“I understand,” Gerhard replied. “I was at Stalingrad. I have seen hell once and survived it. I swear by God, I will survive it again at Sachsenhausen.”
“Can you believe this is the seventh calendar year of the war?” Leo Marks observed as he and Saffron walked down Baker Street, on the way to work on New Year’s Day 1945.
“But the last year, surely,” she had replied.
“In Europe, certainly. This time it really will be over long before Christmas. But I’m not so sure about the Far East. Look how the Japs are defending scraps of rock in the middle of the Pacific. Can you imagine what they’ll be like when we try to invade their own islands?”
“No need for T section to worry about that, thank God.”
Nowadays, the subject that consumed more and more of Saffron’s time was what would happen in the aftermath of Hitler’s now inevitable defeat. There were still dozens of SOE agents held captive in German hands. Every effort was being made to trace all their whereabouts, so that they could be rescued as soon as the Allies entered Germany.
“Not long now till the big push across the Rhine,” Amies said, one day in early February. “Monty will lead our chaps and the Canadians, striking into northern Germany. The Americans are taking the center and the south. Gubbins wants us to be behind the advance. We’re not going to let our people spend one more second in captivity than they have to.”
But twenty-four hours later came news that three of F section’s agents, Violette Szabo, Denise Bloch and Lilian Rolfe, had been executed at Ravensbrück, a concentration camp for female prisoners an hour’s drive north of Berlin. The news struck everyone at Baker Street hard, so Saffron was not surprised when she was summoned to Amies’s office the following morning to find him looking preoccupied and downbeat.
“Sit down,” he said, and then asked the secretary who had shown Saffron in, “Could you please make tea for us both?”
The secretary nodded and hurried away, avoiding Saffron’s eye when she looked toward her. Baker Street people weren’t usually evasive in the face of professional disaster. The tension in Amies’s expression wasn’t normal either. This was personal.
A sickly feeling of dread was already spreading over her before Amies said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you . . .”
Saffron’s first thought was that her father must have died. Who else could it be?
“It’s about Lieutenant Doherty . . .”
“No,” she gasped, holding her hands to her face.
“I’m afraid he’s been killed in action, off the Philippines. I’m so sorry . . .”
Saffron sat, numb and immobile, as if she had not heard what Amies had said. Then she bent double in her chair as she burst into tears, sobbing so hard that she had to gasp for breath.
Amies came around his desk and pulled up another chair beside hers. He reached out and stroked the back of her neck and her back. “My dear girl, I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish there were another way to say this sort of thing, or that it never had to be said at all.”
The door to the office opened and the secretary placed a tray on the desk. She started pouring the two cups of tea.
“Plenty of sugar, I think,” Amies said, for if there was one belief that united the British population it was that nothing restored a person’s morale like a cup of hot, sweet tea.
By the time the drink was made, Saffron had managed to bring herself under control. She wiped her face with her handkerchief, managed a wan smile as the cup was pressed into her hands and took a sip of the drink.
“What happened?” she asked.
“One of those blasted kamikaze attacks,” Amies replied. “The aircraft hit the bridge of the cruiser on which Doherty was serving while he was on duty. The bomb it was carrying didn’t go off, thank God. But the impact was enough to kill everyone in the immediate area. I dare say it’s little consolation, but it all happened in an instant. He didn’t suffer.”
“Oh Danny . . . Danny . . .” Saffron found herself crying again, but she forced herself not to give into the grief, not yet. There was something she had to find out before she could allow herself that release. “How did you hear the news? I don’t understand . . . How could they know about me?”
“They found a letter in his locker. It was inside an unsealed envelope. He hadn’t finished writing the letter, but the envelope was addressed . . . to you, here at Norgeby House.”
“Why here?” she asked, as much to herself as to Amies. The fact that she asked the question implied that Doherty had known her home address.
“Perhaps he thought it would get to you quicker if it was sent to a military address,” Amies suggested.
“Oh . . . yes . . . I suppose that makes sense. What . . . what did it say?”
“I don’t know. But I have it here, along with a note from his commanding officer. Let me get it for you.”
Amies stood up and leaned across his desk to reach a large brown paper envelope that he passed to Saffron. “They’re both in here. Listen, I have to go to some blasted meeting or other, but why don’t you stay here, read everything in private? I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. No need to rush . . .”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Think nothing of it. We go back a long way, you and I . . .”
Saffron waited until Amies was out of the room. She finished her cup of tea and then opened the envelope and pulled out its contents: a typed letter folded around a second envelope. She saw her name, Captain Saffron Courtney GM, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry . . .
The sight of his handwriting was a painfully visible reflection of him. The thought that he had been alive as he drew the pen across the paper and the image that formed so clearly in her mind of him writing the words was too much for her to bear.
She wept once more, and duly pulled herself back together, knowing that this was a cycle that would trap her for a long time to come. She read the first letter.
Dear Miss Courtney,
I know that there is little that can be said at times like these that will lessen the grief or loss. But I pray that these few words may go some small way to ease your pain.
