How come, he wanted to know, was I driving a Swedish car? I concocted a totally insane and improbable story. I had, I told him, bought the car from a member of the British Embassy in Stockholm. My friend had gone back there and was sending me the papers and the car would then be registered with British plates. As this nonsense was pouring out, my tall and distinguished compatriot was beginning to grin. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I see.’ He introduced himself as Count Bernadotte, Head of the International Red Cross. He wished me good luck and departed with a friendly wave. He was a man who did not wish to make trouble for anyone. No other problem ever arose.
I was now, at last, enjoying complete freedom of movement, limited only by the 01.00 hours curfew for Allied personnel.
I set off for Munich and a visit to see my mother and I arranged for her to move into much better quarters. I had been sending her essential things and I found her looking much better and being pampered by people around her now that she was enjoying the protection of her British officer son.
I paid several visits to Maditta’s home and we soon reached the conclusion that we were no longer right for each other. She had a visitor one evening when I called in to see her on my way to Garmisch for some skiing. I had seen him somewhere before and finally realised he was checking up on me. I started to ask questions, and he gave me all the answers. His name was Joe Warner, and he was with CIC. He had been assigned to investigate me. Somebody had become interested in my extracurricular excursions in my unlawful automobile. Having been found to be ‘clean’ I was left in peace and not a word reached my commanding officer. Joe Warner and I became firm friends and he was instrumental in getting the denunciations against Diels’ hosts cleared up and he was able to protect them until he went back to the US. Joe also fell in love with Maditta, unsuccessfully, I’m afraid, but he cleared the way for her to depart for Canada and marriage long before Germans were able to travel overseas in the normal course of events.
Garmisch was the number one saving grace during my Nuremberg days. We used to travel up and down the mountain by means of a gondola, in which only a few Germans were allowed to ride – if there was any room for them. One day I was standing on the platform of the station, waiting for the gondola to swing in, and idly looking at the crowded German waiting area. There I saw, wedged into the tightly packed crowd, Lieutenant-Colonel Volchkov, alternate Russian member of the International Military Tribunal. Don’t ask me how he had got in there and why. Possibly the German ticket collector had mistaken him for a displaced person. Certainly, nobody could have understood any protestations he or his side might have voiced, because if anyone had realised who he was they would have trembled in fear and bowed him aboard. Naturally, I went into action. I grabbed Hermann, the man in charge with whom I was on good terms, and told him that he had a guest of honour and who he was, and where. We dived in amongst the waiting Germans – ‘There’s a Russian General in there’ shouted Hermann – and the crowd parted like the Red Sea and Hermann ushered the Colonel and his adjutant aboard the gondola.
As far as I was concerned, that’s where the matter ended. But when I got off the cable car the next time, the adjutant was waiting for me. ‘The Colonel is very grateful,’ he said in passable English. ‘He invites you to lunch at the Post Hotel at 13.00 hours please.’ Who was I to decline such hospitality? Furthermore, the weather was closing-in, skiing wouldn’t be good, anyway. I changed into uniform and made my way to the Post Hotel, one of Europe’s famous resort hotels, situated in the centre of things and full of style and atmosphere. The owners, the Clausing family, had, I hoped, been taken to less elegant quarters, probably jail or internment, because of their devoted services rendered to the beloved Fuehrer. Many of the staff remained however and were now serving the officers of the US Army, whose club the Post had become. I was assigned accommodation there on a later occasion and found myself occupying the owner’s suite. Somehow, none of my American predecessors had applied the fine-tooth-comb treatment to the rooms and I discovered a hidden cupboard which I pried open. It contained such sought-after articles as SS ‘Daggers of Honour’ with the Clausing initials and several rather nice pistols and revolvers, which I felt compelled to impound.
I drank to excess on those occasions and am reminded of a drinking contest I organised between some fine, upstanding men. A friendly argument had arisen, in the library of the courthouse, between an American major, Sam Harris, Major Airey Neave of the British Army, a French colonel and a Russian major, over the question of who among those present in Nuremberg, was best able to hold their liquor – the French, the Russians, the British, or the Americans.
Anxious to ingratiate myself with my higher-ups, I ventured the innocent suggestion that the answer could be found later in the evening, at the Grand Hotel. Part of my thinking was based on patriotism. I had been out drinking with Airey Neave for one whole night earlier and at 07.30 hours the following morning he was standing up, admirably straight and seemingly sober in spite of the vast amounts of whisky we had absorbed. Such a man, I knew, would keep our flag flying. I was appointed referee and ordered not to drink, which was an undesirable development I had not foreseen. It goes without saying that at 21.00 hours that night, the Russian side appeared, armed with Vodka, France brought Cognac, Sam Harris was toting some bottles of Southern Comfort and Airey Neave was accompanied by man’s best friend, John Haig, Black Label. Simple rules were to apply. I would fill the glasses with the chosen liquid, refill them when all four were empty, and he who stood up at the end would be declared the winner. The first white flag was raised by France.
Major Sam Harris, United States Army, retired next, to an arm-chair in the rear of the arena, where he fell into the sleep of the innocent. That left the Soviet Socialist Republic and the British Empire to settle the issue. We were in the early morning hours by now, and my seniors were finishing their second bottles. Then the Russian rose. He did not, as might be expected, lurch to his feet. He stood up straight ‘Mister Neave,’ he said, ‘I will not go on. You win.’ And he clinked glasses with Airey, sank back in his chair and passed out. Major Neave, the victor, cast a loving glance at the Black Label before him, sat down in the nearest chair and he too fell asleep.
At about that time I received the news that I was to be discharged from the British Army and my orders stated that I should report to an Army depot at Guildford to be removed from His Majesty’s payroll. The depot at Guildford was enormous; soldiers poured in at one end and somewhat odd-looking civilians in dreadful demob suits emerged from the other.
The paperwork came first, ending with the handing over of the wartime gratuity, a cash payment of, in my case, £166 in addition to one month’s staff captain’s pay. After five and-a-half-years of serving the cause of freedom faithfully I was now free myself – and rich.
I did a little stock taking. Did I regret the loss of those years? No, I didn’t want to stay out of the war, I went through it, not as I had planned, but by doing the next best thing. Interment was a matter to be forgotten, though not forgiven. Did I enjoy some of it? Yes, the comradeship, the rivalry, the supreme physical fitness, the corners cut, the battles of wits – some of them won. Did I hate some of it? Yes. The time wasted in the Pioneers, the despicable types chosen as our superiors – the frustration, in other words. Did I profit from it all? And how! Self-discipline, tenacity, patience, self-control had been acquired and would remain constant assets. Was I a success? Emphatically no, as a soldier, but yes, in making a case for myself, and many more like me. I was now thirty-three years old, halfway, let’s say, along the road of life. The order of the day was, clearly, to ‘keep it up’ for at least as long I am winning.