The October Plot by Clive Egleton

Author:Clive Egleton [Egleton, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Ostara Publishing
Published: 2012-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

Pushed violently in the back, Christabel Gerhardt stumbled forward into the cell and, tripping over the urinal bucket, fell on to her hands and knees. Blood ran from her nose, and her right eye, bruised and swollen, was rapidly closing to a narrow slit.

‘Next time,’ Koch said harshly, ‘perhaps you’ll be more co- operative.’

The door slammed, the bolts thudded home and then the brilliant light in the ceiling came on, bringing the bare room into sharp relief.

Crawling across the stone floor, Christabel grasped hold of the bed and dragging herself up, collapsed on to the horse-hair mattress. Denied sleep, questioned for hours on end, subjected to psychological pressures and now physical intimidation, she had reached breaking point.

She thought about the children who had been taken from her and placed in the care of foster parents whom Wollweber had said could be relied upon to see that they became good Germans, and remembering their faces, the tears came to her eyes. Over and over again they’d said that Paul had betrayed her, and perhaps they were right. It had, so Wollweber said, become a habit with him; after all, he’d sent Hasso Jurgens into Berlin at the head of a company on that hot July afternoon and then had backed out at the last minute. And if that wasn’t enough, the oh so gallant General, fearing that his part in the conspiracy would inevitably be uncovered, had sought refuge in Sweden.

It was possible, they said, to sympathise with Frau Gerhardt, whose loyalty to her husband was obviously misplaced, but no one could be expected to believe her story. Her husband had not run off with another woman, he had not been killed in an air raid on Dortmund, and even as he’d made his escape, he must have known that his plan to hoodwink the Gestapo was bound to fail. He had involved his wife in a fantastic web of lies and then callously abandoned her to face the consequences alone. As an intelligent woman, she must surely realise by now that such a man did not deserve her protection.

And then the questions had flowed once more like a river in full spate, and since it was impossible to think clearly, they’d tripped her up again and again until finally she had thought it safer to remain silent, and then, suddenly wearied of the whole business, Wollweber had signalled Ursula Koch to take her back to the cells.

The assault had been premeditated in order to show once and for all that obstinacy would not be tolerated. In the silent empty cell block, Koch had also shattered any illusion that, as the wife of a Wehrmacht General, Christabel Gerhardt would be treated leniently. In a demoralised state of mind, she began to think of her husband with loathing and resolved that if they came for her again, things would be different. Next time she would name anyone and everyone and say anything which might please Wollweber so long as it kept her alive.

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