The Poison Tide Page 10

  ‘There’s the funeral to arrange. Can you send a message to my unit?’ Haber asked when the policeman had gone. He was slumped in his chair as if the stuffing had been pulled from him, his uniform jacket crumpled, ash on his sleeve.

  ‘My dear fellow, I’ll make the arrangements.’ Nadolny patted his arm. ‘When is your train?’

  Haber looked at him for a moment, then away. ‘No, Count, I have to stay. Hermann, my son, he found her, you know. He’s only twelve.’

  Nadolny stood up and walked slowly about the room, stopping to gaze at the thick green spines on the shelves. The only work of literature was a copy of Heine’s Buch der Lieder. There wasn’t much poetry in the professor and he guessed the book must have belonged to his wife. Yes, her name was on the flyleaf and the inscription: To Fritz on his birthday, with the hope that these songs will touch his heart.

  ‘Captain Haber, it’s your duty as a German officer,’ he said, slipping the book back on the shelf. ‘The Field Marshal won’t attempt to break the line without a gas attack. After Ypres, it’s only a matter of time before the Russians start issuing their soldiers with respirators.’

  Nadolny walked back to stand above Haber, his hand on the back of the chair.

  ‘It’s a question of the maximum tactical advantage.’

  ‘And Hermann?’ Haber asked, looking up at him uncertainly.

  ‘You have family? Then I will arrange for Hermann to visit them. Now when is your train?’

  The boy was sitting alone in a corner of the drawing room, his gaze fixed on the revolver. The police had left the weapon on a table just out of his reach. At least they’d had the sense to unload it, Nadolny thought, picking it up and wrapping it in his coat.

  ‘You must go to bed, Hermann.’ Haber held out his hand. ‘Come.’

  Was it the first time they had spoken since the death of the boy’s mother? Nadolny wondered.

  He watched Haber lead his son upstairs, then instructed the servants to have the car ready at six o’clock. A maid was on her knees scrubbing the steps in the moonlight when he left: everything would be in order by the morning.

  Clara Haber’s death wasn’t reported in the newspapers. Her neighbours were instructed to forget the crack of the shot and the policemen at her door in the night. Her husband’s colleagues at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute knew better than to ask questions, and there was no need for an autopsy. So Frau Dr Haber was buried without fuss in a quiet corner of the cemetery at Dahlem. The small congregation of family and a few friends heard the pastor speak of her role as the wife of a great chemist and as a mother. It was just as the professor would have wished it to be. It was a pity that important duties kept him at the Front: ‘a noble sacrifice,’ the pastor remarked in his sermon. Nor was Count Nadolny able to pay his respects. As the final prayer was recited, a clerk was escorting him along a corridor at the Military Veterinary Academy.

  Professor Troester was sitting in silhouette with his back to a long window, sunlight pouring across his desk, dappling the polished floor and the glass cabinets that lined two sides of his office.

  ‘Does Doctor Dilger know?’ Nadolny asked, dispensing with pleasantries.

  ‘I haven’t told him,’ Troester replied defensively. ‘Does it matter? The woman was mad.’

  ‘I think it would be wise to say nothing. I hope the good doctor will be in America by the end of the month.’

  ‘He’s grown his first cultures,’ Troester picked a handbell from the edge of his desk and rang it; ‘but it isn’t difficult in a laboratory environment.’

  With a tinkle of china cups a clerk came into the room and placed the tray on a bureau.

  ‘How much equipment will he need?’ Nadolny enquired.

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary – nothing an American doctor won’t be able to acquire. Coffee?’ He nodded to the clerk.

  ‘Setting up a laboratory won’t be difficult, but he will have to carry phials of the bacilli to America – that is troubling. If his luggage is searched and they’re discovered, well, you can imagine the consequences . . .’

  They sat in silence while the clerk served the coffee then slipped from the room.

  ‘On reflection, the consequences are quite unimaginable,’ Troester added. ‘I’m not a politician but America, international opinion, the law . . .’ He frowned and his gaze dropped to his hands.

