They Used Dark Forces

My Fьhrer,

In view of your decision to remain at your post in the fortress of Berlin, do you agree that I take over, at once, the total leadership of the Reich, with full freedom of action at home and abroad, as your deputy, in accordance with your decree of 29th June I94I? If no reply is received by ten o'clock tonight, I shall take it for granted that you have lost your freedom of action, and shall

consider the conditions of your decree as fuelled and shall act for the best interests of our country and our people. You know what I feel for you in this gravest hour of my life. Words fail me to express myself. May God protect you and speed you quickly here in spite of all. Your loyal

Hermann Goering

Von Below showed Gregory the copy he had received and they agreed that the message could not have been more proper to the occasion or shown greater devotion. But for years past the mole-like Bormann had lost no opportunity to discredit - all the Nazi leaders powerful enough to put a check on the influence" he was acquiring over the Fьhrer; and now he saw his chance to dispose finally of Goering. He could not question the fact that the Reichsmarschall had been legally appointed by the Fuhrer as his successor; but one sentence in the telegram enabled him to pour his poison into Hitler's ear. It was, If no reply is received by ten o'clock tonight. That, he pointed out indignantly, was an ultimatum. Goering was holding a pistol to his Fьhrer’s head. To give him a time limit was the greatest effrontery. If a reply was sent, owing to the chaotic state of communications, Goering could later say that it had arrived after the deadline. For all his fair-seeming words Goering had clearly decided to usurp the Fьhrer’s power and arrange a surrender. He was a traitor. -

Hitler's mind was so obsessed by the thought of treachery that he immediately accepted Bormann's vicious interpretation of the telegram. He began to rave that it was Goering's mishandling of the Luftwaffe that had lost him the war; that Goering was corrupt, a drug-addict, a drunkard, a liar. Working himself up into a fury he came out into the passage and, striding up and down, shouted to everyone that Goering had betrayed him.

Bormann demanded the Reichsmarschall’s death; Grauber loudly supported him. But Speer was again in the bunker, and when Hitler had exhausted his first outburst of rage he intervened. Von Below and. Gregory followed his lead and the three of them urged Hitler to remember the immense services Goering had rendered to the Nazi movement in its early years.

Their efforts saved Goering from the worst. Hitler at length agreed that telegrams should be sent to the two senior S.S. officers at Berchtesgaden stating that Goering was deprived of his right of succession, his rank and all his decorations; that he was to be arrested for high treason and that all his staff were also to be placed under arrest. The telegram ended: You

will answer for this with your lives.

So ended another late-night session in the bunker that for the past month had become a madhouse.

After a few hours' sleep Gregory discussed the situation with Erika. Bormann having stabbed Goering in the back had shattered their hopes of a quick finish. There would now be no immediate surrender in the West, no British troops streaming into Berlin that evening, and the city was already partially surrounded by the Russians. But at least it seemed certain that Hitler really meant to commit suicide. The strain of the past six weeks had told terribly on Gregory and he was so desperately anxious to get Erika out of Berlin that at length he agreed that should Hitler show no signs of changing his mind that day they would leave in her van the following morning.

Despite his weariness and preoccupations Gregory had several times thought of Sabine and wondered if she had left for the south. Now he felt that before leaving himself he must find out. When he mentioned this to Erika she said at once:

`If Sabine is still at her villa why shouldn't we take her with us? There is plenty of room in my van, and after the way she and her servant hid you in July the least we can do is to save them from the Russians.'

In consequence Gregory wrote a brief letter to Sabine, telling her that he could not be certain but hoped to leave Berlin the following morning and if he did he would take her with him; then he gave it to Malacou with careful directions how to find the Villa Seeaussicht and sent him off with it.

Down in the bunker that day things were much quieter, but towards evening there arose a development which was most disquieting for Gregory. A telegram came in from Field Marshal Schoerner. His headquarters were in Prague; the Army Group which he commanded numbered many Divisions and was still in good shape. He reported that he was capable of holding out for months in the mountains of Bohemia, and begged Hitler to join him there.

Although Berlin was now being shelled as well as bombed Gatow airport was still operative, so Hitler could have set off in an aircraft for Prague with a fair chance of arriving there safely: In spite of Bormann's pleading he refused to go; but the telegram had the unfortunate effect of re-arousing his interest in battles. Sending for maps, the latest situation reports and General Weidling, the Commandant of the Berlin area, he again assumed the role he had said, two nights earlier, that he meant to abandon for good, and began to issue orders right and left for the employment of both existent and nonexistent units. In addition he had a telegram sent off to Colonel General Ritter von Greim of the Luftwaffe to join him in Berlin immediately.

That night Gregory went back with a heavy heart to Erika. He told her what had happened and said that now that Hitler had changed his mind about no longer taking any part in directing the war he might also change it about remaining in Berlin; so it was imperative that he should stay on and do everything possible to keep him to his decision to die among the ruins of his capital.

Malacou had safely accomplished his journey to and from the Villa Seeaussicht. He had found Sabine still there and brought from her for Gregory a hastily scrawled letter, that read:

My dear,

In these frightful times it was good of you to think of me. You know the reason why I've stayed on here for so long, but thank God I'm completely cured now and you have no need to worry about me. Kurt has been to see me several tunes and has persuaded me to go with him to his family place, Sclaloss Niederfels, not far from the Bodensee. As he has not had the money to keep the old castle up, life there will be pretty grim; but at least I'll be safe from the Russians. His own departure has been delayed for a few days while he has been hiding his scientific paraphernalia, so that it should not fall into the hands of the enemy. He expects to be able to report to Speer by midday that he has finished the job, and as soon as he gets back from the Ministry he'll join me here, so Trudi and I are packing like mad to be ready to leave with him. Blessings on you, darling. I pray that we may meet again in happier times. Sabine.

That was one worry off Gregory's mind, although it did little to ease it because he was so terribly concerned for Erika. But she cut short his pleas that she should leave without him by saying, `It's not very complimentary of you, darling, to suggest that I haven't' got as much guts as a woman like Eva Braun.'

Next day, the 25th, `Corporal' Hitler was up to the ears in a wildly impractical new plan by which, not Berlin, but he, personally, was to be saved. Artur Axmann's battalions of Hitler Youth were to hold the bridges to the west of the city, over the Havel, while the Twelfth Army under General Wenck, which was fighting on the Elbe, was to disengage itself, fight its way round towards Potsdam, cross the bridges, rescue the Fuhrer, then turn south and fight its way out of the city again.

Keitel, true to form to the last, declared it to be a Napoleonic conception and set off to take Wenck his orders personally. Jodi returned to the new OKW headquarters which had been moved further out to Furstenburg, while Krebs remained in the bunker as, theoretically, the Fьhrer’s military adviser.

When Gregory arrived there on the morning of the 26th he found his friend von Below sitting gloomily at the table in the dining passage with a bottle of brandy and a half-empty glass in front of him. There was no lack of good liquor in the bunker and everyone who frequented it habitually drank heavily, in an attempt to keep up his spirits. Jokingly Gregory remarked, `The morning's news must be worse than worse for you to start tippling so early in the day.'

Von Below looked at him with lackluster eyes and said heavily, `No, I've just come from a hospital where I watched my nephew die. He was a boy of only fifteen and such a fine, happy lad; but, of course, he'd been called up and a Russian bullet got him.'

Gregory stammered such words of sympathy as he could find; then von Below went on, `There's no damned justice in it. That's what one resents. In the next bed there was a middle aged man I used to know. He was mixed up in the July Putsch, but had the luck to escape being executed. When they came to arrest him he tried to commit suicide, but only wounded himself. Two days ago a lump of ack-ack came down on his head, but not on the part of it that was vulnerable from his previous wound. So he's still alive, and unless the hospital is bombed he'll be out of it inside a week. Yet my young nephew is dead.'

Even as Gregory asked the man's name, his sixth sense told him what the reply would be. It was, 'Graf Kurt van Osterberg.'

So unless Sabine had set off on her own she was still at the villa. And the advance elements of the Russian Armies had now surrounded Berlin. From all quarters reports were coming in of Russian tanks and armoured cars ravaging the outer suburbs. But for the time being Gregory could do nothing about her, for it was imperative that he should remain in the bunker.

All through the afternoon the Fьhrer continued to issue new orders, to battalions and even companies. Then in the evening Ritter von Greim arrived. He was carried down to the bunker wounded and in considerable pain. While the giant Dr. Stumpfegger, who had remained there out of loyalty to Hitler, attended to the General's wound, Hannah Reitsch, who had accompanied him, gave a graphic account of the hair-raising journey they had made at the Fьhrer’s command.

Fraulein Reitsch was a famous test pilot and no-one could deny her courage; but in all other respects she was an odious woman with a neurotic mentality that led her to regard people either with vitriolic hatred or passionate devotion and dramatize herself to them accordingly. She was, of course, a fanatical Nazi and regarded Hitler as her god.

Early that morning they had landed at Rechlin. From there von Greim intended to go on by helicopter to Gatow. Only one had been available and that was damaged, but its sergeant pilot had made the trip before so von Greim ordered him to take it up. The aircraft was intended for only two, but Hannah, determined to be in at the death, had squeezed herself into its tail.

Forty Luftwaffe fighter’ planes were ordered into the air to act as escort and most of them were shot down, but the helicopter reached Gatow with only a few bullet holes in it. There von Greim found a training aircraft. Boarding it, he took the controls himself. By a miracle he escaped being shot down by the Russian 'planes overhead, but as he hedgehopped over the ruins of outer Berlin, where desperate street fighting was in progress, a shell-burst had wrecked the belly of the aircraft and a splinter from it had torn open his right foot. Hannah had then leant over his shoulders, zig-zagged the 'plane wildly and performed the extraordinary feat of landing it safely on the broad East-West Axis near the Brandenburg Gate.

And this desperate venture, involving the death of a score or more of German pilots, had been undertaken solely that Hitler, instead of sending von Greim a telegram, might tell him personally about Goering's treachery and that he was to succeed him as a Field Marshal in supreme command of the Luftwaffe.

On the morning of the 27th Russian shells were falling in all parts of the city and their troops had completely encircled it, so it seemed that the end could not now be long postponed. But the suburbs and built-up area to be occupied consisted of more than a hundred square miles… To the south the Russians were still thin on the ground and many people were managing to escape by dodging their flying columns.

