Martin Tofts hauled his bag down to the track side. The Deutsche Reichsbahn so-called express from Dresden to Modenheim had drawn to a halt only a kilometre east of the German border town of Rehau. The passengers had been unceremoniously ejected and directed to a series of makeshift sheds a hundred metres short of the frontier. Further up the track, Martin could see the tricolour of Rothenia hanging limply from the flagstaff of the border post in the still afternoon heat.
He shuffled along to join the line of travellers stumbling across the track ballast. His neighbour was complaining, ‘This started a week ago. It’s the damned Jews.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The Jews. They’re trying to cross into Rothenia to join with their friends there. So the border police have to interrogate everyone, even good Germans.’
‘It’s a shame.’
‘Tell me about it. But that’s the Jews for you. They’re out to destroy the German people, and they’ve taken control of Rothenia. Weak-minded Slavs are too easy for them to corrupt with their socialism and bolshevism.’
‘You think it’ll be war, then?’
The man glanced sidelong at him. ‘I doubt it. The Führer’s got their number. He’s up to their tricks. Look what he did with the Czechs. Not a blow struck and the land collapsed into our hands. That’s genius.’
Martin murmured his acquiescence. When the subject arose, most Germans he had talked to were not expecting war. They thought the world was simply responding to their just demands, and their leader had now got all he wanted. Hitler’s successes were proof to them that he knew best. They wanted to believe he would triumph without needing to resort to force.
When Martin suggested mildly that the constant broadcasts about the threats of bolshevism and international Jewry meant the Führer saw war as inevitable, people grew uncomfortable. They generally admitted it might be so, but it could be years down the line before things went that far. And by then, said some, the British and French would have come to their senses and joined with the Germans to bring down the Soviet threat.
The line eventually reached the shed, where a soldier with a machine gun on a strap motioned Martin through a door. He found himself in front of a trestle table, whose occupant favoured him with an appraising stare.
‘Papers.’
Martin presented his identity papers and a German passport. He was not too concerned with the stare. He was as un-Semitic-looking a man as it was possible to be.
‘Herr Aschenheim, what takes you to the Rothenian Republic?’
‘Business, sir. I travel in hosiery.’
‘Destination?’
‘Ebersfeld, sir. A meeting with the regional factors on behalf of my cartel.’
‘How long are you likely to be there?’
‘Two weeks.’
‘Keep your stay brief,’ the official commented laconically.
Martin got another stare, then was motioned on to join a second line. His case was unstrapped and its contents methodically stacked and examined. Again, Martin was not concerned. Alternative papers with other identities were hidden in his battered bag, which did not, at first sight, look as if it had anywhere within it to conceal objects. He did not think a routine frontier-post search would penetrate its secrets. He was carrying nothing otherwise he should not have been: no weapons, stashes of gold coins, code books or compromising materials. He belonged to no spy ring, and looked and sounded like a son of the Reich. His confidence in what it was he was counterfeiting was the key to his long-term safety, as he instinctively knew. So he smiled and thanked the soldier, who tidily replaced his clothes in his bag. Martin returned a Hitler salute conscientiously.
He trudged slowly along the line to the red-, black-and-white-painted border post. Rothenian functionaries were ready to check his papers as he crossed into their country, though the examination was cursory. They did not search his bag.
Martin found a seat in a train drawn up beyond the post. Looking out the window, he immediately noticed a military presence on the trackside that had not been there on his last trip to Rothenia. Soldiers in familiar green, wearing their distinctive steel helmets, were manning a sandbagged machine-gun emplacement. They were smoking and looked bored.
After a few minutes, the man in the queue who had given Martin the benefit of his opinion on the current state of political affairs stepped into the compartment. ‘How far are you going? I hope you don’t mind my joining you. I’d prefer honest German company.’
Silently cursing, Martin smiled genially and explained he was changing trains at Modenheim. In his head he was measuring up the likelihood that his companion was in fact a German agent. It was possible, he admitted to himself, so what he had just said was calculated to tally with the story he had given at the border about heading for Ebersfeld. In fact his plan was otherwise. He intended to take the branch line to Tarlenheim.
‘Really? I’m heading on to Hofbau.’
