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I noticed in the first update with Hjalmar Schacht a picture of a BR 52 steam locomotive was posted. In our time line this model wasn't available until 1942. So were the Kreigslocomotive projects started early in this timeline?
 
Talk about obscure. Somebody really wants a sniper badge. :)
 
darthkommandant my good fellow! :eek::D.

Well spotted indeed. That's what I get for blindly posting a picture captioned as being from 1935 :eek:o. Thanks for the correction.

Although projects for war locomotives are indeed underway, no BR 52s would be ready in time to be a fully appropriate picture for that update, so I've replaced the picture with that of a BR 44.

I always try to run a tight ship around here accuracy-wise (not a peep, El Pip, not a peep :p), and so your careful reading has been a service to the AAR. In honor of your sharp eye, I hereby bestow upon you the...

Scharfschützenabzeichen (Sniper's Badge): (&)

To wear it in your signature, if you so wish, just paste in:

PHP:
[B][COLOR="Yellow"]([/COLOR][COLOR="SeaGreen"]&[/COLOR][COLOR="Yellow"])[/COLOR][/B]

Congratulations!
 
dublish - Now you've got to shoot for the Golden version to stay ahead of the pack :rofl:.

Slaughts - Apparently it was returned to sender due to a torn label, and sent to me by priority US mail 2-3 days ago. If it's not in my hands by tomorrow, I'll be surprised. After that, the update won't be far off. And remember, as an added bonus of this lengthy interlude (we're nearing 100 posts without an update - who wants to bet that we can break triple digits?) the following two updates are complete and can be released in short order.
 
I always try to run a tight ship around here accuracy-wise (not a peep, El Pip, not a peep :p),
For that sentence alone I will have to vote for this AAR in the Comedy section of the AARland Choice Awards. :D
 
If you care to point out specifics, like our dear friend darthkommandant has done, perhaps you'd be getting a badge out of it too :p.

Accuracy objections like: "Germany should lose" don't count as specific enough :D. Nor do objections to things that never really happened, like the magic-bullet-that-sunk-the-whole-Home-Fleet-at-Scapa-Flow...:rolleyes:
 
Slaughts - Apparently it was returned to sender due to a torn label, and sent to me by priority US mail 2-3 days ago. If it's not in my hands by tomorrow, I'll be surprised. After that, the update won't be far off. And remember, as an added bonus of this lengthy interlude (we're nearing 100 posts without an update - who wants to bet that we can break triple digits?) the following two updates are complete and can be released in short order.

Well that was just lovely of them...

Yes it will be nice to have a back to back to back update :D
 
Accuracy objections like: "Germany should lose" don't count as specific enough
So I suppose 'All Germany's enemies always act like idiots, never show any initiative and are entirely passive-reactive' is also out?
 
No it isn't out, El Pip ;).

I've acknowledged that within the rules by which I write the narrative, that's the greatest dramatic weakness.

Of course, there are three hedges to that.

First, the fact remains that charges like idiocy, lack of initiative and passive-reactivity have been -- in many cases quite fairly -- leveled at the behavior of the same nations in our own timeline. I consider that given nearly 4 years less warning, this behavior would likely be expressed more as opposed to less.

Second, because Weltkriegschaft is told only from the German perspective a few factors are in play. Namely, the characters -- even resistors like Kappel and von Rönne -- all suffer from a certain nationalist bias. Events through their eyes unfold differently from the same events told through Allied eyes. This restricted perspective also means that we are unaware of most of the plans and machinations of Germany's enemies. It's only natural, then, that attention would be most heavily devoted to the plans and machinations taking place within the lives of the characters who are in the story.

Third, because of close adherence to the game engine, I'm left with little room to "fudge" Allied offensives out of thin air. The best I can do, I think, is to note when an action would naturally be expected, such as a British expeditionary force being sent to France. When this did not happen in the game engine, I portrayed people's surprise at the non-arrival of a BEF and suggested reasons for the same. In truth, though, this again has basis in history. If I were reading the real history of the war as an AAR, I might think that the whole Phoney War was just a brilliant and artful way of the author's covering up lackluster AI :rofl:.

