Krilov reclined a little more, no longer caring about the sharp discomfort of the seat. It felt good to be going into action again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Herries’ few hours in the barn could have been his most comfortable since his arrival on the Eastern Front, but he chose not to sleep.
He wasn’t afraid of being discovered by the peasant who owned the barn, for he could easily have bluffed his way through any encounter with a rural Czechoslovakian simpleton.
Herries’ restlessness centred on the tenacity of the Siberians whom the Russians used to hunt insurgents behind their lines. If they were onto him, they could have picked up his trail from the point where Dietz’s body lay broken in the road. He was pretty sure that such clues as he had left were minimal, but now that he was only a matter of miles from his goal, it paid to stay on his guard. If he had been discovered, there would have been no question of bluffing his way past the Russians who controlled their Siberian hunters. They would have cast one look at the jeep hidden inside the barn and taken him away to be shot, either as a spy, a deserter or a black marketeer — jeeps commanded a high price with the partisans.
As soon as he had caught his breath, Herries arose from his bed of straw, heaped in one of the corners of the dry stone building. He knew the most dangerous part of the journey was yet to come.
He had survived the two-day trek through the dripping forest, avoiding its dangers with the skill of a seasoned poacher. He had skirted Branodz by about three kilometres along the way and crept up to a bluff, which overlooked the centre of the town to see Ivan’s preparations for the invasion of the West for himself. Squinting through his Zeisses he had seen the armour, the preparations, the hive of activity around the headquarters. There had been patrols, but none had come close to him. He was still good, even without Dietz.
But this morning he was heading into the beast’s lair. Today would signal the end of the journey, one way or the other.
Herries stood in the middle of the barn and dusted the straw off his uniform. He walked over to the jeep and inspected his face in the rear-view mirror. Stubble was returning to his sallow cheeks, but he scratched it off with his razor, the light that streamed through the cracks in the wooden roof being just sufficient to show him what he was doing.
He had needed cover, a place to go to ground for a few hours. He had not been long on the road when he spotted the barn down the muddy track. It was the perfect place to hide the secret of Archangel.
Herries placed his officer’s cap on his head and inspected the face that stared back at him in the jeep’s mirror. He reckoned that with the greatcoat to conceal the reddish-brown mark that stained his chest, he could pass unchallenged into Pilzen.
He walked back to the corner where he had rested and pulled back some of the straw until the base of the stone wall was exposed. He removed the loose rock that he had found the night before and stuffed the small package into the dark recess that lay behind. He wedged the stone back into its position, satisfied that it looked undisturbed and then heaped the straw back into the corner.
The job finished, he pulled back the twin doors of the barn and paused to scrutinize the surrounding woods to make sure that he had not been observed.
The jeep started up first time. He coasted down to the end of the track and resumed his journey along the last few kilometres that led into Pilzen.
Before the radio was destroyed during their retreat from Boskovice, Herries had reckoned on the German-occupied town in Western Czechoslovakia being the next to crack between the vice-like squeeze of the converging Soviet and American Armies.
When he crossed the town’s limits in his jeep, he wasn’t so sure. His eyes darted in and out of the columns of Red Army troops that lined the streets for signs of a Western presence. He was in the centre of the town and on the point of turning round when he spotted the Stars and Stripes fluttering reassuringly in the wind on a building at the far side of the main square. His pulse quickened as he steered the vehicle straight for it.
He drew up outside the building and hailed the burly US military policeman who was standing guard outside. Trying hard to keep his nerve, he mustered a halting Russian accent.
“I have signal for the British liaison officer. Please to tell me where is the British delegation.” Herries prayed that the American would not run a spot check on his papers.
The MP ambled down to the jeep.
“You want the British mission? Jesus Christ, another one?” The American gritted his teeth. “You’re almost there, bud. See that grey building on the other side of the square? You’ll find the British in there. Why the hell they can’t put a flag outside their building same as we do, I don’t know. That way I wouldn’t have to give fifty goddamned guys like you the directions every day.”
Herries put the jeep in gear and tore round to the other side of the square, scattering a group of US and Soviet personnel who were bartering in the road outside the British building. Herries leapt out of the vehicle, bounded up the steps and was through the door.
“And where the bloody ‘ell do you think you’re going Joe?” The hand that had grabbed him prevented him from reaching the officer who was sitting at a desk on the far side of the room. He turned round to confront the sentry. The clipped, English public-school tones of his voice echoed throughout the sparsely furnished lobby.
“I am an officer of the German armed forces and I have come to surrender myself to your commanding officer. I have vital, urgent information to convey.”
Amazement registered on the soldier’s face before he drew the bolt back on his Sten and held the muzzle firmly up against Herries’ chest. The corporal didn’t need to summon the captain over. In a moment he was beside the sentry, his startled eyes searching Herries’ haggard face.
“What the devil’s going on here? Who are you?” The voice was pure Sandhurst.
“My name is Herries. I am an Obersturmführer of the Waffen-SS. I have come to turn myself in to the British authorities, because I have some vital information which I must report to your commanding officer.” Herries cast a sidelong look through the open door, beyond which Russian and American soldiers were trying to get a glimpse of him. The corporal also noticed the prying eyes and slammed the door shut.
“Hold on a bloody moment, let me get this right,” the infantry captain said. “You’re a German officer, wearing Russian uniform, talking to me in King’s English and you want to surrender to my commanding officer with urgent information?”
“That’s right,” Herries said levelly. “And if you value those pips on your shoulder, Captain, you should take me to him now.”
The officer looked at Herries for a long time. Then his mouth cracked into a smile. “Well, how do you do,” he said. “And I’m Winston fucking Churchill. Corporal, lock this man up in the stores room and keep him under armed guard while I fetch the colonel. He’s not going to believe this.”
Colonel Jackson listened at first impassively to Herries’ story and then with increasing distaste.
The picture that Herries painted made him sick — an actual regiment of British volunteers fighting on the Russian Front. Alone in the stores room with Herries, Jackson would have gladly put a bullet through the traitor’s head but for the startling information he was holding.
Herries, made to stand in the corner of the dim room with only his trousers on, was shivering convulsively. He was clearly ill, but Jackson felt no compassion.
“I don’t have the authority to grant what you ask, but even if I had, why should I believe you?” Jackson asked with a sneer. ‘The fact that your Reich is on its last knees obviously would not have escaped your attention, so you came up with this incredible tale to save your stinking neck.”