‘You can have a ciggie now, Vince, but open the bloody window, and don’t throw your fag ends out: we don’t want them finding stubs saying “Craven A” in the morning.’
To say that waiting for hours, as they had to, was agony came under the heading of understatement. The guess was that if their ploy was discovered it would be put down to the inefficiency, possibly even the malice, of a Communist railway worker. If it was not discovered, it was housey-housey, a full card, all the numbers and the jackpot!
Work went on right through the night, trains moving and arriving, so the engine designated to take their weapons to Constanta was not spotted right away, only becoming an object of interest when it got close, all three getting out to stand by the fence and watch. They could see the puffs of smoke lit up by the arc lamps, yet it was impossible to tell, from a distance, which set of freight wagons it had backed up to. Breath was held as a steady jet of steam and smoke was ejected from its funnel, indicating it was beginning to pull, that turning to yelps of delight as the set of wagons that had pulled in earlier were now being towed out.
‘Time we made for Constanta, I think.’
‘Bit bloody rich, Cal, fetching the Gestapo in another country, don’t you think? Cause a diplomatic incident, I shouldn’t wonder.’
They had been discussing the possibility of them turning up here in Constanta, but Jardine thought that unlikely until Dimitrescu alerted them. ‘He will come with enough bods to take me, because he will want to hand me over as a present, and he will only do that when he is certain his money is in the bank.’
‘If we get away with this he’s going to come a right cropper.’
‘He might, but it would not surprise me if he manages to shift the blame. Slippery buggers have a habit of doing that.’
‘You going to enlighten him?’
‘No, Peter, let him think it was the Communists or his political opponents that did the dirty. Right now we have to locate your contact, then get him to find some dockers to work overtime.’
The Constanta agent, a man named Antonescu, had so little English it was a wonder a non-linguist like Lanchester had managed to deal with him, but, like most of his fellow countrymen, he did speak German, so the task of asking for his help fell to Jardine, who found him a pleasure to deal with, he being brisk, businesslike and eager to please. First he sent a messenger to the Turkish captain to be ready to load cargo. MS Tarvita, displacing three and a half thousand tons, was tied up at the quayside. She had been hired by a British shipping line, one that Lanchester declined to name when asked.
Lanchester had a little surprise for Cal Jardine, one he had kept quiet about, but an act that served to show he was not just a gofer on this job. He had got Antonescu to bespeak a cargo of grain, enough to provide a visible cover for the amount of goods Tarvita was going to be transporting. His ship’s manifest would say the whole cargo was that, a product produced in abundance round the Black Sea, and he had independently decided the captain should also state the vessel’s destination as the island of Madagascar.
Jardine enquired about how difficult it would be getting out through the Sea of Marmara into the Med, the response from Antonescu a rubbed finger and thumb; the captain being Turkish would bribe the customs inspectors, with further elucidation indicating it would not be expensive as they were not landing goods on Turkish soil.
Asked about finding stevedores to load late in the day also proved easy: with the port run down they were in need of work. Antonescu sent for one of the men who led the union, not forgetting to add, with no great pleasure, that the man was a rabid Communist and troublemaker.
Captain Erdogan arrived to be introduced — not easy, as there was another language barrier, given his English was eccentric — then to be told by Antonescu that they would be loading immediately a train arrived and to get his holds open, which had Jardine referring to the conversation Lanchester must have had with him on his first visit.
‘Ask awkward questions, Cal? No, he did not. Something tells me this is not the first time our Mr Antonescu has indulged in moving contraband. Whoever found him for us did well.’
‘I can’t help wondering how you dealt with him.’
‘It was murder, given I dare not use an interpreter.’
Respect for Peter Lanchester was rising; Jardine had always known he was not an idiot, but he was showing signs of being a very smart operator too. Reverting to German he asked Antonescu what the dock workers liked to drink and where to get hold of it, money being produced and handed over for the procurement of a large quantity of booze, to include food as well as music.
Jardine and Vince were at the rail freight yard when the train pulled in — Lanchester having gone off to do a bit of prearranged business. Again Antonescu proved an asset: he instructed the local railway manager that it was to be sent straight on through to the quayside for loading, though the engine driver required to be squared with an extra payment for him and his footplateman for what they insisted were extra duties.
The dockers, three dozen in number, had been assembled, and as soon as the canvas covers were removed from the wagons the crates of weapons were loaded by crane onto the ship. Trucks full of grain sacks came alongside within the hour and they, too, were loaded on and laid over as cover, bottles of the fiery local brandy produced on completion.
Unseen by Jardine, Vince and Peter Lanchester, a late-afternoon ceremony was taking place at the main arsenal buildings, located not far from the headquarters of the Rumanian army. The line of wagons had been pulled in by a train bedecked with the flags of two nations: the red, white and black swastikas of Nazi Germany vying with the blue, yellow and red tricolour of Rumania. King Carol II was present, his mistress Magda Lupescu too, as well as generals, admirals and ministers, and, of course, Colonel Ion Dimitrescu.
The German ambassador represented Hitler, while the officers and men who had escorted the train south provided an honour guard from the Wehrmacht. Speeches were made, bits of paper made up as scrolls exchanged and a band played the national anthem, followed by ‘Deutschland uber Alles’ and the ‘Horst Wessel Lied’, before the dignitaries climbed into their cars and went off to the Royal Palace to make toasts and dine in the splendidly decorated staterooms.
A snatch squad, four members of the Gestapo, were no longer sitting outside the Athenee Palace in a car, while, inside, Obersturmbannfuhrer Gottlieb Resnick paced the lobby, for the time of the train to Prague had long passed and he had discovered his bird had flown. They were at the Ministry of War, not well staffed given what was happening elsewhere, demanding that an urgent message be sent to the Royal Palace for Colonel Dimitrescu to return to his office, a message he received and, being angry that the Germans had jumped the gun against his wishes, one he ignored.
The next message he got made him move: at the arsenal they had just examined the markings on the first packing cases, and on opening them had found what they contained.
The lengths to which officialdom will go to avoid embarrassment knows no bounds; Dimitrescu had to tell his minister, who, after going white and downing his drink in one go, ordered him to solve the problem before anyone else, like the king and the prime minster, found out. Now it was not about money, it was about saving face as well as quite possibly his skin, and the least number of his fellow countrymen involved the better. Thus the notion of sending a message ahead to the authorities in Constanta to impound the train risked too much exposure: questions would be asked as to why.