It bears mention, too, that the French did invade Germany with temporary but notable success in this timeline, which is a sight better initiative than we saw in OTL.

But to a point your criticism does stand. When working within the confines of the HoI2 engine, one is bound to have to paint on the veneer of plausibility a little thicker and more blotchily than if one is simply composing the story out of his own imagination. But then again, it's covering up for AI tomfoolery that makes this job so much fun :D.
 
I suspect I would be less likely to read the story were it not an AAR and simply a story. Working around the game gives the story a bit of... charm.

The attack in Hong Kong was one of the most memorable updates for me, and was inspired by an apparent glitch of some sort. A strange issue that you managed to explain away in a most interesting fashion.
 
I have the long-awaited material at last! ETA on the update is down to about 2-3 days as I complete the writing, hopefully without any RL complications!

Thanks for waiting, guys!
 
I have the long-awaited material at last! ETA on the update is down to about 2-3 days as I complete the writing, hopefully without any RL complications!

Thanks for waiting, guys!
Three cheers...
Hip
Hip
Hooray!
 
Hey Hype.....I love Schacht's bow tie.........very , shall we say..........stylish??? For the times......hahaha..

More photos!!! More story line!!! Come on.....dont hold back!

KLorberau
 
Chapter III: Part XXIX

Chapter III: The Lion’s Den

Part XXIX


November 8, 1936

Fritz-Albert Geier awakened to feel warm sheets around himself, and wept. Gentle sunlight streamed down over his body as he shivered bitter tears face-down into his pillow.

Behind him, he heard the grating of a barred door sliding open, then soft footsteps. “I brought your tea, Fritz-Albert. You can drink it with me, if you like.”

Geier turned. It was the kindly Dutch major again, in an immaculate gray suit and carrying a tray. He set it down on the table next to Geier’s bed. There was a basket of scones and three kinds of jam. At the center of the tray were two delicate blue cups and an ornamented silver samovar.

“Russian,” he said, opening the spigot and pouring scalding dark tea into one of the cups.

Geier said nothing.

“We can talk about whatever you like. Here,” he said, handing Geier the tea and beginning to pour his own, “drink.”

Wiping his eyes, Geier accepted the tea, with a nod of thanks. He had a fleeting urge to throw it in the Dutchman’s face, to burn him with it, but he knew at once that that would only worsen things. He blew across the surface of the tea, taking a few steaming drops into his mouth. It was hot and bitter, but spicy -- and it moistened his cracked lips. He cleared his throat. “It’s good.”

“I’m glad you like it.” The major walked to the corner of Geier’s large cell and began to wash his hands in the steel basin.


AWKS1.jpg

Sunlight passes into a darkened cell.


Operation Elizabeth had failed. It seemed ages ago that he had first been summoned to Berlin to receive his orders. Geier, operating again as John Thorpe, had been named leader of the mission. The first among the others was Thomas Lyles, a thirty-six year old fascist and a vicar’s son, who had been scooped up in the chaos of the war in France months before. The others were from Holland: Hendrik de Jong, calling himself Henk de Waal; Anton Kieft calling himself Beukers and a Dutch Jew named Asser Israël. Canaris’ chief in Amsterdam had been most interested in this last man’s discovery. He had been imprisoned by the Dutch authorities for murdering a soldier to escape conscription in the first days of the German invasion. On finding him, the Abwehr had offered him a choice: face the hangman and familial reprisals or go to England. He had chosen the latter, and with the fifth and most unlikely member of Operation Elizabeth in place, they had gone for training near Berlin.

After rigorous training, led in part by Geier, the five men had departed Ostend aboard the U-12, along with tens of thousand of Pounds for bribes and two trunks of equipment that had been expertly disassembled and disguised for reassembly in a place of safety. Their mission was to consist of primarily of reconnaissance -- to assess and report upon the troop concentrations and defense preparations in the South and East of Britain. They were additionally charged, their orders read, with assessing the size and organization of the political movements within the country that could be used for subversive purposes. Although Geier was privately informed that they might later be ordered to make contact with the British Union of Fascists, such action was strictly forbidden barring instructions to the contrary.