Worried that Sabine might not know that von Osterberg had been wounded and still be waiting for him to pick her up, Gregory decided to send Malacou out to the villa again. By him he sent a note, telling her about the Count and urging her not to lose another moment in getting away before the Russian ring became too thick for there to be any chance left of getting through it. Still armoured in his belief that his time had not yet come to die, Malacou accepted the mission placidly and set off to dodge his way through the ruined and burning city. Gregory then went over to the bunker.

That day, for some unaccountable reason, Hitler was in high spirits, and such was still his extraordinary dominance over those about him that everyone else was too. Old Koller, Gregory learned, had been released from arrest at Berchtesgaden and, horrified at what had resulted from his repeating to Goering the Fьhrer’s remark to Jodl, had attempted to fly to Berlin in order to exonerate his Chief. But he could get no further than the OKW headquarters. From there he telephoned von Greim who, lying in bed on account of his wounded foot, simply said that Goering was a good riddance anyway; and that he was not to worry. `Don't despair!' he cried. `Everything will be well. The presence of the Fьhrer and his confidence have completely inspired me and victory is assured.' In the evening Bormann got drunk and danced a two-step with Burgdorf.

Utterly sickened by the sight of this mass insanity, Gregory left the bunker soon after midnight. Outside in the street the crashing of shells, the explosion of bombs and the roar from burning buildings was deafening. He had covered not much more than a hundred yards when he was hit a terrific blow on the back of his head. Stars and circles wheeled before his eyes then, his mind engulfed in blackness, he crashed forward on to the pavement.

He was brought to by cold water being sloshed into his face. His bleary eyes took in the fact that he was in a low ceilinged room and that opposite him, with an empty glass in his hand, stood a big man dressed in a grey lounge suit. As he made to move it suddenly came home to him that he was trussed like a chicken to the chair in which he was sitting. His bemused brain sought an explanation and found one.

For weeks past, owing to terror of death and acute privation, Berlin had become completely lawless. The Police could not possibly control the thousands of deserters and desperate foreign workers who hid by day in the vast acreage of ruins. By night they came out in gangs, broke into the food, shops and held people up in the streets for their ration cards and money. Unheard by him owing to the deafening din, one of these thugs had come up behind and coshed him.

But why had the man not just taken his wallet and left him lying on the pavement? Why had he been brought here and tied up?

His sight cleared a little and he had the answer. The man in the grey lounge suit was Hen Obergruppenfьhrer’s Grauber.

28

In the Hands of a Fiend

SLOWLY the water dripped from Gregory's eyebrows, nose, lips and chin. His sight was still blurred and the back of his head was throbbing violently. Instinctively he looked from side to side for any possibility of help or escape. As he made the movement his brain seemed to roll inside his skull, causing him exquisite agony.

The room was about fifteen feet square and it had no window. That suggested that it was in a basement; but it was obviously not one of the cells or torture chambers below the Gestapo headquarters in the Albrecht Strasse, because it was comfortably furnished. The only evidence of pain-infliction in it was a collection of whips hanging from a rack above a backless leather couch on which there was an open suitcase crammed full of clothes. But those slim, springy, silver-mounted strips of birch, hide and whalebone were not, Gregory knew, for flicking thee skin from the backs of prisoners. Grauber was not only a homosexual but also a sadist. In the old days he had always travelled with a specially selected S.S. bodyguard of blond young giants who painted their faces and addressed one another with. endearments. Those whips had been used on them and, probably, by them on Grauber himself.

Suddenly Grauber spoke. `Our last round, Mr. Sallust. And I win it hands down. You are a slippery customer, if ever there was one. But your extraordinary feat of getting yourself into the Fьhrer’s bunker gave you a swollen head. At last you have made the fatal mistake of underrating your opponent.'

It was true. Had Gregory been less preoccupied with his endeavours to keep Hitler in Berlin and his anxieties about Erika and Sabine, he would have given more serious thought to Grauber and the possibility that his old enemy would devise some subtle way of bringing him to grief. But the terror Hitler inspired among his followers was so universal that, once under his protection, Gregory had thought the risk of Grauber taking any action against him to be negligible.

He had been further lulled into a false sense of security during the past five days by Grauber's attitude. Their respective duties had entailed being at the same time for long spells in the passage outside the conference room and taking meals together in the mess passage. Naturally, neither of them had been more. than barely civil to the other, but Grauber had treated Gregory with a certain deference, which Gregory had put down to his having become one of the Fьhrer’s intimates, and that had strengthened his conviction that his old enemy fully- accepted the situation.

Too late, he realized that, outside the bunker, Grauber still possessed almost limitless powers and could on any night have him kidnapped by Gestapo men while making his way home through the blackout.

Pain made it difficult for him to work his jaw, but now that his wits were coming back to him he managed to croak out, `Yes, you've got me… but you'd better watch your step. You seem to have forgotten that… the Fьhrer is my friend. He… he warned you not to lay a finger on me at the peril of your life. At any time he may ask for me… to talk about the future. If I'm not to be found he'll guess that you are at… at the bottom of my disappearance… Then you'll be for the high jump.'

`That maniac!' Grauber suddenly spat. `Do you think I any longer give a damn for him? He has brought Germany to ruin, and himself. He is now through. Finished!'

`Not yet. You and the others still quail every time he opens his mouth… And he has a memory like an… encyclopedia. He won't have forgotten that we are enemies. Just wait until you get back to the bunker. The moment he sees you he… he'll hand you over to his private police. He'll have them take you to pieces on… on the assumption that you'll be able to tell him what has become of me.'

Grauber gave a high-pitched laugh. `You poor fool. What do you think I am doing out of uniform and in these clothes? I'm not going back to the bunker. I'm leaving Berlin tonight. Tomorrow it may be too late.'

That contemptuous statement hit Gregory as though it were the last nail being hammered into his coffin. The moment he had grasped the situation he was in he had realized that his chances of getting out of that room a free man were about as good as those of a man surviving who puts the barrel of a loaded pistol to the roof of his mouth and pulls the trigger. But there had been just the slender hope that he might use Hitler's knowledge of his feud with Grauber to frighten him.

Now that, too, was gone. But he felt sure that his end would be no more horrible if he twisted Grauber's tail a little; and, his words coming more easily, he said, `I see. Another rat leaving the sinking ship. You're off to join the king rat, eh? But don't flatter yourself that Himmler will succeed in making a deal with the Allies. He'll not be able to save your skin, or his own. Count Bernadotte's intentions are of the best, but Leaning forward, Grauber snapped, `What do you know of that?

'Enough to be certain that if we were way back in 1940 and Britain had really been at her last gasp Churchill would still not have negotiated with a swine like Himmler. As things are, it's already been announced that he and his kind are to be tried as war criminals. That goes for you and it won't be long before you are dangling from a beam by a rope round the neck.'

`Others may, but not I' Grauber shook his massive head. `Again you underrate me. About Himmler you are right. He is a brilliant organizer but in all other respects a fool, and he has always gone about with his head in the clouds. Now he has become almost as mad as Hitler. His acceptance of Schellenberg's belief that the Allies would treat with him through Count Bernadotte is the proof of it. I've no intention of mixing myself up with such a pack of dreamers.'

`Whether you do or don't the Allies will get you,' Gregory said tersely. `You are too big a fish for them to allow you to slip into obscurity. They will comb Germany for you; and you've plenty of enemies here. Sooner or later the Allies' agents will catch up with you or someone will give you away.'

Grauber's pasty face took on a cunning look. `You are wrong. I shall be neither caught nor betrayed, because I shall not be here. There are many good Nazis in our Navy and I made my preparations weeks ago. A U-boat is waiting to take me to South America, where I have a large ranch and sufficient money invested for me to live as a rich man for the rest of my life.'

To that Gregory could find no reply. Von Below had said that there was no justice in the world and if, instead of paying the penalty for his crimes, this arch-fiend was to enjoy an old, age of comfort and plenty it seemed that von Below had been right.

`And now about yourself,' Grauber went on. `I have always promised myself that if I caught you I would cause you to die very gradually and very painfully, with the best medical attention between whiles; and I should have considered myself unlucky if your heart had given out in less than a month. But present circumstances render that impossible, as I must leave here in about an hour. In consequence I have decided to let you live.'

Gregory swallowed hard. That Grauber should show mercy and, of all people, to him, was beyond belief. He stammered, `You… you're playing with me.'

`No. I assure you that I am not. Within an hour you shall leave here a free man.'

It is said that hope springs eternal in the human breast. Despite his every instinct Gregory could not prevent a sudden lifting of the heart. `I… you really mean… to… to let me go

'Yes.' Grauber's small mouth twisted into a smile. `But there is a little matter we must attend to first. You will recall that in November '39, you bashed out my left eye with a pistol butt. You therefore owe me an eye and I propose to claim that debt. Since it has been so long outstanding it is only fair that I should receive interest, and the destruction of your other eye seems appropriate for that.'

Gregory felt a cold shiver run through him as Grauber went smoothly on. `That evens up our score. But I must also protect myself; for you have made it clear that you will run to our crazy Fьhrer and complain about me. I greatly doubt if he could now have me caught once I have left Berlin; but you and I have survived all these years of war only because it has become second nature to us to take precautions. In the present case I must prevent you from talking. I've seen a tongue torn out by the roots, but doubt my ability to perform such an act; and anyway it would be a very messy business. I shall therefore break a small phial of vitriol on your tongue. After that you will tell no tales for many months to come if ever again.'

In vain Gregory strove to prevent himself from listening. His hands were tied down so he could not stop his ears, and the gloating effeminate voice continued to penetrate his brain. `Lastly, I have always had a passion for thoroughness and I should not feel happy if we parted without my having made a proper job of you. I shall therefore pierce both your eardrums with a knitting needle.'

For a moment Grauber was silent, then he added, `So, you see, although I must deny myself the pleasure of actually watching you scream for mercy daily for some weeks, I shall be able to think of you during my voyage to South America undergoing a mental stress greater than that caused solely by physical inflictions. As I promised, in less than an hour you will be a free man. I shall remove your uniform tunic and put you out into the street; but you will be blind, deaf and dumb. Then I shall pray for you.' Suddenly he gave a high, cackling laugh. `I shall pray that you are not killed by a bomb or a Russian shell.'