  ‘My dear Professor, don’t trouble yourself with matters that aren’t your concern.’ Nadolny picked up his cup and held it to his mouth. ‘Our task is to help him execute this operation without being caught,’ he sipped his coffee, ‘and I’ve assured the Chief of the General Staff he won’t be.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sure I know my duty, Count,’ he replied, tetchily. ‘I have something to show you.’ Rising from his desk, Troester stepped over to a filing cabinet and lifted a stiff brown leather case from the top of it. ‘We’ve prepared this for the operation,’ he said, carrying it back to his desk. ‘As you can see, it looks something like a doctor’s bag, but the sides, well, they’re more robust and . . .’ he slid open the two brass locks, ‘. . . there’s a hidden compartment here.’

  Nadolny got to his feet and bent to look inside. ‘Most ingenious,’ he muttered. ‘Isn’t it rather an unusual shape?’

  ‘Do you think so? He’ll be able to carry two phials of E and of B.’ Troester gazed over his pince-nez at Nadolny. ‘That will be sufficient to culture enough of both pathogens to meet your requirements – if he isn’t—’

  ‘But you’ve found the perfect solution,’ interrupted Nadolny, waving his ring at the case.

  ‘No, no, you don’t understand. If it’s handled roughly by a steward or the police, one or more of the phials will break and, well, you’ll lose your spy . . .’ he closed the bag, snapping the locks back into place, ‘. . . and a good number of other people too.’

  ‘That would be unfortunate. We won’t find anyone more suitable than our friend the doctor.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that, yes. It’s only . . .’

  ‘Please, Professor,’ prompted Nadolny. ‘There’s something else?’

  ‘Probably nothing.’ Troester took off his glasses and examined them thoroughly. ‘Only that he’s an American.’

  ‘Yes, that’s why we’ve chosen him. I’m sorry but you’ll have to explain.’

  ‘Simply, will he have the necessary resolve to go through with it when he’s there?’

  Nadolny pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I believe so,’ he said at last. ‘One of my men followed him to a patriotic review and noted he was singing and cheering with the rest – louder than most.’ He smiled. ‘And he has quite a following in Berlin society, never short of an invitation – dining at the Kempinski, a regular at the Fledermaus, always gracious, especially to a lady. Often to be seen in the company of Frieda Hempel.’

  Troester looked uncomprehending.

  ‘The opera singer, my dear Professor, the opera singer – really, you should enjoy life a little more,’ he teased. ‘Yes, he’s been observed at Frau Hempel’s apartment in the sinful hours. So, setting aside his late cousin and his other family ties for a moment, I think I can say with confidence that he’s embracing Berlin life to the full.’ Nadolny paused to lift his cup again. ‘And, as good fortune would have it, Frau Hempel has an apartment in New York too.’

  They talked a little longer of the need for great care, of the timetable and final preparations, and the professor wanted to know who else Dilger would call upon to help carry out the operation in America. But that, the Count informed him with smooth assurance, was not his business.

  9

  A Ticket Home

  AN EXCITED BELLBOY stopped Wolff in the corridor with the first news, and the old Baron who haunted the lobby accosted him with more a few minutes later. At Reception, an American woman from the International Peace League was trying to make sense of the front page of the Zeitung. ‘Yesterday, the 7th of May. A passenger liner from New York, the Lusitania,’ the assistant manager explain
ed to her in fractured English. There was great loss of life, a thousand people or more, some of them Americans. ‘Regret, madam,’ he said, ‘sunk by one of our German submarines.’ He didn’t sound in the least sorry.

  ‘A catastrophe,’ Casement declared at lunch a few hours later, ‘can you imagine? Our enemies will be having a field day in the American papers – the influential ones are all for the British.’

  Acres of newsprint would be devoted to the ordeal of the families on board, heart-wrenching stories of separation and loss, pictures of dead mothers and small children.

  ‘They’ll tar our cause, tar me with a German brush,’ he complained. ‘It was a mistake to come here.’

  He was a picture of misery, self-pitying, diminished, fallen. For God’s sake, thought Wolff, you’re supposed to be a threat to our great British Empire: be a man. He was surprised that Casement’s weakness irritated him so. Then it occurred to him that was precisely what a true friend should say: ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Roger.’