Although a night landing would have been preferred, U-12 discharged its passengers into an inflatable boat just before 0700 on the fourth of November to catch the high tide and the favorable lighting conditions of dawn. Their small rubber craft had been close to shore, when an armed patrol launch had come out of the rising sun and caught them totally by surprise. When Lyles threw overboard the briefcase containing their British money -- the most incriminating parcel with them -- the launch had fired warning shots over their heads and into the water all around them. They had been taken aboard the launch without bloodshed, and held there for more than an hour by nervous British sailors while a destroyer dropped depth charges a few thousand meters away. Two more destroyers were on the scene within an hour, furiously attacking the U-12 until debris and an oil slick were sighted. The destroyers waited for several more hours with engines off to ensure that the submarine wasn’t simply waiting to surface. Satisfied that their quarry had been destroyed, they left the scene, and the prisoners were taken aboard the HMS Duncan shortly after three in the afternoon.

Her captain had ordered the rubber boat retrieved and brought onto the D-class destroyer, and then summoned his first officer for a joint interrogation. The five prisoners were separated and questioned separately. When Geier was brought before the man who introduced himself as Lieutenant Commander Rowell, he did not know whether he was first or last to be interviewed, but confidently asserted the story that the men of Operation Elizabeth had carefully rehearsed in case of capture near the beaches.

Thorpe and Lyles were both British nationals, he said. The other three were Dutchmen. They had all been caught in Holland during the German invasion, and part of a large group of refugees left behind when the last British destroyer pulled away from the embattled docks at Amsterdam. The refugees had been loaded onto trucks by German soldiers and told that they would be taken for processing at a warehouse outside the city. Rumor quickly spread among the terror-mad passengers that they were in fact being taken to a fate far more sinister. When their truck had gotten into a bad wreck with a staff car, many of those onboard had bolted into the surrounding trees. Evading pursuit, Thorpe, Lyles, de Waal, Beukers and Israël had managed to escape to a Roman Catholic chapel on foot. They had been kept in hiding for nearly a month, cared for by the brothers until the Germans had reopened the Port of Amsterdam at the start of November. de Waal, Geier said, had known of a ship captain hostile to the Nazis. They had pooled what money they had with them and bribed him to get them out of the country. Slipping out of the Scheldt estuary at night, he had taken them to within 50 kilometers of the English coast before setting them in an inflatable raft and turning back for Holland.

Rowell had pressed him heatedly about the presence of the submarine, but Geier denied all knowledge of it. Perhaps, he had opined to the destroyer captain, the U-boat had followed them from Holland and was planning on sinking them.

Lacking a forceful rebuttal, the two officers simply pressed on asking routine questions and taking notes to be passed on to more competent authorities. It was evening before the Duncan docked at Southend. The prisoners were handcuffed and driven away by a large contingent of police who had been waiting along neck of the pier.

After less than an hour at the civil jail, they had been driven to a military prison in Greater London.

The guards had thoroughly searched them, confiscating each man’s wristwatch and outer clothing for closer inspection. They had been shown to narrow, unfurnished holding cells and left alone in the silent darkness. Geier remembered feeling drowsy, then the flood of light as his cell door was opened by two armed guards in kettle-style helmets, who marched him politely but firmly down a long hallway. He gathered from the sounds that filtered in from outside that some many hours had passed since he had been put into the cell, although it was still night.

Geier was shown into a small room. It was perhaps four meters square, and windowless -- illuminated by a lone bulb hanging from the ceiling. The guards unshackled Geier’s hands and sat him in a sparse metal chair on the near side of the large aluminum table which dominated the small space. Behind it sat two men: an Army stenographer and a blue-uniformed wing commander of the RAF. “Tell me your name, if you please,” the officer drawled coolly.