At that Gregory's control snapped. Hurling curses and abuse at Grauber he violently wrenched with wrists and ankles at the cords that bound him to the chair. But it was of Jacobean design with a high strong back made of heavy ebony. The most he could do was to rock it and the Obergruppenfiihrer ignored him. With his mincing gait he walked over to a cabinet, took from it a box of cigars, selected-one and, sitting down in front of his prisoner, held it^-up.

`One of my best Havanas,' he said, his solitary eye gleaming with sadistic delight. `To bash out your eyes, with the butt of a pistol would be much too crude. Instead I intend to burn them out with the lighted end of this excellent cigar. But not yet.

Oh no, not yet. When it has singed your eyeballs it would have an unpleasant flavour; so first I shall smoke three-quarters of it. You see, we still have plenty of time; time for you to think about what I mean to do to you, time in which you can watch the cigar gradually burning down until there is just enough of it left for me to deprive you of your sight for ever.'

It was the last refinement of cruelty. Gregory was compelled to sit there, sweating with terror. As no-one in the bunker knew where he was he had no possible hope of rescue. The underground room was heavy with a pregnant silence. Down there even the bombardment could be heard only as a faint rumble, and exploding bombs did no more than cause the floor occasionally to give a slight quiver. Obviously Grauber had sent away the men who had kidnapped Gregory, so there was no-one to whom he could appeal for help, even had they been willing to listen. The knots in the thin cord that held him to the chair had been tied by experts and, strain as he might, he could not even ease them.

To attempt to bargain with Grauber was as futile as to ask him for mercy. Had he been going to join Himmler, Gregory could and would have used all his powers to drive home the fact that within a short while now Germany must collapse, and that soon after their victory the Allies would bring to trial and hang all the chiefs of the Gestapo. Then, counting on Sir. Pellinore's great influence, of which Grauber was aware, he would have offered to guarantee his life if allowed to go unharmed. But Grauber was going to South America, where a fine estate and ample money awaited him. So he had nothing to fear, and Gregory nothing to offer.

Maddeningly, a clock on a bookcase ticked away the minutes. Grauber continued placidly to smoke his cigar. The blue haze of the smoke and admirable aroma began to fill the room. Three times he carefully tapped an inch of ash from the cigar end into an ashtray on a nearby table. Each time he did so he looked critically at the cigar, then at Gregory. After removing the ash for the third time he said, `We are getting on. About another five minutes, I think.'

It was at that moment that a bell rang. The sound acted like an electric shock on Gregory. His heart missed a beat and his muscles tensed. Grauber gave a swift, surprised look towards the door. But he did not move.

The bell shrilled again. Still Grauber did not move. With a frown he looked at Gregory and said softly, `Don't delude yourself with false hopes, my friend. It is only some neighbour making a chance call. If I don't answer it he will go away.'

For some twenty minutes Gregory had been almost out of his mind from visualizing the awful torments that Grauber intended to inflict on him. Suddenly his wits came back and he opened his mouth to shout. In one catlike spring Grauber was upon him and had seized his nose between a finger and thumb. Dropping the butt of his cigar, he pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket with his other hand and thrust it into Gregory's open mouth, effectively gagging him.

Again the bell rang, this time insistently. Evidently whoever it was had his finger firmly pressed on the button.

Picking up the cigar butt Grauber stood in front of Gregory, mouthing curses below his breath.

The bell stopped ringing but after a moment there came the muffled sound of heavy blows on the outer door.

For nearly two minutes Grauber remained irresolute. But the blows did not cease and it became evident that someone was endeavoring to break in the door.

With a blasphemous oath Grauber stepped over to the sitting-room door and pulled it open. From where Gregory was sitting, trussed and helpless, he could see that it gave on to a -narrow hall. The noise of the blows now came louder to him; then the sound of splintering wood. There followed a confusion of raised voices. Grauber had evidently unbolted the door and was shouting, `What in thunder do you mean by this?' Someone else cried, `The light showing under the door told us you must be here.'

His nerves as taut as violin strings, Gregory wondered who these people who had forced their way in could be. As he made desperate efforts with his tongue to force the handkerchief out of his mouth, he prayed frantically that they would save him. A heated argument was going on outside in the passage. He was petrified with fear that it would be settled

and that before he could shout for help Grauber would have got rid of his unwelcome callers.

Stretching his mouth to tearing point, Gregory did his utmost to vomit. The effort ejected a part of the handkerchief but the silk of the remainder clung to his gums. He was now able to gurgle, but not loud enough to be heard outside the room. Thwarted in his attempts to shout, he flung all his weight sideways. The heavy chair tipped, hovered, then went over with a crash. His head hit the floor. It had still been aching intolerably from his having been coshed. This second blow sent such a violent pain searing through it that he passed out. But only. for a few moments.

He caught the tramp of feet. When his mind cleared the room was full of S.S. men. At the sight of their black uniforms he groaned. These were Grauber's people. The noise of the chair going over must have brought them in from the passage,, but his hopes of rescue had been vain.

Two of them heaved the chair upright. Then Gregory saw Grauber and an S.S. officer facing one another in the open doorway. The latter had hiss back turned, but Gregory heard him ask sharply, `What has been going on here

'A private matter,' piped Grauber angrily. `A private matter. I have been interrogating an English spy.'

The officer turned and looked at Gregory. Instantly they recognized one another. He was S.S. Standartenfьhrer Hoegl, the Chief of Hitler's personal bodyguard, and he exclaimed: `Donnerwetter! It is Major Protze! He is no spy!' `He is!' insisted Grauber. `He is a pig of an Englishman.' `You can tell that to the Fьhrer,' retorted Hoegl. Then he added to his men, `Release the Herr Major.'

Half fainting from strain, shock and relief, Gregory was untied and stumbled to his feet. Meanwhile a furious altercation was taking place between Grauber and the Standartenfьhrer.

`How dare you address me in this way!' shrilled Grauber. `I demand that you treat me with the respect due to an Obergruppenfiihrer.'

`Not while you are in those clothes,' sneered Hoegl.

`What I wear is my business. I am about to change back into uniform.'

`Oh no you're not. You are coming with me as you are.' `I'll not take orders from you.'

`Yes you will. The Fuhrer asked for you this evening. You weren't to be found in any of the bunkers. He sent me to fetch you. Naturally, we expected to find you at the Albrecht Strasse. You weren't there but they said you might be at this underground apartment of yours. And here you are. What game you were about to play in civilian clothes and with that suitcase already packed that I see over there it is not for me to judge, but

My Chief, the Reichsfьhrer, has sent for me to join him,'

`Then he'll have to wait until you've seen the Fьhrer and explained to him why you left the bunker without his permission. He will want to know, too, what you have been up to with Major Protze. Come along now.'

Two minutes later they had emerged from a deep basement and were all packed into a big S.S. car that had been waiting outside the ruined block… By the flashes of the ack-ack guns Gregory saw that they were driving along the north side of the Tiergarten, but his head was still splitting and he was so exhausted that he was hardly conscious during the journey.

When they arrived at the Chancellery he asked if the car might take him on to Goering's house. As it was not he for whom the Fьhrer had sent and he was obviously near collapse, Hoegl, agreed. With an S.S. man on either side of him Grauber, white and shaking, was hustled into the building to face thee wrath of the Fьhrer. The car drove off and within ten minutes Gregory, between gulps of brandy, was giving Erika an account of his ghastly experience.

But his trials that night were not yet over. At half past four in the morning there was a terrific detonation. Both he and Erika were blown out of bed. Picking themselves up they put on their coats and went through the wrecked doorway to find out the extent of the damage. A Russian shell had blown in a part of the back of the house. The kitchen quarters were wrecked and the Hofbecks, who slept in a room adjacent to them, had both been killed. Malacou, although sleeping in the room above them, the outer wall of which had collapsed, had, miraculously, come to no harm.

When they had helped him move his bedding downstairs to the small dining room he told Gregory that the previous day he had found Sabine still at Seeaussicht and handed him a letter from her. It read;

My dear,

Poor old Kurt having been wounded explains why he never came for me. These past two days I've been in half a mind to set off with Trudi on our own, but everyone says there are now thousands of Russians to the south of here, so I haven't had the, courage to risk it. I must have been out of my mind not to have gone weeks ago, when you tried to persuade me to. But I'm sure you can't mean to stay in Berlin to be captured, and you have always been so full of resource. When you leave, I implore you to come here first and take me with you.

Always your devoted Sabine.

Having shown the note to Erika, Gregory said, 'I don't wonder that having left it so late she's scared to run the gauntlet on her own. But the Russians can't be very thick on the ground to the south of the city yet. And this can’t go on much longer. If I find that Hitler is still set on doing himself in we'll leave this coming night and pickup Sabine on our way out.'

After another few hours' sleep, weary, haggard and with his head still aching, shortly before midday Gregory went to the bunker. There he learned that on the previous evening Goebbels had raised the question of the Prominente. Not the German Prominente, with whom Gregory had for a time been a prisoner. Of them Goerdeler, Popitz, Nebe and others had been executed several weeks earlier. The remainder had been transferred to Flossenbiirg and, on orders given by Hitler on April 9th, Canaris, Bonhoeffer, Oster, Dohnanyi and the majority of the others had been butchered. Goebbels, thirsting for blood, had referred to the other group of Prominente, which consisted of the most distinguished British and American prisoners of war. The latter had been removed from Colditz and were now being held as hostages in Bavaria. At his mention of them Hitler had gone purple in the face and, his whole body trembling, yelled

`Shoot them all! Shoot them all!'

It was to transmit orders for this massacre that Grauber had been sent for and, on learning that he had disappeared, the Fьhrer, now ever ready to suspect treachery, had sent Hoegl to try to find him. When he had been brought in there had been another scene, but his wits had saved his life. He had said that his Fьhrer’s need of reliable troops was much greater than the Reichsfьhrer’s and that Himmler's personal bodyguard, consisting of a whole battalion of crack S.S, men, was at Hohenlychen doing nothing. His idea had been to go and fetch it and he was in civilian clothes because that would give him-a better chance of getting through the Russian lines.

