Smoking had never been permitted in the vicinity of the Fьhrer, but one of them lit a cigarette. The others quickly produced their cases and followed suit. Calmly, not even bothering to bow their heads, they watched the guards carry the bodies of Hitler and Eva up to the garden to be burned.
Goebbels heavily declared that there was now nothing left to live for; so he meant to honour his promise to Hitler that he would kill his wife and children and himself. Krebs and Burgdorf agreed that it was better to put bullets through their brains than risk falling into the hands of the Russians. But the others were throwing away the poison capsules that Hitler had given them. Bormann had already begun to daft a telegram to Doenitz as a first move in an attempt to establish a similar relationship with the new Fьhrer to that he had had with the old. The rest were eagerly discussing the chances of -escaping through the Russian lines that night under cover of darkness.
Gregory, knowing that the Russians had captured Potsdam on the previous day, was almost off his head with fear that by this time they might have reached Sabine's villa. Reports were coming in from all the suburbs overrun by the Russians that their brutal Mongolian troops were shooting every man and raping every woman that they captured. If they had advanced up the east shore of the Havel, what might now be happening to Erika, Sabine and Trudi did not bear thinking about.
As long as some eleventh-hour twist in Hitler's disordered mind might have led him to attempt to leave Berlin and, perhaps, owing to the dark power that had so often protected him, succeed in reaching Bavaria where he would have bludgeoned the German Armies into fighting on, Gregory had felt it his inescapable duty to remain. But now that malignant beast in human form was dead nothing would have induced Gregory to postpone until darkness his bid to save Erika.
Without a word of farewell to anyone, he ran up the stairs and snatched from a pigeonhole in the arms depository the first pistol he could lay his hand on. Deciding to leave by the way the officers sent off on the previous day had taken, he ran on through the empty echoing corridors to the back of the building, where the garages faced on to the Hermann Goering Strasse.
A pall of smoke hung low over the city and the air stank from the fumes of high explosives. There were great holes in the road from one of which a burst water main was fountaining. Broken paving stones and shell splinters littered the sidewalks. In three directions flames from burning buildings lit up the sulphurous clouds with an orange glow. The noise from bursting shells was deafening but through it came the clatter of machine guns: a clear indication that the Russians had that morning fought their way to within a few hundred yards of the Chancellery. From close at hand there came the dull rumble of falling masonry. It seemed impossible that anyone could remain alive for more than a few minutes in the flaming heart of the stricken city. But great love begets great courage. Without hesitation Gregory plunged into the inferno.
29
Death Intervenes
TURNING left, Gregory set off at a run. A shell exploded fifty feet above him and he narrowly escaped the shower of bricks that it brought down. A minute later another cramped some way off in the middle of the road and he was half blinded by the dust it threw up. He had covered no more than three hundred yards when ahead of him the murk was stabbed by the flashes of rifle and machine-gun fire. Then he saw that a high barricade sealed off the end of the street. Beyond it lay the Potsdamer Platz and there fierce fighting was in progress.
Finding his way blocked he entered a ruined building on his right and began a laborious climb over piles of rubble and fallen beams. On the far side he came out into another street. Keeping under cover he looked swiftly from side to side.
A hundred yards to the north of him there was another barricade, but this time he was on the Russian-held side of it. Taking his life in his hands he sprinted across the road towards the ruins opposite. A Russian coming up the street saw him, raised his Sten gun and fired a burst. By a miracle the bullets whistled past him and he was able to dive into a stone porch that was still standing. Fearing that the Russian would pursue him, he clambered up a sloping girder to the first floor of the wrecked building. There he waited for a few moments with his pistol at the ready; but the Russians had so many people to shoot at that the one who had fired on him did not bother to give chase.
Another long perilous climb, with bricks and plaster slithering under his feet, brought him to the Potsdamer Strasse. In it a line of Russian tanks was moving north-eastward. Hiding behind a jagged piece of wall he waited until they had passed, then made his dash across the road. This time he was not spotted. Again, his hands and knees now bruised and bleeding, he crawled, slithered and staggered over the mountains of wreckage until he reached a block of which a part was still intact. By an iron fire escape he made his way to a first-floor window that had been shattered. It gave on to a landing with a stone staircase. Descending it he climbed over a fallen door and found himself in the pillared hall of a large bank. Next moment he heard a movement. Before he had time to draw back a Russian soldier emerged from behind the nearest pillar and was facing him less than six feet away.
For a second they stared at one another in mutual surprise. But Gregory's luck was in. The Russian, intent on loot, had left his Sten gun lying on the bank counter. Before he could turn and grab it Gregory had put two bullets through his head. Things might have gone very differently but, as they had turned out, Gregory looked on the encounter as a special gift from heaven. He now had the thing that above all he had hoped to secure but feared it almost impossible to obtain and change into without being seen-a Russian uniform.
Swiftly, he undressed the dead man and himself. The soldier, a flat-faced yellow-skinned Mongolian, was short but broad, so his tunic was very loose on Gregory and his cloth pantaloons too short, but their ends just tucked into his calf-length leather boots and those, to Gregory's relief, were, if anything, a little large. As a precaution against any Russian officer he might meet calling on him to take part in the battle, he tore a long strip from his victim's shirt, wet it with the dead man's blood and tied it round his own head. Also, much to his regret, he had to abandon his steel helmet and, instead, put on the pointed cloth cap worn by Mongolian troops. But he found the Sten gun was fully loaded so would serve him better than the few bullets left in the pistol, which he tucked into its holster.
By making a half-circle through the ruins he had bypassed the Potsdamer Platz and emerged opposite the Potsdamer Station. At the sight of its gaping roof it occurred to him that it might prove quicker and safer if he followed the straight course of the railway rather than worked his way southwest through miles of half-blocked streets.
Inside the station he found great activity going on. Although it was roofless, and in places great girders had fallen across the tracks, the Russians were using the platforms for dumps of ammunition and stores. Gregory saw too that, although trains could not enter the station, the Russian engineers must have got some of the lines working as, in the distance, several engines were puffing.
Now that he had got out of the Chancellery area he no longer had to fear being blown up by a shell or shot by a Russian, but there was still the danger that an officer might speak to him and discover that he was wearing a stolen uniform. Since he had tied the bloodstained strip of shirt round his jaw as well as his head he was in hopes that if accosted it would provide an adequate excuse for not answering; but there was an unpleasant possibility that some well-meaning `comrade' might take him by the arm and insist on leading him to the nearest first-aid post.