You ratted on the Czechs at Munich in 1938. You are looking at me angrily, Mr Elgar, not because I am telling the truth, but because I am the only German in a position to tell it to an Englishman.' Rudi reached for a black leather briefcase on the dresser with the pewter dishes. He drew from it a sheet of paper. 'We are yoked in the harness of an illegal conspiracy, Mr Elgar. So you shall see how much I trust you.' He said this without irony.
It was a letter from the
'This wasn't anything to do with propaganda,' I told Rudi.
'In wartime you have to take many jobs and do as you are told.' He took the letter back. 'That piece of paper could land me in Nьrnberg. But I know that you must keep the secret as well as I. You British and Americans cannot blame Herr Hitler for all that has happened in Germany, you know. Nor can we Germans, though naturally we make him our scapegoat. Hitler gave the German masses what they wanted-uniforms, processions, marching soldiers, order, discipline and revenge for our shame in 1938. You may raise the Jewish question, but antisemitism in Germany was not mobilized by Adolf Hitler. It was another Adolf, Stцcker, a protestant clergyman, Wilhelm the First's court chaplain. He founded the Christian Social Party in 1878, when the politics of the masses first began in Germany. The German Conservatives soon joined in the game. An enemy is necessary for any political party, otherwise it starts looking responsible for its own mistakes. What enemy more convenient than the Jew, who is everywhere and mixed up with everything? Besides, there is malice in every human heart, a cudgel for every human fist.'
Now it was Rudi who had coloured, as though speaking to a room of brownshirted cronies. 'Ignoble emotions are more easily exploited than noble ones. Your British cynicism must tell you so, Mr Elgar? And Herr Hitler had a knack for exactly that. He assumed mock fury in dramatic speeches, and flattered Germany with spectacular leadership. Though in fact he thought the German people just as stupid as the masses of any other nation.'
'I know,' I told him coldly. 'I've read _Mein Kampf.'_
'It is pleasant to think we share a common taste in literature,' Rudi said calmly.
I wanted to escape from the room. 'If I raise the money, will you have the penicillin? It's urgent. And anyway I'm leaving Wuppertal for good the day after tomorrow.'
'Come back at noon.'
Hans with the dyed hair was waiting in the hall. I hurried back to the mess. I had ten pounds in sterling notes hidden in my room. The rest I borrowed from Greenparish, who I had suspected of hoarding currency from selling his cigarette ration. I climbed the cascade of stairs to Rudi's flat again the following morning. By then I was full of doubts over the unsavoury transaction. The penicillin might be understrength, or unsterile, so worse than useless by augmenting the infection.
Hans answered the door. He told me that Count von Recklinghausen was out. I waited until Hans returned with a foolscap envelope, which I tore open on the spot. It contained a squat bottle with a screw top, the sort used in laboratories the world over. Gummed across the stopper was a reassuring printed label saying
In the hospital, the nurse with the flowing hat was not at her post. I walked up and down impatiently. After some minutes the old doctor appeared, still in his mended white coat.
'How is Frдulein Dieffenbach?'
He shook his head gloomily. 'The news is bad. She has suffered a spread of the infection to her blood. I had hoped that it might have remained localized, but in her present physical condition it was just too much for her. We must hope that she has enough reserve of strength to overcome it.'
I held up the bottle proudly. 'I have some penicillin.'
He took it silently, turning it in his thin, white fingers. 'It's not American penicillin?'
'American penicillin is impossible to obtain. You know that.'
'There are ways. I've had a few ampoules here, stolen from the military hospitals. Might I ask where you got it?'
'That's out of the question,' I told him shortly. It did not seem the moment to inspect the teeth of gift horses. Then I added, 'It was extracted from urine.'
'Yes, I know of that technique. But the source may still be of importance,' the doctor said musingly. He held the bottle towards the light. 'Sometimes it is not penicillin at all, but any sort of crystals, perhaps brown sugar, or water coloured yellow.' He abruptly broke the sterile seal, tipping some of the powder into his palm. 'No, that's not penicillin.' He sniffed it. 'It has a distinct scent. It is bath salts, ground up in the kitchen.'
I had gone a couple of streets towards Rudi's flat before realizing the pointlessness of again climbing the flight of stairs. Hans would certainly not open the door to me. I could do nothing against Rudi without landing myself in the same jail. He knew that I was leaving Germany for good the next day. He would just laugh at me. Which would be intolerable.
I hurried back to the mess. I told the orderly sergeant that I wanted a jeep and driver at once. It was not until mid-afternoon that transport could be produced. It was dark when I arrived in Bad Godesberg.
It was a modern Luftwaffe hospital, serving the airfields scattered thickly across north-western Germany. Like everything else provided for Hitler's Forces, down to their boots and braces, it was of better quality than afforded German civilians. A corporal on duty told me that Colonel Mellors was in the wards. I sent my name, with a message that my visit was urgent. Within a few minutes David appeared, in battledress and carrying a stethoscope, bubbling as usual.
'Can I have a private word with you?' I asked tensely.
'You've chosen a fine moment, boy, We've just got a couple of cases of typhus, which is putting the DDMS into a fine flap, typhus having been officially eradicated in this part of the world. I expect they're sitting up there saying I'm a bloody fool who's made the wrong diagnosis.'
He led me down a long low-ceilinged corridor into a room with his name on the door, containing a desk, a pair of metal and canvas chairs, some filing cabinets and a refrigerator.
'Got the clap?' he asked amiably.
'Certainly not!'
'I imagined that to be the case, from the secretiveness of your approach.'
'You remember, I worked out here in Wuppertal before the war? I stayed a year with a German family, the father was a doctor.' I told him quickly the story of Gerda, and of her present suffering.
'You say she's got puerperal? Just like your wife?' I nodded. David began to look uneasy. 'What do you want me to do about it, boy? Is she being treated properly? I know a squadron-leader who's a gynae man looking after the WAAFS at Celle, up near Hanover. I could get him on the phone.'
'I want some penicillin.'
I wondered if David would be angry, but he just said resignedly, 'Look, boy-'
'I'm sorry. I've put you on a spot.'
'I'm continually getting these pleas, you know. From the men, who've been fratting with girls. It's always the old father or mother who are dying. To tell the truth, I don't believe one of these heart-rending stories is true. The girls want to sell it on the black market. I can't get enough for my own patients.' He jerked his thumb towards the refrigerator. 'That's half full of penicillin, but I could use twice as much if I had it.'
Feeling deflated, embarrassed, and foolish, I asked, 'You can't spare an ampoule, even for me?'
He shook his head slowly. 'I just can't break the rules, can I?'
'I didn't really expect that you would.'
'That's flattering, I suppose.'
'I shouldn't have come here. It was all on an impulse.'
'This woman's pretty sick?'
'The doctor said she'd developed septicaemia.'
'She's likely to be a goner, then?'