Martin had his own curiosity to satisfy. ‘What brings a good German into Rothenia in these uncertain times?’
‘Not choice, believe me, but my wife’s mother is here.’
‘You married a Rothenian?’
‘A German Rothenian: the right sort — the sort that should be in the Reich, and soon will be when the Führer has his way.’
Martin of course concurred. ‘That’s if they know what’s good for them. The problem is, the ones I’ve talked to don’t agree.’
The man looked shifty. ‘Then they’ll have to be persuaded, one way or another.’
Martin continued with his complaints about the morals, business ethics and intelligence of the Slav population of Rothenia, until the engine whistled, the carriage lurched and the trees outside slowly began to move as the train got under way.
After a guard came in to check their tickets, conversation languished. His companion unfolded a newspaper, and Martin — wishing he could take up a book himself, but aware that it was not in character — stared at the countryside of Ober Husbrau province passing by the window.
The train arrived at Modenheim three hours late, following a further long delay on the outskirts of town.
‘Those’ll soon be gone,’ his companion remarked, indicating the bilingual station signs and notices.
They parted on the platform with a handshake. Martin noticed that the man did not offer the Hitler salute in Rothenia. He felt momentarily relieved, as if he’d been let out of a prison. It was getting towards evening by then, so having located his departure platform, he took a table at a café. Quickly sizing him up in the Rothenian way, the waitress addressed him in German. He smiled as he splashed out on a full meal. He had a suspicion he would not reach Templerstadt till quite late.
Fighting the impulse to relax into a feeling of homecoming, Martin took his seat on the local-stopping train to the capital. It whistled and set off right on time. As it rattled through the darkening valley of the Taveln, he checked off a list of objectives for the next couple of weeks. The first was to find a man who did not want to be found.
***
Templerstadt was changed. In his last years old Count Hugo Maria had been quite frail, yet it was his death two years before that somehow made all the difference. The house had been a family home, where Hugo and Sissi had provided all the warmth and fun of the place. Countess Sissi lived on there still, but the warmth had ebbed. Although she had taken her husband’s death with fortitude and an imperturbable faith, the couple had been so close that she could not be other than bereft and altered.
Nonetheless, Martin got a hearty welcome in the hall, as his bag was unloaded from the taxi he had taken from Tarlenheim. ‘My dear, how are you? How’s Leo? I hope you looked after yourself in the deserts of Syria.’
‘Thank you, countess. Actually, it wasn’t quite the desert where we were digging, though it could get hot.’
‘Come in and have some tea. Then you can tell me about it.’
They chatted for a good half hour before he got around to the subject of Henry.
‘He’s been called up, Martin dear. He’s in charge of the air base at Hofbau. They made him a brigadier general on his recall to duty.’
Martin sighed. ‘I had hoped to find him here.’
‘Welf will be coming tomorrow, as he agreed. He’s bringing my grandchildren with him, apart from young Osku. The boy’s a lieutenant now, very handsome in uniform, freshly graduated from Alfensberh and stationed with his regiment somewhere in Merz.’
Martin then addressed himself to part of the business that had brought him to Templerstadt, a message from Helge of Rothenia, the countess’s daughter. ‘Helge sends her love and prayers. She also sent me with a proposal.’
‘Yes?’ The countess looked a little tired, as if she was about to be put through a weary labour once more.
‘The queen wishes you to come join her in Belsager Priory. She thinks you’ll be safer in England until this fuss dies down.’
‘And how could that be arranged, Martin?’
‘I would take you to the border at Tirolen and see you safely onwards to Italy. From there you could go to England by way of France.’
Countess Sissi shook her head. ‘She means it for the best, but I can’t leave this house. All my memories and life are here at Templerstadt. Besides, what would Welf say? I’ll feel safer and happier here, whatever happens.’
Martin acknowledged failure, but at least he had fulfilled his commission from Helge. They finished their tea and he was shown up to his room.
***
‘I haven’t seen him for years,’ said Professor von Tarlenheim, putting down his tea cup. Martin reflected that Welf was looking increasingly donnish. Although he was barely fifty, his formerly blond hair was now ash-white, and his shoulders had a permanent academic stoop to them.
