Operation Armageddon Read online

  ‘Can a Nazi be a menace?’ he asked.

  ‘He can if he’s as stupid as Hans Beck.’

  4

  Despite his moans about the threat to security, Wohlman felt pleased with himself when he saw the lorry park labour party go out for work two days later. He decided to inspect progress. Reluctantly, he called for his staff car – it was a humiliation to have nothing better than an Opel – and set off for the construction site. His departure did not go unnoticed.

  Marie Le Faucheur was walking around the base, delivering messages. Marie was just 5ft 4ins in height and of slim build. Her round face and close-cropped black hair gave her a pixie-like appearance. She worked as a secretary in the administration block. Her demure comportment, her neat two-piece suits and her solid shoes ensured that she went unnoticed on the base. And that was just how she wanted it. Marie was the leader of the local Resistance group. Hitler had never heard of her. Wohlman and Helberg only vaguely knew her by sight. Yet she, and a man she had not yet met, would soon be the greatest threat to Armageddon.

  Marie had already noticed the construction site outside the base, but had made no connection between it and Cap d’Enfer. But the sight of Wohlman leaving the base in working hours was odd enough. That he was visiting the construction site was odder still. Something was happening. What could it be?

  Marie realised that she had lingered too long in watching Wohlman leave the base. She was being watched too – by Hans Beck, the base Gestapo commander. When she walked on to resume her delivery duties a shudder of fear and disgust ran through her. Beck was the worst part of her job, she reminded herself.

  Her presentiment was fulfilled that night when she left the office after dark. As she passed the last few wooden cabins between the main office block and the gate, she was grabbed by the left arm and pulled into the narrow passage between two cabins. She had no need to look to know who it was or what he wanted. It was Beck. Young, but already gone to seed, Beck was short, thick-set and overweight from indulgence in beer and heavy food. Women were repelled by what they saw as a greasy slob. He, though, was pathologically drawn to them. He dragged Marie behind the cabins, the two of them splashing through the muddy puddles. He pushed her up against the back wall of a cabin.

  ‘So, my pretty one, did you enjoy your little walk this morning?’

  Marie did not reply.

  ‘Did you find something of interest to tell someone?’

  No reply.

  ‘Well, you know what happens to people who take too much interest in the Reich’s affairs, don’t you?’

  Still Marie did not reply.

  Beck had had enough of what he took to be foreplay. He opened his coat and trousers, pulled down Marie’s skirt and took his pleasure. As he left, he whispered, ‘No more looking, eh?’ and threw Marie’s skirt into the mud, stamping on it with a twisting motion to grind it into the dirt.

  When he had gone, Marie stayed upright with the greatest difficulty. She wanted to sink to the ground and scream. But that would be to give way. She would endure. She had to endure. No true French woman could give in to the Nazis. She retrieved her skirt, brushed it down as best she could, and put it back on.

  Pulling her coat tightly around herself, Marie returned to the gate, head down. It was dark and cold, so the tired guards merely glanced at the familiar face and let her through.

  Hans Beck had been playing this game with Marie for months. He never said that he suspected that she was in the Resistance but she never doubted that it was so. She felt sure that one day he would report her or arrest her. For now, his insatiable sexual appetite overcame his sense of duty. He knew that she would never dare report him. She was safe amusement.

  Marie accepted the humiliating attentions of Beck because they enabled her to continue her Resistance activity. True, her network had had no great successes outside the base: a few bits of minor sabotage; the odd supplies’ vehicle ambushed. Their one attempt to derail a train had miscarried when the explosives had failed to detonate. Some days, Marie asked herself if all her sacrifices – and those of her comrades – were worth the little that they had achieved and the risks that they had run. She suppressed these dark thoughts with the vision that one day some big, really important job would come. Till then, Beck had to be accepted.

  ****

  Half an hour later Marie was standing in the entrance hall of her lodgings. Her landlady came out of the kitchen:

  ‘Marie! Your skirt!’

  ‘It’s nothing, Madame. I fell in the dark and landed in a puddle.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like nothing. You must have had a very bad fall,’ replied Madame Rougier.

