When the plane had landed safely it taxied for a long way, finally coming to a halt close to a modern brick building. The engines fell silent and the passengers began to shift in their seats.
‘Gentlemen!’ One of the passengers who had been seated at the front of the compartment, close to the curtained partition, was already on his feet, holding up the palm of his hand. Like most of us on board, he could stand upright in the cabin only with some difficulty because of the low ceiling. ‘It’s my pleasure to welcome you to Lisbon, a beautiful city that many of us in the Red Cross already know well. Most of you were told that we were travelling to Zürich for this meeting but, as you know, in wartime deceptions are sometimes necessary. However, we are in neutral territory and are therefore free of that sort of thing for the next few days.
‘So, for those of you who don’t know me,’ he went on, ‘my name is Declan Riley and I am from the Dublin office of the Red Cross. I know we are anxious to leave the aircraft after such a long flight but I must detain you for a little longer.’
Behind him the curtain billowed slightly, like one hanging in front of a window that is suddenly opened. We could feel the plane reacting to movement, as whoever had been in the forward part of the cabin stepped through the aircraft, presumably about to disembark at the front of the cabin.
‘I was going to say that I have three pressing matters to inform you of,’ Mr Riley continued. He indicated the movement of the curtain beside him. ‘I think the first of them has already made itself known, however. We have been honoured to share the flight with two or three people of great distinction and importance, who will be taking a leading part in the discussions over the next few days.
‘The second matter is that from this moment on, whenever we speak together we should do so in German.’ He paused for his words to take effect, then continued. ‘[Amongst other reasons you have been invited to take part in this important conference because of your ability with the German language. Even if in the next few days you meet someone from your own country, and he or she does not speak German, you must continue to speak in German and we will arrange for an interpreter to be present. We realize that this is an unnatural and possibly time-consuming process, but it was a precondition by one of the parties that everything should be conducted in German.
‘[The third matter naturally follows on from the second. You do of course understand that everything that is going to take place over the next few days will be of the highest sensitivity. It must therefore be treated with the utmost confidentiality. You will be asked to sign an acceptance of this in a little while. A mere formality, of course, because I know we share the fervent wish that the meeting should succeed. I don’t think there is anything else for the moment …]’ He glanced enquiringly down at the man who had been sitting beside him throughout the fight, and who shook his head briefly. ‘[Well then, my best thanks, gentlemen. Let us hope the meeting brings positive results!]’
A ripple of applause followed his speech. I followed the others up the shallow incline of the cabin aisle, waiting in line as one after the other we leaned down to exit through the hatch. Just before it was my turn to go through, the dividing curtain was suddenly swept aside and a young RAF officer stepped through. He nodded politely to me, then moved on down the cabin.
I stepped through the hatch, descended the little flight of metal steps, and began to walk across the tarmac in the warm sunshine behind the other men.
x
After a perfunctory examination of our passports at the airport, we were joined by another group who had flown in by an earlier plane. Several of these people were from Germany or from German-occupied territories, although all were officials of their local Red Cross societies. After brief introductions we were ushered outside to a line of cars.
First stop was a large private house, not far from the airport, where a delicious buffet meal was awaiting us. At first, those of us who had arrived from Britain carefully took small portions, unused to seeing the lavish quantities of food that were laid out before us, but gradually the reality sank in that we had left behind the rigours of wartime rationing, if only temporarily. I shared my table with two officials I did not know, a man and a woman who had arrived from Berlin, representing the German Red Cross. They had no more idea than I what was the purpose of this meeting, but I did begin to speculate in my mind. Presumably others were doing so too. Something big was clearly afoot.
We returned to the cars and in a long cavalcade we drove through part of Lisbon itself, then headed west along the coast that forms part of the bay of the Tagus river. It was already getting late in the afternoon and the sun was moving round so that it was ahead of us. To our left lay the great expanse of the Atlantic; to our right were glimpses of wooded mountains. At every rise and turn we saw breathtaking views of coastline and sea. We drove with the car windows open so that we were assailed by the scents of the flowers and shrubs that grew thickly beside the road.
We eventually reached a small seaside town called Cascais, built with pretty, white-painted houses and adorned with hundreds of palm and deciduous trees. We were taken to a large hotel on the seafront and everyone was assigned a room. Here we were allowed a little time to refresh ourselves after the journey, before we returned to the cars. My room had a huge double bed and a balcony from which I could look out across the sea.
The main road through Cascais ran parallel to the beach, then climbed out of the town across a low headland. Once we were outside the town, the scenery changed: it became a wild coast of igneous deposits, where cliffs of black and brittle rocks jutted out into the sea. The water was so calm it was like the surface of a mirror, the sunlight glinting magically from it, but such was the swell and reach of the ocean that as the waves came into the shore they formed high, rolling breakers. They dashed against the cliffs with spectacular explosions of spray. A white mist hovered over the coastline, in spite of the warm sunshine.