Interrogation-Room-1.jpg

Interrogation room used for suspected foreign agents.


“How did you sleep?”

It took a moment for Geier to realize that the question was being asked in the present. He looked up at the Dutch major, who had taken a seat across from him, and was sipping the Russian tea.

“Fine.”

“I believe you aren’t such a bad fellow after all, Fritz-Albert.”

Geier looked sullenly back at him, wolfing down one of the scones in spite of himself.

“In fact I believe you to be quite brave, given the circumstances. Your shrewdness was quite admirable, even. The only thing I cannot explain, I’m afraid, is why you should have chosen to tell us so much information that you knew we were capable of verifying. It was this thoroughness that was your undoing.”

“To the contrary,” Geier said, marshaling as much dignity as remained to him, “it was just this thoroughness that frustrated you for as long as it did. Allow me to explain.”

“John Thorpe,” Geier had answered the interrogating officer. He had been asked to spell it for the stenographer. He had already gone through all this information on the destroyer, but knew that interrogators were asking them again to accustom him to cooperativeness in answering questions.

“When and where were you born?”

“September the eleventh, 1889.”

The RAF man looked at him expectantly. “And where?”

“Selby, Yorkshire.” Geier had stilled his breathing as best he could. He knew the details of John Thorpe’s life inside and out. Without doubt, the interrogator would try to throw something unexpected at him here, but Geier calmly placed his trust in the foresight of his own masters exceeding the ingenuity of their opposite numbers in England.

“What were the names of your parents?”

“George Sydney Thorpe and Cecilia Dutton.”

“Very good. Now how was your father employed?”

“He was a barrister.”

“And your mother?”

“My mother stayed home.”

“Are either still living?”

Geier paused, trying to appear reflective. “No.”

“I’m sorry. When were their dates of birth and death?”

“My father was born April thirtieth, 1848. My mother was born June twelfth, 1861.” Geier knit his brow. He felt his way gingerly out of learned territory and into a bluff. “I’m sorry to say that I don’t observe the other anniversaries. It’s difficult enough getting on.”

“I understand entirely,” the officer had said softly. “Perhaps just the season, though. What time of year did your father die?”

“It -- it must have been -- well, there was purple in the church, so it would have been Lent. Spring, then -- March or April.”

“I see. And so you are a British citizen?”

“Yes.”

“Which languages do you speak well?”

“English, French and German, with passable Dutch and Swedish.”

“What is your professed religion, if any?”

“My father was a High Church man, as was I raised, but I cannot claim any particular conviction.”

“You said in your interview with Lt. Cmdr. A.N. Rowell that you are a lecturer and an ornithologist by profession. It that correct?”

“Yes. I quite am an avid naturalist, sir.” So avid, in fact, that I fell clear off a canoe in Canada and drowned myself. Geier tried not to imagine whether he would soon meet the real John Thorpe.

There was a knock at the door and the interrogator excused himself. He returned after a few moments and nodded in the direction of his prisoner. “That will be all, Mr. Thorpe.” Throughout the questioning, the Wing Commander had regarded him with a certain chill menace -- always polite, but with keen purpose showing under his dark eyes and mustache. Geier knew all too well where this man’s mission led. “That will be all.”

Both the Wing Commander and his stenographer slipped out of the room. Without his wristwatch Geier guessed that several hours had gone by before his alertness began to slacken. Very soon, sleep gripped him.

A strange dream was interrupted by the opening of a barred door and the polished footsteps of an approaching officer. Geier rubbed his eyes.

“Good morning, Wing Commander.”

He placed his hat on the table and sat down, a smile playing across his lips. “I’m afraid you will not find it so.”

“What’s the matter, sir?”


“Your friend, Mynheer Israël, has reconsidered his commitment to your little espionage ring, now that he’s out of the Gestapo’s reach. He signed a full confession last night, and it looks like the game’s now up for you. With the evidence provided by Mynheer Israël and a most cooperative Mr. Lyles, who is even now giving his own confession with the encouragement of his father, it is almost a certainty that you shall be sentenced to death as a spy.”

