Gregory felt that he had explained away rather neatly the fact of such a high officer as a full colonel being in charge of a single prisoner, and he was gratified to see the immediately favourable reaction which the name of Field Marshal Goering provoked in the Nazi, who said promptly:
"In that case, Herr Oberst, our Party Headquarters are entirely at your disposal. Let us go there at once." Then clicking his heels and bowing sharply from the waist he formally introduced himself: "Wentsich."
Gregory followed suit by barking: "Claus," and added: "My prisoner's name is Rogers Flight Lieutenant Rogers."
As they left the station Gregory made Freddie walk in front of him while he talked to the Nazi about the progress of the war. Ten minutes later they entered the main square of the town and after going up a few stone steps passed through a black out light lock into the big hallway of a fine old building which had been taken over as the local Nazi headquarters, on Hitler': coming to power.
Gregory looked warily about him, his hand never very far from the butt of his automatic. The Ober Lieutenant of Black Guards had not betrayed the least sign that he suspected them but Gregory still felt that they might be walking straight into a trap. A dozen Storm Troopers might come running at the Ober Lieutenant's first call but the cynical Englishman meant to see to it that, if that happened, the Ober Lieutenant himself never lived to profit by the results of his strategy.
Except for a couple of clerks working in a downstairs room, the door of which stood open, no one was about, and the Nazi led the way upstairs without giving the signal that Gregory so much dreaded. But, even now, he feared that they were only being led further into the snare so that there should be no possible chance of their shooting their way out and escaping from the building.
On the first floor the Nazi flung open one half of a tall, carved wood door which gave on to a handsome salon overlooking the square. The room was comfortably furnished. A big china stove was hissing with heat in one corner and on a side board stood a fine array of drinks. To Gregory's intense relief the room was unoccupied. It all seemed too good to be true. There must be a snag somewhere.
"Come along in," said the Nazi cheerfully. "What are you going to have?"
Gregory glanced at the bottles and away again. "Hadn't we better see my prisoner locked up first?"
"Need we bother?" the Ober Lieutenant shrugged. "He'll stand no more chance of getting away from you here than he would if he were downstairs in a cell and very much less than when he was alone with you walking to the station from the place where you left your car. Anyhow, it's so darned cold expect the poor chap could do with a drink, too."
At last Gregory's fears were set at rest. Things had panned out as he had desperately prayed that they might. He had suggested that Charlton should be locked up only in order that the S.S. man should more readily believe that he was an important prisoner.
"Certainly;" he agreed at once. "So Long as my prisoner has no chance of getting away I'm perfectly satisfied, and I'm sure he'd like a drink. But he doesn't speak German. Do you speak any English?"
"No: a few words only but enough to say 'How D’you do', 'Hard luck', `You will drink, yes?' " Wentsich smiled at Charlton.
At an almost imperceptible nod from Gregory, Freddie said: "Thanks. It's very kind of you; I'd love one."
He had listened with anxious ears to every word that had been said and was now not only reassured about his own position but felt extremely guilty at his unworthy suspicion that Gregory had ever intended to leave him in the lurch. He could only admire the clever ruse by which his fellow fugitive had accounted for his Air Force uniform and the audacity of this brilliant stroke which had led to their both being received as guests in the comfortable Nazi Party Headquarters the last place in which their enemies would ever look for them.
When Wentsich had poured the drinks all three of them removed their greatcoats and sat down in deep arm chairs near the roaring stove. At first the talk turned on the mythical episode of Freddie's having been shot down over Essen the previous evening. Fortunately, as Wentsich spoke very little English, Freddie was not called on to give any details of his forced landing direct, and Gregory rendered what purported to be a translation of the airman's sensations by drawing freely on his own experiences when they had actually been shot down nearly three weeks before. Several British airmen having fallen victims to the Nazis in the interval, and the localities being so widely separated, the Ober Lieutenant did not suspect any connection between the two episodes.
Gregory then remarked that Wentsich must find life pretty boring stationed so far from the war fronts or any of the great cities; upon which the S.S. man laughed and said:
"In the ordinary way it's pretty quiet here but after the recent Putsch we had plenty to occupy us and, as a matter of fact, I had it over the 'phone half an hour before I met you that only to night half a dozen of our fellows were killed rounding up a traitor Baron about thirty miles from here."
"The devil " exclaimed Gregory, swiftly concealing his un easiness. "I hope they got him."
Wentsich shrugged. "We're not certain yet. The cottage in which he was hiding was burnt to the ground so if he was lying wounded there he was probably roasted to cinders, but he had two or three of his peasants with him and others came on the scene later to try to relieve the cottage when it was attacked. Our people shot several of them but the rest got away by a damned clever trick. In the darkness they managed to get hold of the truck in which our men had come out from Dornitz and they drove off in it. Whether the Baron who is a colonel, by the way got away with them we don't know. If he has, I expect we'll run him to earth before he's much older but I doubt if we'll be able to bring any of the peasants to book. They will probably have ditched the van somewhere and made their way back to their own cottages. As the schemozzle took place in darkness our people couldn't identify any of the men who attacked them, so I don't see how we're going to prove which of the `locals` was in the show and which wasn't; and it's quite certain that all their wives will swear that they were safely in bed at home."
These were really cheering tidings for the fugitives. No; only did it look as though the woodmen who had assisted them so loyally would come out of the affair all right but apparently the Nazis had no idea that the two airmen who had been shot down in the neighbourhood over a fortnight before had had any hand in the matter. Presumably they had both been written off as having managed to escape safely out of the district and since no description could be circulated of either of them, no body was bothering to try to trace them up any more.
"Even if life in Belzig is a bit boring at times, though,' Wentsich went on, "I'd a darned sight rather be stationed here than in Czechoslovakia."
"Yes. We've been having quite a spot of bother there recently, haven't we?" Gregory murmured. "Apparently, last week they had to shoot twelve students as an example."
"Twelve " the Nazi laughed. "That was only the start of t. We had to shoot 1,700 of these blasted Czechs to prevent our garrisons from being massacred. Prague was in a state of open revolution last week end and orders came from the Führer himself that, whatever the effect on neutral opinion, the revolt had to be put down. From what I've heard, it's been absolute hell there."