The Wooden Shepherdess (42 page)

Cold water was slowly trickling down his back inside his clothes when something made Ernst turn his head; and there—behind his shoulder, and only an inch or two from his own—on the other side of the pane was the Führer's face looking out.

The gaze of a man half-conscious: vague, shifty, glassy, settling nowhere and seeing nothing.

At last the storm had rumbled away. Somewhere behind the hotel the sun was setting, but heavy curtains were drawn at once as soon as the lights came on indoors: there was nothing more to be seen.

The interloper was gone, and the two friends briskly tramped the terrace hoping at least to keep warm if they couldn't get dry. Then it was growing dark, with pin-point lights twinkling out all over the valley—and still the meeting went on.

One by one the few remaining tugs on the river lit up, preparing to dock for the night. A reddish glow above Bonn was lighting the undersides of the lowering clouds as the storm retreated; and after a while there were stars.

It must have been after midnight before they were called to the trucks, but you couldn't see your watch. Ernst climbed aboard his truck just as the first of those big black Mercedes cars with official numbers began to move off; and then they were roaring after them through the trees and the sleeping countryside, taking the road to the Eifel hills.

On the little Hangelar airfield an aircraft was waiting ready and warming up, its propeller turning slowly. Standing on guard on the grass, Ernst saw Hitler again as he went on board with Göbbels still at his elbow.

The plane climbed into the starry sky, while they watched its red and green twinkling lights to see where it meant to head. Ernst glanced away at the Plough and the Pole Star to get his bearings: Berlin must be over there.... But no, the plane was steering a steady course towards the south-east. That was where Frankfurt lay, and Stuttgart—and further still, Munich.... Yes, Munich it must be: for Röhm (as everyone knew) was resting and taking a course of treatment near there, on the shores of the Tegernsee. Tireless, tomorrow morning the Führer intended consulting his old friend Röhm on whatever that meeting had been about....

“Did you see Friedrich again?” asked Hans: “I did: he went up the gangway just behind Dr. Göbbels.”

Soon they were once more back in their crowded trucks and bound for their beds in Cologne at last, the string of vehicles coasting downhill and backfiring like guns—Ernst sneezed at the stinking exhaust of the one in front. Nobody sang now, nobody spoke: the others already seemed half asleep as they stood squashed tight and swaying together at every bend in the road like trees in the wind. To them this had been just another routine assignment—and boring at that: for none of these others had seen what the two friends had seen....

Cologne was near: for now they were racing along the empty Autobahn through the “Green Belt” trees on the very last lap to the old, grim, ex-army barracks the S.S. had taken over. Arrived there at last, Ernst changed his clothes and got into something dry: for he felt quite sure he wouldn't be able to sleep. Something entirely momentous had been decided that night, right under his eyes; but what? For of only one thing did Ernst feel certain—that this was a night that would live in history. All that dumb-show behind the glass had been history in the making.... He drowsed a moment—and found himself walking past rows of enormous museum cases, each with some famous Crisis of History being enacted inside it on public show there (for fifty pfennigs) behind the glass.

He nodded himself awake. The heat and the smell of his room-mates drove him across to the window for air. Behind him his room-mates snored, and one of them talked in his sleep. The window faced north, looking over a city lit only by street lamps (for all the little houses were dark). Then a cock crew.... Those black-paper crenellations silhouetted against the paling sky would turn into factories soon, and houses: for dawn was coming and somewhere a baby had started crying. The air was cool enough now, but that smoky orange glow in the east portended the heat of this coming last day of June....

“Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” hummed Ernst. The short summer night was passing, the night when nowadays all good Germans could sleep in safety under the spread of their Führer's unsleeping, protecting wings. He yawned. Protected from Marxists, and Jews.... And the French.... “From ghosties and ghoulies” (as we would say), “and everything else which goes bump in the night.”

He rocked on his feet; and almost before he fell on his bed he had fallen asleep.

Ernst had been right: Hitler was bound for Munich, to keep his appointment with Röhm—though a little ahead of time.