Desperate outrage welled up in Geier. “You accuse me quite wrongly, sir!”

“I think not.” The Wing Commander placed his hat back on and placed his elbows on the table, interlacing his fingers. “His Majesty’s Government is willing to offer you a bargain, however. You still have one thing that the others can’t give us -- your wireless codes. In return for those, and your full confession of course, we propose to spare your life and allow you to transmit messages to Germany using information that will be supplied to you.”

Geier stared at him, mouth agape. His mind was frantically trying to read the situation, and read the Wing Commander.

“Of course, if you are to be of any usefulness transmitting messages in our service those plans must be initiated immediately. I’m afraid you’re in a bit of a tight spot, then. You are to agree at once -- I can give you a minute to consider your words and your decision carefully -- or we shall proceed with your trial and execution this afternoon. I shouldn’t doubt the swiftness of the result if that is what you choose.”

Under his sense of his mortal danger, Geier felt a suspicion, a hope. Could he be bluffing? It was not an unknown tactic, but the accuracy of some of his interrogator’s words could not be ignored. How did they know about Lyles’ father? Was he really here? Worst, how did the Wing Commander know that only Geier had the wireless codes? Yet if Israël and Lyles had truly confessed, surely the first thing the Wing Commander would have done would be to impress Geier with the use of his true name. Geier had deliberately phrased his words to prompt the interrogator to answer by name, but he had scrupulously avoided using any name at all. On the other hand, if the others hadn’t confessed, the British would never hang John Thorpe without breaking him first to gain insight into the Abwehr’s methods. No, Geier reasoned. If they had gotten confessions, the Wing Commander would have used every detail of them to force his prisoner to despair. Now his words had sounded a little thin, desperate -- the triumph in them a little too forced.

It had to be a bluff. He would now quite literally stake his life on it. “I must in all sincerity deny your accusations, sir. I cannot guess what would have made the others make the statements they did, unless they were tortured, sir. But it’s nothing but murderous lying, I swear to you on the grave of my father! If the court decides that I am to be hanged, there is nothing I can do to stop it -- if the only way to save my life is to confess to treason I never committed, then I am ready for the drop.”

The Wing Commander’s mustache quivered. “So be it, then.” With that, he stormed out of the room, leaving Geier alone to clench his jaw in half-mad relief.

Hours later, a guard arrived with a pitcher of water and a sort of sweet-tasting cracker. As he was led back from the latrine, he found the Wing Commander and his stenographer again sitting behind the interrogator’s table.

Geier knew that now was his opening to press his advantage -- with all the conviction of an innocent man.

“I must protest, sir! I have been denounced for a treason I have not committed, and now I am told I am to hang for it. Ask me something. How can I prove that I am who I say I am? What can I do?”

“All you are to do is to establish the preliminaries again.”

“Please,” Geier bawled, “let me write to the King! Allow me to prove my innocence!”

“The only way to do that,” the Wing Commander said coldly, “is to establish the preliminaries beyond doubt. Now let us begin.”

They tiringly rehashed all the old answers again and again. His name was John Sydney Thorpe. He was born in Selby, Yorkshire on September eleventh, 1889, son of George Sydney Thorpe and Cecilia Dutton. Father was a barrister, sent him to school at St. Eubulus. Speaks English, French and German. Non-observant Anglo-Catholic. It was an old tactic -- bore the suspect into talking. Strange, Geier thought, how anyone one misstep away from the gallows could get bored.

“Now that the preliminaries are well-established,” the Wing Commander said after the eighth recitation, “we can sort out your story and see what’s quite true.”

“Ask anything you like. I am happy to do anything I can to prove my innocence.”

“Very well, Mr. Thorpe. Surely you can imagine the difficulty of your circumstances. You have been caught in wartime, making an unannounced landing on a deserted beach, while an enemy submarine lay just off the coast. From your interview with Lt. Cmdr. Rowell, you claim that you are not enemy spies, as it might seem, but rather refugees.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then let’s have your story in full for the record so that we can see what’s true. If we should like something repeated I shall say so. I may ask you questions to clarify points that aren’t clear.”