Lt-Commander Daniel P. Doherty was a highly competent and courageous officer, in the finest traditions of the U.S. Navy. He was greatly admired by his brother officers and greatly respected by the men. He served with distinction in the heat of battle and died with honor at his post.
He never for one second regretted his determination to transfer back into active service, nor doubted the cause for which we all fight. I am certain that even had he known what fate had in store for him, his decision would have been the same.
On a personal note, I would like to add this: Danny only spoke about you to me once, but he did so with such affection, respect and admiration for you that I was in no doubt of how much you meant to him.
With my very deepest condolences.
Yours sincerely,
James F. Vinston (Capt. US Navy)
The memories were flooding back to Saffron: the first time he had strolled into her room at Arisaig; the walk over the dune to the sea at Camusdarach; the smile on his face, like a boy who had got away with something tremendously naughty as he looked down at her, after they had made love for the first time.
She wondered if Amies kept a bottle of Scotch or brandy somewhere in his office; most of the senior officers did. She felt she needed something stronger than tea before she read Danny’s letter. She told herself not to be so bloody feeble. He deserved better of her than that. She took it out of the envelope and read:
My dear sweet Saffy,
I’ve started God knows how many letters to you and haven’t finished a damn one yet. Maybe this time I’ll get lucky. I’ll say the thing that I’ve been too chicken to say before.
Baby, I’m crazy about you.
You know that first time we spent together, the night before I left Scotland? Remember how you asked me if I’d ever been in love? I said I don’t know. How can you tell?
/> You said, you don’t even have to think about it. Love fills you right up. You can’t miss it. And I said I envied the guy who made you feel like that.
I got back to the States, and I knew I didn’t feel that way about Meg and I never would, even though she’s pretty and sweet and if I married her all the other guys would envy me for having such a cute wife. But if I didn’t feel love, the way you described it, how could I marry her?
I guess I forgot about love for a while, and I worked like crazy, and had fun when I could. Nothing serious.
Then I came to London. I couldn’t decide if I should look you up. I didn’t know if you’d be pleased to see me. But I guess Fate made that decision for me. There you were, across that conference table. And right there and then—bam!—it hit me like a lightning bolt.
I was in love. With you.
I had to see you. I had to be with you. But I knew I was shipping out any day. I told myself, “Don’t be crazy. This can’t happen. You know she doesn’t feel the same way about you. There’s another guy. The whole damn Jap navy’s waiting to blow you to kingdom come. Don’t talk about love.”
I don’t know if I did the right thing. But I want you to know that . . .
Damn! Battle stations. Back soon!!
By the time Amies returned, Saffron had cried herself out, for the time being at least.
“I’m sorry, I must look a fright,” she said as he walked into the office.
“Well, that’s one good sign,” he replied. “When a woman has recovered her vanity all is not yet totally lost. Now, my dear, you’ve had the most ghastly shock. Would you like to take the rest of the day off? There are no flaps on. We can manage without you for once.”
Saffron shook her head. “No,” she said. “Danny Doherty died doing his job. The least he deserves is for me to carry on doing mine.”
“Well said . . . By the way, I can’t say I knew Doherty well, but he always struck me as a thoroughly good man. And, if I may say so, devilishly handsome.”
Saffron smiled. “Yes, sir, he really was handsome . . . and devilish, too.”
•••
Konrad von Meerbach told himself that there were few, if any, men in the Reich who had done more than him to make the Final Solution possible. He had not been given the opportunity to stand on a shooting line on an anti-Jew operation in the East. Nor had he been given a command role at any of the killing centers where Jews from all over Europe were processed. But he had made an essential, if not so visible, contribution.
Himmler had told him, “If you had not kicked those Reichsbahn pen-pushers into line, we would never have got a single train into Sobibór or Treblinka. And without them, there could have been no Auschwitz-Birkenau.”
That was true. The relationship between the SS and the Deutsche Reichsbahn railway authority was a constant source of frustration. Timetables were drawn up with almost no consideration for the practical needs of the men and women who would have to meet the trains at their final destinations and deal with the disposal of their cargoes. There were endless wrangles over money. The Reichsbahn was paid for every kilometer covered by every Jew. When von Meerbach contemplated the enormous sums that the railway people were making, he was tempted to march to their headquarters, shove all the board of directors against a wall and inform them that they could make a simple choice: charge less or be shot.
They were not the only pigs getting their snouts into the trough of the Final Solution. The chemical companies, oven manufacturers and construction organizations were profiteering, even though they were dependent on the foreign slave-workers who could not be rounded up without the aid of the SS. But did they show any gratitude for that when the time came to present their bills? No, they did not.
Von Meerbach was fortified by the knowledge that his efforts were being made in the service of a great and noble cause. Week by week the processing figures came in, the tally rose higher and the extermination of the Jews from the mainland of Europe drew a little closer. There was further compensation. Von Meerbach had visited all six of the major extermination camps in Occupied Poland, enabling him to get to know the men who ran them and form the relationships that were essential to the efficient running of any major industrial operation, which this most certainly was.