Hoegl had begun to report having found Gregory tied to a chair in Grauber's apartment. But by then Hitler had appeared so near collapse that Eva Braun had insisted that he should go to bed. Supported by her he had staggered off, but shouted over his shoulder that Grauber was to be deprived of his rank and placed under arrest until his questionable conduct could be gone into further. So the ex-Obergruppenfьhrer was now a prisoner locked in a cell in one of the outer bunkers.

The news that came in continued to be as black as ever. The Allies were advancing rapidly on all fronts, Russian shells were now falling in the Chancellery garden and their troops were said to have captured Potsdam. Yet Hitler continued to cling to the idea that General Wenck's Army would rescue him.

Then in the evening he received his most terrible blow. Heinz Lorenz arrived from the ruins of the Propaganda Ministry. With him he brought a transcript of a broadcast that had just been put out by the B.B.C. It was a full report of Himmler's negotiations with Count Bernadotte.

When given the news by the eager Bormann, Hitler broke into agonizing wails. `Der treue Heinrich', of all people, had betrayed him. It was unthinkable, yet incontestable. Soon his distress gave place to fury. As he mouthed curses, his face became almost unrecognizable. He saw everything now. Steiner was one of Himmler's men. It was on Himmler's orders that the General had refrained from launching the attack that could have saved Berlin. It had been a deliberate plot to ruin him. Suddenly he remembered Grauber and gave orders that

Heinrich Mueller, the Chief of the Political Police, should interrogate him.

Hoegl told Gregory afterwards that when they went into Grauber's cell his sagging face had broken out in a sweat of terror, and that in twenty hours he had lost at least two stones of his surplus fat. They had carried out the usual drill of beating the calves of his legs with steel rods until he could no longer stand, pulling out his fingernails and so on, and had extracted a confession from him. He had admitted that for weeks past he had known of Himmler's negotiations with Count Bernadotte and in a desperate attempt to escape further torment he had even invented a story that in exchange for a guarantee that his own life should be spared Himmler had offered to hand Hitler's corpse over to the Allies.

On receiving Mueller's report Hitler flared, `So the fat swine was aware of all this yet did not tell us. Take him up to the garden and shoot him!'

Gregory was by then so drained of emotion that he could not even take pleasure in the thought that his incredibly brutal and malicious enemy was to die; so although he had intended to witness the execution he was not particularly sorry when, as he was watching Grauber, now a gibbering wreck, being dragged by the guards up the concrete stairs, he was sent for by the Fьhrer.

After referring briefly to Gregory's having been kidnapped the previous night, Hitler said, `I am now taking the necessary steps to prepare for my end. No leader has ever been served as badly as myself or suffered so many betrayals. Yet I still have a few friends who have demonstrated their loyalty by expressing a wish to take their lives at the same time as I take mine. You, Herr Major, came into my life too late for me to bestow on you such honours and rewards as I would have liked to do; but you have been a great support to me in these past terrible weeks, and it has occurred to me that I may be able to show my gratitude to you later. I refer, of course, to your being reincarnated with me on Mars. To ensure there is no time lag and your being reborn there about the same time as myself, it has occurred to me that you may wish to join those who are about to leave this earth with me.'

Completely taken aback by this horrifying invitation, Gregory did his utmost to prevent his features from showing his true feelings. Hastily stammering out that it had been a great privilege to have been of service to his Fьhrer, he rallied his tired wits to take a quick decision. It was that he dared not refuse to play the game out, and could only pray that he would escape this new threat to his life by Hitler giving an example to the rest and taking his own life first. In a steadier voice he added:

`Mein Fuhrer, I seek' no reward. But it would be an honour to die in your company.'

`Good! Good!' said Hitler cheerfully. `I expected no less of you.' Then he took from his pocket a poison capsule and pressed it into Gregory's hand.

By then it was a little after midnight and von Greim and Hannah Reitsch were about to leave the bunker. In anticipation of their departure everyone had been writing farewell letters to their relatives for Hannah to take with her; and now Hitler went into von Greim's room to give him his last instructions. Both the newly created Field Marshal and Hannah expressed the opinion that it was no longer possible to escape from Berlin by air and begged to be allowed to remain and die with their Fьhrer. But he insisted on their going.

When they had left he was suddenly seized by a fit of renewed confidence. He announced that his intuition told him that von Greim would get through and carry out his orders. These had been to arrest the treacherous Himmler and use the whole of the Luftwaffe to support Wenck's Army. Von Greim, he said, was a very different man from that decadent traitor Goering. He would put new life into the Luftwaffe and it would now cover itself with glory. The bridges over the Havel were still being held. Under cover of the Luftwaffe Wenck would reach Berlin and save them all.

To Gregory's despair there was no more talk of suicide. Instead the Fьhrer declared his intention of conferring the status she had long desired on his faithful friend of many years. He meant to marry Eva Braun. A minor official named Walter Wagner, whom nobody knew but who was competent to perform a civil marriage, was produced by Goebbels. The ceremony took place in the narrow map room with Goebbels and Bormann as witnesses. So, at long last, Eva Braun became Frau Hitler.

Afterwards they came out into the conference passage and shook hands with everybody, then retired to their private rooms for the wedding breakfast to which Hitler invited the two witnesses, Frau Goebbels and his two women secretaries.

Gregory got away as soon as he could to find that Erika, having slept for a good part of the day, was sitting up waiting for him, and that she and Malacou were all ready to start, as had been agreed the previous morning.

As gently as he could, he broke it to her that he still could not leave. Having told her about Grauber's end, the marriage and the poison capsule, he stilled her new fears for him by saying that he meant to empty the capsule of its deadly contents and refill it with water then, if he were forced to swallow it, throw a fit and sham dead. As she sighed with relief, he went on:

`The last thing I heard before leaving the bunker was that von Greim got away safely after all. He is a fanatic and he'll sacrifice every 'plane in the Luftwaffe in an attempt to save Hitler. If with von Greim's help Wenck succeeds in reaching Berlin the odds are that Hitler will be tempted to abandon his alternative plan of committing suicide. I've simply got to stay and persuade him that it is not in his own best interests to cling on to life for another few months. Maybe as many as a million lives depend on that.'

Erika sighed. `Of course you are right, darling. You are playing for such tremendous stakes that we mustn't even think of our own lives. All the same if I stay here for another twenty-four hours I may be dead next time you get back. The Russian shells have been coming over all day at the rate of one a minute. Half the roof of the house has gone and three fell in the garden. But don't think I'm suggesting leaving you. I'll never do that.'

After a moment's thought Gregory said, `Look, central Berlin is now the Russians' main target. The city is vast and they can't possibly have enough guns to bombard the suburbs with anything like the same intensity. Why shouldn't you and

Malacou take your van out to Sabine's villa? He knows how to find it and you would be much safer there.!

'That's certainly an idea,' Erika agreed. Then she added with a smile, `But don't you think your girl friend might spit in my eye?'

`Of course not; since for your part you've already said you are willing to bury the hatchet. She will be only too pleased to see you, because it will be a guarantee to her that when we do make our attempt to get through the Russian lines we will take her with us.'

When full daylight came they roused themselves from their few hours of troubled sleep. Erika dressed herself in her nurse's uniform and Malacou, as calm as ever, loaded into the Red Cross van all the oddments they thought might prove useful. Gregory promised to join them as soon as he possibly could and, after a heartrending parting from Erika, waved them away on their perilous journey.

Over in the bunker he found nearly everyone still asleep. The wedding party had gone on till dawn. After Gregory had left, Krebs, Burgdorf, von Below and the vegetarian cook had all been called in to join those already with the newly weds. They had drunk lashings of champagne while talking of the glories of the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg in the old days and of how Hitler had been Goebbels' best man.

It emerged that, at intervals between declaiming to his friends, Hitler had dictated his personal will and a testament addressed to the German people. But this did not prevent him from holding his usual midday conference.

Reports were made at it that the Russians had advanced in Charlottenburg and in Grunewald and had taken the Anhalter Station. Gregory, hovering with other adjutants in the outer side of the partition, learned, too, that the Russians had established themselves in force in Potsdam. At that piece of news his stomach contracted and he was almost sick from apprehension; for Sabine's villa was less than half the distance from Potsdam than it was from central Berlin. Erika was on her way there and there was no possible means by which he could recall her.

When he managed to concentrate again, from the hushed and

stilted conversation of his companions he took in the fact that the Fьhrer, in his will, had appointed Admiral Doenitz as his successor and that three copies of the will had been sent off that morning by Lorenz, Johannmeier and Bormann's adjutant, Zander. Also that Hitler's imitator in immolating a nation for his own glorification, Mussolini, had been caught by partisans and shot the previous day. A mob in Milan had later kicked his body and that of his mistress, Clare Petacci, to pulp, then hung them up by the ankles.

Soon afterwards three other officers were called in to the conference: von Loringhoven, Weiss and Boldt. No news had been received from General Wenck and, at Burgdorf's suggestion, these three were to be dispatched in an attempt to get through the enemy lines and urge Wenck to hurry, otherwise the Chancellery might be captured before he reached it.

That afternoon von Below had the courage to go in to the Fьhrer and ask permission to leave. Hitler was then in one of his calm spells and readily agreed; but added that he must wait until after the evening conference to take, if he could, a dispatch to Keitel at the OKW headquarters, which had now been moved to Ploen in Schleswig-Holstein.

The long, terrible hours dragged by while the Russian shells cramped into the upper storeys of the Chancellery. At ten o'clock the evening conference began. General Weidling reported that the Hitler Youth still held the bridges over the Havel, but that the Russians had penetrated as far as the Wilhelmstrasse and almost reached the Air Ministry. Later Krebs came out, handed von Below a dispatch and, in case he had to destroy it, told him its contents. They were to the effect that the situation in Berlin was now desperate, they could no longer hope that General Wenck would come to their rescue, and the Russians would capture the Chancellery within twenty-four hours. But the Fьhrer expected the troops on all fronts to fight to the last man.

To the envy of most of the others who, had they dared, would willingly have risked death in the streets rather than remain with their mad Fьhrer in the bunker, von Below said good-bye to his friends and set off into the, flame-torn darkness.

The score of men and women left in the bunker had received orders that they were not to go to bed; so they stood about, drinking heavily. At last, at half past two in the morning, Hitler emerged and took a ceremonial farewell of them all. He shook hands with everybody, but his eyes were glazed with a film of moisture, his walk was unsteady, he seemed dazed and could do no more than mumble inaudible replies to those who spoke to him.

