Kruze knew the name of the man who raised his head from the table in the middle of the room, because he had read the plate on the door. Hauptmann Udo Philipp looked up at Giesecke, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and most of the contents of the bottle by his elbow, then glanced across to Kruze and Herries. The latter’s uniform prompted him to raise an eyebrow, but nothing more. The Hauptmann’s blond hair fell forlornly over his forehead and there was at least three days’ stubble on his face. Once, Philipp had been a great man, Kruze could tell. The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves showed above the frayed collar of his grey Luftwaffe tunic.
There was the chink of bottle on glass as Philipp took a refill from the brandy bottle. When he looked back to Giesecke, the corporal was standing rigidly to attention, his eyes focused on the crooked picture of the Führer behind the garrison commander’s back. Philipp waved a hand theatrically and Giesecke stood at ease.
“This is either an American’s idea of disguise, or the Gestapo come to get me,” Philipp laughed manically, pointing a shaking finger at Kruze. “Why else would you bring him here, Giesecke?” he asked, slurring the corporal’s name. The Rhodesian suddenly felt sticky under his two layers of clothing, but he stared back at the captain, willing Herries to take the upper hand.
“He’s a Rumanian,” Giesecke said, embarrassed at his officer’s behaviour in front of the SS. “And this is his escort, SS-Obersturmführer Herries.
“So what do they want here?”
“They say they are authorized to enter the base. I need to use your phone to obtain clearance from the station kommandant, Herr Hauptmann. We have nothing on them.”
Kruze saw Herries look rapidly from the telephone on the table to the husk of a man behind it and saw what was going through his mind. Before the Hauptmann could react, Herries made his move, pushing the corporal out of the way as he moved across the room. In one fluid move he pulled the Hauptmann out of his chair, sending the table flying, the bottle and the telephone with it. If Philipp wanted to put a call through to the base commander, he would not be using the telephone in his office any more, Kruze thought. It lay in pieces on the floor, its wires covered with broken glass and alcohol.
“I have orders to get this man, an important emissary of the Rumanian Government, on a flight to Bucharest, and from this base.” Herries grabbed the papers from Giesecke and shoved them under Philipp’s nose. “So far, I have had nothing but sloppy excuses. I take one look at you, Philipp, and I know why.”
The Hauptmann tried to shake the drowsiness from his head. “There has been no authorization from Berlin…”
Herries pressed the forged documents up against the man’s face. “This order has come direct from Abteilung 13, which I should not have to remind you is the special operations department of the OKL. If you were not informed about this development, then I suggest it is because they could not trust you with the information.”
“But this is a fighter-bomber station,” Philipp protested.
“I don’t care if it’s a three-ring circus,” Herries shouted. “In under an hour a Junkers transport is due to land here. Five minutes later it will leave with him on it — or you face the consequences.”
Philipp looked down at the remains of his telephone and the shards of glass surrounding it and sighed. “Take them over to flight operations,” he said to Giesecke.
“That won’t be necessary,” Herries said, trying to hide his elation. “We will find our own way. I am sure you need all the help you can get when the Americans arrive and that Giesecke, here, will be only too happy to lead the counterattack that will repel the enemy from the airfield.”
“So be it,” Philipp murmured. “Now just get out of here.”
Herries and Kruze left Giesecke staring into the dazed, drunken face of the field regiment officer. They picked their way carefully through the dormitory, trying not to hurry. They reached the reinforced door, put their weight against it and stepped out into what was left of the night.
Udo Philipp sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette, taking the smoke down deep into his lungs to try and eradicate the pang he felt at the loss of the precious bottle. When he looked up, Giesecke was gone. The spot he had vacated was filled instead by the tall man with the steel-rimmed glasses who had been waiting since the previous evening in the room across the corridor for the staff car that was due to take him back to Berlin.
“I am sure that your car will be here at any moment, Herr Hartmann,” the Luftwaffe captain said in a voice that showed he didn’t really care about anything much any more.
“Never mind that,” the other man said. “What was the name of that SS officer in this room just now?”
Philipp went through a pretence of racking his booze-filled brains, watching the smoke of his cigarette curl lazily up towards the ceiling of his office. If it wasn’t the SS who were giving him a difficult time at Oberammergau, it was the Gestapo. Neither caused him fear any more. How could they when the Americans were so close?
“It was Herries, I think,” he said.
“As I thought,” the Gestapo man nodded, satisfied. “An unusual name, too, don’t you think? And yet I know it from somewhere. Now why should that be?”
“I can’t think, Herr Hartmann,” Philipp said.
“Herries… Herries,” Hartmann mused softly. “It is a name I heard recently, two days ago, when I was in Berlin.” He moved over to the table. “He is wanted for something, I am sure of it. Art theft, perhaps. No, something else. Damn it! I can’t remember. Where’s your phone? I must try to get through to Berlin.”
The Hauptmann pointed to the floor. “Broken. He did it, too, the son of a bitch. There’s another one down the corridor, though, in the stores room. Perhaps…”
But Hartmann had already gone, stumbling across the bodies that filled every piece of available floor space in the block-house. He ignored the curses of the men whose fingers he crushed under foot, not resting until he found the store-room. It was pitifully empty of weapons and provisions, but it did still have a telephone on the far wall.
He had come to Bavaria on the special orders of the Reichsführer-SS to make a whistle-stop inspection of the frontline forces under Field Marshal Schörner, paying particular attention to the morale of the troops. He would
shortly convey the results to Himmler, confirming that the spirit of the troops had never been better and that the Americans would surely be repulsed. There was, after all, no point in telling him the truth.
Herries had him intrigued, though. He knew that name. For the life of him, he could not remember what offence it was the man had committed. There were so many things to take care of these days and his memory wasn’t what it used to be.
He picked up the phone and fought for a connection to Berlin. Five minutes later and he was through to the headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence wing of the SS, and asked to be put in touch with the records office, if it hadn’t been flattened by the Allied bombing.
They slipped through the trees surrounding the block-house and onto the road that led from the gate into the heart of the base. The Rhodesian looked at his watch. It had taken them half an hour to get through security and yet Herries, despite his bravado, seemed to have aged ten years. He wondered what it would take for the man to crack.
Kruze’s sense of familiarity with the place returned. It was something carried to him on the wind. And then he had it, the tang of aviation spirit injected into a combustion chamber and blown out through a jet engine as hot, powerful thrust.