`Pas de Diable!It was even more depressing than I had expected. A shoddy little Nachtlokalwhere one could dance to an ancient pianola.'
`And Mitzi?'
The Russian shrugged his broad shoulders. `When one cannot get caviare one eats sausage. You will recall that in Paris the French used to describe the German girls in uniform their troops' "bolsters". By failing to join up, Mitzi missed her vocation. These German women are abysmally ignorant of the art of love and have no imagination. But she has pretty teeth, is as plump as a partridge and has the natural appetites that go with a healthy body.'
Three- quarters of an hour later, his buttons, boots and belt polished to a mirror-like brightness by the amorous ex-General, Gregory went downstairs to breakfast. After his meal he again went out to kill time in the town. The principal church had the bleak, uninspiring interior common to Lutheran places of worship; but there was a small museum in which he browsed for an hour over the weapons of long-dead soldiers, a collection
ancient coins and a number of indifferent paintings. At midday he returned to the hotel and, having told the porter that was expecting a lady, settled himself at a table outside on the pavement in the row immediately in front of the cafe's plate glass window, so that by sitting with his back to it he would not have to turn his head frequently to make certain that anything said there was not overheard.
Idly he watched the somewhat lethargic activities in the square while wondering if Frau von Altern would turn up, or he would have to take more risky steps to get in touch with her. Owing to petrol rationing there were not many vehicles about; so, after he had been sitting there for some time, he noticed a rather battered farm truck when its driver parked it
alongside a few others in the open space and, getting out, walked towards the hotel.
She was a tall, thin woman and, seen from a distance, appeared to be about forty. As she came nearer he saw that she had an oval face with high cheek-bones, very fine eyes, a mobile mouth and was considerably younger than he had at first thought. But her nose was fleshy, her complexion dark and, although he could not see the colour of her hair under the headscarf she was wearing, he felt certain that she was a Jewess. Knowing that ninety-nine per cent of the Jews in Germany had long since been rounded up by Hitler's thugs and pushed into gas chambers or were in concentration camps, he found the sight of one walking unmolested in a North German town most surprising, and wondered idly what price she was having to pay to retain her freedom.
The hotel porter was, gossiping with a crony on the pavement, but the woman asked him a question and he pointed to Gregory. Instantly the alarm bell in Gregory's brain began to shrill. For no conceivable reason could any woman in the town other than Frau von Altern come to enquire for him at the hotel; yet this could not possibly be the real Frau von Altern.
Seized with acute apprehension, it flashed into his mind that the Gestapo must have got on to Frau von Altern and his letter to her had been turned over to them.
No doubt they had reasoned that for a true German woman to send important information to the enemy would have appeared to British Intelligence hardly credible; so their agent would expect Frau von Altern to be of foreign birth or, since the suffering of the Jews had aroused in them such bitter hatred of the Nazi regime, a German Jewess; so they had decided to use a woman of that persecuted race as their stool-pigeon.
The fact that she was free could be accounted for either by the possibility that she was the mistress of some Nazi official, or that she had been let out of a concentration camp and had agreed to impersonate Frau von Altern to save herself from the gas chamber. Probably she was hating the role she was being forced to play, but if her life depended on it that would not prevent- her from doing her utmost to trap him. And he had seconds only to think of a way of saving himself.
3
Tense Moments
As the tall, flat-chested woman came towards. Gregory, he noticed subconsciously that the clothes she was wearing had once been good but were baggy from long use and that she had a generally uncared-for appearance. That fitted with the theory that she had been hurriedly released from a concentration camp. Suddenly, he realized that he was staring at her with apprehension. Swiftly he strove to compose his features and adjust his thoughts to this perilous situation.
Everything he had meant to say to her must remain undid. Instead, he must do his utmost to convince her that he really was an officer on leave, interested only in fishing. In making use of a Jewess the Germans, as was so frequently the case, had underestimated the intelligence of their enemy; but, even alerted as he was to his danger, how could he at such short notice explain his having said that he had come from Sweden, or give an account of his recent _activities which could not immediately be checked up and found to be false? And, even if he could succeed in fooling her, for the Nazis to have sent her there meant that they must have seen his letter. That made it certain that Gestapo men in plain clothes were among the people at the nearby tables, covertly watching him, ready to pounce instantly should he attempt to bolt for it.
Knowing that his only hope lay in keeping his head, he succeeded in acting normally. Coming to his feet he clicked his heels and bowed sharply from the waist in the approved German manner, rapping out as he did so the one word 'Bodenstein'.
Searching his face with her large eyes, which were grey and unsmiling, she extended her hand. He took and kissed it, murmuring, 'Frau von Altern, it is a pleasure to meet you; and most gracious of you to enliven a lonely soldier's leave by coming to take lunch with him.'
`That we have mutual friends is quite sufficient,' she replied. `It is in any case a duty to do anything one can to make our men's leave enjoyable. But you looked quite surprised at seeing me.'
Her voice was deep and she spoke German with a heavy accent, so Gregory was able to say, `It was your appearance that took me by surprise. I well, I had not expected you to be a foreigner.'
`How strange,' she remarked as she sat down in the chair he was holding for her, `that our friends did not tell you that I am Turkish by birth. I married Ulrich von Altern when he was at the Embassy in Ankara. Perhaps, then, you also do not know that my beloved husband was killed six months ago on the Russian front.'
That von Altern was out of the way for good, so could not become a complication, was good news for Gregory, but he hardly gave that a thought so great was his relief at the earlier part of her statement. For a German while stationed in Turkey to have married a Turkish woman was in no way abnormal. Her Near-Eastern origin explained her features and their semi Asiatic cast made her in Western Europe easily mistakable for a Jewess. Since she was not, there was no longer any reason to suppose that she had been planted on him by the Gestapo. Freed from his fears, he swiftly recovered himself, beckoned over the old, lame waiter and asked her what she would like to drink.
With quick, nervous gestures she fished a cigarette out of her bag, lit it and ordered Branntwein -an unusual drink before lunch-but Gregory made no comment and, as the waiter limped away, sought to make a new appraisal of her. At closer quarters he judged her to be in her middle thirties. She wore no make-up and her skin was sallow, merging into almost black shadows beneath her fine grey eyes. An untidy wisp of hair protruding from under her scarf now showed him that it was red. He decided that as a girl, when her nose would have been less fleshy, she must have been good-looking, but lines running from her nose and about her mouth now furrowed her features.