When he had retired they continued to stand about, expecting to hear the shot that would release them from their thraldom. But no shot came. Instead, the Fьhrer’s valet emerged with an order. In the upper basement there was a canteen for the use of the guards and orderlies. With the desperation of despair they were holding a dance and the strains of the music were penetrating to the bunker. Hitler had sent out to say that the music must be toned down because it prevented him from getting to sleep.

Some of his staff lurched drunkenly up the stairs to join the dancers. Gregory, with the awful feeling that this nightmare would never end, went to von Below's now vacant bunk, flung himself fully dressed upon it and fell into a troubled doze.

Next day, the 3oth April, the old iron routine was followed, just as though Hitler were still directing armies fighting on fronts many hundreds of miles from the capital. But for once he listened in silence to the reports of the Generals, who were now conducting the defence of central Berlin. Overnight the enemy had captured the whole of the Tiergarten and reached the Potsdamer Platz. The underground railway tunnel in the Friedrichstrasse was in their hands and they were fighting their way through the Vons Strasse tunnel towards the Chancellery.

At two o'clock Hitler had lunch with his two women secretaries and his cook, while Eva remained in her room. Over the meal he conversed quite normally, but before it he had made his final preparations. The guards had been told that they were not to enter the bunker again and his chauffeur, Erik Kempka, had carried two hundred litres of petrol up to the Chancellery garden in preparation for the funeral pyre.

After lunch Hitler came out into the passage with Eva and they again shook hands with all those who had remained to the last. They then returned to their suite. At two-thirty a single shot was heard. For a few minutes those outside stood as though petrified, then they went in. Hitler had shot himself through the roof of the mouth. Eva was also dead, but she had taken poison.

The Devil's emissary who, for so many years, possessed by the spirit of Evil, had done his work in the world so well had, at last, gone to join his Infernal Master. It was as though an almost tangible black cloud, that had stifled clear thought, honest aspirations and all humane instincts, had suddenly been lifted from the bunker. The place had been reeking with treachery, fear, cruelty, blood-lust, and suddenly the atmosphere they breathed had become clean again.

They looked at one another in astonishment, seeing faces they hardly recognized because the features had become relaxed and the eyes no longer held the wary glint of animal’s intent only on self-preservation.

Smoking had never been permitted in the vicinity of the Fьhrer, but one of them lit a cigarette. The others quickly produced their cases and followed suit. Calmly, not even bothering to bow their heads, they watched the guards carry the bodies of Hitler and Eva up to the garden to be burned.

Goebbels heavily declared that there was now nothing left to live for; so he meant to honour his promise to Hitler that he would kill his wife and children and himself. Krebs and Burgdorf agreed that it was better to put bullets through their brains than risk falling into the hands of the Russians. But the others were throwing away the poison capsules that Hitler had given them. Bormann had already begun to daft a telegram to Doenitz as a first move in an attempt to establish a similar relationship with the new Fьhrer to that he had had with the old. The rest were eagerly discussing the chances of -escaping through the Russian lines that night under cover of darkness.

Gregory, knowing that the Russians had captured Potsdam on the previous day, was almost off his head with fear that by this time they might have reached Sabine's villa. Reports were coming in from all the suburbs overrun by the Russians that their brutal Mongolian troops were shooting every man and raping every woman that they captured. If they had advanced up the east shore of the Havel, what might now be happening to Erika, Sabine and Trudi did not bear thinking about.

As long as some eleventh-hour twist in Hitler's disordered mind might have led him to attempt to leave Berlin and, perhaps, owing to the dark power that had so often protected him, succeed in reaching Bavaria where he would have bludgeoned the German Armies into fighting on, Gregory had felt it his inescapable duty to remain. But now that malignant beast in human form was dead nothing would have induced Gregory to postpone until darkness his bid to save Erika.

Without a word of farewell to anyone, he ran up the stairs and snatched from a pigeonhole in the arms depository the first pistol he could lay his hand on. Deciding to leave by the way the officers sent off on the previous day had taken, he ran on through the empty echoing corridors to the back of the building, where the garages faced on to the Hermann Goering Strasse.

A pall of smoke hung low over the city and the air stank from the fumes of high explosives. There were great holes in the road from one of which a burst water main was fountaining. Broken paving stones and shell splinters littered the sidewalks. In three directions flames from burning buildings lit up the sulphurous clouds with an orange glow. The noise from bursting shells was deafening but through it came the clatter of machine guns: a clear indication that the Russians had that morning fought their way to within a few hundred yards of the Chancellery. From close at hand there came the dull rumble of falling masonry. It seemed impossible that anyone could remain alive for more than a few minutes in the flaming heart of the stricken city. But great love begets great courage. Without hesitation Gregory plunged into the inferno.

29

Death Intervenes

TURNING left, Gregory set off at a run. A shell exploded fifty feet above him and he narrowly escaped the shower of bricks that it brought down. A minute later another cramped some way off in the middle of the road and he was half blinded by the dust it threw up. He had covered no more than three hundred yards when ahead of him the murk was stabbed by the flashes of rifle and machine-gun fire. Then he saw that a high barricade sealed off the end of the street. Beyond it lay the Potsdamer Platz and there fierce fighting was in progress.

Finding his way blocked he entered a ruined building on his right and began a laborious climb over piles of rubble and fallen beams. On the far side he came out into another street. Keeping under cover he looked swiftly from side to side.

A hundred yards to the north of him there was another barricade, but this time he was on the Russian-held side of it. Taking his life in his hands he sprinted across the road towards the ruins opposite. A Russian coming up the street saw him, raised his Sten gun and fired a burst. By a miracle the bullets whistled past him and he was able to dive into a stone porch that was still standing. Fearing that the Russian would pursue him, he clambered up a sloping girder to the first floor of the wrecked building. There he waited for a few moments with his pistol at the ready; but the Russians had so many people to shoot at that the one who had fired on him did not bother to give chase.

Another long perilous climb, with bricks and plaster slithering under his feet, brought him to the Potsdamer Strasse. In it a line of Russian tanks was moving north-eastward. Hiding behind a jagged piece of wall he waited until they had passed, then made his dash across the road. This time he was not spotted. Again, his hands and knees now bruised and bleeding, he crawled, slithered and staggered over the mountains of wreckage until he reached a block of which a part was still intact. By an iron fire escape he made his way to a first-floor window that had been shattered. It gave on to a landing with a stone staircase. Descending it he climbed over a fallen door and found himself in the pillared hall of a large bank. Next moment he heard a movement. Before he had time to draw back a Russian soldier emerged from behind the nearest pillar and was facing him less than six feet away.

For a second they stared at one another in mutual surprise. But Gregory's luck was in. The Russian, intent on loot, had left his Sten gun lying on the bank counter. Before he could turn and grab it Gregory had put two bullets through his head. Things might have gone very differently but, as they had turned out, Gregory looked on the encounter as a special gift from heaven. He now had the thing that above all he had hoped to secure but feared it almost impossible to obtain and change into without being seen-a Russian uniform.

Swiftly, he undressed the dead man and himself. The soldier, a flat-faced yellow-skinned Mongolian, was short but broad, so his tunic was very loose on Gregory and his cloth pantaloons too short, but their ends just tucked into his calf-length leather boots and those, to Gregory's relief, were, if anything, a little large. As a precaution against any Russian officer he might meet calling on him to take part in the battle, he tore a long strip from his victim's shirt, wet it with the dead man's blood and tied it round his own head. Also, much to his regret, he had to abandon his steel helmet and, instead, put on the pointed cloth cap worn by Mongolian troops. But he found the Sten gun was fully loaded so would serve him better than the few bullets left in the pistol, which he tucked into its holster.

By making a half-circle through the ruins he had bypassed the Potsdamer Platz and emerged opposite the Potsdamer Station. At the sight of its gaping roof it occurred to him that it might prove quicker and safer if he followed the straight course of the railway rather than worked his way southwest through miles of half-blocked streets.

Inside the station he found great activity going on. Although it was roofless, and in places great girders had fallen across the tracks, the Russians were using the platforms for dumps of ammunition and stores. Gregory saw too that, although trains could not enter the station, the Russian engineers must have got some of the lines working as, in the distance, several engines were puffing.

Now that he had got out of the Chancellery area he no longer had to fear being blown up by a shell or shot by a Russian, but there was still the danger that an officer might speak to him and discover that he was wearing a stolen uniform. Since he had tied the bloodstained strip of shirt round his jaw as well as his head he was in hopes that if accosted it would provide an adequate excuse for not answering; but there was an unpleasant possibility that some well-meaning `comrade' might take him by the arm and insist on leading him to the nearest first-aid post.

Keeping a wary look-out, he walked out of the far end of the station and along the tracks to a great open siding where two trains were being unloaded by fatigue parties. A third, he saw, was empty and in the process of shunting, so it looked as if it was about to move out to fetch up another cargo of supplies. Now that he was in full sight of the unloading parties he slowed his pace, let his head hang forward and staggered a little, as though in great pain. Then, as the shunting train came to a halt, he lurched forward in a stumbling run, grasped the ledge of an empty cattle truck that had its doors open and pulled himself up into it.

For some minutes the train remained stationary while he lay in the semi-darkness, fearing that at any moment a transport officer would come along, find him there and, perhaps, accuse him of attempting to get away from the battle without permission.

At length the train jerked into motion. Travelling at not more than twenty miles an hour it covered some three miles, then for about a quarter of an hour it continued on between the vast areas of ruined buildings, frequently stopping and starting until, Gregory judged, it must be a good five miles from central Berlin. His belief that it had passed Lichterfelde

was confirmed as it moved on into comparatively open country. So next time it jolted to a halt he jumped from it to the ground.

To his alarm, as he crossed the neighboring track to the edge of an embankment be heard someone shouting at him. Turning his head he saw that in the rear truck of the train a heavy machine gun had been mounted and that its crew were making violent signals to him to return. Ignoring them, he slithered down the embankment and climbed a fence into a garden.

He had no sooner got over it than the machine gun started to chatter and individual rifle shots rang out. Believing that he was being shot at he flung himself flat among some low bushes, but no bullets came anywhere near him. After a few minutes he peered out. Machine guns both at the front and rear of the train were being fired by the Russians, but not in his direction. As he watched one of them fell wounded, hit by a bullet fired from somewhere along the side of the track. Gregory then realized why the Russians, believing him to be one of themselves, had yelled at him to come back. The train was passing through an area still held by the Germans.

