Sam Eastland - Berlin Red

‘We need to keep our eye on this,’ Himmler said at last. ‘If it does turn out that one of our own people is involved, it will destroy whatever faith Hitler has left in us.’

‘I have taken steps to see that does not happen.’

‘What steps, Fegelein? What have you been up to?’

‘Just extending the hand of friendship to a colleague,’ replied Fegelein. ‘I told Hunyadi to come to me if he ever needed help.’

‘And why would he go to you instead of anybody else?’

‘Because I let him know that I can be discreet, and I predict that he will soon accept my offer.’

‘As soon as he does that,’ said Himmler, laughing softly, ‘he will belong to us. But what makes you so sure he will call upon you?’

‘Everyone needs someone like me at one time or another,’ answered Fegelein, ‘and I sense that Hunyadi’s time is coming.’

‘Let us hope so,’ said Himmler. As usual, he hung up without saying goodbye.

For a moment, Fegelein listened to the rustles of static on the disconnected line. Then he put the phone down and set about puffing his cigar back to life.

As Kirov and Pekkala made their way along a muddy road, still 30 kilometres from Berlin, they did not see the roadblock until it was too late.

The windswept farmland had given way to shallow, rolling hills. Through this, the road twisted and turned, the way forward obscured by thick forests of poplars and sycamores, whose patchwork bark seemed to conjure up the shapes of faces, staring wall-eyed at the travellers as they passed by.

They were coasting down a hill, bicycle chains clattering over the spokes, banking to the right and then sharply to the left. It was all they could do just to stay in their seats. Just before the bottom of the hill, the road straightened out, and it was here that a squad of German Field Police had chosen to set up a barrier made from downed trees blocking first the left-hand side of the road and then the right, so that anyone hoping to pass would have to zigzag through the obstacles.

There was nothing that Pekkala or Kirov could do. They had no time to draw their guns or to retrace their steps. They barely had time to stop before they reached where the policemen were standing.

Two men, each wearing long rubberised canvas trench coats and carrying sub-machine guns, stood in front of the first blockade of trees. Hanging from forged metal links around their necks were the half-moon shields of the German Field Police, each one emblazoned with a large eagle and the word ‘Feldgendarmerie’, which had been daubed with a yellowish-green paint that glowed in the dark.

The police grinned, pleased with the success of their trap, as Kirov and Pekkala skidded to a halt in front of them.

At first, it seemed as if these two ‘Chained Dogs’ were the only ones manning the roadblock, but then the woods appeared to come to life, and half a dozen more police emerged from bunkers on either side of the road.

‘Papers!’ barked one of the policemen, holding out his hand.

Fumbling in their pockets, Pekkala and Kirov each produced their documents. As they undid the buttons of their coats, the policeman caught sight of Pekkala’s Webley, tucked away inside his shoulder holster. Immediately, the man swung his sub-machine gun up towards his chest. ‘Slowly now,’ he said.

Pekkala removed the revolver. Grasping it by the brass butt plates so that the barrel pointed at the ground, he handed it over. As he did so, he noticed for the first time how young these soldiers were.

They could not have been more than sixteen years old, gaunt and acne-spattered faces peering from beneath the iron hoods of their helmets. With underfed and spindly bodies tented beneath their raincoats, they looked like scarecrows come to life.

And yet Pekkala knew what casual brutality could come from those whose youth had shielded them from any frame of reference but the one they had been taught since birth. They were the children of the later war and when they crossed paths with the Red Army, these boys would be the last to surrender, if they were even given such a chance.

Now the two men were searched, and Kirov’s gun was also confiscated.

‘Herr Hauptmann!’ shouted the boy who had demanded their papers.

Another man emerged from the bunker on the left. He wore the rank insignia of a captain, and his silver-braided epaulettes were trimmed with the dull orange piping of the German Field Police. The captain was considerably older than the others, his unshaved chin flecked with a grey haze of stubble. He might have been their father, or even their grandfather. The man carried a short-stemmed pipe, which he paused to light as he made his way on to the road. Unlike his men, this officer did not wear a long coat. Nor did he carry the half-moon badge of his profession. Instead, he was bundled in a field grey tunic, so worn that it seemed to be moulded to his body. Across his back and down his forearms, the woollen fabric had faded almost white. Pinned to his left chest pocket was an Iron Cross 1st Class and tucked into a buttonhole were two medal ribbons, one for an Iron Cross 2nd Class and another to commemorate his service on the Russian front.

‘You were right, Herr Hauptmann!’ exclaimed the boy. ‘You said we might catch a few more of them if we stayed out after dark, and look what we have here!’ He shoved the two men forward.

‘Thank you, Andreas,’ said the captain, sounding more like a schoolmaster than a commanding officer.

The boy handed him the papers belonging to Pekkala and Kirov, saluted and stood back.

Puffing thoughtfully at his pipe, the captain flipped through the Hungarian identity books, unfolding the insert at the back which identified both Kirov and Pekkala as tradesmen for a company called Matra, located in the Hungarian city of Eger, which had a contract to make footwear for the German military.

Ever since they had first come in sight of the roadblock, neither Kirov nor Pekkala had spoken a word. Pekkala could feel his heart beating against a leather strap of his empty holster which he had strapped across his chest. He had designed the contraption himself, so that the gun could be carried at an angle that was easiest to reach, which put the Webley just beneath his solar plexus on the left side of his ribcage.

Both men realised that they were completely at the mercy of their captors. There was nowhere to run, no chance of fighting their way out and, unless this captain intervened, these boys would soon have them swinging from ropes.

‘They are Hungarians,’ said the officer, more to himself than to the others.

‘Shall we hang them?’ asked Andreas, unable to conceal the excitement in his voice.

Wearily, the officer glanced up at him. ‘These papers are in order and, in case you had forgotten, Hungary is one of the few allies we have left. Besides, according to these documents, these men work for a company that might well have made your boots.’

‘Then we should hang them just for that,’ piped up the other boy. He pointed at the muddy clumps of leather on his feet. ‘I’ve only had these things three weeks and they’re already falling apart.’

The officer just shook his head. ‘Indeed they are, Berthold, but perhaps they were not built to last.’

Berthold blinked at the officer in confusion, unable to grasp the meaning of his words.

‘And what about these guns, Herr Hauptmann?’ Andreas held them up for the officer to see.

‘Why shouldn’t they have guns?’ asked the captain. ‘Everyone else does.’

‘Well, what are they doing out here?’ demanded Berthold. ‘It looks pretty suspicious if you ask me.’

‘But nobody is asking you,’ replied the captain. ‘Put them in the truck tonight. Then, in the morning, you take them in to Major Rademacher. He can decide what to do.’