‘But you know how to find him,’ Martin pursued.
‘Not really. I did hear he had retired to Glottenberh to keep bees. The rundown of the old secret service hit him hard. He had presided over one of the most effective and formidable agencies in Europe, but it was more or less closed down by old Tildemann, who should have known better. I’d be willing to bet that the Vaszny administration wishes it had the like of Moriscz Sachert at its disposal today.’
‘How bad is it?’
‘The government is in total disarray. A few want to fight, and another faction wants to give in to anything Hitler requests. Most of them, including Vaszny himself, are rudderless and hopeless. They’re not men for these times.’
‘Will Rothenia fight?’
Welf sighed. ‘If it does, it will be to no good purpose. The army Maxim had at his service has long gone. What’s left is too small to deflect the onslaught of the Wehrmacht. There has been no investment in armour or air power, despite our nation’s having the technology and the capacity to build anything as good as Germany possesses. The generals who defeated the invasion of 1919 were put out to pasture a decade ago. Old Voydek quit the country after the final cuts, and now teaches at West Point. So we wait.’
Martin nodded. ‘But some can do more than wait.’
‘Yes. I agree. Now is the time to plan for the long-term occupation of this country. My brother Henry is one such a man. He tells me has plans, and I rather think I may be part of them in due course. He intends to set up cells all over the country and make sure they have access to concealed caches of arms and explosives.
‘Between you and me, as soon as he took command at Hofbau, Henry began shifting material out of the base arsenal by truck to a variety of locations. He didn’t bother to ask the ministry first. He’s not the only one either. A number of the old-school military are making similar plans, or so he thinks. But they are each keeping their schemes and networks to themselves.’
‘So everyone is expecting the worst.’
‘They certainly are. We’ve seen what happened in Czechoslovakia. It will happen here too. There are only small glimmers of hope.’
‘Such as?’
‘The German Rothenians. They’re not infected like the Austrians with any desire to join a Greater Reich — quite the opposite if anything.’
‘You surprise me, Welf. Aren’t the Mittenheimers eager to be absorbed into the rest of the Herrenvolk?’
‘There are Nazi supporters amongst the Mittenheimers, it’s true. But the bulk of the Germans in Merz and Mittenheim are committed to Rothenia. It’s King Maxim’s legacy. He convinced the German middle classes that they’d be better off within Rothenia. He and Tildemann handled the language and education question brilliantly, unlike the Czechs with their Bohemian Germans. The old fears of Slavic domination exist only in Goebbels’s propaganda, which no one here believes. Our German aristocracy naturally sees nothing to be gained from absorption into a National Socialist State, and in any case they are too closely intermarried with their Rothenian fellows.’
Martin nodded. ‘Leo was telling me all about it at Heilbrod. Even he can’t escape their net, for all his wealth and connections.’
‘The end result is that the Nazis won’t find Mittenheim another Sudetenland. They’re already feared and hated by the people they expect to be their natural allies in suppressing the Rothenian majority. It gives me some hope.
‘And now, Martin, I’d like to know some things about your part in all this. Nothing too detailed, of course … my past acquaintance with intelligence work suggests that in some ways the less I know, the better. Just tell me generally what you intend, and how Leo comes into this.’
Martin pondered a moment, and then began. ‘I see myself as a channel of communication, at least at the beginning. I have contacts who can provide intelligence, and I have means of getting it back to Britain. I don’t see myself as an incendiary or a saboteur. I don’t have the skills. But I am good with information. Rothenia might very well be the best place for me if the coming war lasts. It’s a nexus in so many ways, and here I can pull together a web of contacts across the Reich, Italy and the Danube Basin.
‘Leo knows this and will help. He has family contacts on both sides of the frontier, as well as a past history and position which put him above suspicion from the authorities. Besides, the Nazis need him, and they’ll go a long way to accommodate him.
‘That’s why I need Moriscz Sachert. He’d be the perfect Rothenian link man. I have to travel, but he’ll be here at the centre of things. I must recruit him.’
Welf nodded. ‘I understand. You can count on Rica’s and my help. You know that.’
Martin reached over and gripped Welf’s hand. ‘I do know, and bless you both.’
