excessively large cupboard, all sitting on plain floorboards. Once inside he checked for signs of entry: an oil lamp just behind the door, so that if it was opened too wide oil would leak onto the boards to create a stain impossible to remove; little scraps of folded paper in odd places; a hair spat on, then stuck to a filing cabinet drawer, and inside that an open ink bottle, precariously balanced, that required his inserted fingers to keep in place.

Lanchester saw Jardine disappear, which made more acute his examination of the street: he too could see those loading that lorry in a desultory fashion, but they had not paused or looked in Jardine’s direction. No one had emerged from any of the other buildings along the way, these observations being made as he was harbouring the same notions as the man he had come to Hamburg to find.

He could just go and leave Jardine to it, the danger to him if he left was minimal — how could he be arrested for merely talking to a fellow countryman? That was until he recalled this was Hitler’s Germany, a country where the rule of law did not apply. Besides, he had a job to do, so after the required interval, he picked up the Gladstone bag and made his way to the doorway, heart in mouth, croaking his name at the panelling.

‘What is this place?’ he asked as soon as he was inside, the act of brushing his sleeves in such a grubby location an automatic one.

The smell was of musty and disturbed dust, made worse as Jardine lifted a worn blind to reveal a grimy window from which he could watch the street.

‘The way out of Germany, Peter. There’s a tunnel under the dockyard wall that we have kept as our exit in an emergency. Smugglers built it during the last war to get contraband in from Sweden and they brought it back into use when the Nazis banned certain imports. Being kindly disposed, they have given us the use of it as a one-off way out.’

‘Black marketeers?’ Jardine nodded. ‘They would not be Jewish by any chance?’

‘There are plenty of Aryans up to the same tricks.’

‘Except Aryans, even criminal ones, are less likely to be watched.’

Jardine looked at his watch. ‘We have a little time to chat now, Peter, so why don’t you tell me what it is you came to Hamburg to propose?’

‘I told you.’