SS-GB - by Len Deighton

 

Chapter Thirty

The next morning Douglas gave General Kellerman his briefing. Kellerman nodded his way through the verbal report and put the file away without looking at it.

‘Young Douglas is quite well?’

‘Yes, thank you, sir.’

‘You’ve heard of this fine new German School in Highgate?’ he said.

‘I’ve heard about it.’ It was for the children of SS and Wehrmacht officers and for those of the officials of the German administration.

‘The curriculum is in German, of course, but it’s a wonderful school, and your German is virtually flawless. You could help your son with his homework. That school could give your young Douglas a grand start in life, and I think I could arrange a place there for him.’

‘Will there be other British children there?’

‘It’s my idea that we should have a few,’ said Kellerman. ‘I’m on the school administration committee. Don’t want the German children to lose contact with their host country…and English children would be valuable from the language point of view. Think your Douglas could manage enough German?’

‘He could manage a little. All the schools have German language classes now.’

‘It could be a fine start for him.’

‘I’ll have to ask Douglas. You know what children are like about leaving their friends.’

‘That’s right – you ask him. He’s a sensible little chap. He’ll see the advantages. Take him along there one afternoon this week; show him the laboratories, the engineering equipment, the athletic field and so on.’

Douglas had spent half the night rehearsing how he could tackle Kellerman on the subject of Harry’s arrest. But in the event, Kellerman himself brought it up. ‘And that fine Detective Sergeant of yours,’ said Kellerman. ‘What’s this I hear about his arrest?’

‘Detective Sergeant Woods, sir. He’s being held by the Amt IV people, next door.’ He had long since discovered that Amt IV was a popular euphemism for Gestapo.

‘Amt IV enjoy rather special privileges, you know. My authority with those gentlemen is somewhat limited.’

‘Really, sir?’ said Douglas.

‘They have direct access to the Reichsführer-SS in Berlin.’

‘Even under martial law?’

‘Now don’t try to out-think me, Archer,’ said General Kellerman, his face taking on a pained expression. ‘I and my men come under the orders of the Military Commander GB only in matters pertaining to law and order. Administration and discipline remain unchanged. Amt IV is still responsible to Berlin, just as your Standartenführer Huth is still responsible to Berlin. And thus Detective Sergeant Woods is too. Now do you see my position?’

‘You can’t interfere, sir?’

‘Never get involved in a family quarrel. Isn’t that something that every police force in the world tells its young Constables?’

‘I doubt if Sergeant Woods has told the Amt IV interrogators that he is under Berlin’s orders in that way. Standartenführer Huth has rigorously emphasized the secrecy of the work we are doing.’

‘This scientific business?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And so he should. Standartenführer Doctor Huth is a fine young officer, and I’m proud to have him on my staff.’ Kellerman nodded his head affirmatively. Having clearly established his claim to be Huth’s confidant as well as his commander, Kellerman modified his praise a little. ‘Zealous perhaps, and at times somewhat inflexible…but the task he’s been engaged upon is most delicate.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I can see you are worried about Woods. I think I must cancel my weekend in Germany. I’m going to send for Sturmbannführer Strauss and hear all the details of your Sergeant’s arrest.’ Kellerman swung round in his swivel chair and put one Oxford brogue on the footstool. He wore a reflective frown on his wrinkled face. ‘I take it that Woods was submitting the usual type of reports?’

‘Yellow flimsies,’ said Douglas. ‘With Berlin file references.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ said Kellerman. ‘Well, I wouldn’t wish to pry into your investigation, but I don’t see how a few yellow flimsies could affect that, do you?’

‘No, sir.’ The yellow multiple-copy sheets were no more than the formality whereby Harry Woods proved he was earning his living. They provided no names, dates or places. They were nothing more than a list of filing numbers, meaningless to anyone other than filing clerks in some remote Berlin archive. And yet Douglas could see that the yellow flimsies would be enough to show Strauss of the Gestapo that Woods’s reports – like Huth’s and Douglas’s own – were going directly back to Berlin.

‘Then let me have a couple of Woods’s yellows before I see Strauss at…’ he looked at his diary ‘…I could fit him in at eleven o’clock this morning.’ Kellerman coughed again and beat his chest lightly with his closed fist. ‘It’s all part of the continuous attempt to undermine my position,’ said Kellerman in a tone of voice that was both confidential and plaintive.

‘Really, sir?’

‘Inefficient old General Kellerman sheltering enemies of the State in his own police HQ. That’s what will be said.’

‘I hope not, sir.’

Kellerman sighed, and with a tired smile he got up from his desk. ‘The alternative is even worse,’ he said. ‘Traitorous old General Kellerman, harbouring enemies of the State…do you see the delicate path one treads?’ He walked over to the fireplace and stared into the blazing coals. ‘Forgive an old man for unburdening himself to you, Superintendent, but you are a most sympathetic listener. And I know you are discreet.’

‘Thank you, General.’

Douglas got up, recognizing Kellerman’s polite dismissal, and went to the door. Kellerman got there before him and opened it for him. He shook Douglas by the hand. It was a curious way to terminate a briefing but perhaps Kellerman had heard that it was the way that English gentlemen behaved.

The connecting door between Huth’s office and the one that Douglas and Harry Woods used, was open. Douglas found him reading the small print in Das Schwarze Korps, the official SS weekly, but holding it in such a way that Douglas suspected that he’d picked it up to disguise the fact that he’d been waiting for him.

‘And what is Kellerman doing about Sergeant Woods’s predicament?’

‘He’ll ask Sturmbannführer Strauss for details,’ answered Douglas.