Not long after we left Cascais, our cavalcade of cars turned through wide gates and moved slowly up a tree-shrouded driveway towards an immense, pink-painted villa. This beautiful castellated house, with its acres of cultivated gardens, its terraces, shrubberies, swimming pool, private cinema and many other comfortable facilities, was to be my base for the next few days. It was called Boca do Inferno – the Mouth of Hell.
xi
At one end of the main hall of the villa was a reception area, where visitors once would have been invited to wait. Here a number of easy chairs had been arranged around an ornate marble fireplace which to all appearances was used only rarely for open fires. Closely packed bookshelves stood on each side, as well as a number of oil paintings of important past residents of the house. In an alcove beside the fireplace was a large photographic portrait in a gilt frame, not ostentatiously placed but in view of most of the hall. It was a studio portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII of Great Britain and his American wife, Wallis Simpson. Their signatures were inscribed at the bottom of the picture. Beside the portrait two small national flags stood close together, placed so that their poles crossed: the British Union flag and the Nazi flag of the Third Reich.
A cocktail reception was held in that long hall during the early part of our first evening in the Mouth of Hell. At first, most of those present were the various delegates from Red Cross branches of the different European countries, but as the evening wore on the principals began arriving. They joined our party without fanfare or introduction, but moved quietly through the crowd and joined in conversations. I did not recognize them all, but Nick Smith and Ian Maclean whispered to me the names of the ones they knew. In this way I learned that Dr Carl Burckhardt, president of the Swiss Red Cross, was there, as well as one of the most celebrated Red Cross officials in the world, Count Folke Bernadotte, head of the Swedish section. The British Ambassador to Spain, Sir Samuel Hoare, arrived in mid-evening, closely followed by Sir Ronald Campbell, his colleague at the British Embassy in Lisbon. Both were accompanied by teams
of embassy officials, who circulated deftly around the room, speaking excellent German. Later, representatives from the German embassies to various neutral countries began to arrive.
At eight-thirty, George, Duke of Kent, the British King’s younger brother, was announced from the door. He was greeted by Sir Ronald Campbell and was then introduced to the leading figures who were present. His entourage, all of whom were dressed, like the Duke, in civilian suits, dispersed themselves about the room, joining conversations with great affability and courtesy. At one point, as I circulated around the party, I overheard the Duke speaking to Count Bernadotte, a relaxed, amused conversation, conducted in fluent German.
At nine o’clock everyone moved through to a large dining-room in an annexe, where dinner was served. We took our places according to the seating plan. The two senior Red Cross officials took their seats at the head table with the Duke and some senior German officials. I found myself sitting next to a military attaché from the German Embassy in Madrid, SS-Obergruppenführer Otto Schäfer. He was making an effort to be polite to me and I responded as best I could, but in truth I found him boorish. We had little in common, although this did not stop him telling me about his background. Over the years, he said in his harsh Pomeranian accent, he had been involved in many proud acts of the Nazi SS that I had never heard about before, but which I found depressing and frightening, even when humorously cast in a supposedly defensible version by one of their perpetrators.
At the end of the dinner Dr Burckhardt made a short speech, reminding us of the unique and historical importance of our meeting, of how much depended on a successful outcome and that although for the time being we must conduct ourselves in the utmost secrecy, in the years to come people would realize what we began in this unique house in such a beautiful and wild part of Portugal.
We drank a toast to the success of our own efforts.
Dr Burckhardt had sat down again when one of his aides walked swiftly across to him and leaned over to mutter something. Naturally I could not hear what was said, but Dr Burckhardt moved immediately to the Duke of Kent’s side and spoke quietly. The Duke nodded and smiled. Dr Burckhardt returned to his seat.
Moments later a new entourage of delegates entered the room, as unceremoniously as most of the others. But their arrival caused an undoubted stir throughout the room; the SS general beside me suddenly stiffened. The leader of the new arrivals walked confidently across to the head table to greet Dr Burckhardt and Count Bernadotte, who led him straight away to meet the Duke of Kent. Both men stood together, smiling and shaking hands with great amiability, clapping each other on the arms and shoulders. The room had fallen into silence.
The new arrival was Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess.
xii
Next morning the first round of negotiations began. We all had a part to play. As a junior official I was assigned to a document party in a side room, drawing up, presenting and endlessly revising a long series of detailed statements that were used by the senior representatives as position papers.
I was one of only a few Red Cross delegates in the working group: the rest were British and German officials from the embassies or their respective governments, together with constitutional lawyers from Britain and Germany, negotiation counsellors from the Quaker Society of Friends and observers from the five main neutral European powers: Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Everything was conducted in German, fluently and naturally by all present, although we produced the position papers in both English and German. For the first hour or so we were stiff and formal with one another, perhaps watchful for one side or the other to seek special advantages, but as the hours went by we became familiar and friendly, forming ourselves into an efficient and harmonious group.