The knowledge filled him with dismay. By taking the Russian soldier's uniform and getting on the train he had covered in three-quarters of an hour a distance that, dodging about on foot, would have taken him at least three hours. But he had come out of Berlin by the main line, not the one further west which served the Grunewald and the suburbs along the Havel; so to reach the villa he had still some four miles to go across country, and since it was held by Germans he was now liable to be shot on sight at any moment.

For a few minutes he contemplated hiding until darkness came down, but he knew that if he did thoughts of what might be happening to Erika would drive him insane. Taking off his pointed cloth cap, so that from the distance his Russian uniform would be less readily identifiable, he stuffed it inside his tunic. As he did so he saw that the pistol was no longer in its holster. The flap must have been wrenched open and the weapon have fallen out as he climbed the fence; but, as he had the Sten gun, the loss of the pistol gave him no concern.

Getting to his feet he warily approached the house at the other end of the garden.

It had been bombed, but appeared to be only slightly damaged. Tiptoeing round it, he looked in through several shattered windows; then, as the house was apparently deserted, he climbed through one of them. The floor of the room he entered was covered with fallen plaster and broken ornaments. In the hall he saw there had been a fire that had burnt part of the staircase. As he went up it the boards creaked ominously, but took his weight. In one of the bedrooms he found, as he had hoped, a wardrobe containing several suits of clothes. Laying the Sten gun close at hand on the unmade bed, he got out of his uniform.

He was still in his underclothes when he heard the stairs creak. Grabbing up the gun he took cover behind the bed. Next moment a big bull-necked crop-headed German, who had evidently been down in the cellar, came into the room. He was in his shirtsleeves and holding a Mauser pistol. As he raised it threateningly and called to Gregory to come out, Gregory ducked. On the floor beside him there was a pair of heavy shoes. Taking one of them in his left hand, while still covered by the bed, he threw it in the direction of the door. The German jerked himself sideways to avoid it. At that instant Gregory bobbed up and fired a burst from his Sten gun.

As he traversed the Sten gun its bullets thudded into the German's chest and both his arms. He coughed, blood spurted from his mouth and he fell dead, doubled up on the floor.

Gregory would have preferred only to wound him, but he had not dared risk being shot himself or chance the man's shouting for help and perhaps raising a hue and cry. At all costs he had to get to Erika. Quickly he got a suit out of the wardrobe and put it on. It was much too big for him but that could not be helped, and the turn-ups of the trousers served to conceal the greater part of the Russian's regulation boots. On the top of the wardrobe there was a light weekend case. Getting it down he crammed the Russian uniform into it on the chance that it might again prove useful. It then occurred to him that a civilian carrying a Sten gun might have it taken from him by some soldier who had run out of ammunition; so he

threw it on the bed, retrieved the German's Mauler and thrust it into his jacket pocket.

Two minutes later he was out in the street, looking cautiously to right and left. No-one was about and he soon realized the reason. As the Germans still held this area, the Russians were shelling it; so all the inhabitants had taken refuge in air-raid shelters or their cellars. Taking his direction from a watery sun, he hurried through several streets that were similar to that in Dahlem where Ribbentrop had lived, but with smaller houses.

Half of them had been ‘gutted by fire and many of the trees in their gardens were black and leafless from having been set alight by incendiary bombs. Two German armoured cars rattled past but their crews took no notice of him. Every few minutes a shell whined over or burst a few hundred yards away. No one can judge where a bomb will fall, but anyone who has had experience of being shelled can guess roughly where a missile is likely to land; so whenever one seemed likely to fall near him, Gregory was able to take cover behind a low wall, or throw himself flat. Here and there he glimpsed German troops posted in ruined buildings that they had made into strong points, and twice on looking down roads leading south he saw that manned barricades composed of wrecked cars, tree trunks and paving stones had been erected.

He had passed several corpses both of soldiers and civilians and scarcely given them a look, but when he had covered about two miles he caught sight of a young woman running down a side road. Her stockings were down round her ankles, a part of her torn skirt was trailing behind her, her upper garments had been ripped away leaving her breasts bare, and her hair was in wild disorder. It was obvious that she had been assaulted and, apparently, driven crazy.

Since Gregory had left the railway he had seen only troops in German uniforms; so it might be that some of them, knowing that within a day or two they must be dead or prisoners, had seized the girl and raped her. On the other hand it was possible that she had fallen into the hands of the Russians and had only just escaped from them. From Potsdam the Russians might by now have come up the Havel and landed on the west side of the long lake towards which he was heading. The thought of

their bursting into the villa and what would follow caused him more agony of mind than had even the fear two nights earlier that Grauber would burn out his eyes.

Weary in mind and body, but imbued with an overwhelming urge to reach the villa at the earliest possible moment, he pressed on; at times running a few hundred yards, at others pausing to crouch down when a shell came over. As he progressed he continued to see German troops here and there and, to his heartfelt relief, when he reached the shore of the Havel there was no sign of the Russians.

He had left the bunker a little before three o'clock. Having come by train for over half the distance he had made the journey in only a little more than three hours. It was ten past six when he crossed the causeway to the small island on which the villa stood. At his first glimpse of it through the still standing trees his heart gave a lurch. Another bomb had hit it squarely, reducing it to a pile of rubble.

When had the bomb fallen? Less than three days ago Malacou had been at the villa and had brought back a letter from Sabine; so it must have been since then. Erika had driven out there the previous morning and, if she had arrived there safely, must have been in it for the past thirty hours. If she had been there when the bomb came down it was a hundred to one that her mangled body lay buried somewhere among the pile of bricks and masonry.

Gregory began to run again, and as he ran he prayed, `Oh God, don't let it be! Don't let it be!'

It took him five agonizing minutes to reach the remains of the villa. Even the partition walls that had formed the rooms were unrecognizable. The upper storey’s had buried the lower rooms in a great pile of debris from which, here and there, pieces of smashed furniture protruded.

In a forlorn hope he turned and ran to the garage, on the outside chance that they had-escaped the bomb and taken refuge there. That too had been partially destroyed by the blast, but he forced his way through the shattered doors. It was empty. There was no sign that anyone had temporarily occupied it and neither Erika's van nor Sabine's car was there.

Tears started to his eyes and ran down his lean haggard cheeks. Dazed by this last terrible blow after having survived so many perils to reach the villa, he staggered round into the garden behind it. For some moments he stood staring dull-eyed at the pile of ruins, then he turned and looked towards the lake. On the roof of the boathouse there was a splash of colour.

Could it be? Yes, by God it was! A small Red Cross flag had been spread out and weighted down on the boathouse roof. A surge of new strength suddenly animated his limbs. He pelted across the lawn and burst in through the door. On a bench inside Erika and Malacou, propped up by cushions from the boat, were dozing.

For the next few minutes Gregory and Erika were incoherent. Both had almost given up hope of ever seeing the other again. With tears of joy streaming down their faces they clung together.

In jerky sentences between kisses they gave one another the gist of what had happened to them during the past day and a half. Gregory gasped out that Hitler was dead; that he had actually seen his body being carried up to be burned. That meant that the war was as good as over.

Erika then told him of her drive out of Berlin with Malacou. It had been a ghastly journey. Two-thirds of the streets they had tried had been blocked by craters or rubble. A low-flying Russian 'plane had then machine-gunned them from the air, riddling the roof of the van with bullet holes. Finally, driving down the road along the shore of the Havel a Russian shell had exploded within twenty yards of them. Blast from it had turned the van over and they had been lucky to escape only with bad bruises. But the van had then caught fire, so had to be abandoned. They had walked the last two miles, only to find the villa in ruins and, it was to be assumed, Sabine and Trudi buried somewhere under them.

Malacou added his quota and gave full vent to his delight that Hitler was really dead. With sudden gravity he added, `I was right in my prediction that I would outlive him. Now I have nothing left to live for. I have a small fortune in Sweden and could make more money if I wished; but my beloved Khurrem is dead, so I can foresee no future happiness for myself. As you are both aware I have made obeisance to Him whom you term the Evil One, but that has enabled me to avenge my race; so I do not regret it. He is the Lord of this World and to this World I shall return, perhaps again as His henchman with a further opportunity to penetrate the great mysteries. Or it may be that as a child of ignorance I shall be set upon another path to atone for such ill as I have inflicted on my fellow beings in this and my past lives. Whatever may be my present fate and unforeseeable future, I am now content at any time to pass on.'

Erika said quickly, `God's mercy is infinite, and you used such weapons as you had to fight for your people. Hitler's death will save the lives of many thousands of them in the Bavarian and Austrian camps whom he would have had murdered if he had lived on for another few months.'

`That's true,' Gregory nodded, `and it encourages me to hope that I'll be forgiven for having countenanced the methods that we used.'

There was a moment's embarrassed silence, then Erika said to Gregory, `Darling, have you brought any food in that little case you were carrying? All of ours was destroyed when my van was burnt. The only thing I managed to save was the flag from its bonnet. We've had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours so we're absolutely starving.'

Instinctively, Gregory had clung on for the past two hours to the weekend case he had stolen and he had thrown it down only to embrace Erika. He shook his head. `No, it contains only a Russian uniform. But there's plenty of food in the villa if only we can get at it. Sabine kept a big store of tinned stuff in the cellar.'

The three of them quickly crossed the lawn and climbed up into the rubble. Having known the house so well Gregory had no difficulty in locating the place beneath which lay the stairs down to the cellar. As twilight fell they set about heaving aside loose bricks and lumps of masonry. Fortunately no beam too heavy to move had fallen across the cellar entrance. After three-quarters of an hour's hard work they succeeded in uncovering it and, with a small torch that Erika had in her handbag, Gregory led the way down.

The cellar was undamaged, although the floor was an inch or more deep in wine, for the concussion of the bomb had broken the greater part of the bottles. As he descended the steps Gregory feared that he would find Sabine and Trudi, dead from the shock of the explosion that had taken place immediately above, but to his relief they were not there. There were two beds, a table, chairs, an oil stove and cooking utensils, so it was evident that Sabine and Trudi had slept and spent a good part of their time down there during the worst of the bombardment. There were two candies on the table and oil in the stove. Malacou lit them and Erika selected from Sabine's stores some tins of soup, sausages and fruit to make a meal. Gregory removed the broken glass from a bin of hock until he came upon two unbroken bottles.