“Well, where do you want me to start?”

“From your movements from the beginning of the invasion of Holland. Where were you then?”

“I was on short holiday from Sweden, where I was writing a paper.”

“This was the paper on ornithology?”

“Yes.”

“So you were enjoying leisure in Amsterdam when the fighting started?”

“Yes. One morning we heard reports that the Germans had actually invaded. No one ever thought they would really do it, you see -- and so it came as a very great surprise. I tried to purchase passage to Norway or some other neutral country, but there had been a run on all the ships. I tried all through the next few days, but it was total chaos, and there were German aeroplanes machine-gunning the ships as they came and went and nothing was moving. Just as I had made up my mind to get to the Hague, we heard that we were cut off and that panzers were about to come into the city. Then the Royal Navy ships arrived and started evacuating all the important people. Everyone was pulling every possible connection to get aboard those ships -- uncles, friends, and so on -- anybody who knew a minister was instantly a prince.”

“And you couldn’t get on?”

“No. I was bitterly close, too. But next thing, there were explosions everywhere and the ships pulled away and the whole crowd was rounded up. Eventually they came with lorries for us, and took names as they loaded everyone on board, to see who went where. They told us we were going to a warehouse to be processed further, but on the way there, people started saying that it was really all just a story to get our cooperation. Then, there was a terrible crash and when everyone stopped tumbling around we realized that we had gotten into a wreck with a German staff car that had been coming the other way. Almost everyone ran off into the trees near the road and down the alleyways until we were far from the wreck.”

“The Germans just let you get away?”

“Some of them were hurt in the crash -- rather badly, I believe. I think they tried machine-gunning people as they got away, but I never looked back and on any account I think they were rather preoccupied with the wreck.”

“I found my way to a Catholic chapel with the help of one of the other men from the lorry. Soon there were five of us who’d made it to the chapel. The brothers there hid us and fed us for a month while things were still bad in the city, and with the Gestapo looking for us. Finally, the military government reopened the port, and we found a captain who was known to be hostile to the Germans and unlikely to betray us. And so we gathered all our money -- whatever we had been carrying. Much of it was English money, so hard to change in Holland, except on the black market. So the captain demanded a fee of £350 to smuggle us out of the country. One morning we casually and discreetly loaded onto his boat, where he concealed us belowdecks and slipped out of Amsterdam and down the coast. When night fell, we slipped out of the Scheldt estuary, where we had been waiting, and made for England as fast as we could. The captain -- Petrus was his name -- inflated the raft that he had and put us on it so we could row in the rest of the way. This happened a few hours before dawn, I believe, because Captain Petrus said that he had to turn back so he could be in time to come back into port with the morning fishing boats.”

“And so you rowed the rest of the way in?”

“Yes. Just after dawn the cutter came up and surprised us.”

“Very good. Our own account of the story picks up there, of course.” The Wing Commander glanced at his wristwatch. “Now I must ask you to recount your story again, making sure not to leave out any important details.”

Geier repeated the story again. When he had finished, the Wing Commander asked for it yet once more. It was surely dark by the time Geier finished his third telling of the story, although it was impossible to tell in that enclosed room.

Steadying his nerves for a long night, Geier could only hope that the other four had been well-served by the training given them by the Abwehr and had not broken. If each man adhered religiously to his cover story, he knew, there would likely be little the British could do. Although their system was adaptable and highly professional, it was weak and porous when it came to catching spies. In Germany, mere suspicion was enough -- a good thing, for the best spies allowed their opponents nothing more. In Britain, even spies in wartime received a semblance of due process. Without evidence to convict the prisoners before a magistrate or special court, Geier knew, British counterintelligence might soon be at a loss.