  ‘Really … it’s nothing,’ said Marie.

  ‘Well, whatever it is, you can’t spend the evening like that. Take off your skirt and I’ll clean it up. And then have some hot soup. It’s Bisque de Crevettes. I chose the shrimps myself this morning from Pierre’s catch.’

  Marie was too devastated to refuse any request or order, but managed to mutter a “Thank you, dear Madame”. She took off her skirt, wrapped herself in a towel and sat down at the bare kitchen table in front of the blazing coal fire. Madame Rougier brushed down the skirt and hung it up to dry on the brass rail under the mantelpiece.

  Madame Rougier placed the steaming bowl of bisque in front of Marie and gently touched her on the shoulder. Unable to think of any suitable word of comfort she simply said: ‘At least this will do you some good.’ Then, with a sigh, she sat down in her chair by the fire and took up her darning. She sensed that Marie was not in a mood to talk.

  Madame Rougier turned to thinking of her own situation. Three years ago Jérôme would have been sitting on the other side of the hearth. (Life had not blessed them with children.) The red-gold light that was reflected off the shining copper pans hanging from the beams would have glistened on his prematurely bald head. He would have told her the latest gossip from the town hall and she would have reciprocated with news from the market square. Now the evenings were quiet. The days were quiet too. And how painful it was to see the bent form of old Antoine, the postman, pass her door each morning without a letter dropping onto her mat. She was lonely. Also, she was nearly penniless. Without Marie’s rent, she would be near to destitute. There she was again – thinking of Marie. Marie, who might so easily not come back home one night. Marie, with the silly tale of falling into a puddle.

  Madame Rougier never asked for more than her lodger openly volunteered. She often saw Marie slip out after curfew, only to return many hours later, her shoes mud-covered and wearing her darkest clothes. If Madame Rougier had any suspicions, she took care to not even think on them. However, she always put Marie first in her prayers, pleading on her knees in the side chapel of the town church for the special protection that she was sure that her lodger needed.

  5

  Two days later, Helberg received a call from the office of Kriegsmarine Vizeadmiral Heinz Siegler. He was to pay a visit on the following day.

  Helberg was not pleased at this news. He recalled the only time that they had met. It was on a training course which Siegler was inspecting early in the war. Helberg had taken his boat out on exercises. This had meant long spells underwater, crash-dives and practising escape routines. His men had landed after several days of punishing activity. They were physically exhausted and mentally numbed. Hoping for a little praise, all they got from Siegler, a First World War submariner, was an “in my day” tirade: ‘You don’t know how easy you’ve got it. I was in a U-31 class. Hatches closed all the time because of rough seas. Overpowering heat and fumes from the diesel engines. Everything tasted of diesel. And we could only stay under for two hours. Not much chance of escaping depth charges. We couldn’t skulk for hours and hours like you can.’

  Recalling this experience, Helberg was injudiciously curt with the officer on the other end of the line.

  ‘What the Hell does he want here? I’m up to my eyes in work at the moment. It’s delays in every direction.’
/>   ‘It’s not your job to question the Vizeadmiral’s decisions,’ replied the voice.

  ‘No. But it is my job to get on with the monumental task that’s been dumped on me by HQ. It’s all very well for them—’

  ‘Herr Kapitän, if I should mention your insolence to the Vizeadmiral …’

  Helberg would have been wise to stop before his detestation of Siegler, combined with his apprehension about the work to be done on the cargo U-boat, got the better of him.

  ‘Mention what you damn well like! But you just tell the Vizeadmiral that it’s a bad time to visit.’

  He slammed down the handset and stared at the phone. ‘Fucking Siegler,’ he bellowed. He grabbed the cradle and handset and prepared to hurl them at the wall. The phone was still in his hand when it rang again.

  ‘Helberg, here,’ he answered.

  ‘A bit of a problem …’

  He recognised the voice of the works’ manager assigned to the repair of the patrol boats.

  ‘More trouble about the spares, sir. Could you …’

  Helberg listened to the litany of requirements and wondered when the Reich had last manufactured any spares for its boats.