Three weeks ago, when Röhm's neuritis became so acute that he had to take sick-leave, the S.A. Chief had rented some downstairs rooms in a quiet and unpretentious mountain inn on the shores of the Tegernsee. Not in a lonely place, for Wiessee's sulphur and iodine springs were famous for cures: the village consisted almost entirely of clinics and sanatoria. Here, in the Pension Hanslbaur, Röhm had transported himself just about as far as he could from that feverish city of rumor and intrigue, Berlin, while remaining in easy reach of Munich for secret talks with Göbbels. Apart from Count Spreti, his permanent boy-friend, he only took with him a couple of adjutants, leaving his staff-guards in Munich.

Röhm's doctor had ordered a sedative course of injections, and drove out from Munich each time one was needed to give it himself. Tonight the final injection was due; and the doctor had got to the inn just in time for dinner, so he and his patient had quietly dined together first (a Gruppenführer called Bergmann making a third). After dinner the three of them sat round playing cards till eleven o'clock, when the doctor suggested his patient was better in bed if he hoped to be fighting-fit for tomorrow's meeting. Röhm nodded, and rose to go. He hadn't abandoned the policy struggle, and (as his doctor knew) tomorrow's meeting was crucial: the Adolf who never seemed able to make up his mind alone had got to be helped. Tomorrow he had to be faced by the whole S.A. Top Brass presenting their case in unison: either these two million S.A. men must be-come a recognized Army Reserve (in other words, be allowed to engulf the tiny Professional Army and open the way for a leftward swing in policy), or.... Or if Hitler wouldn't agree, Röhm said he had made up his mind to resign and return to Bolivia, leaving Our Adolph to cope with those turbulent fellows himself. He would soon find out these men had none of those ancient and deeply-ingrained emotional ties to his person which handicapped Röhm; and indeed he (Röhm) was heartily sick of keeping a couple of million men on the leash whose claims he believed in, simply to make things smoother for Adolf!

Tomorrow Adolf would certainly turn on all his charm; and the thought gave Röhm a sinking feeling.... But this time his mind was made up to resist. After all he'd resigned once before, and if need be could do it again: South America had its charms....

So Röhm retired to his ground-floor room and obediently went to bed. The doctor pricked him, and left him to sleep it off.

The doctor was just on the point of returning to Munich when Bergmann suggested it being so late why not stop the night? Some unexpected tourists had come from Berlin, so the inn was full; but the room the two adjutants shared upstairs had a third bed in it the doctor was welcome to doss down on.... He accepted; and then—since neither man wanted to turn in yet—the pair of them sat around chewing the rag in the lounge.

At half-past-twelve the first invitee for tomorrow's meeting arrived. This was the S.A. High-up from Breslau: a man who still looked the part of one of Rossbach's gallant toughs of old Freikorps times—which is just what he was, with his whipcord muscles and winning girlish face and girlish behavior and (girlish) murderous record. This Edmund Heines wanted to talk to his sleeping chief at once; but the doctor was firm, the drug must be left to work undisturbed. So Heines grumbled a bit, then swallowed a yawn and wandered along the passage to room No. 9. He would see the Chief in the morning....

When the doctor finally went to bed himself it was gone one o'clock, and both the young adjutants sound asleep.

During the two-hour flight Hans's fortunate brother—the granite-faced Friedrich—had snatched what sleep he could in the air as the only rest he was likely to get; and the early midsummer dawn was already tinting the spires of Munich with rosy light as their plane touched down.

The Führer himself had put through a call before leaving Godesberg. This, Friedrich knew, was to trigger certain provisional orders to Gauleiter Wagner in Munich—whatever those orders might be; and now he was soon to find out what they were, for instead of heading for Wiessee at once the cars drove first to Wagner's Ministry. Friedrich indeed had a fair idea; but he got it confirmed as the party climbed the ill-lit, deserted and echoing stairs on their way to the Minister's private room: for there on the stairs he caught sight of somebody staggering blindly from wall to Wall who screamed with fear at the sound of approaching feet.

Then this apparition—his head all covered in blood and his face bashed in—turned and upbraided the Führer. Faithful old S.A. comrades invited by Wagner had all sat drinking together till dawn (it appeared from his ravings), expecting the Führer's arrival: then Wagner himself had given a sign whereon half the party had set on their neighbors with bottles and pistol-butts. It was senseless cold-blooded murder, this slaughter of faithful S.A. Old Comrades: if this had indeed been done on the Führer's orders the Führer was mad....