  Casement lifted his eyes from his plate.

  ‘It’s a hard street, remember?’ Wolff continued. ‘It was you who said so. Don’t you have the stomach for it any more?’

  ‘I . . . of course . . .’ Casement was shocked.

  ‘Pull yourself together, man. Your people are relying on you. You’ve known difficult times before.’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ he snapped, dumping his napkin on the table. ‘Yes, and I don’t need to be told by you.’

  He was angry now, pulling at his beard like an Irish Elijah. They glared across the table at each other. Have I gone too far? Wolff wondered. Before he could throw an olive branch, Casement’s expression softened and he looked away.

  ‘It’s so easy to lose oneself here, isn’t it?’ he observed.

  Wolff smiled sympathetically.

  ‘. . . you know, lose any sense of perspective.’ He gave an embarrassed little cough. ‘I’ve hardly given a thought to those passengers. First, air raids on towns, then this barbarity at sea. Poison gas. There don’t seem to be boundaries any more.’

  ‘Were there ever any?’ asked Wolff.

  ‘But in this modern age it’s worse. I suppose all any of us can do is follow . . . well, follow what our consciences instruct us to be our duty.’ He paused and smiled at Wolff. ‘You were right, Jan, to remind me of mine.’

  De Witt cared for his good name. Those few impatient words convinced Casement that a companion he wouldn’t have given the time of day to in Dublin was the best sort of friend, who was prepared to tell him what he didn’t want to hear. A few minutes later, he confided that he was visiting a prisoner-of-war camp in the morning and asked Wolff to accompany him. ‘There’s so much a man like you could do for our cause,’ he said. Wolff reminded him that it wasn’t his cause. ‘For me, then,’ he replied with a shy smile, like an old lover.

  No doubt history would remember the Lusitania as a tragedy but Wolff couldn’t help musing that the confusion of waves left by the sinking ship presented him with an opportunity to escape. It was two days since his last meeting with Christensen and he was still sitting on the intelligence. He’d coded the Falkenhayn minute into another business report at once and buried it in a thick file, and that was as far as it had gone. No one in Whitehall was going to shower him with praise for proof that the enemy was promising rifles for a rising, but a network of saboteurs in America and a list of the British interests it was going to target was worth an official handshake or two. ‘First class, first class, Wolff, good fellow,’ C would say, bouncing in his chair.

  Only, Wolff was very reluctant to send the report. The security police followed him everywhere. The instant it left his hand it would be picked up and delivered to their cryptographers. The Bureau’s man, Bywater, had given him the name of a courier he’d used before the war, an odd-job man at a hostel in the Moabit district. But Wolff didn’t like the look of the place. Just an uneasy feeling, but a feeling was quite enough. You’re behind the lines, he told himself, sometimes it isn’t possible to deliver – he felt guilty nonetheless. The hope that his new best friend was going to fill in the missing pieces at the prisoner-of-war camp made it possible to rest a little easier with his coded report still ‘on file’. Finish the job and escape, he told himself, that’s the answer.

  It was a shock to find his interrogator waiting for him in the hotel lobby the following morning.

  ‘I’m to escort you to the camp today,’ Maguerre said with a wry smile. ‘We’ll have the journey to discuss a few matters’. He didn’t waste time on pleasantries. ‘You keep giving my men the slip, Herr de Witt,’ he observed the moment the motor car pulled away.

  ‘I don’t like being followed.’

  ‘Do you have something to hide?’

  ‘Oh, I expect so.’ Wolff reached into his jacket. ‘Cigarette?’

  Maguerre dismissed the offer with a flourish. ‘Cronje doesn’t like you, Herr de Witt. He says you can’t be trusted.’

  ‘Look, I don’t want someone breathing down my neck every minute of the day,’ Wolff explained irritably. ‘It wasn’t difficult to lose your men, so I did. Understand? You’d probably do the same.’

  Maguerre stared at him intently. Was he satisfied? It was impossible to say. He began to talk about the Boer rebellion. Was Herr de Witt following the papers? It had fizzled like a damp firework and now it was over. ‘You don’t seem very surprised,’ he remarked. Wolff said it had ended just as he’d expected it to.