With a ceaseless clatter, the stenographer’s weary fingers typed away, and Geier answered exactly as he had before. After thirty-seven more mind-numbing accounts of the escape from Amsterdam, the Wing Commander abruptly concluded the interview and left Geier alone in the room. Mentally exhausted from staying on his guard against traps subtly inserted into the interview, the leader of Germany’s only spy cell in Britain set his head down on the table and went to sleep.

In Geier’s cell, the Dutchman lit himself a cigarette as his prisoner lay upon the bed. “Already you had offered many openings for thorough counterintelligence work to exploit.”

“Admittedly,” Geier said. “But none of those particular openings proved fruitful to you, did they?”

“They did not. But how could you possibly have known that ahead of time?”

“I made a number of educated guesses,” the German said, pouring himself more of the tea, “but you’ll concede that you did the same. Time was simply in your favor more than it was in mine.”

Geier had awakened on what would surely be the morning of the sixth to the sound of the door opening and a very red-eyed Wing Commander entering the room. “I just have a few questions,” he said as the stenographer set up, “and I’d like you to answer as carefully as you can.”

At once they resumed the wearying repetition of the interview. Through the early part of the morning, the Wing Commander occasionally requested elaborations or asked questions slightly differently, but as afternoon wore into evening -- after dozens of retellings and three changes of stenographer -- even the questions came to be repeated verbatim. Geier was careful not to repeat his answers verbatim, however, lest they appear concocted, but endeavored never to vary them enough to leave an opening that the Wing Commander could pursue. Sometimes he described the boat as “slipping” out of the Scheldt estuary, and other times as “puttering” or “gliding”. Sometimes he gave the captain’s name right away and other times after several sentences. Sometimes he added the detail of who contributed each fraction of the bribe money and other times omitted the exact amount altogether. Through each telling, he tried to maintain the internal clock that was only vaguely reset twice a day by the level of light in the hallway to the latrines. At any rate, Geier only hoped to outlast his interrogator, who was starting to show the strain.

In total, the Wing Commander proceeded to demand the account of Thorpe’s escape from Amsterdam no less than forty-seven times before departing abruptly. Some time afterward, he returned and started in with the same routine. As he spoke, Geier noticed traces of food between his teeth, probably dinner. The course of the interrogation simply made no sense. Why wasn’t he taking the interrogation further? Fact-checking? Trying to break down one of the others for a confession first? The interrogators were apparently stalling, but for what?

Geier was now convinced by his treatment that his captors were already privately certain of his guilt. Now, he reasoned, they were merely trying to extract a confession or assemble enough evidence to convict him before a magistrate and send him to the gallows. His greatest hope would be to frustrate their efforts long enough to be released and then go deep underground.

In the midst of one of the recitations, another kettle-helmeted guard had opened the door and summoned the stenographer from the room. The Wing Commander followed him. As soon as they were gone, Geier heard approaching footsteps and expected to see the relief stenographer brush past the guard into the room, but in walked a different man entirely.

For a moment, Geier was at a loss as to what branch or service his brown uniform represented. Then it struck him that this man was not British at all, but a major in the Free Dutch forces. He was somewhat tall, trim but fit, and sat down gracefully in the chair.

“Tell me about your paper -- the ornithology paper.”

“I --” He seized upon a distant scrap of memory from a visit to Scandinavia years before the war -- and summoned up every spark of enthusiasm that was in him. “Well, sir, it’s the Ural Owl, primarily. Slaguggla, the Swedes call it. They’ve all but disappeared from parts of the north of the country, and we’ve counted fewer and fewer breeding pairs in the older reaches of their habitat, where they had once migrated from Russia, of course -- that’s why they’re called Ural Owls, you see, sir -- and then the question for us is to what extent this can be attributed to the predations of other birds of prey and which to hunting for their feathers, which, strange as it seems, seem to be much prized by the Asiatic Finns up there in the highest latitudes -- you did know that some of the Finns actually spill into Sweden, sir -- and at any rate have impacted the population of Slaguggla to the point where it is proving a most vexing sort of problem -- and one, I need not remind you, with political implications for the Swedes, because of the delicacy of their position with respect to the --”

“The ethnic Finns? I would imagine so! Very good...” The major produced from a pocket a pack of Dutch cigarettes. “Would you like one?”