While they ate they discussed the situation and their prospects of getting away. Gregory said he thought it certain that the Chancellery would fall that night; but the last news to come in had been that Axmann's fanatical Hitler Youth were still holding the bridges over the Havel, and there were still many large pockets of resistance such as that in which the villa was situated.

He added that he had learned from General Krebs that German units were now surrendering right, left and centre and that Berlin would have fallen several days previously had it not been for the foreign contingents incorporated in the S.S. These were composed of men from almost every nation in Europe: tens of thousands of collaborationists, many of whom from quite early in the war had volunteered to fight for Germany. For them there could be no future if they returned to their own countries, only death as traitors; so most of them would fight on to the bitter end.

There could be no doubt that Berlin was completely surrounded and, in spite of the scores of miles that such a belt of encirclement must cover, Gregory felt that by now the Russians must be thick enough on the ground everywhere to prevent any vehicle getting through. Even if they had still had Erika's van all the odds were that in spite of its Red Cross the Russians would have commandeered it for their own use and, suspecting them to be spies or escapers, have made them prisoners. As things were it seemed that their best hope was for them to set off when full darkness had come, keeping away from the roads as far as possible and, by using the cover of woods and buildings, endeavour to dodge the Russian patrols.

While eating their meal they had kept their feet up rather uncomfortably to prevent the soles of their shoes from becoming soaked through by the flood of wine in the cellar and, when they had finished, as they did not mean to make a start for another hour or two, Erika decided to lie down on one of the beds. Before doing so she went over to tidy her hair at a small dressing table that had been brought down and stood at the far end of the cellar. Wedged in the corner of the mirror there was an envelope that in the dim light none of them had previously noticed. Across it was scrawled the one word, `Gregory'.

It could have been left there only by Sabine. Eagerly he tore It open and read out the note inside

`My dear, I've waited for you all day, but as you haven't come I greatly fear that you must have been killed. Now night has come I feel it's my last chance to get away. So Trudi and I are setting off in the car on our own. God knows if we'll get through. I can only pray that we will and that you are still alive and will somehow get here and read this. If you do, but have no car in which to run the gauntlet of these bloody Russians, take the motor launch. I had plenty of petrol, so filled its tank before I left. Thank you and bless you for everything. May God preserve us both. Sabine.

`Then she's alive!' exclaimed Gregory happily. `They must have left before the bomb fell. And the launch! I'd regarded it as useless without petrol. But she's filled it up for us, bless her '

Swiftly, they began to remake their plans. Gregory's knowledge of Russian was hopelessly inadequate to stand up to an interrogation if they were halted on a road. But while in Moscow and Leningrad in '41, he had picked up enough to answer a challenge, and he could change into the Russian uniform. By going down the Hovel they would have to pass Potsdam, but if a searchlight were turned on to the launch his uniform would be seen and he could shout a few sentences which should prevent their being fired on from the shore.

Deciding that it would be wise to take some provisions with them, Gregory took the uniform out of the weekend case and stuffed that full of tins, then he and Malacou went out and down to the launch. As it had not been used for many months they had to spend some time working on the engine and getting it running. Satisfied that it was in good shape they returned to the cellar, where Erika was still lying on one of the beds. As they did not intend to start until midnight, while Gregory changed into the Russian uniform Malacou replaced with two fresh candles the stumps that had nearly burnt down. and found another bottle of wine.

The two men had been sitting drinking at the table, with their feet up on a spare chair, for about a quarter of an hour, when they suddenly heard the noise of slithering rubble up above. Gregory quickly pulled out his pistol. When picking it up from the floor of the bedroom where he had shot the German he had been so obsessed by his urge to get to Erika that he had not thought of examining it. Now, as he really grasped it for the first time, it struck him that it was surprisingly light. At that the disturbing possibility flashed into his mind that the German had been bluffing with a weapon that was not loaded.

By then they could hear footsteps at the top of the stairs and a voice called anxiously, `Sabine! Sabine! Are you there?'

As they stared upwards they saw the lower part of a man in German uniform and the barrel of a Sten gun. A powerful torch flashed out. Its beam chanced to fall directly on Erika's face as she lay on the bed. Next moment there came an exclamation of astonishment:

`Erika, by all that's holy! What the devil are you doing here?'

Instantly Gregory realized who the man was. It could only be Kurt von Osterberg, now out of hospital and come there in the hope of getting Sabine away. Knowing the Count's hatred for Erika and himself his whole body tensed with awful apprehension. To have survived such dangers throughout this terrible day and now, at its end, to be faced by yet another well-armed enemy seemed an unbelievably cruel trick of fate.

Gripped by an anxiety that made his temples throb, he prayed frantically for the ability to handle this menacing situation.

Sitting up with a jerk, Erika cried, `You, Kurt ' Then, after a moment, she added, 'Sabine's gone and I…'

The brilliant beam of the torch far outshone the light from the two candles on the table and von Osterberg, his gaze fixed on Erika, who was immediately below him, had not yet realized that there was anyone else in the cellar. As he ran down a few more steps they saw that his head was heavily bandaged, but he showed no sign of weakness.

Suddenly he shouted at Erika, `You bitch! You filthy traitress; going off with an English spy while your country is at war. At least I can settle accounts with you before the Russians get me!'

As he raised his Sten gun Gregory sprang to his feet and squeezed the trigger of his pistol. It gave only a loud click. His fears of a few moments before were only too well founded. It had no bullets in it.

At the sound of his movement von Osterberg swung round. He was holding the torch alongside his weapon, so its beam swept across Malacou then focussed on Gregory. Giving a gasp, the Count cried:

`Mein Gott! A Russian!' Then, while keeping the gun trained on Gregory, he sneered for Erika's benefit. `So, my lady wife, you have again changed your allegiance. First a Jew, then an Englishman, now a Russian. It's clear that you'd stoop to any iniquity to save your lovely skin. You slut! You lecherous harlot! When I've put him and the fellow with him out of the way I'll see to it that you don't live to take another lover.'

Raising his gun a little, he aimed it at Gregory's chest.

`Stop!' shouted Erika. `For God's sake, stop! He's not a Russian. He is…' Her terrified voice trailed away.

Under the broad bandage the Count's eyes suddenly lit up. `Himmel nochma!!' he whispered. `It is! It's the Englishman. Now indeed God has been kind to me.'

Gregory knew that although he could expect no mercy from von Osterberg, the man was not a Grauber. One death might quench his urge to kill so, if he could concentrate the Count's hatred on himself, that would, perhaps, save Erika. Bursting into speech, he cried

`Yes, it's me all right. I am the man who gave you that scar across your face with my knuckles for having allowed the Gestapo to make use of you to trap your wife. And if I were near enough to use my fist I'd lay your other cheek open to match it.' As he spoke he stepped round the table and threw his empty pistol at the Count's head.

Von Osterberg jerked his head aside. The pistol went harmlessly over his shoulder, struck the wall behind him and clattered down the stairs. Seeing that Gregory was about to rush him he raised the barrel of his gun and shouted, `Move a foot closer and I'll riddle you.'

At the same moment Erika screamed, `Gregory! No! Stay where you are! I implore you. If he must kill someone let it be me.'

`What a pair of turtle doves,' jeered the Count. `The gallant Englishman about to offer himself for slaughter in the hope that I haven't enough bullets for you both, and his nymphomaniac whore wailing to be allowed to sacrifice herself for him. But don't worry. I couldn't bring myself to part you. Like Romeo and Juliet you are going to share a common tomb.'

For a moment he was silent, then he snapped at Gregory, `Tell me. How is it that you come to be here?

'We came to pick up Sabine Tuzolto, in the hope of taking her through the Russian lines with us.'

`I had no idea you even knew her.'

Gregory laughed. `I've known her for years; and this villa. She was hiding me here from the Gestapo at the time of the attempt on Hitler's life. I was up on the roof when they came to arrest you and you tried to commit suicide, but lacked the guts to put the gun in your mouth and make a proper job of it.'

`Where is Sabine now?

'God knows; I don't. But she left a note for me containing a suggestion about how we might get away.'

`Yes, Kurt,' Erika put in eagerly. `Before she went she filled the tank of the motor launch with petrol. We meant to start in about half an hour and go in it down the Havel. Please, please forget the past. Anyway until we are all safe again. Put these terrible thoughts of revenge out of your mind and, instead, come with us.'

`Thank you, my dear, for the information,' replied the Count dryly. `That is an excellent plan and I shall adopt it. But as I dislike the company of spies and loose women I shall go alone.'

`Then you'll get yourself killed,' said Gregory quickly. `The Russians are in Potsdam and they are certain to have searchlights trained on the river. They will shoot you and the launch to pieces.'

`Oh no they won't. Not when I've stripped that uniform you're wearing from your dead body and they see me in it.'

`They will; unless you can speak Russian and answer in it when they challenge you.' Gregory was standing some eight feet away from the Count, so too far off to rush him. He knew that he would be mown down before he could even clutch the Sten gun; and there could be no question about the extreme peril with which he and Erika were faced. Their only hope of saving themselves lay in talking von Osterberg out of his declared intention to murder them both, so he hurried on

`Erika is right. Surely you have seen enough of violence and death in Berlin these past few months? Try to remember that we were once all decent civilized people, and now that this ghastly war is as good as over we should cease from acting like savages. You are not a Gestapo thug but a German nobleman. It's your duty to your caste to behave like one. Only a few years ago you would have been horrified at the idea of shooting two people in cold blood. I know enough Russian to get us through, and it's your life as well as ours. For Christ's sake be sensible and let's all go together.'

The Count gave a frosty smile. `You would make a good barrister; but, in this case, not quite good enough. If they challenge me I'll shout some gibberish and as I will be wearing a Russian uniform they'll take me for a Kalmuck or a Tartar, and let me pass. Then somehow I'll find Sabine Tuzolto. No; when I've had the pleasure of shooting you two beauties I'll set out on my own.'

As he ceased speaking Erika began to plead again, but he cut her short and snarled at her, `Silence, you bitch! Get up off that bed and stand with your face to the wall.'