  ‘If that’s true, why did you go to so much trouble?’

  ‘For the money,’ he said casually.

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you told me you hated the English.’ Maguerre frowned. ‘And Sir Roger says . . .’

  ‘I do hate the English.’

  ‘And Cronje – you told him the rifles were paid for by friends who wanted the same as you.’

  ‘They were. They paid me too.’

  ‘You made a profit?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  Maguerre began to chuckle, then to laugh out loud, and he slapped the leather seat between them so hard that the driver slammed his foot on the brake.

  ‘But why didn’t you tell us it was for the money?’ he enquired when the car was moving again.

  Wolff shrugged. ‘“My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” you said to me, and it’s true.’

  Maguerre evidently remembered because his tone became a little warmer.

  ‘Sir Roger says you’re kindred spirits, that you share his high ideals. He thinks you’ll help him.’

  Wolff didn’t reply, but drew on his cigarette and turned to gaze out of the window. They were crossing the bridge into Spandau, the citadel to his right, and in a few minutes they’d be in open country.

  ‘What is your opinion of Sir Roger?’ Maguerre asked carefully.

  ‘Do I respect him, do you mean? Yes. And I share some of those high ideals, but . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I’ve told you before, I’m a businessman.’

  ‘An engineer or a gun runner?’

  Wolff looked at him steadily but said nothing.

  ‘Are you prepared to help him?’

  ‘He doesn’t need my help.’

  Maguerre leant forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Slow down, would you. No need to hurry.’

  ‘Look, what do you want, Lieutenant?’

  ‘All in good time.’ He paused and scratched his nose thoughtfully. ‘And his man, Christensen, what do you think of him?’

  Just his name made Wolff tense. ‘I don’t know him really.’

  ‘Why would you? Ah, we’re almost there.’

  They were approaching a checkpoint in the perimeter of a military training zone. It wasn’t the sort of place foreigners were invited to visit, even in peacetime, but Wolff had heard that the open heathland to the north-west of the city was used as a proving ground by the Army. The car stopped at the barrier and Maguerre got out to speak to a stout-loo
king reserve officer. Through the open door, Wolff could hear a blackbird trilling in the stand of birches behind the guard post. The sun was blinding through the windscreen, bleaching the red leather seat, almost too hot to touch, and for a few seconds Wolff closed his eyes to soak in its warmth.

  ‘A perfect spring day,’ said Maguerre as he slipped back on to the seat beside him. The car pulled away, but was forced to slow again minutes later while a work gang of prisoners broke step and cleared the road. They weren’t much to look at, Russians for the most part, a few British and French, uniforms dusty and torn; some had lost their boots and were wearing clogs.

  ‘I hope none of them are Irish,’ Wolff remarked laconically.

  The irony was lost on Maguerre who assured him that the Irish had been separated from the rest.

  ‘And you, Herr de Witt, when will you be returning to America?’ he enquired archly.

  ‘Soon, I hope. In the next week.’

  ‘I see.’

  They drove in silence through a collection of large red-brick barracks buildings to another checkpoint where they were directed to the gate of the Döberitz camp. It was much larger than Wolff had expected and he said so. Ten thousand prisoners, Maguerre informed him, other ranks only. It reminded Wolff of a Klondike mining town he’d visited years before, on shore leave from his first ship: behind the ten-foot wire fence, one-storey wooden shacks as far he could see, and not a blade of grass. Icy in winter, oppressively hot in summer.

  Casement was waiting in the commandant’s office, plainly out of sorts. He was as surprised as Wolff by the travel arrangements, and angry that the Army wasn’t prepared to issue a security pass for ‘poor Adler’. A bureaucratic oversight, Maguerre assured him, too smoothly for it to be anything but a lie. Before they left the office, the charmless old aristocrat who was in charge of the camp insisted on ‘instructing’ them on how to speak to the prisoners. The English were lazy and troublesome, a dirty and ill-disciplined mob; if only they were prepared to work like the Russians. Casement tried to remind him that they were there to meet Irishmen but he didn’t recognise the distinction.