River of Death. Alistair MacLean
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stood in silence until the last of the treasure chests was removed, then Von Manteuffel gestured towards a heavy oaken door.
‘Join your comrades. I’m sure you will be released as soon as our planes are heard to leave.’
The two old men, clearly as broken in spirit as they were in body, did as ordered, Von Manteuffel closing the door behind them and sliding home the two heavy bolts. Two troopers entered, carrying a fifty-litre drum of petrol which they laid on its side close to and facing the oaken door. It was clear that they had been well briefed in advance. One trooper unscrewed the cap of the petrol drum while the other laid a trail of gunpowder to the outside doorway. More than half of the petrol gushed out on to the flags, some of it seeping under the oaken door: the trooper seemed content that the rest of the petrol should remain inside the drum. Following the departing troopers, Von Manteuffel and Spaatz walked away and halted at the outside doorway. Von Manteuffel struck a match and dropped it on the gunpowder fuse: for all the expression that his face registered he could have been sitting in a church.
The airfield was only two minutes’ walk away and by the time the S.S. officers arrived there the troopers had finished loading and securing the chests aboard the two Junkers 88s, engines already running, parked side by side on the tarmac. At a word from Von Manteuffel, the troopers ran forward and scrambled aboard the farther plane: Von Manteuffel and Spaatz, doubtless to emphasise the superiority of the officer class, sauntered leisurely to the nearer one. Three minutes later both planes were airborne. In robbery, looting and plundering, as in all else, Teutonic efficiency shone through.
At the rear of the lead plane, beyond rows of boxes secured to painstakingly prepared racks on the floor, Von Manteuffel and Spaatz sat with glasses in their hands. They appeared calm and unworried and had about them the air of men secure in the knowledge that behind them lay a job well done. Spaatz glanced casually out of a window. He had no trouble at all in locating what he knew he was bound to locate. A thousand, maybe fifteen hundred feet below the gently banking wing, a large building burnt ferociously, illuminating the landscape, shore and sea for almost half a mile around. Spaatz touched Von Manteuffel on the arm and pointed. Von Manteuffel glanced through the window and almost immediately looked indifferently away.
‘War is hell,’ he said. He sipped his cognac, looted, of course, from France and touched the nearest chest with his cane. ‘Nothing but the best for our fat friend. What value would you put on our latest contribution to his coffers?’
‘I’m no expert, Wolfgang.’ Spaatz considered. ‘A hundred million deutschmarks?’
‘A conservative estimate, my dear Heinrich, very conservative. And to think he already has a thousand million overseas.’
‘I’ve heard it was more. In any event, we will not dispute the fact that the Field Marshal is a man of gargantuan appetites. You only have to look at him. Do you think he will some day look at this?’ Von Manteuffel smiled and took another sip of his cognac. ‘How long will it take to fix things, Wolfgang?’
‘How long will the Third Reich last? Weeks?’
‘Not if our beloved Fuehrer remains as commander-in-chief.’
Spaatz looked gloomy. ‘And I, alas, am about to join him in Berlin where I shall remain to the bitter end.’
‘The very end, Heinrich?’
Spaatz grimaced. ‘A hasty amendment. Almost the bitter end.’
‘And I shall be in Wilhelmshaven.’
‘Naturally. A code word?’
Von Manteuffel pondered briefly, then said: ‘We fight to the death.’
Spaatz sipped his cognac and smiled sadly. ‘Cynicism, Wolfgang, never did become you.’
At the best of times the docks at Wilhelmshaven would have no difficulty in turning away the tourist trade. And that present moment was not the best of times. It was cold and raining and very dark. The darkness was quite understandable for the port was bracing itself for the by now inevitable attack by the R.A.F.’s Lancasters on the North Sea submarine base or what, by this time, was left of it. There was one small area of illumination, and subdued illumination at that, for it came from low-powered lamps in hooded shades. Faint though this area of light was, it still contrasted sufficiently with the total blackness around to offer marauding bombers a pinpoint identification marker for the bombardiers crouched in the noses of the planes of the surely approaching squadrons. No-one in Wilhelmshaven was feeling terribly happy about those lights, but then no-one was anxious to question the orders of the S.S. general responsible for their being switched on, especially when that general was carrying with him the personal seal of Field Marshal Goering.
General Von Manteuffel stood on the bridge of one of the latest of the German Navy’s longest-range U-boats. Beside him stood a very apprehensive U-boat captain who clearly didn’t relish the prospect of being caught moored alongside a quay when the R.A.F. appeared, as he was certain they would. He had about him the air of a man who would have loved nothing better than to pace up and down in an agony of frustration, only there isn’t much room for pacing on the conning-tower of a submarine. He cleared his throat in the loud and unmistakable fashion of one who is not about to speak lightly.
‘General Von Manteuffel, I must insist that we leave now. Immediately. We are in mortal danger.’
‘My dear Captain Reinhardt, I don’t fancy mortal danger any more than you do.’ Von Manteuffel didn’t give the impression of caring about any danger, mortal or otherwise. ‘But the Reichsmarshal has a very short way of dealing with subordinates who disobey his orders.’
‘I’ll take a chance on that.’ Captain Reinhardt didn’t just sound desperate, he was desperate. ‘I’m sure Admiral Doenitz - ’
‘I wasn’t thinking about you and Admiral Doenitz. I was thinking about the Reichsmarshal and myself.’
‘Those Lancasters carry ten-ton bombs,’ Captain Reinhardt said unhappily. ‘Ten tons! It took only two to finish off the Tirpitz. The Tirpitz, the most powerful battleship in the world. Can you imagine - ’
‘I can imagine all too well. I can also imagine the wrath of the Reichsmarshal. The second truck, God knows why, has been delayed. We stay.’
He turned and looked along the quay where groups of men were hurriedly unloading boxes from a military truck and staggering with them across the quay and up the gangway to an opened hatchway for’ard of the bridge. Small boxes but inordinately heavy: they were, unmistakably, the oaken chests that had been looted from the Greek monastery. No-one had to exhort those men to greater effort: they, too, knew all about the Lancasters and were as conscious as any of the imminent danger, the threat to their lives.
A bell rang on the bridge. Captain Reinhardt lifted a phone, listened then turned to Von Manteuffel.
‘A top priority call from Berlin, General. You can take it from here or privately below.’
‘Here will do,’ Von Manteuffel said. He took the phone from Reinhardt. ‘Ah! Colonel Spaatz.’
‘We fight to the death,’ Spaatz said. ‘The Russians are at the gates of Berlin.’
‘My God! So soon?’ Von Manteuffel appeared to be genuinely upset at the news as, indeed, in the circumstances, he had every right to be. ‘My blessings on you, Colonel Spaatz. I know you will do your duty by the Fatherland.’
‘As will every true German.’ Spaatz’s tone, as clearly overheard by Captain Reinhardt, was a splendid amalgam of resolution and resignation. ‘We fall where we stand. The last plane out leaves in five minutes.’
‘My hopes and prayers are with you, my dear Heinrich. Heil Hitler!’
Von Manteuffel handed back the phone, looked out towards the quay, stiffened then turned urgently towards the captain.
‘Look there! The second truck has just arrived. Every man you can spare for the job!’
‘Every