Chapter 14
Outside the Villa of Joachim Mohr, Hohenfelde, Hamburg, Monday morning , 29th September, 1939.
Henry Underwood was feeling miserable having spent the entire night outdoors, an experience worsened by a persistent light rain. After many hours of indecisive meandering about along the banks of the Hohenfelder Bucht, trying to decide what to do next, he’d finally opted just before dawn, on a hunch, to return to the Mohr villa in Hohenfelde.
A plan had come to him, probably crazy, he had to admit. He would try somehow to rescue Barbara. And, it was something she had told him, something he’d suddenly recalled, that gave him an idea of exactly how he might begin. It had been a comment she had made about her father’s daily habits, back when they were devising their plans for breaking into the villa to photograph the papers he kept in his study. She had said he was in the regular routine of having a morning constitutional stroll alone in the villa garden … a time alone he valued for the purpose of thoughtful reflection.
Crouching behind a large autumn blooming bush, he waited until Joachim Mohr appeared on the path and suddenly stepped out to reveal himself.
“Well … uh … my word … what a surprise! Herr Unterholz … is it? I see you’ve returned. I should have thought you well on your way back to England by now.”
“No, Herr Mohr. I have, as you say … returned … returned because I need to talk to you, I respectfully ask that you hear me out.”
Despite a look of consternation on his face, Herr Mohr replied, “Alright, Unterholz. I’m listening … please join me on my morning stroll, but kindly keep your distance. You look a filthy mess.”
“Yes, sorry, but I was out all night in the weather.”
“I must say, your German is excellent, Herr Unterholz. Quite an accomplishment for an Englishman. Tell me, what is your real surname?”
“It’s Underwood, sir.”
“Underwood - Unterholz? That’s truly pathetic. Your SIS needs to be far more imaginative than that if England hopes to win this war!” he guffawed in English.
“I’ll let them know you said that, sir.” Your English is very good too, if I might say so. Which brings me quickly to the crux of what I wish to speak with you about.”
“Go on …”
“Well, in all honesty, I’m puzzled. Puzzled as to why you’d allow your own daughter to be hauled off under arrest to Berlin to be questioned and quite possibly tortured there, and yet allow the likes of me, an English agent, to make off with copies of top-secret documents. Your daughter mentioned something before I left about ‘working both sides of the fence’. Is that really your game?”
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business what my
‘game’ might be, Mr Underwood. But hers is what I will tell you. I’m a businessman who happens to specialize in armaments design and production. I’m also a patriotic German who loves his country. England, though, is a place I also have a pleasant affinity for. I have many close friends there, several of whom are influential, including your Mr Churchill. Barbara and I both, I’m afraid, each in our own ways, find ourselves and our loyalties stretched in these troubling times. Hitler and his kind are a menace, and war is a terrible thing for all involved. So yes, I am engaged in developing and producing armaments for my country. But, at the same time, I don’t necessarily want the Nazis and my country to prevail in this rapidly widening European conflict. I have no desire for a repeat of the humiliations of Versailles either. So, what do I do? I play both sides. I dutifully supply the German war machine, but at the same time I keep Britain we’ll apprised of new technologies through my English contacts and I see to it that the rollout of new weaponry in Germany is goes forward at a snail’s pace.”
“So, you’re perfectly happy then to send me off with a roll of film filled with secrets?”
“Yes, it suits my purpose.”
“But equally happy to sacrifice your daughter … by sending her into the waiting arms of the Gestapo?”
“If necessary and sadly, yes. But I’ve raised her well. She’s smart … strong … and committed to her own causes and beliefs. I dare say she may well very find her own way out of her difficulties.”
“Would you be willing to support me in an attempt to rescue her?”
“Rescue her, eh? From behind the scenes, yes. If you don’t mind coming into the house for a bath and clean clothes, I’ll go about arranging for a car, Then I’ll have you driven to Berlin, and put in contact with individuals there who might be of assistance to you.”
“Did you expect me to turn up here this morning?”
“Of course I did. In fact, I was counting on it.”
Basement holding cell, 8 Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Monday morning, 29th September, 1939.
The cell in which Barbara had been left for the night was small, filthy and chillingly cold. And she’d been immobilized, forced to spend the entire time laying naked on the concrete floor, wrists bound tightly behind her back and ankles shackled together.
She had neither slept nor had she gotten any peace. Rest of any kind had been precluded by the constant screaming and wailing, the sounds of beatings, the plaintive voices … both male and female … begging for mercy, all interspersed with the maniacal laughter and shouted threats of Gestapo torturers, coming from the interrogation rooms down the corridor.
The rumored horrors of the nightly grisly goings on in the subterranean detention area at 8 Prinz-Albrecht~Strasse were obviously anything but exaggerated. What went on there was staggeringly appalling … far beyond, in both scale and brutality, anything she had experienced the previous year when arrested in Hamburg.
She was in a place of truly unparalleled terror. And unless, she could somehow convince Herr Himmler otherwise, he was certain to make good on his darkly menacing promise “to torture and destroy her piece by piece”.
And now it was about to begin.
