David John - Flight from Berlin

The SD man examined the document and Denham felt his gaze like heat. Fleeting shadows passed over his newspaper as the train sped along a tree-lined embankment. He kept his eyes on the article. Seconds passed, and the print began to swirl before his eyes.

‘ Danke, Herr Standartenfuhrer,’ the man said at last, handing it back with a click of his heels.

‘Heil Hitler!’ Denham said, with a casual raised palm. He resumed reading with his heart hammering in his ears.

Denham hopped off the train before it had come to a full halt at Frankfurt main station and walked quickly beneath the high, iron-latticed roof to the barrier. Where in God’s name was Friedl? After the appearance of those two SD he hadn’t seen him again.

He passed the train guards without arousing suspicion and spent a minute glancing around the busy concourse, looking at faces. He waited, watching the passengers emerging from the train he’d just arrived on. Still no sign of him. Denham’s mind began to reel through every dire possibility. The young man had no papers to bluff with, nothing.

Too dangerous to stand around. He would have to make a decision.

He was about to turn and leave the station when he saw a troop of five Brownshirts coming down the platform from the train, the last passengers. They were holding Friedl, had him by both arms, and were pushing him along. Hair a mess; buttons undone. He was dragging his feet, as if barely conscious. Denham could only watch, appalled. The bastards were laughing.

But something was not as it seemed. Now Friedl was laughing, too, talking in a boisterous voice. One of the men seemed to be using Friedl’s arm to steady himself. They shambled towards the barrier howling ‘Die Wacht am Rhein,’ an awful tune at the best of times. Friedl spotted Denham, flashed him a look of profound relief, then bid a lengthy and rowdy farewell to his new friends, embracing them.

‘What the hell happened?’ Denham said.

‘Don’t blame me,’ Friedl said, breathing beer into his face. ‘Someone passed along the train. Said the police were checking the men’s papers, so I moved…’ They emerged from the station arches and onto the cobbled open forecourt. ‘You,’ he said, pointing at Denham and swaying, ‘were asleep in a newspaper. Lucky for me those gorillas were in the restaurant car with no money for beers…’

Denham hailed a taxi. ‘You stink like the Schultheiss Brewery.’

Friedl gave a long, deep belch. ‘That’s method acting.’

Denham almost laughed. ‘Meet me in the lobby of the Frankfurter Hof in half an hour,’ he said. ‘I’m going to try getting a room. With luck we can have something to eat, take a bath, and get some sleep,’ he said, stepping into the cab. ‘Then we wait for Eleanor.’

T he Frankfurter Hof, an ornate relic from the Second Reich, was a palatial edifice on the Kaiserplatz. The impression it gave was of a dowager marchioness overdressed for a royal wedding. The desk manager apologised, and hoped Denham would understand, because unfortunately the hotel was fully booked for the annual Hessian Vintners’ Guild conference being held today, and with guests departing on tomorrow’s flight of the Hindenburg to New York. But Denham smiled, explained that he was Willi Greiser, the press chief, and that he felt sure there was something the manager could do. A blink of the man’s eyes, and his voice changed to a smoother gear. As luck would have it, mein Herr, there had been a single cancellation. Denham paid in advance and was shown to a pilastered room with gilded claw-and-ball chairs, a divan, and heavy, gold-brocaded curtains. The bed could have been designed for a courtesan of Napoleon III, and it was exceedingly comfortable.

Denham found Friedl sprawled over a brocatelle sofa in the lobby with his boots up, and ushered him up the stairs to the room, hoping nobody had noticed the state he was in. In any smart hotel in the world, he thought, they’d have asked him to leave, but the brown uniform was licence for the vilest behaviour; and no one would dare say a thing.

Denham ordered lunch from room service and had a bath in the enormous copper tub, and soon they were both in a deep sleep, with Friedl on the divan.

They were awoken some hours later by the telephone ringing on the marble dressing table.

‘Herr Willi Greiser?’ said a voice of smooth obsequy.

Who? Sleep had disoriented him.

‘This is the manager. Forgive me, but word has got out that you’re a guest of ours, and the editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung is in the lobby, wishing to pay his respects to the press chief.’

‘Sorry, I’m busy,’ Denham mumbled, reconnecting his brain. He was about to hang up, but then said, ‘but you can tell him from me that today’s piece on the English coronation had two factual inaccuracies, and it wasn’t clear what Fat Hermann’s Heinkels were doing over northern Spain.’

‘Very well, sir.’

‘It’s nearly six p.m.,’ Friedl said.

They dressed in a hurry and descended the stairs to the grand lobby, crowded and noisy with knots of high-spirited guests in dinner jackets-the Hessian Vintners come for their annual gala dinner. From his vantage point on the stairs, Denham scanned the room, looking for the women.

‘There,’ Friedl said, not daring to point. ‘At the door.’

The short figure of Martha Dodd had just entered through the main doors in a raincoat and a pair of dark glasses. Eleanor followed her in and began casting her eyes around.

Denham led Friedl through the crowd of dinner jackets towards the doors and was halfway across when he felt a tap on his elbow. He turned to see the hotel manager smiling greasily and bowing with eyes closed. Behind him stood a small sandy-haired fellow in a herringbone tweed suit. Pouched cheeks and a pair of round, tortoiseshell eyeglasses made him look like a book-loving beaver.

‘Herr Greiser, my apologies,’ said the manager. ‘Perhaps now that you’re free you might spare a moment for Herr Joost, the editor of our local Frankfurter- ’

‘I fear not,’ Denham said, pulling Friedl after him. ‘I’m on my way out.’

‘That’s not Willi Greiser,’ the editor exclaimed, in a voice firmer than Denham would have given him credit for.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to Martha and Eleanor without stopping to greet them.

‘Car’s outside,’ Eleanor said, catching the look on his face.

‘Ah, just one moment, sir…,’ came the hotel manager’s voice.

Two seconds later the four of them were through the doors, down the steps, and running along the Kaiserplatz towards the Hanomag. Martha started the engine, and they screeched into the Saturday night traffic on Kaiserstrasse.

‘Couldn’t pay your bar check?’ Eleanor said, squeezing Denham’s hand from the front seat. He leaned over and kissed her. ‘Thank God you’re here.’ She started laughing with nerves and relief. ‘I was worried sick, thinking of you at the border.’

‘The telegram warned us in time,’ said Denham.

‘About two seconds in time,’ Friedl added.

‘Don’t mind me,’ Martha said in a petulant singsong. ‘I’m just a chauffeur without a clue where I’m going. And I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure, young man,’ she added in German.

Denham introduced Friedl, who said, ‘Good evening,’ in English. He was holding his head now, the drink catching up with him.

Eleanor read out the address of the Klinik Pfanmuller again and while Martha stopped at a flower stall to ask directions, explained to Denham how they’d followed an SS car carrying Jakob and Ilse from Berlin, and how it was en route to Basel with a stop-off at Frankfurt, where she was hoping to intercept it. A puncture on the autobahn had, Eleanor hoped, put the car half an hour or so behind the Hanomag.