***
The city of Glottenberh was much as Martin remembered it. That day the towers and bulk of the Radvoveske Palace and the Vitalenkloster brooded darkly over the city roofs lying under an oppressive sky. The humidity was high and the air intolerably still. The surrounding hills of the Radeln valley were barely visible from the city in the brown gloom.
Martin consulted the note Welf had given him and headed from the station towards the bulk of the palace. The ancient ducal residence housed the Willem Stanislas Universität of Glottenberh, the oldest of the nation’s Rothenian-language universities. Students milled around the cobbled square below the medieval gatehouse, the males wearing the traditional Kadet cap, with its silver or gold tassel.
Martin took a seat outside a café and ordered a peach brandy. He was just enjoying his first sip when he realised he was not alone. He stood and tipped his hat at the moustachioed, stooped man who had appeared at his table. ‘Herr Sachert, please take a seat.’
The man did so, unsmilingly.
Now he had found his man, Martin was unsure how to proceed, and it did not appear that Sachert was going to help him out. He ordered another brandy, which Sachert accepted with a silent nod.
‘You are aware of why I’m in Rothenia, sir?’ he began. Another nod answered him. ‘King Maxim told me you were the person I ought most to seek out. In the times that are coming, you will be best placed to organise intelligence and resistance.’
The man slowly sipped his brandy. Finally he said, ‘I work alone, Mr Tofts. The king may have told you that. I certainly will not work for the British.’
‘I understand. But I am in a position to assist you, or I will be for a brief while, before night falls.’
‘What are you proposing?’
‘A quantity of gold and negotiable currency can be made available to you, but it must be done soon. No strings are attached. The money will be for you to do with as you wish. It will help immeasurably in organising resistance in a country under military occupation.’
Sachert meditated a while. ‘Are you aware that the Reich and the Soviet Union have reached some sort of agreement over Poland?’
‘While in Germany I picked up that the Soviets were apparently no longer the leading obstacle to the Reich’s “rightful” demands.’
‘German forces are massing in Silesia and East Prussia. My sources say 26 August will be the day that Poland will be assaulted on all sides, and carved up.’
Martin was startled. ‘How can you know this?’
‘I have disgruntled contacts in the government of the Slovakian protectorate. They don’t like it that German advisers have been placed in the key ministries. They tell me that Father Tiso’s regime is happy to assist in the dismemberment of their neighbour, hoping to pick up a few crumbs from Hitler’s table. So, as you see, there may be even less time than you imagined before night falls over Europe.’
‘Then my offer?’
‘I accept. How will it be organised?’
‘It can be brought into Strelzen by diplomatic bag.’
‘Then you had better be quick, Mr Tofts. I suggest also that you make your own arrangements too, before communications are cut across the continent. You will soon be on your own. You must not count on my assistance. To me, you seem a bad risk.’
Martin quirked his lips. ‘I imagine you might have said the same about Maxim Elphberg, when he arrived in Strelzen before the Great War.’
Sachert finally smiled. ‘He was a dreadful amateur: idealistic, but a poor judge of men. He admitted as much to me.’
‘I am not him.’
‘Perhaps not. But I learned many years ago that love, friendship and trust have little place in my twilight world, the world into which I am returning. Only a fortnight ago I sent off my daughter and grandchildren to Canada, where they will be safe. With them gone I too will be safer, for otherwise my concern for them would make me vulnerable.’
A brief blue flicker lit up the face of the palace and sometime later a grumble of thunder troubled the thick gloom. The two men finished their brandies and stood. As they crossed the square a hot gust of air flapped their coats. Lightning flashed again, this time overhead, and almost immediately a powerful detonation assaulted their eardrums. The heavens opened.
Hurrying across the cobbles, hissing and misty now with pounding raindrops, the two men sought shelter under the gatehouse arch, crowded with dripping and laughing students. Sachert took Martin’s arm and led him up some stairs and around a courtyard wall-walk. A door took them into a white-painted corridor, at the end of which a holy-water stoup indicated that beyond was a consecrated place.
