The Vengeance of Rome

Helander and Pottendorf were keen chess players and whiled away their time with mental games. I had always been impressed by this ability to visualise the whole board in play. They entertained me and took my mind off my own troubles as I waited to hear that I was free. The afternoon wore on slowly. Soon the sun began to set and I gave up much hope of being released that day.

When we came to talk, Pottendorf mentioned how his wife had returned to Vienna to work for his release there. At this Helander’s brow clouded. His own wife had just been arrested, he said. No doubt she had been asking too many questions of the political police. However, she had been able to contact a lawyer, who assured her that she would see her husband within a few days.

‘And, for once, the lawyer was right.’ Helander smiled sardonically. ‘Last time we were allowed out for twenty minutes in the exercise yard, I glimpsed her waving to me from the women’s section. I paid Schwenk, the best of the guards here, and he got a message to her. She’s not been badly treated. His guess is that she annoyed them so much and proved such an embarrassment they locked her up. It’s just a warning, Schwenk thinks. He doesn’t expect her to be in for more than a few days.’

I asked him how long he had been here. A month, he said. He was sure that he and his wife would be released at the same time before Christmas. He knew her parents must be worried sick.

Still slumped on his bunk, surrounded by his array of food parcels, Doctor Bach snuffled and moaned. He doubted very much if his little girl would be seeing her daddy at Christmas. Pottendorf sat beside him and again attempted to comfort him. ‘Come along, old chap. We’re all in the same boat. It doesn’t do to lose hope. Have a chocolate.’

Bach said miserably that while we were doubtless all in the same boat, some of us were first-class passengers and some were not. He had begun to chew inconsolably on a caramel when a warder shouted something at us and swung open the door. We were allowed to fetch water from the communal sink, and I was issued with two rough blankets. When I again tried to ask when I could expect to be released, the warder repeated that he was not party to the decisions of the bigwigs. Supper, brought round by a trusty, was unappealing, so that evening we dined off Doctor Bach’s bounty. He could barely bring himself to eat a thing.

The four of us played cards until midnight when the light in the cell was switched off. As soon as he was in bed, Doctor Bach began to sniffle again. We were all as sympathetic as we could be in the circumstances. Again Pottendorf assured him he would soon be free, but Bach grizzled into his pillow for half an hour before his enormous snores filled the cell, finally subsiding into a kind of wet whiffling noise which in turn became a rhythmic sigh.

Distrusting the blankets’ cleanliness, I lay down in my clothes praying to the gods of good luck that I would be free by morning. In case my clothes should at some time be taken from me, I hid my cocoa in my mattress. I took only a little as soon as I was convinced everyone else was asleep. I wasn’t sure I could take more than one night of this company. Apart from Pottendorf, I had nothing in common with these people. I was far too valuable to the Reich. The Nazis were practical people. They would not waste human resources. A few journalists and businessmen more or less would not be missed. But they needed scientists if their dreams of a revived, purified Germany were to be realised. Göring was bound to respond to my message.

The bells of the nearby cathedral tolled the quarters. I found them more comforting than intrusive. In the early hours of the morning, however, when all the others slept and the only sounds were the distant moans of the disturbed mental deficients in the special block, I had a sudden sink and was forced to draw on my precious store of sneg before I again relaxed. My mind sharpened, I tried to go over what I had learned. I concluded a mistake had been made. Röhm would not want me in here. Neither would Hitler. If my involvement in the Tegernsee plot were discovered I would be quietly murdered, I was sure. I also dismissed the involvement of Brodmann, my Bolshevik nemesis, or Prince Freddy. My best bet was to try to contact Hanfstaengl. Although he had claimed to have been inundated with pleas for help, I was sure he would go out of his way for me.

At six o’clock we were awakened by the warders banging on our doors, warning us to ready ourselves for our ablutions and breakfast. The prison servant, a mournful old slattern in a long overall, came in to clean the cell, splashing her bucket of disinfectant about so that we gagged on the smell. We were then forced to assemble outside with our bowls while some kind of awful soup was slopped into them by a shifty trusty whose long moustache bore witness to a score of his own meals. Happily, Doctor Bach’s provisions were still edible, and we ate more sausage and bread, washing it down with the remains of his tea and the thin coffee issued to us.