Pale as death she shook her head. Suddenly he swivelled his gun and fired three shots into the end of the bed within a few inches of her feet. As the detonations reverberated through the cellar, with a little cry she jerked up her legs, half fell off the bed and did as he had ordered.

His eyes starting from their sockets, Gregory sprang forward. But Malacou grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. Von Osterberg swiftly turned his gun in their direction. As they struggled together, Gregory shouted:

`Wait Listen! You can't do this You must have loved Erika once and she is still your wife.'

Von Osterberg nodded and said bitterly, `Yes, she is my wife and I once thought her the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But ours was a marriage of convenience. She accepted me only to please her dying father and resuscitate the family name after she had been prostituting herself to the millionaire Hugo Falkenstein. She made a bargain with me that I was never to enjoy her but she was to be free discreetly to sleep with anyone she liked. In exchange I was to have the prestige of being the husband of the most beautiful women in Germany and she would supply me with all the money I needed for my scientific experiments. But she did not keep her bargain. She ran away to England with you, and as an enemy of the country the Nazis confiscated the great fortune that Falkenstein had left her, leaving me nearly penniless. For that, and for having dragged my name in the mud by betraying her country

I've nursed a growing hatred for her for years. She is a heartless, treacherous bitch and deserves to die.'

He passed his tongue over his dry lips, then went on a sneer. `No doubt you would have liked me to die so that you could marry her. But it is going to be the other way about. By killing her I'll gain my freedom. Then when I find Sabine Tuzolto I'll be free to marry her. She was my mistress the most wonderful mistress I've ever had, and although that did not last we are still good friends. After all, I am won Osterberg, and my family is older than the Hohenzollerns little Hungarian Baroness, however beautiful, is not likely to reject such a match.

You poor fool. Gregory gave a harsh laugh. The only reason Sabine ever became your mistress was because Ribbentrop set her to spy on you. When I was hiding here she spoke of you with contempt as a poor old once-a-weeker. She wouldn't have you as a gift.'

`You lie!' yelled von Osterberg, his face going crimson with mortification and fury. `Not one word of that is true.' In his surge of rage he ran down the last few steps of the stairs and levelled his gun. From the glare in his eyes it was evident that he was about to press the trigger.

Gregory stiffened, realizing that for him the end had come. But at that moment Malacou hurled himself forward. The Sten gun belched flame and the cellar echoed to its thunder. As the bullets buried themselves in Malacou's body he gave a gasp but by a last effort of will he seized the barrel of the gun before slumping to the ground at the Count's feet.

It was Gregory's opportunity. He seized upon it. With a cry of triumph he hurled himself at the Count. His arms were outstretched, his fingers spread wide. In another moment they would have closed on the neck of the older, weaker man in a strangler's grasp and borne him down. But the wine had made the stone floor of the cellar horribly slippery. Gregory's feet slid from under him and he fell backward with a loud splash, measuring his length beside the table. By the time he had regained his feet von Osterberg had wrenched the gun barrel from Malacou's dying grasp, kicked him in the face and had the gun pointing again at Gregory.

Malacou moaned, shuddered and lay still. He had said only a few hours before that he had nothing left to live for and was ready to die, and he had given his life to save a man whom, however different their standards of conduct, he had regarded as his friend. But his sacrifice had been in vain. Erika still stood with drooping shoulders facing the wall and Gregory, now dripping with the spilt wine, was still covered by von Osterberg's murderous weapon.

Wiping the muck from his face with a shaky hand, Gregory said hoarsely, `There! You've killed a man; and one who never did you any harm. You'll have to answer for that in the hereafter. Isn't that enough to have on your conscience?

'No,' replied the Count quietly. `The fool got himself killed

only because he threw himself in the way. Although I suppose I would have had to eliminate him later. Otherwise, as he was a friend of yours he might have played me some trick. Now we've talked enough. Turn round and face the wall.'

At that moment they all caught the sound of light footsteps on the upper stairs. For a second Gregory hoped that the sound would distract von Osterberg so that he could spring upon him. But the Count did not turn his head. Keeping Gregory covered he snarled, `Stay where you are.'

Looking up over his head, Gregory saw Sabine come into view. Her hair was disordered and she was dirty and bedraggled. As she took in the scene below her in the cellar her face showed her amazement, and she gasped:

`Kurt! Gregory! Whatever is going on down there?'

Still not looking round, the Count, recognizing her voice, cried, 'Sabine! You're safe! Thank God! Where have you been?'

At the sound of Sabine's voice Erika had turned round. Her face and Gregory's both showed their unutterable relief. Sabine's arrival at the last minute of the eleventh hour spelt their reprieve. Both were convinced that the Count would not commit a double murder under the eyes of the woman he had said he loved. In breathless silence they listened as Sabine stammered:

`Trudi and I… we tried to get away. We left in the car the day before yesterday… But when I had driven about three miles we saw some Russians. We… we turned off the road and hid in a wood. This morning we made another attempt to get through but were held up by a group of men in German uniforms. They weren't Germans but French or, perhaps, Belgians. Anyway, these swine were set on having my car. They hauled Trudi and me out and… I suppose we were lucky that they were so desperately anxious to get away in it. They threw poor Trudi and me into a ditch, piled into the car and drove off. About an hour after we had pulled ourselves together we saw another lot of Russians, so we ran into a garden and hid ourselves in a bombed-out house there until this evening. As soon as it was dark we decided that the best thing to do was to make our way back here.'

`Where is Trudi now?' asked von Osterberg abruptly.

`She's gone down to the boathouse. I sent her on ahead and told her that if the launch were still there she was to wait for me until I found out if I could possibly get down into the cellar and collect some supplies. The launch is our last chance of escaping from the Russians. But what are you doing pointing that gun at Gregory? And that dead man on the floor. I just don't understand.'

Still keeping Gregory covered, the Count moved round from the bottom of the stairs so that his back was against a wall and he could now see Sabine. With a grim laugh he replied:

`Don't you, my dear. It's plain enough. Between them this man and woman made my life a misery until you came into it. I mean to kill them; then we'll set off in the launch.'

Sabine's big, dark eyes went round with horror. `You can't!' she burst out. `Kurt, you can't! Gregory is an old friend of mine. When I was a prisoner in London he saved my life.'

`He is an English spy. He stole my wife and she has brought dishonour on my name. By the grace of God I found them both here. You keep out of this. When I've shot them we'll get away.'

`Kurt! For God's sake, listen!' Sabine cried. `Of course he is an Englishman, but don't you realize that if only we can get past the Russians he will be able to save us both? If we can reach the British they may make us prisoners but they won't kill us. He'll see to it that we're treated decently. He is the friend of one of the most powerful men in England. As soon as he can he'll arrange for us to be released. Won't you, Gregory?

'Indeed I will,' replied Gregory promptly. `The Herr Grad has everything to gain by doing as you say. I've only to let Sir Pellinore know that it was due to you and him that Erika and I got away and he'll see to everything, including an ample supply of money for you both to live on till things settle down again. I give you my word on that.'

Giving a quick glance at Sabine, von Osterberg shook his head. `No! To this man and my traitor wife I'll be beholden for nothing. They are going to die here. We'll take our chance about what happens afterwards.'

`You are mad!' Sabine shouted at him. `Mad!' Then opening her bag she fumbled in it. After a moment her hand emerged clutching a tiny automatic. She pointed it at von Osterberg's head and gasped, `To escape with them is the only thing to do. If you can't see that so much the worse for you. Drop that gun or I'll shoot!'

Again the hopes of Gregory and Erika rose with a bound. The Count had his back to the wall and was facing Gregory. Erika was on his left staring at him with distended eyes. Sabine was to his right, still on the stairs and a little above him. Without exposing himself to attack by Gregory he could not turn and cover her, so she had command of the situation.

Yet he would not be baulked of his vengeance. Apparently convinced that Sabine would not carry out her threat he again aimed his weapon at Gregory's heart while shouting to her, `Don't act the fool, girl.'

At that moment, she fired her pistol. But the bullet missed and thudded into the table. Erika threw herself forward and grasped her husband round the legs. He staggered but did not fall. Sabine fired again, but the lurch he had given saved him. The bullet sang past his ear.

Gregory was still fully exposed to the muzzle of the Sten gun. For a fraction of a second his life hung in the balance. As the gun spat flame he leapt aside. At the same instant Erika thrust up her hand and knocked the barrel of the gun in the opposite direction. This time Gregory did not slip and, as he moved, he grasped by the neck the hock bottle from which he and Malacou had been drinking.

His spring brought him to within four feet of von Osterberg. Before the Count could traverse the gun to fire another burst Gregory brought the bottle crashing down on his head. It shattered into flying fragments on the place where the bone had been fractured when he had attempted to commit suicide. Without a sound he dropped the Sten gun and fell dead.

For a moment there was utter silence while the three survivors stared at one another. Then Erika got to her feet and Sabine came down the last few stairs. Utterly overcome by strain and emotion, although the two women had met only briefly once before and then as rivals they fell sobbing into one another's arms.

Gregory hoisted Malacou's body on to one of the beds. Erika and Sabine between them got von Osterberg's on to the other. Gregory and Erika knelt down on the wine-washed floor and said a prayer for Malacou's soul. Sabine said one for that of the Count. Then they went up the stairs and out into the night.

When passing Potsdam, as they had expected, they were challenged, but standing up in the launch Gregory shouted in Russian the phrase that Stalin had so often used in his broadcasts, `Death to the Hitlerite bandits,' and they were allowed to pass. They landed next morning about eight miles below Potsdam, near Schwielow, at the far end of the Have] lake. Two evenings later they met British tanks, manned by men some of whom had fought their way gloriously three thousand miles from Cairo to Sicily, half-way up Italy, then from Normandy via Brussels into the heart of Germany.

There followed another anxious day before Gregory could get a telegram sent to Sir Pellinore. After that everything went swiftly and smoothly. Gregory, Erika, Sabine and Trudi were flown back to England in an R.A.F. aircraft. In London that night they saw the lights at last go up, signifying that the war with Germany was over.

On June 6th, the first anniversary of D-Day, Erika again became a bride. From his mansion in Carlton House Terrace, where everything that money could then buy had been provided for the wedding reception, Sir Pellinore escorted her to church and gave her away to become the beloved wife of her beloved Gregory.