Dennis Wheatley - They Used Dark Forces

`When Khurrem left with her husband for Germany, Poland had for eighteen years again enjoyed her independence as a sovereign State. Turkey no longer had anything to offer me, so to be nearer my daughter here in Prussia I decided to return to Poland. Those of my relatives and old friends who had survived naturally welcomed me. They were no longer being persecuted and in various ways I was able to be of service to them. But in September '39 there came this new war. Hitler had by then made clear his unrelenting enmity towards all Jews. To escape becoming compromised through my friends there, who knew me to be a Jew, I used my Turkish passport to leave Poland and became a resident here at Sassen. As Khurrem was the wife of a pro-Nazi officer, no-one has ever questioned her Turkish father having come to live with her. There, Herren, you have my history and present situation.'

Gregory made a little bow. `We are most grateful to you, Herr Doktor, for having been so frank; particularly as your private life is no concern of ours. Can you now advise us how best to proceed with our mission?'

Pointing with a long, smooth finger to the horoscopes, Malacou replied, `These leave me in no doubt that in due course an opening will be given you. For the moment I can only suggest that you should pay a few visits to Greifswald and there scrape acquaintance with as many people as possible. One of them might provide you with a lead.'

`Why not Wolgast?' Gregory asked. `That is much nearer to Peenemunde and the ferry to Usedom goes from it.'

Malacou shook his head. `For you that is not possible. An area which is three miles deep from the coast has been sealed off, and a permit is required to enter it. Willi von Altern has one. Great quantities of foodstuffs are needed to feed the Forced labour now at Peenemunde and he delivers our farm produce to Wolgast by lorry twice a -week. But the two of you differ so greatly in appearance that you could not pass as him. However, he could take you to Greifswald and drop you: off there.'

`Good. When does he make his next journey?

'Tomorrow, Friday. But that is the 4th of June and in your case caution demands that the influence of both the 4 and 8 should be avoided. After that his next journey will be on Monday. That is one of the best days of the week for you; so propitious for starting to find out what you can.'

For a further hour Gregory and Kuporovitch remained with the doctor, studying his large-scale map of the Peenemunde neighbourhood and talking about the course of the war; then Khurrem took them back through the shrubbery and along to the manor house.

The weekend passed uneventfully. At Gregory's suggestion it was agreed that, while they stayed at Sassen, Kuporovitch should help on the farm. When Willi von Altern was told of this he became decidedly more friendly, as it seemed that his crippled mind was capable of concentrating only on various tasks that had to be done about the farm and in some of these a strong man's help would be very welcome.

Early on the Monday morning the lorry was loaded up and Gregory set off with him for Greifswald. After a drive of twelve miles through the flat country they reached the town and Willi dropped Gregory off in the main square. The place was much the same size as Grimmen and its buildings were similar in appearance. In the course of an hour he had explored all the principal streets and as by then it was still only a little after nine o'clock he was temporarily at a loss what to do.'

By half past nine the usual queues were forming outside the food shops and quite a number of wounded soldiers were strolling aimlessly about. The sight of them decided Gregory to pay a visit to the hospital; so he spent the next half-hour buying from tobacconists as many cigarettes as they would let him have until he had collected several hundred. Then he went to the hospital and secured the willing permission of the matron to distribute them among some of her patients.

As he moved slowly down one of the long wards he spent a few minutes at each bedside talking to the occupant before leaving him a packet of ten or twenty. He was hoping that he might come upon a man who had received his injury as a result of an accident while on garrison duty on Usedom and, perhaps, get him talking about conditions there. But he had no luck. All of them had been wounded on the Russian front, so when he had exhausted his supply of cigarettes he made his way back to the main square.

Going into a small hotel there, which appeared to be the best in the town, he enquired of the landlord the price of a room, then said he was on leave and hoped to get some fishing in the great Greifswald Bay, which lay only a few miles to the north-east of the town. But the man shook his head and said:

`A few years ago, Hen Major, I could easily have fixed you up; but for a long time past the whole coast within fifty miles of here has been a military area. As you are an officer, you might perhaps get a permit from the area commandant, but I doubt it. They are terribly strict about letting anyone get even a sight of the big experimental station at Peenemunde.'

Gregory thanked him and said he would try his luck, although he had no intention of doing so except as a last resort. As far as he knew his forged papers were all in order, but the type of such documents was changed from time to time and there was always the chance that the ones with which S.O.E. had furnished him were not up-to-date.

In an adjacent cafe Gregory ordered a drink, then got into conversation with two convalescent officers who were sitting at a nearby table. After a while he again broached the subject of fishing. The elder of the two, a grey-haired Captain, shrugged.

`You'll get no fishing in these parts now, Herr Major. Only the local fishing smacks are allowed to go out, and then only on certain days, under escort. On others they would be endangered by the firing.'

`Surely that applies only when they are a few miles from the coast,' Gregory remarked. `They couldn't come to any harm while far out in the Baltic.'

The younger officer laughed. `If I were the captain of a trawler I wouldn't care to risk it. Big Bertha of the last great war was a pop-gun compared with this huge piece they are trying out at Peenemunde. It's said to be able to throw its shells two hundred miles.'

`Let's hope you're right and from the French coast it will destroy London,' remarked his senior. Then, with a warning glance, he added, `But the Provost Marshal would have us on the mat if it got to his ears that we'd been talking about it.'

Gregory already knew that the secret weapon was not a gun, so obviously no information of value about it could be extracted from his companions. Tactfully, he changed the conversation and shortly afterwards left them to go and have lunch.

In the hotel coffee room there was a cold table of sorts. While standing at it and discussing with the waiter the possible merits of various kinds of sausage he succeeded in picking up a quite pretty young officer of the Women's Army. As she was on her own she agreed to share- a table with him; then, after they had been talking for a while, he tried to pump her. but she had arrived there only that morning on leave from Brussels and was expecting to be collected that afternoon by her father, who owned a property some miles away. Talking: to her made a pleasant break, but as it was over a year since he had been home she knew nothing of recent developments n the neighbourhood.

After lunch he returned to the cafe and scraped acquaintance with another convalescent officer, but again drew a blank. As he could think of no other avenues of covert enquiry, he remained there until three o'clock, when Willi returned from his thirty-four-mile trip to Wolgast and back, and picked him up.