They emerged through a side door into the surprisingly tall space of the palace’s Hofkapelle. A great organ dominated a gallery at its east end, and high western lancets illuminated its sanctuary. The aisles were cluttered with ducal tombs for, as Martin well knew, below the palace chapel was a Fürstengruft, or burial crypt, of the dynasty of Glottenberh, which had ruled eastern Rothenia from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
Martin walked along to the very striking monument to the last duke, Willem Stanislas VI, who died when only eighteen. He was a celebrated Rothenian romantic poet, so it seemed suitable his name was attached to the university that had in fact been founded by his grandmother, Princess Osra Madeleine of Ruritania. The monument was composed in a Classical style, the boy depicted on his deathbed lying somewhat sensuously, naked but for one twisted drape across his midriff. His mouth was slightly parted and his eyes open, as though he was still on the mortal side of the divide.
Martin had long admired the monument, and could not resist running his hands down the torso and long limbs. He marvelled at the delicacy of the sculptor’s art: the faint lines of veins and the play of muscle under the skin made beautifully real in marble. He had said half jestingly to Leo that he would be happy to lie under such an effigy himself. Leo, he remembered, had looked back at him with a pondering gaze and a quirked lip.
As he recalled the memory, another flash of lightning lit up the tall lancets, the thunder shaking the glass.
Colonel Sachert spoke into the stunned air. ‘We cannot imagine what the next few years will bring, but we can be sure that it will be evil. What do you think, Mr Tofts?’
‘People whose judgement I respect are preparing for the worst. They expect further German aggression, and general war to follow. Then who knows? If it’s anything like the last time, we have four years of butchery ahead of us… worse than before, I have no doubt.’
‘That is my feeling too, as it happens. I do not myself expect to see the end of it. But while I am able, I will fight the enemies of Rothenia in whatever way I can. Now, this currency…’
***
Martin was more than a little disgruntled at the sight of his contact, brooding heavily over a gin and a cigarette at a table in the panelled rooms of the Flavienerhof.
‘Afternoon, Harries.’
The man looked up and exhaled blue smoke, apparently less concerned about displaying discontent. ‘Good day, Tofts. Are you staying for a drink? Mine’s another gin.’
Martin gave the order, settling on his part for a mélange coffee, a speciality of the house. Harries assumed boredom, but condescended to notice the large packet Martin placed on the table in front of him. ‘So this is what you want taken home?’
‘Yes. You’re leaving today?’
‘That wasn’t my plan. I only got in from Budapest last night.’
‘This must be in London as soon as it can be arranged. Pass it on to Williams in the department. It’s prime stuff which could make a real difference. There’s intelligence of German movements against Poland. It needs to get into the right hands.’
Harries weighed the packet. ‘It’s to be war, then?’
‘Within a week, I’d guess. So every day counts.’
Harries looked momentarily less bored. ‘Good. You know where you are in a war. Life is so much simpler.’
‘An interesting way of looking at it.’
‘I was old enough to fight in the last show, Tofts. Knowing that Johnny Hun was on the other side of the barbed wire out to kill you, did concentrate the mind wonderfully. So here we go again, and about bloody time.’
Martin reflected that Harries at least was willing. But his doubts about the man’s aptitude for espionage were hardly dispelled. He just hoped that Harries was going to be someone else’s problem. He could not imagine working with him.
***
This was to be his new headquarters in Strelzen. Martin had chosen it with care. The house was on Gildenfahrbswejg, with a narrow front on to the street below. A back stair and yard gave on to the maze of lanes to the north of the Wejg, for it was important that he should be able to come and go unobserved. To avoid the questions a landlord would inevitably have put to him, he had bought the house outright for a nominal sum, in a discreet deal Leo had arranged through the Thuringian Stiftung.
The Wejg was a narrow and busy road, lined with second-hand clothes shops, small general stores, Jewish pawnbrokers and a growing number of clubs, some distinctly seedy with a few catering to his sort of sexuality. He had spent the afternoon getting acquainted with one particular bar, which Waclaw Corbichec had recommended.
Martin had decided not to use his Aschenheim alias on the Wejg. Instead, he had adopted the persona of one of Waclaw’s younger brothers, who had died of diphtheria some years before in a clinic in Hofbau, where he received a pauper’s burial, and importantly no grave marker. Waclaw had himself passed on to him some of Carol Corbichec’s papers.
