David John - Flight from Berlin

‘Not to the border,’ Friedl shouted, his hands clutched to the sides of his head.

‘That truck’s right behind us,’ Denham said. ‘By the time I turn around the Germans will be out of the hotel and looking to see where our car went.’

‘Oh, shit.’

The frontier was looming before them, flags flying.

‘I’m wanted by the SD in Germany,’ Friedl said, his voice tight with terror.

In the rearview mirror Denham saw one of the leather coats come out from the hotel, then another. Both were looking in the opposite direction, along the road into Venhoven, but then the truck obscured the view. With a little luck, thought Denham, they had not seen which way the car had gone.

The Dutch border guard waved them through with only a glance at their passports. As he slowed for the German Kontrolle Denham struggled for breath. ‘Think of it this way,’ he said, as much to calm himself as Friedl, ‘we’ve gone in the one direction they won’t expect us to go.’

There seemed to be a Friday evening laxness at the barrier. One of the inspectors made a remark that drew laughter from the other. Denham handed over their passports with a smile.

‘What’s the purpose of your visit?’ said the man through the passenger window, still grinning from some joke.

‘Visiting friends for the evening in MUnchen-Gladbach,’ Denham said as casually as he could. The inspector disappeared into the Kontrolle with the passports.

‘It’s a rural crossing,’ Denham said in a low voice. ‘They won’t be on the lookout for you going in.’

‘And coming out?’

A minute later the man emerged with their passports stamped and handed them back through the window. ‘ Wilkommen im Deutschen Reich-’

The striped barrier was raised, and they drove on beneath a sign painted with an enormous black eagle, its claws splayed.

In less fraught circumstances Eleanor might have found comedy in the mounting amazement on Martha’s face. As soon as they had reached the zoo she told her everything-or almost everything. The dangerous truth of the List Dossier, hidden in her case in the bedroom at Tiergartenstrasse, she had kept to herself, telling Martha only that the exchange involved the return of some munitions plans. When she explained the SD trap in which Richard was sitting, Martha’s mouth fell open, timed perfectly with a squawk from a nearby cockatoo. But after a few stunned seconds, she showed a resolve that Eleanor would forever after admire, and saved her questions until they’d run to the embassy and warned Richard by radio telegram.

What Eleanor told her afterwards in the embassy garden, where they’d gone for a calming cigarette, astonished her even more, if that were possible.

‘How do you plan to do that?’ she shrieked.

‘I’ll hire a car and drive?’ Eleanor said dubiously.

Martha lowered her voice. ‘Darling, this isn’t like last August, when there were thousands of foreigners here. You’re conspicuous.’

Eleanor was about to argue, but she knew Martha was right. And Richard had more than warned her.

They were both quiet for a minute, smoking with quick, deep drags.

‘We’ll go in Mother’s car,’ Martha said suddenly. ‘It’s less suspicious if I’m with you…’

‘Oh, no, Martha,’ Eleanor said, alarmed.

‘… I’ll tell Dad we’re touring the new autobahn…’

Eleanor grabbed her friend’s elbow. ‘You are not getting involved in this.’

W ithin minutes of crossing into Germany Denham turned off the main route east and onto a sequence of minor roads, still strewn with branches and mud from the storm. They drove through villages with steep gabled houses, neat red-brick churches, and rolling farmland. The most glaring difference from the Netherlands, only a mile away, was the signs on the outskirts to each town and village, of warning. JEWS NOT WELCOME IN KALDENKIRCHEN; JEWS MUST NOT STOP IN HOLST! Some villages proclaimed themselves JUDENREIN — pure of Jews.

If the SD had seen them head to the frontier, then their head start on that Mercedes-Benz was only a matter of minutes. The Kontrolle inspector would confirm that they’d passed into Germany. Denham told himself that this wasn’t necessarily a complete catastrophe. There were some factors in his favour: he spoke the language; he knew the country. And Eleanor was here. But the truth was he knew there were dire factors against them. Friedl kept a lookout on the road behind but saw no one on their tail.

They’d been double-crossed by Heydrich. Of course they had. How did he ever think they wouldn’t be? But he was consoled by one thought: it had gone wrong for Heydrich, too.

At the market town of Viersen, some fifteen miles from the border, Denham parked in a quiet street behind a church just off the town square, taking only the satchel with his documents and passport. May Day banners with emblems of spades and corn sheaves hung dripping from the lampposts.

He found a telephone booth in the local hotel-the Westfalen-Stubchen. ‘They’re still fixing the lines,’ the landlord said, drawing beer into a tall glass. ‘But you might be in luck.’

Denham called the Dodds’ number at Tiergartenstrasse. To his surprise, Eleanor answered, and almost immediately.

‘Oh Budd, darling, I’m so glad to hear from you. Sidney Dean is here, too. He’s listening on the extension. How are you, dear?’

‘Safe and well at the moment. Just came back east, but you know how it is. My old creditors are after me.’

‘You’re back east? Oh, uh, how are you fixed tomorrow, sweetheart? Martha and I are having a reunion with Lester and Eileen Linderhofer and their daughter in Hamburg. It would be a blast if you could make it. They’d love to see you.’

‘Hamburg.’

‘Yes, you remember. We discussed it that day we had the picnic during the Olympics. It’ll just be a quick visit; then I thought we’d all take off together, you know, somewhere with a change of air.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘I’m so pleased. It’s been arranged. Hotel Hamburger Hof at six p.m. Bye, Budd.’

‘Bye, Eleanor. Bye, Sidney.’

Denham put the telephone down in a daze.

Friedl was waiting for him outside the telephone booth, chewing a bread roll with cheese. ‘The baker over the road gave me these for free,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘It’s the end of the day.’ He offered one to Denham from a paper bag.

They walked out of the hotel bar just as a local Brownshirt Sturmfuhrer was entering, rubbing his hands, ready to begin the weekend’s drinking. He smiled at them both with a leery red face. ‘Heil Hitler!’

Quickly crossing the town square towards the church, Denham explained what Eleanor had told him.

‘Hamburg!’

‘Ye-es…’ Denham hesitated. And then it came to him. ‘It’s plain-code,’ he said, remembering that far-off picnic lunch they’d shared in the sunshine after watching Hannah fence.

‘Your frankfurter looks nicer than my hamburger…’

‘She means Frankfurt, that’s what she was trying to tell me. She couldn’t say it because the SD had wired the telephone. What’s the grand hotel in Frankfurt?’

‘Frankfurter Hof.’

‘We’re meeting her there at six p.m. tomorrow.’

‘That’s a long way,’ Friedl said, kicking a pebble.

‘We’re going to have to trust her. She was shocked to learn that we’re in Germany but I think she may have a way out… We could drive to Cologne tonight-that’s not so far-then take the train from there to Frankfurt tomorrow morning. But we’ll have to ditch the car as soon as it’s light. British number plates will be like fresh meat to a police dog.’

‘But why Frankfurt?’