  ‘Enough! Enough! Just send in a list to my secretary.’

  The manager was one of those calm, middle-aged types who love a technical challenge. He could fix anything – given enough odds and ends scavenged from old boats. But he couldn’t fix human beings. He didn’t understand them. And, at the best of times, he had never understood the tensed-up, driving Helberg. Today he understood him less than ever. Why did a routine request for chasing up spares upset his boss so much?

  Having disposed of both Siegler’s assistant and the works’ manager, Helberg was left with his thoughts. His mind raced over the possible object of the sudden visit. He was seriously worried. No one of Siegler’s rank had ever set foot on the base. What could be the reason? The delays in getting the next patrol out? The high level of petty sabotage on the base? Or was it about him? Dismissal? Surely the Vizeadmiral would not come for that? Promotion, or a special mission? He spent the rest of the day in agitated thought of what the Vizeadmiral’s visit might bring.

  ****

  Wohlman was more relaxed about the visit, since he assumed that Siegler would only concern himself with the U-boat operations. Indeed, he relished the opportunity to show off his garrison command to a VIP from Wilhelmshaven. For all the fuss that he had made about guarding the lorry-loads of explosives, Wohlman never for a moment thought that anyone would find any shortcomings in his garrison command. So, relaxed and confident, Wohlman was determined to make the most of the Vizeadmiral’s visit. It was time to show off a bit. What better place to do this than in the gate area?

  Wohlman’s secretary was kind enough to telephone a tip-off to warn the guard that their boss was heading their way.

  ‘Fucking Hell!’ said a guard who was busy fraternising in the back room of the guardhouse with a young French woman with a degree of intimacy way beyond public decency.

  ‘Interfering busybody,’ said his companion, who rushed around picking out the cigarette ends that they had rammed into the sand in the fire buckets.

  Things were reasonably straight by the time that Wohlman reached the gatehouse. Ready for a dressing-down, the two guards were surprised at their commander’s good humour.

  ‘Stand easy.’

  The jumpy guards soon got the message. All that Wohlman wanted was a bit of a show the next day to boost his ego. That was fine by them. He was sure to leave them alone once the VIP had gone. So they gladly listened to his orders for the repainting of the white edging-stones, the repair of some storm damage to the gatehouse roof and the replacement of some tattered bits of wire fencing. The base signs were to be repainted and the muddy ruts through the gateway were to be filled in. He also warned the officer of the guard that he would personally inspect tomorrow’s guard at 8.30am. Any soldier with the least failing in his appearance would be put on a charge. He need not have worried. The men had their reasons for not letting him down – one of them was still hiding in the store cupboard.

  6

  Next morning, Wohlman was full of nervous anticipation as Siegler’s cavalcade came into view. The Vizeadmiral’s staff car was escorted by two BMW R75 motorcycle/sidecars, both carrying gunners with MG34 machine guns, followed by an open-toped Kübelwagen with four armed soldiers. Clearly a nervous traveller, thought Wohlman.

  Everything was as Wohlman had commanded: the white stones; the newly made-up road; and, for once, the guard at parade-ground smartness. The men, now stylishly standing to attention on either side of the road, were a credit to the base – and to him. He straightened up his back and even adjusted his tie as if he too were on parade. His moment of pride ended as Siegler’s convoy sprinted through the gates at a speed that negated all his efforts to impress the visitor. The newly painted stones were left splashed with fresh mud, as were the uniforms of the guard that was still stiffly standing to attention.

  The vehicles drew up outside Helberg’s office. Helberg, who had been sheltering in the doorway from the blustering, salt-soaked Atlantic wind, hurried down the steps to greet his important visitor. They exchanged smart ‘Heil Hitlers’ after which Siegler, who was impatient to get inside, was compelled to stand next to Helberg for a stirring welcome from the base military band. (It didn’t get much chance to play now that the patrols no longer had their grand send-offs.) The strains of the music swelled and faded under the relentless Atlantic winds. As the last notes died away, Helberg exchanged salutes with the bandleader.

