1104 hrs, Monday, 26th August 1946, French Military Headquarters in Bavaria, Altes Schloss Eremitage, Bayreuth, Germany.
“Welcome, Ernst, welcome.”
De Walle and Knocke embraced as De Walle was accustomed to, and Knocke was gradually becoming less embarrassed about.
“How’s Anne-Marie?”
“Well, thank you. Apparently finishing up ordering the wedding dress before she returns.”
“Again, thank you for the honour you do me, Ernst.”
“Anne-Marie had no one else in mind, Georges… and thank you for agreeing to participate anyway.”
“My pleasure. Anyway, down to business. You know you will be moving forward again soon?”
“I never doubted it, once they’d sorted out the demarcation lines between us and the German Republican forces. Seems to be as difficult to get agreement as it is with the Russians up in Sweden.”
De Walle grinned, not totally in humour.
“There’s an element of truth in that it seems. My sources tell me that there are often some strange sticking points. None the less, we’re all going in the right direction. So, what can I do for you?”
Knocke pulled out his wallet and sought the coded message.
“And there was me thinking you were going to offer me a bribe.”
They shared a laugh, Knocke rising to get a drink as De Walle read the message.
“Now… you have my full attention, Ernst. What am I holding?”
“That message was sent to me, via my godmother. It was sent by a dead man, my cousin, so it would appear he isn’t dead after all.”
“So what does it mean, and why do you show it to me?”
“That is the question. I know part of what it means, but not all. I’m showing it to you so that you can use your contacts to see what you can find out about its message. Reverse it… a simple childhood code. The name Uspenka stands out. I fought there in the war. Nasty place. But what the numbers and letters mean, I haven’t got an idea… which is where you come in, Georges.”
De Walle produced a pen and made a precise copy of the note before returning it to Knocke and accepting his coffee.
“What’s your cousin’s name? Maybe I can find out about him too?”
“Steyn, David Steyn. He was… or even still maybe is… a shopkeeper in Königsberg. Actually, the most intelligent shopkeeper you ever might meet. Ex-Kriegsmarine engineer submariner from 1918. I always felt that there was something else in his life… something government… official and decidedly secret… but I never asked… didn’t want to put him in a position.”
“Quite understand, Ernst… Kriegsmarine engineer… hmm… worth checking that angle too…”
De Walle made a few more notes and tucked the paper in his tunic pocket.
“I’ll see what I can find out, Ernst. Now… how’s the nerves?”
Knocke scoffed in such a way as to confirm his increasing unease with the approaching wedding day announcement.
“None at all and neither should there be!”
“And neither should there be, as you say. Many a man would jump at the chance to wed such an intelligent and loyal beauty.”
“The pistol under the pillow takes a bit of getting used to though.”
“All joking to one side, Ernst, she is one of my best.”
That De Walle said ‘is’ rather than ‘was’ still hurt, as Knocke had tried so hard to get Anne-Marie to retire and put together a family home.
De Walle understood.
“She’s a free spirit, Ernst… one that has attached herself to you… but you can never cage her… you do know that?”
Knocke shrugged and moved to get the coffee pot.
“Yes, I know. One of her many charms, Georges.”
They clinked mugs in a silent toast to Anne-Marie de Valois, soon to be Knocke.
Chapter 173 – THE PEACETIME
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
August 1946
The World descended into peace and there was a period of wondrous nothingness, almost as if the armies and civilians collectively exhaled in relief and decided to take a moment’s rest before starting on the path that would return the planet to something approaching normality… or whatever normal would be after two huge conflicts over eight bloody and horrible years.
The mechanics of the Soviet withdrawal were decided upon, and the two combatant sides liaised at national and local level, in an effort to ensure that there was no incident that could bring the two sides back to aggression and death.
This often meant that combat officers who had pitted their wits against each other found themselves sharing cigarettes and coffee whilst poring over maps, working together to ensure that no more of their young men would die.
Occasionally there were problems, as happened in the area of the Legion Corps D’Assaut, where not-so-old memories made liaisons more difficult.
There were also the other sort of problems, those decidedly inevitable errors of judgement that touched lives on both sides.
On Saturday 24th August, a Soviet-manned Curtiss O-52 Owl made the mistake of straying over the Allied lines and was chopped from the sky by DRL FW-190s.
Two days later, an Estonian fishing vessel broke the exclusion zone off the north coast of Poland, bringing interception by the patrolling Żuraw, a Polish minesweeper. The crew were imprisoned and subsequently revealed to be Soviet naval personnel.
The most serious incident of the month occurred over the approaches to Berlin, when two Arado-234 jet reconnaissance aircraft were bounced and knocked from the sky by Soviet-manned ME-262s from 2nd Guards Special Red Banner Order of Suvorov Fighter Aviation Regiment, one of which was piloted by Djorov’s 2IC, Oligrevin.
Aggressive aerial patrolling followed, and a LaGG-5 was shot down for threatening a repeat of the German’s recon operation, which was undertaking the agreed monitoring of Soviet withdrawals around Bad Lauterberg.
Night drew the posturing and dying to a close and, although both sides flew night fighters in large numbers over the area, no further encounters of note occurred and by morning the situation had returned to an uneasy calm.
The most significant events of August 1946 went completely unnoticed by the Allies, or at least, one was noticed but not comprehended and one was noticed only by those who had been bribed not to notice.
2003 hrs, Tuesday, 27th August 1946, Thessaloniki, Greece.
The two vessels from another ocean, the Tsukushi Maru and Nachi Maru, dropped anchor as directed by the pilot, a devoted clandestine member of the Greek Communist Party, the KKE, who was privy to the needs of the operation, as far as he needed to be of course.
Lights burned brightly as their small cargoes of rubber and other exotic far-eastern goods started the final stage of their journey into the warehouses ashore.
The British naval officer supervising the arrival and unloading had already been briefed on the nature of the two vessels, and quickly checked to ensure that all the paperwork was in order before returning to the pilot’s craft for the short trip back to his billet and the waiting local beauty who had finally succumbed to his advances and then some, her eager sexual compliance done at the suggestion of her KKE uncle, in order to make him less inclined to nose too deeply.
Part of the logistical planning of Raduga required avoiding putting all the eggs in one basket so, when the unloading lights disappeared with the last stevedores and night fully embraced the anchorage, four small boats put out to shore, carrying silent figures with the papers of Chinese government officials with official business ahead in Bulgaria.