Friedrich had drawn his gun; but Göbbels laid a restraining hand on his arm, for the Führer was stammering out excuses! He seemed completely taken aback by this Banquo's Ghost, and assured him there'd been some ghastly mistake—that he wouldn't have anyone hurting one hair of dear Banquo's head: “You'd better go straight to the doctor.”

There'd been some ghastly mistake indeed, thought Friedrich—so simple a killing bungled to start with! The superstitious Führer must think it an omen.... Then Friedrich felt the hand on his forearm tremble, and glanced at a Göbbels whose face was a mottled gray: “Aha!” thought Friedrich, “You've guessed like me, that the Führer may still change sides and disown the whole operation—and then where will
you
be, my friend?”

But now from the top of the stairs came a happy babel of slurred Bavarian voices: a group of “Old Guard” all looking as pleased as Punch, like terriers after a rat-hunt. The Führer perked up at once when he saw them, and went round slapping their backs.

“We're sorry one bastard escaped, Herr Hitler—but still, we'll soon pick him up!”

“Don't worry about him, boys! I need you for bigger game.”

Dug-outs, most of them were, from Hitler's own street-corner past.... Friedrich already had recognized Esser the scandalous, scandal-mongering journalist: Emil Maurice, the man who had trained for him all his earliest strong-arm squads before the S.A. (as such) existed; and Weber, the “Party Hercules”—nowadays run to Gargantuan fat. Weber had served as chucker-out in a pub before leading his “Oberlanders” in Hitler's abortive Munich Putsch of eleven years back.... “You've shown you're a strong man still under all this lard!” said the Führer, jovially jolting him in the ribs till the man-mountain burped. “And you too, Esser: all those mistresses haven't drained you entirely of spunk!”

Then they all passed into Wagner's room, while Friedrich was left outside in the passage on guard and the door was firmly closed. Friedrich couldn't hear much through three inches of wood, except for the muffled voice of a frenzied Führer cursing somebody's dastardly treason (so some of the party in there must still be alive, whatever Banquo supposed). Then the door was flung open again and there was Göbbels, whinnying over his shoulder: “Remember that's just the hors-d'oeuvre—and we'd better get cracking before the news of it gets to the Chief of Staff!”

Inside the half-open door an unseen Führer was counting out loud, and murmuring names: “Du Moulin ... Schneidhuber ... Schmidt....” (who had just arrived). But at Göbbels's words he seemed to wake with a start, and came hurrying out. As he passed through the door, “I wonder how Adolf is feeling about it now?” Friedrich asked himself: “He
looks
like peeing his breeks....”

But then the two adjutants had to sweep up the killer-team with them, and all pile back in the bullet-proof cars.

At Wiessee, at half-past-six, the doctor was roused by a terrible rumpus and hullabaloo downstairs, with a shouting and hammering fit to wake the dead. He found both adjutants gone, and one of those Berlin “tourists” each side of his pillow: the pair were plain-clothes Gestapo men from Berlin of course, and they put him under arrest.

Even before Hitler's party had got there Dietrich's men had arrived in Army Transport, together with some of the staff from the Concentration Camp at Dachau. Together their forces surrounded the inn. As soon as Hitler appeared, a “tourist” had crept downstairs and quietly slipped back the bolts: then Friedrich dragged Count Spreti out of his bed in Room No. 5—the whole room smelling of sweaty pajamas and hair-oil—while Brückner and Emil Maurice burst into room No. 9, where Heines was sharing his bed with his chauffeur. Though Heines was famously quick on the draw his callers were quicker, and clubbed him over the head; but the hammering heard was Hitler himself. He was using the butt of his fetish—his old rhinoceros-whip—to beat on the locked door of Room No. 7.

“Who's there?” asked a slurred sleepy voice.

“Me, Hitler! Open the door!”

“You're early. I didn't expect you till noon.”

When the door opened, Hitler began to upbraid the swaying pajamaed figure still heavy with poppied sleep. But Röhm made an effort to clear the clouds from his brain, and Hitler's incredible accusations of treachery got through at last. So he started answering back.