  Once Helberg and Siegler were seated either side of the fireplace in the base commander’s office, coffee was brought in by an orderly. He asked whether he should pour it. Helberg nodded his approval. The nervous orderly asked the Vizeadmiral how he liked his coffee. In stentorian tones Siegler barked: ‘Strong. Four sugars. No milk.’

  The orderly was visibly shaking as he poured the coffee. The ersatz liquid burst out of the pot and splashed into the cup. The cup brimmed over and the tray was flooded with a pool of coffee.

  ‘Fool!’ snapped Siegler.

  Helberg quickly ushered the orderly out of the room.

  ‘And tell the cook to bring a new tray of coffee!’

  ‘Damned incompetence!’ said Siegler. ‘How do you put up with it?’

  ‘We struggle. There’s only so much labour around here. And less every day as the Wehrmacht takes its pick. We get the dregs.’

  Siegler was tempted to make a joking reference to the over-supply of coffee dregs at this point. He curtailed his unaccustomed attempt at levity and turned to business.

  ‘So, things are not going particularly well here?’

  ‘As well as can be expected, Herr Vizeadmiral. We’ve no protected pens, no air-raid shelters and we’re always short of supplies. Right now, I’ve got two U-boats—’

  ‘Spare me the detail! I know it all by heart. Everywhere I go, all I hear is excuses. You’re not the only one.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to make excuses, Herr Vizeadmiral. I just wanted a chance to explain how we could do better – with a little more support.’

  ‘Support needs to work both ways. Your file doesn’t look as if you’re doing your bit. “Negative attitudes and lack of faith in the Führer”, it says. What do you say to that?’

  Helberg was alarmed at this sudden change of tack. In a flash he recalled – and regretted – his brusque treatment of Siegler’s assistant on the phone. Far from the visit being about promotion, it was looking more like a warning.

  ‘My record stands, Vizeadmiral. Over 200,000 tons of enemy shipping sunk. Isn’t that loyalty to the Führer?’

  ‘That’s duty. Loyalty is about attitude and, more importantly, about faith. Did you criticise the Armageddon operation being based here?’

  Helberg hesitated, which the Vizeadmiral took as confirmation of his accusation.

  ‘That’s what I hear,’ said Siegler.

  ‘Only becaus
e I don’t think we are the best base for it,’ protested Helberg.

  ‘It’s not your job to question the suitability of the base, Commander. You received the order. Now it’s your duty to the Führer to make this the best base for the job.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Pull yourself together. Who are we fighting? A bunch of weak-willed democracies. I learnt all about democracy when I took part in the Kapp Putsch in 1920. To my shame, we failed. And what did we get? The pathetic Weimar Republic. What a bunch of pansies! And look what happened! Strikes! Mass unemployment! Runaway inflation!’ (Siegler stabbed the coffee table with his right forefinger as he listed these items.) ‘Hitler put an end to all that nonsense and now Germany is great again.’

  ‘I’m not arguing with any of that, Herr Vizeadmiral. I keep out of politics.’

  ‘Keep out by all means. But, remember, the Führer did all this for you. Helberg. Now you have to pay him back.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘For now, by making Armageddon a success. You’ve got the details?’

  ‘Enough to work on for the moment, although it’s not exactly much detail,’ said Helberg.

  Siegler talked for a while about Armageddon without saying anything that Helberg did not already know. It was when Siegler reached the justification for the operation that Helberg began to take an interest again.

  ‘Armageddon will be devastating for the enemy in the Mediterranean. Never will so much shipping have been sunk or damaged in history. The whole of their North Africa invasion plan will be thrown into the air. It will reverse our fortunes overnight. Rommel will finally take North Africa and we can, at last, release men and machines for the Eastern Front. Isn’t that worth your loyalty?’

  Helberg hesitated before revealing his misgivings:

  ‘To tell the truth, Vizeadmiral – and as you know, I’m no naval novice – I don’t see how one cargo U-boat can do so much damage. Does the Führer think he can repeat Pearl Harbour?’