CHAPTER XXII
PANDORA’S BOX
«My REAL name,» said Drax, addressing himself to Bond, «is Graf Hugo von der Drache. My mother was English and because of her I was educated in England until I was twelve. Then I could stand this filthy country no longer and I completed my education in Berlin and Leipzig.»
Bond could imagine that the hulking body with the ogre’s teeth had not been very welcome at an English private school. And being a foreign count with a mouthful of names would not have helped much.
«When I was twenty,» Drax’s eyes glowed reminiscently, «I went to work in the family business. It was a subsidiary of the great steel combine Rheinmetall Borsig. Never heard of it, I suppose. Well, if you’d been hit by an 88 mm. shell during the war it would probably have been one of theirs. Our subsidiary were experts in special steels and I learned all about them and a lot about the aircraft industry. Our most exacting customers. That’s when I first heard about Columbite. Worth diamonds in those days. Then I joined the party and almost immediately we were at war. A wonderful time. I was twenty-eight and a lieutenant in the 140th Panzer Regiment. And we ran through the British Army in France like a knife through butter. Intoxicating.»
For a moment Drax puffed luxuriously at his cigar and Bond guessed that he was seeing the burning villages of Belgium in the smoke.
«Those were great days, my dear Bond.» Drax reached out a long arm and tapped the ash of his cigar off on to the floor. «But then I was picked out for the Brandenburg Division and I had to leave the girls and the champagne and go back to Germany and start training for the big water-jump to England. My English was needed in the Division. We were all going to be in English uniforms. It would have been fun, but the damned generals said it couldn’t be done and I was transferred to the Foreign Intelligence Service of the SS. The RSHA it was called, and SS Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner had just taken over the command after Heydrich was assassinated in ’42. He was a good man and I was under the direct orders of a still better one, Obersturmbannführer,» he rolled out the delicious title with relish, «Otto Skorzeny. His job in the RSHA was terrorism and sabotage. A pleasant interlude, my dear Bond, during which I was able to bring many an Englishman to book which,» Drax beamed coldly at Bond, «gave me much pleasure. But then,» Drax’s fist crashed down on the desk, «Hitler was betrayed again by those swinish generals and the English and Americans were allowed to land in France.»
«Too bad,» said Bond drily.
«Yes, my dear Bond, it was indeed too bad.» Drax chose to ignore the irony.«But for me it was the high-spot of the whole war. Skorzeny turned all his saboteurs and terrorists into SS Jagdverbände for use behind the enemy lines. Each Jagdverband was divided into Streifkorps and then into Kommandos, each carrying the names of its commanding officer. With the rank of Oberleutnant,» Drax swelled visibly, «at the head of Kommando ‘Drache’ I went right through the American lines with the famous 150 Panzer Brigade in the Ardennes break-through in December ’44. No doubt you will remember the effect of this Brigade in its American uniforms and with its captured American tanks and vehicles. Kolossal! When the Brigade had to withdraw I stayed where I was and went to ground in the Forests of Ardennes, fifty miles behind the Allied lines. There were twenty of us, ten good men and ten Hitlerjugend Werewolves. In their teens, but good lads all of them. And, by a coincidence, in charge of them was a young man called Krebs who turned out to have certain gifts which qualified him for the post of executioner and ‘persuader’ to our merry little band.» Drax chuckled pleasantly.
Bond licked his lips as he remembered the crack Krebs’s head had made against the dressing-table. Had he kicked him as hard as he possibly could? Yes, his memory reassured him, with every ounce of strength he could put into his shoe.
«We stayed in those woods for six months,» continued Drax proudly, «and all the time we reported back to the Fatherland by radio. The location vans never spotted us. Then one day disaster came.» Drax shook his head at the memory. «There was a big farmhouse a mile away from our hideout in the forest. A lot of Nissen huts had been built round it and it was used as a rear headquarters for some sort of liaison group. English and Americans. A hopeless place. No discipline, no security, and full of hangers-on and shirkers from all over the place. We had kept an eye on it for some time and one day I decided to blow it up. It was a simple plan. In the evening, two of my men, one in American uniform and one in British, were to drive up in a captured scout car containing two tons of explosive. There was a car park—no sentries of course—near the mess hall and they were to run the car in as close to the mess hall as possible, time the fuse for the seven o’clock dinner hour, and then get away. All quite easy and I went off that morning on my own business and left the job to my second in command. I was dressed in the uniform of your Signal Corps and I set off on a captured British motor-cycle to shoot a dispatch rider from the same unit who made a daily run along a near-by road. Sure enough he came along dead on time and I went after him out of a side road. I caught up with him,» said Drax conversationally, «and shot him in the back, took his papers and put him on top of his machine in the woods and set fire to him.»
Drax saw the fury in Bond’s eyes and held up his hand. «Not very sporting? My dear chap, the man was already dead. However, to continue. I went on my way and then what should happen? One of our own planes coming back from a reconnaissance came after me down the road with his cannon. One of our own planes! Blasted me right off the road. God knows how long I lay in the ditch. Some time in the afternoon I came to for a bit and had the sense to hide my cap and jacket and the dispatches. In the hedge. They’re probably still there. I must go and collect them one day. Interesting souvenirs. Then I set fire to the remains of the motor-cycle and I must have fainted again because the next thing I knew I had been picked up by a British vehicle and we were driving into that damned liaison headquarters! Believe it or not! And there was the scout car, right up alongside the mess hall! It was too much for me. I was full of shell splinters and my leg was broken. Well, I fainted and when I came round there was half the hospital on top of me and I only had half a face.» He put up his hand and stroked the shiny skin on his left temple and cheek. «After that it was just a question of acting a part. They had no idea who I was. The car that had picked me up had gone or been blown to pieces. I was just an Englishman in an English shirt and trousers who was nearly dead.»
Drax paused and took out another cigar and lit it. There was silence in the room save for the soft diminished roar of the blowtorch. Its threatening voice was quieter. Pressure running out, reflected Bond.
He turned his head and looked at Gala. For the first time he saw the ugly bruise behind her left ear. He gave her a smile of encouragement and she smiled wryly back.
Drax spoke through the cigar smoke: «There is not much more to tell,» he said. «During the year that I was being pushed from one hospital to the next I made my plans down to the smallest detail. They consisted quite simply of revenge on England for what she had done to me and to my country. It gradually became an obsession, I admit it. Every day during the year of the rape and destruction of my country my hatred and scorn for the English grew more bitter.» The veins on Drax’s face started to swell and suddenly he pounded on the desk and shouted across at them, looking with bulging eyes from one to the other. «I loathe and despise you all. You swine! Useless, idle, decadent fools, hiding behind your bloody white cliffs while other people fight your battles. Too weak to defend your colonies, toadying to America with your hats in your hands. Stinking snobs who’ll do anything for money. Hah!» he was triumphant. «I knew that all I needed was money and the façade of a gentleman. Gentleman! Pfui Teufel! To me a gentleman is just someone I can take advantage of. Those bloody fools in Blades for instance. Moneyed oafs. For months I took thousands of pounds off them, swindled them right under their noses until you came along and upset the apple-cart.»