A face appeared in the small window of the heavy steel door to her cell. A jangle of keys quickly followed, then the click of a lock. And in they rushed … two of them, big and burly, wearing the uniform of a low-grade Scharführer
“Orders are to work this little bitch over!” announced one of them as he roughly yanked her to her feet by her hair.
“With pleasure!” grunted the second, driving his balled fist into the softness of her belly, causing her to gasp and fall to her knees as the first Scharführer released his grip on her scalp.
Bending over the stricken girl, they picked her up by her elbows and hauled her out into the corridor, then off in the direction of an interrogation room equipped with a waterboard, onto which she was promptly thrown down onto, facing the dour ceiling.
She winced as leather straps were cinched-tight across her chest, hips and thighs … so tight that they dug painfully into her flesh … particularly the one at her chest, which pressed down across the base of her breasts, forcing the soft and pliable feminine tissue to mound upwards towards her shoulders.
And, to the thick base of each of her hardened nipples, floating tumescently on their pebbled aureoles, they affixed a wired alligator clip … bringing back to her the horrific memory of being similarly connected during her previous ordeal at the hands of the Gestapo in Hamburg.
“Our fräulein looks thirsty,” observed one of her tormentors as he surveyed their handiwork.
“Indeed. I suggest we give her a drink,” announced the other, pulling a lever which caused the heavy oaken plank onto which she was strapped to abruptly tilt on its hinged fulcrum, plunging her head and upper torso into a basin of cold fetid water. It all happened so fast that it caught her unprepared. And for a brief time she experienced the terror of feeling like she would drown before they suddenly raised her up … choking and gasping, hair plastered to her head and face.
“That’s better,” chortled the second Scharführer as he helpfully slammed his fist into her belly to assist the process of expelling a quantity of half-swallowed brine.
Heart pounding and thoroughly frightened, Barb found herself abruptly left alone … presumably left to think about what was to come next, possibly to await the arrival of Himmler and Heydrich. She hoped for the latter. She knew she likely would have but only one chance to buy time … to sow a seed of uncertainty in their minds.
And the opportunity soon presented itself, for suddenly appearing at her side was the Reichsführer-SS.
“Good morning, Barbara. I trust you’ve had a pleasant night and are ready for a productive conversation this morning,” he greeted as though she were some kind of house guest. “I regret to inform you that Heydrich is unable to join us. He’s engaged upstairs in the decoding of the latest dispatch from Reinhardt in London, which arrived but a short time ago.”
“Please release me from this frightful board, Uncle Heinie,” she pleaded, daring to use the nickname he had always insisted on in her youth to address him on his frequent overnight visits to her father’s home. “… so that we can have a civilized conversation?”
“Shall I finish wiring her, Herr Reichsführer-SS?” interjected one of her torturers, expectantly holding up a third wired-alligator-clip.
Himmler nodded assent, and watched silently as the man used his stubby fingers to roughly pry apart her labia and to probe around the soft folds within until he found what he was seeking and snapped the clip in place … causing her to buck and howl in pain, her engorged little nub now savagely serrated.
“If you have something meaningful you want to tell me, Barbara, I suggest you do it right now,” warned Himmler. “Before these two gentlemen set themselves to work.”
“Alright. I will. Think back, Uncle Heinie,” she began, daring again to address him using his nickname. “Think back to that day in December of last year, when you met in your office with me, my father, Heydrich and Reinhardt. You and my father, with the help of Reinhardt, had just conspired to successfully rescue me from being executed by the Gestapo in Hamburg. And, in return, I had agreed, prompted by my father, to be sent to England to spy for the SD. It needs to be understood here and now that I’ve been faithful in keeping my end of that bargain. Indeed, I have done something far beyond what was originally required of me. I’ve managed to penetrate SIS, to gain its trust, to be trained as a spy!”
Barb paused for effect, before continuing … “The English see me as a double agent … an asset that can be used to feed the SD disinformation. But, in fact, that hasn’t happened. Reinhardt is fully aware of my double game, of my loyalty to the Reich. And your own SD analysts can attest to the veracity of the reports I’ve sent since my arrival in London. Moreover, I am now in a position to serve you as a potential source of information on the inner workings of the British Intelligence services. For example, I can tell you, from my own personal experience, exactly how the SD trains its undercover agents, even the exact place where it’s done in a remote corner of Scotland. Really, uncle Heinie, the very last thing you should be doing is torturing a valuable asset such as myself!”
At that very moment Heydrich suddenly appeared waving a sheet of paper.
“What’s the word from Reinhardt?” enquired Himmler, looking up at his deputy expectantly.
“The news is that Reinhardt is dead! This morning’s dispatch was sent not by Reinhardt, but by Krüger, our other man in London. Apparently Reinhardt was taken into custody during the night, on suspicion of espionage, by the British authorities. He reportedly took his own life by biting a cyanide capsule rather than allowing himself to be interrogated! Krüger, by the way, believes Reinhardt had to have been betrayed by one of our own.”
Himmler seemed stunned by the news, as was Barbara. They both knew that the only other SD agents currently operating in London were Krüger and Barbara!
But the Reichsführer-SS recovered quickly. And when the two Gestapo torturers standing at Barbara’s side looked expectantly to him for orders, he frowned, and then said softly as he turned on his heel to follow Heydrich from the Interrogation room, “Give her Hell!”
TBC