‘He’ll ask Sturmbannführer Strauss for details!’ said Huth with a sharp intake of breath, and mock surprise. ‘Perhaps I could give you a few details, without the help of Sturmbannführer Strauss. Do you know that Harry Woods’s name was added to the arrest list at the express order of General Kellerman?’

‘It’s not true!’

‘You’ve been a policeman long enough to know when you are being blackmailed, surely?’

Douglas said nothing.

‘What has the old bastard offered you? A house in the country? Promotion? Not women; you’re not the type.’

‘He promised me nothing.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Huth.

Coldly Douglas said, ‘As Harry Woods’s senior officer, you are the only one here who could get him released, using the authority you have from the Reichsführer-SS.’

Huth nodded solemnly. ‘And as soon as I signed the release order, the Gestapo would find a way of holding me in custody to see if I was Woods’s accomplice. Then they’d break the locks off the filing cabinets and read through all my confidential material…’ Afterwards I’d be released, with all kinds of humble apologies and explanations about the mistake, but all the material I’ve collected about Kellerman would have disappeared.’

‘Kellerman said that the Gestapo comes directly under the control of Berlin.’

‘Tell me,’ said Huth, leaning forward on his desk, ‘confidentially, do you still hang a stocking under the Christmas Tree?’ He ran his hands together, interlocked his fingers and twisted them to make the knuckles crack. ‘General Kellerman has arrested your friend Harry Woods, in order to put a little pressure on you to betray me. The sooner you realize that, the sooner we can cooperate to defeat the ugly old swine.’

‘Why don’t you hand over the Kellerman inquiry to some other officer?’

‘Whom can I trust?’

Douglas didn’t answer. He realized that this was a vendetta that neither man could abandon.

‘Five or six years ago Kellerman was a nobody,’ said Huth, trying to explain his hatred: or was it envy? ‘He shared a flyblown office in suburban Leipzig with three typists and a police detective. He was an Obersekretär, the lowest form of animal life in the German Criminal Police Service. Then he joined the Nazi Party and the SS and grinned and grovelled his way to being Senior SS and Police Commander Great Britain. Not bad, eh! And you needn’t take any notice of that shit about how he’s got no authority over anything, and Berlin doesn’t like him. That’s just a part of his style.’

‘I’m beginning to believe it.’

Huth said, ‘You’ll find Kellerman at some of the best houses of the British nobility, spreading his message of peace and prosperity, and giving his expert imitation of an absent-minded old buffer who likes warm beer, tweed suits, cocker spaniel dogs and house-parties. And who can be easily manipulated and outwitted by any able-bodied young Englishman who cares to get to his feet for the opening bars of “Deutschland über Alles”.’ Huth folded his newspaper into a tightly wadded parcel. ‘You thought he was a snob, didn’t you? He likes people to think that.’ Huth threw the newspaper into his wastebasket with enough violence to tip it over and spill its contents on the carpet. ‘Now tell me what he wanted!’ shouted Huth.

‘The yellow flimsies,’ said Douglas quietly.

‘Why?’

‘To prove to Strauss that Harry Woods was under the direct orders of Berlin.’

‘And you thought, it’s no more than a list of numbers. What harm can it do? Right?’

‘No,’ said Douglas.

‘Don’t no me! I can see it written all over your face.’ He waved a hand in the air as Douglas opened his mouth to explain. ‘OK, OK, OK,’ said Huth. ‘If it was my friend in trouble, I might have thought the same.’

Douglas said, ‘Do you think General Kellerman has someone who would dig the files out of the Berlin archive?’

‘If Kellerman could get a list of file titles, he would have a description of all the evidence against him.’

‘He’s cancelled his weekend trip,’ said Douglas. ‘He said it’s because he’s concerned about Harry Woods.’

‘I can hear the violins,’ said Huth. ‘Kellerman was invited to a shooting party at Schönhof – von Ribbentrop’s hunting lodge. That’s not something he’d give up because one lousy Detective Sergeant was arrested on his orders and then tried to escape.’

‘Then why is he staying?’

‘Things are moving fast, Archer. Surely you sense that. Martial law has given all the power to our army colleagues. Kellerman has to decide whether to hinder and oppose them, or go across to the army Commander and do his ingratiating subordinate act. He came back from Highgate with some crackpot idea that the army had caused the explosion in order to get power, but the casualty list persuaded him to abandon that line.’

‘And how soon will you have evidence against him?’

‘I’ll make Kellerman wish he’d never left that flea-bitten little office in Leipzig,’ said Huth. ‘My people in Switzerland have cabled me that Kellerman has tucked away over fifteen million Reichsmarks in numbered accounts. When I get the copies I’m waiting for, I’ll arrest him on my own authority using SD units to hold him.’

Douglas nodded. Every week the newspapers printed the names of men executed for black-market offences, graft or looting. In this respect the Germans applied the law rigorously to Germans and British alike.

Huth sighed, ‘Give the old fool the list of file numbers that we got when someone wanted all that material about billeting and discipline of SS units in western England. It will take him a little while to get the titles. Then tell him the files have false titles for security reasons. It will take another month to find out what we’ve done, and by that time I guarantee, Archer, we’ll be rid of that old crook for ever.’ He lifted a fist but then modified the gesture to a wave of the finger. ‘But give him one real file number from this office, and by God, I’ll…’

He didn’t finish. A gust of wind rattled the windows and large drops of rain made clear places in the sooty glass. The River Thames was the colour of lead and just as solid-looking.

‘I won’t give him any real ones,’ said Douglas.

‘And Archer,’ said Huth as Douglas got to the door, ‘don’t count too much on Kellerman helping our friend Harry. Sort out another Detective Sergeant to start work here tomorrow.’