But the SS was concerned with more than the Jewish Question. It was responsible for the concentration camps that housed anyone else who had displeased the Reich authorities in Germany or its conquered lands.
Von Meerbach took great pains to let the staff in these camps know that Berlin had not forgotten them: that good work would be rewarded and inefficiency or disorder punished. He underlined the point with personal inspections of camps across the nation. Today he was making just such a visit. He had been looking forward to it for many weeks and now that the day had come, his mood was sunnier than it had been in months.
The news from the front, both in the East and West, was unrelentingly awful. The threat to the Reich grew greater every day. The Russians were barely sixty kilometers east of Berlin. The British and Americans were on the west bank of the Rhine. But for now such cares could be forgotten. For this one day Konrad von Meerbach could afford to indulge himself.
Gerhard shuffled into the doctor’s surgery. The snow lay thick on the ground outside. Even indoors, his faltering breath hung in the air. An orderly took a note of his number, wrote it down on a form and barked, “Roll up your sleeve.”
Gerhard looked at him dumbly. He was finding it hard to understand what had been said, still less translate the words into actions. The cold, his constant, gnawing hunger and the crushing fatigue brought on by the impossibility of proper sleep in the overcrowded bunks had numbed his brain, along with his ability to reason.
The orderly slapped him across the face. He felt a tooth come loose. There was pain somewhere, but his senses were dulled.
“Roll up your sleeve!” the orderly shouted.
Gerhard heard him this time but his clumsy fingers would not do as he commanded. The orderly pushed Gerhard’s jacket and uniform sleeves up his emaciated stick of an arm, grabbed his wrist and dragged him to the doctor, who was holding a metal and glass syringe.
“How the hell am I supposed to stick a needle in that?” the doctor muttered, looking at the fleshless limb. “Bend the elbow,” he said to the orderly. “As if he’s showing off his bicep.”
The orderly did as he was told. A scrap of muscle could be seen above the bone. The doctor jabbed it with the needle. The orderly pushed Gerhard and he tumbled forward to the far side of the room where a kapo, one of the prisoners who worked for the camp administration, was waiting. He was a big man, well fed, nice and warm in his fur-lined coat.
Gerhard recognized him, not with any conscious thought, but in the way an animal recognizes a human that it knows and fears, because that human has mistreated it. A reflex born of repeated punishment told him this kapo was a cruel and violent man, so he bent over and lifted his arms to protect his head as he went past.
The kapo kicked Gerhard in the backside, sending him sprawling on the floor. He kicked him again in the ribs as he shouted, “Get up, you piece of shit!”
To his surprise, prisoner 57803 jumped to his feet. It was as if someone had sent an electric shock through his skeletal physique.
Gerhard’s reaction came as a shock to him too. He could not understand it. He suddenly felt alive again: his body filled with energy, his mind sharper than it had been in months. He looked at the kapo and thought, I know you. You’re one of the Russian POWs. You were in a criminal gang before the war. That’s why the SS recruited you to be a kapo. They value sadists. They’re useful allies in the war against humanity.
•••
Back in the dispensary the doctor noticed that the camp commandant, Anton Kaindl, had entered the room.
“Are we ready for the experiment?” Kaindl asked.
“Yes, Standartenführer. The prisoners have been injected with our performance-enhancing formulation D-IX. It is a mi
xture of the narcotic cocaine, the methamphetamine stimulant Pervitin and the opioid painkiller Eukodal. This should greatly increase their confidence and energy levels, while also raising their pain threshold.”
“They will perform in a more animated fashion than usual?”
“Correct. However, we cannot make any definitive statements until the results have been collected and compared with standard figures. But if our working hypothesis is accurate, this will result in a significantly improved performance.”
“And what do you expect the consequence of this to be?”
“The prisoners have been weakened by malnutrition and disease. Their strength is reduced; no drug can alter that fact. They will therefore expend their resources more intensively than they would otherwise do, with much more drastic consequences.”
“Describe those consequences, please.”
“To summarize, they will walk more quickly. They will ignore the pain from their blisters and cuts. And then their hearts will explode and they will drop dead.”
Kaindl beamed. “Perfect. We have an important visitor today, doctor. I have promised him first-class entertainment. I would not wish him to be disappointed.”
•••
The official reason for making prisoners walk as much as forty kilometers per day in ill-fitting military boots was to test footwear before it was given to fighting men. The second reason was to test the people who were walking. Doctors wanted to know how long a human body could keep going when it was malnourished, wracked with sickness and fatigue, and on the verge of death. As Stalingrad had demonstrated, it was possible for frontline soldiers to find themselves in that state. Their generals needed to know what they could accomplish under such circumstances.
But the real reason the commanders of Sachsenhausen and their staffs put the men and women under their control through this, and all the other pitiless torments and degradations that the camp had to offer, was that cruelty was the guiding principle of the camp and its staff. The point was not merely to punish, or even kill, the Reich’s internal enemies, but to rob them of dignity, humanity and identity. The struggle for the prisoners was not only to survive, but to retain some sense, no matter how diminished, of their own humanity.