Although mine was only a small role in the proceedings, I felt I had been allotted an important and interesting task. On our team fell the responsibility of writing down the verbal agreements made by the principals. We worked out the form of words in which the tentative measures should be recorded, discussed them among ourselves for the variations and nuances of language, and finally sent them back to the principals for further negotiation and, it was hoped, eventual agreement. In this position I was able to see not only the details changing and growing as the talks went on, but also the larger picture taking shape. We laboured under pressure, as the various delegates and their advisers would hurry in with new notes and demand that everything be rendered into clear language with the minimum of delay. I worked with increasing excitement and dedication, realizing that I was playing a crucial part in bringing the terrible war to an end.
Our second-storey room was on the southern side of the villa, looking down across the wooded grounds towards the sea. There was a wide balcony outside and many of us took advantage of it, pulling our tables and chairs into the sunlight, working at our papers in the warm, wintry sunshine, breathing in the scents of the garden, hearing the great sea crashing distantly against the rocks below.
The only occasions when everyone was in the same place together were during the two main meals of the day. It was a sight whose strangeness never failed to impress me: there in one large room we had senior representatives from two opposing sides in a bitterly fought war mixing socially and congenially. Rudolf Hess and the Duke of Kent were often seen in each other’s company, their attendant officials kept at a distance, as if to protect the two men’s privacy. This ease was matched all through the various levels at which we worked. On my second evening, for instance, I was seated next to Generalmajor Bernhard Altschul from the tactical Luftflotte 4 based in northern France, in charge of many of the aircraft which were, at that time, attacking British cities almost every night of the week. He was a cultured and intelligent companion – it took a force of will to think of him as being responsible for the hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries that were occurring as a result of the bombing.
By the second day we were settling into a routine. It became possible to predict when there would be peaks of activity required of us and when there were likely to be quieter moments. One of these more relaxed periods came along about midway through the afternoon, so I grabbed the chance for a little solitude. I left the villa and walked through the grounds on my own, relishing the break.
It was a most beautiful spot, cool under the trees, warm in the sunshine. Beyond the thicket of trees was a short stretch of untamed land: long grasses and hardy-looking bushes growing wild, sloping down towards the top of the cliffs. Rough pathways had been worn through the vegetation, so I followed one of them and soon came to the spectacular rocky cliffs. I squatted down to watch the waves rolling in, the surf and spray exploding excitingly against the rocks. The scene had an almost hypnotic effect: the quiet sea with its glistening lights, the waves moving endlessly in towards the shore, gaining weight and height, rising and peaking before they hit the cliffs, then bursting outwards and upwards in a vast spray.
‘[This coast is known as the mouth of hell,]’ someone beside me said.
My reverie was instantly broken. I turned and looked up. It was Stellvertreter Rudolf Hess, who had walked up behind me unheard, the sounds of his approach muffled by the soft ground and the rush of the surf and spray.
I scrambled quickly to my feet, surprised and slightly alarmed.
‘[I was taking a short break, my gentleman Deputy Leader!]’ I said defensively.
‘[I am doing the same. You have been before, to this part of Portugal?]’
‘[No, sir.]’
‘[Let me show you the Mouth of Hell itself. I was here at this house last year. Another visit in the endless quest for peace. You were not present, I think, but you no doubt know who was resident here at the time. We shall have better luck this time with our efforts for peace, I believe!]’ He grinned amiably at me, a sort of uncontrived leering smile that revealed the narrow gap between his two front teeth. ‘[If we walk along the cliff we will find the natural feature after which the house was named.]’
Hess was alone. U
nless the three SS officers who acted as his bodyguard were concealed somewhere about, he must have slipped away from them. It was unusual for any of the negotiating principals to be seen without their entourages. The previous evening, during an informal briefing by Declan Riley, the ancillary negotiators, of whom I was one, were warned not to engage in any conversation with a principal that could later be construed as a bargaining position. It had certainly never occurred to me that I might find myself having to heed that advice.
Hess indicated that we should follow one of the paths leading along the cliff top. I walked a few paces behind him. He seemed unconcerned about turning his back on me. He was solidly built but not stout, wide rather than muscular. He walked with a flat-footed gait, his back straight. Although his short bristly hair was still dark and thickly growing, the bright sunlight revealed a circle of baldness on his crown, oddly off-centre. It was, as I later learned, the result of an injury sustained in a bierkeller brawl during Hitler’s years of struggle for power. If reminder was needed of the Nazis’ violent background, it was there on the crown of Hess’s head.
Before we had gone far we approached the lip of an immense pit, a deep cavity in the cliffs whose presence was concealed from the house by a screen of low trees and bushes. When we had gained the edge, the huge size of the roofless cavern was revealed: it was almost perfectly circular, approximately a hundred feet in diameter and about the same in depth. The sea churned and boiled at the base of the cauldron: every wave that came in exploded into the immense fissure, bursting and spraying in all directions at once.
I stared down at the sight for two or three minutes, impressed by it, but even more disconcerted by the presence of the notorious Nazi leader standing beside me. When you stand over a vertiginous drop of that sort, where a fall would lead to certain death, thoughts of stumbling accidentally are uppermost in your mind. With them, inevitably, come the parallel thoughts of jumping or of being pushed. Rudolf Hess was an arm’s length away from me, leaning, like me, to stare down into the pit. If one of us were to fall? If one of us were to push the other?