After Gerda had left, they began to prepare themselves to bed down for the night. Horst suddenly said, “I really do like Gerda, she’s a special person. I so hope she finds what she is searching for.”
“Me too, Horst,” said Kelly, “me too.”
Obersturmbannführer Skorzeny
At 5 a.m. sharp, a Tatra T111 swung in through the big double gates of the warehouse compound. Gerda, who had been waiting with Kelly and Manteufel, had run down and opened them as soon as she had heard the growl of the approaching vehicle in the distance. The driver swung his lorry in a sharp curve then expertly backed into the warehouse. Jumping down from the cab, he barked a morning greeting before opening the back doors of the vehicle and extracting a long crate from the base of the load, which left the other packages undisturbed. Leaning into the space created, the driver pulled out another similar package, creating, in effect, a long tunnel.
Looking around, he greeted each of his passengers briefly with a shake of the hand, then pointing to the tunnel, he said, “Crawl down there. When you come to a package blocking your way, push it to the right, do you understand? There is space there for it to slot in. You will then come to a cavity in which you will be able to sit upright or lie down, whichever you prefer, and there are two mattresses to absorb the road bumps. There are also bottles of water, and don’t worry, there is plenty of ventilation. Our first stop will be at the DDR border between Eisfeld and Rottenbach. If you value your lives, don’t make a sound. We usually get through quite quickly as we use the route regularly. After that we are in the BRD, heading for Nuremberg, where I know of a quiet truck stop in the forest. You can get out there to stretch your legs and eat your lunch. We then travel down to Munich where there is a safe warehouse similar to this. That will be our overnight stop. Tomorrow morning it will be non-stop to Salzburg. Is all clear? Good! Climb in and we’ll get going.”
As they moved towards the vehicle, they were intercepted by Gerda who thrust a packed lunch into each of their hands. She embraced Kelly and kissed him on the cheek. Moving to Horst, she held him close and kissed him fully on the lips.
“Try to come back this way, Horst, will you?”
“I’ll try, but it depends on what my next job is,” replied Horst, already hating himself for the lie.
Kissing her again, he moved to the lorry and crawled into the tunnel, followed by Kelly. The driver replaced the packages then swung the doors closed. As the vehicle turned right out of the compound, Gerda walked slowly and sorrowfully down to the gates. No point in locking them; she would have to open them again in a couple of hours. She watched as the taillights of the carrier faded into nothing before turning back towards the warehouse. Gerda knew in her heart that she would never see Horst Manteufel again.
Kelly sensed their approach to the border. It was slow stop-start for a while until they finally stopped and the engine was switched off. Kelly heard voices.
“Papers!” A pause. “Company?”
“Spedition Busch, carrying for Carl Zeiss, Jena.”
“Cargo?”
“Optical equipment, medical equipment, medical supplies.”
“Step down and open up the back.”
Kelly heard the driver’s door open and slam closed again, then steps as the driver and guard walked to the rear of the vehicle. The rear door opened and there was the sound of someone rummaging.
“How do you tell what’s in this package?”
“See that number in the corner of the despatch label? If I go to my sheets in the cab, I can look up that number and it will tell me exactly what is in that package. You can open one if you want, but my boss says I must get a signed inspection form if you do, otherwise I’m in real trouble. You see, it’s sterile equipment. Once opened, it has to be thrown away.”
“That won’t be necessary. Drive on!”
Manteufel and Kelly sat on opposite sides of a wooden bench in a turn-off from the main road in the Feuchter Forst, a large forest east of Nuremberg. The driver sat on another bench a little way off. Kelly was examining his packed lunch—a thick layer of German smoked cheese between two slices of black bread neatly cut into two, and an apple. He removed the fruit and looked at it in distaste. Manteufel, who was at that very moment biting into his own apple, stopped and removed it from his mouth, examining it carefully.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked, apprehensive in case he had missed something.
“I don’t like them,” said Kelly. “Well, that’s not strictly true. I quite like the taste, but they give me gas, terrible gas.”
Manteufel’s face was immobile for a moment then he screwed it up. “Gas! In a confined space! Here, give me that quickly, I don’t know what Gerda was thinking, giving you an apple. Apples in packed lunches should be illegal. Here, have half a cheese sandwich in exchange.”
Kelly laughed as he accepted the exchange and happily bit into his sandwich. Kelly liked German cheese, but he still felt that no country made cheese quite like Britain. For a sandwich, Cheddar was hard to beat, and for an after-dinner cheese, what could come near Stilton?
After their picnic lunch they made use of the primitive facilities in the truck stop, then prepared to board again. The driver looked around, carefully checking that they were not observed, then removed the packages that formed the tunnel to allow the two to crawl down to their hidden den.
The gentle rocking of the big truck was very relaxing. The Tatra T111 was a very reliable Czechoslovakian-built truck with a massive V12 engine, but could only cruise at around forty to fifty miles per hour—definitely not a