Carol had been a sickly boy who had spent a lot of time in sanatoriums run by church charities. Having never enjoyed any uninterrupted period of education or employment, he had left no circle of acquaintances in the Third District who might challenge Martin’s appropriation of his identity. Moreover, it had occurred to Martin that the supposed fraternal link might make it less suspicious for him to meet with Waclaw while in Strelzen. Now he just needed to make it appear that he had some form of employment.
There came a knock from downstairs, and Martin descended to open the door. A young man was standing there somewhat irresolute, hat in hand. Martin had used Waclaw’s Wejg contacts to find just the concierge he needed.
‘Herr Corbichec?’
‘You must be Theo Ignacij. Come in.’ Martin led the way through a dark passage into a back kitchen looking out on to the yard. He indicated a chair at a rickety table. ‘Sorry I can’t offer you a drink, Herr Ignacij.’
‘That’s alright. The people at the Café Insolite said you were looking for me.’
Martin contemplated the man. He was in his mid-twenties, a little hollow-eyed and stooped, as many of the inhabitants of the Third District tended to be. But at least he did not have the feral look of a petty criminal that too many of the others did.
Waclaw knew the prolific Ignacij clan well. They were one of several families that dominated business and, it had to be said, crime in the city of Strelzen. Theo was better educated than the majority of his tribe, but was not prospering because, as Waclaw was well aware, he was homosexual.
‘You know my brother Waclaw?’
The young man actually blushed, for which Martin rather liked him. ‘I… er… yes,’ he mumbled.
Waclaw had mentioned that he and Theo had enjoyed a brief but passionate affair when the younger man was a teenager. Martin had discussed his needs for a Strelzen agent with Waclaw, who had earnestly recommended his former lover. ‘You see, sir, he decided to live like queer. Picked the wrong partners too often. Not that he stupid, but he not see that the older men he like just want his arse. He a romantic, sir. Sweet maybe, but his life a mess. But I know he honest and hard-working. Just needs a chance.’
Martin had a good deal of respect for Waclaw’s judgement in men, so he had dipped into Strelzen’s homosexual underworld that afternoon and trawled around. He studied Theo briefly and made his decision. ‘Herr Ignacij, I’m looking for a concierge to manage this property, and my brother recommends you. He tells me you’re honest and intelligent. But more important, you’re a homo, and Waclaw and I have that in common. Interested?’
The man gave Martin a careful looking over, which tended to confirm to Martin that he was not without shrewdness. ‘What are the terms?’
‘I’ll keep a room in the back, and you can take your own choice from the others, rent-free. You can let the rest of the rooms and keep half of the rents in lieu of salary.’
Ignacij widened his eyes. ‘That’s very generous.’
‘May I call you Theo? Well Theo, it’s like this. I’ve inherited this house from an aunt. I travel a lot and don’t have the time to manage it, but I’d like it kept nice and make a little cash out of it. It needs a bit of paint and some furniture, and I’ll give you the money for that. You might pick up a piano while you’re at it.’
‘Piano?’
‘Waclaw told me you’d taught yourself to play, and he said you’re good’
Theo shrugged. ‘I make a little money playing the organ at the Fenizenkirk and some of the mission halls in the Third.’
‘Good. So do we have an agreement?’
The shabbiness of Ignacij’s clothes tended to indicate that the man had not much choice, but he had a few more questions before giving a guarded yes.
‘Excellent. Then how about a drink to seal the deal? I’ll see you at the Insolite at seven.’
They stood and shook hands. Martin paid over a sum of krone as an advance, which he rather suspected would go to recovering some of Ignacij’s possessions from pawn. Then he saw the young man off.
So all was set. Martin had established his identities and made his contacts. From now on he could only react to events. Feeling oddly liberated, he put on his hat and walked up to the Rodolferplaz. The evening newspaper sellers were on the streets. He scrutinised the headline sheets: GERMAN-RUSSIAN PACT REVEALED. BRITISH GUARANTEE TO POLAND. HITLER DEMANDS CESSION OF MITTENHEIM. ARMY WITHDRAWN BEYOND EBRENDT.
It was clear his time was up. Evening was falling over Strelzen.
Posted 7 December 2024