Geier accepted gratefully, and the Dutch Major lit the cigarette and then his own. Taking a long puff, he said, “Very good. Very good. The ethnic Finns. So where were you staying in Sweden while researching the Slaguggla?”

Geier could scarcely believe this conversation. The Dutchman was sincerely asking him about owls, with no sign of notes or a stenographer.

“I worked in the field, and spent some days at the University of Uppsala, but I was staying in Stockholm.”

“What hotel?”

“The Grand Hôtel of course, even on my means.”

“You’ve stayed there several times, then?”

“Yes. Well somewhat,” Geier hedged, fearing a battery of questions about the layout of a hotel he had only visited once. “Most of my visits have just been passing through, actually staying at the University.”

“Ah, good. So you enjoy the finer side of European hospitality, Mr. Thorpe?”

“I’m not a dandy, sir, but I enjoy what I can.”

“Was that the purpose of your holiday in Amsterdam?”

“What do you mean?”

“You went to Amsterdam as a tourist rather than, say, to count the thrushes along the canals?”

“Ahm, that’s correct.”

“How long had you been there when the Germans invaded?”

“Not long. I believe it was my sixth day.”

“Surely you had heard the rumors of war by that time.”

“I did, but as I have said, nobody in the city really believed them.”

“And then you tried to get to Norway when the invasion started?”

Geier realized that the man was working entirely from memory. He began to appreciate that he was in conversation with perhaps quite a formidable mind indeed. “Yes, that’s right. I couldn’t, so then I tried to get onto one of the destroyers.”

“How did you try?”

“I pleaded with all of the acquaintances I had in the city, trying to see if they knew anyone who could get me on. As the Germans began to come into the city, it became utter chaos at the docks, and so by that point I suppose you could say jostling was my best attempt to get onboard.”

“But you ultimately got away by bribing a ship captain. Why didn’t you try to bribe your way onboard the destroyer?”

Caught with no prepared answer, Geier’s silence stretched for what seemed to him minutes. “I cannot honestly say, sir. I never thought of it -- I suppose because it was all so public in those last hours crammed together on the docks, there wasn’t anywhere where I could take someone aside and offer him anything.”

The Dutch Major nodded. “About what time of day did the last destroyer pull away?”

“After all the confusion of that day, I cannot remember with certainty. I think it must have been some time in the afternoon. Although it’s possible that the destroyer returned later to nearby docks.”

“Naturally, Mr. Thorpe. What happened after the last destroyer was gone?”

“Despair. The Germans were only blocks away, so some of the people tried to jump into the water after the ships, but it was too late.”

“I imagine the German soldiers found you all crowded together, then?”

“Yes.”

“How many people were in that crowd?”

“Surely more than a thousand. Maybe as much as five thousand.”

“They must have been packed together very tightly.”

“Oh, yes. They were crowded all together closer than you could imagine.”

“How did the Germans sort them onto the lorries? Did they just start from the edges, for example, or perhaps call forward specific types of people?”

“I believe they started from the edges, but as people were called forward, the Germans recorded their names and nationalities, and then we were herded at gunpoint onto the lorries.”

“How did you hear where they were taking you?”

“One of the officers was speaking through a trumpet, explaining that because of the fighting and danger all round, we were to be processed safely at a warehouse.”

“Why should the warehouse have been any safer?”

“Because it was fully behind German lines.”

The Dutch Major was lighting another cigarette. “Am I correct that when the lorry crashed, it was a frontal wreck?”

“Yes. The driver hit a staff car coming the other way as we rounded a curve.”

“Had you been at high speed?”

“Rather fast, yes.”

“Yet you weren’t hurt.”

“Not seriously, no.”

“Why do you imagine that might be?”

Geier furrowed his brow. “Well, we were all packed in so tightly, that we more or less just piled together. Some were more badly hurt than I, but as soon as we had figured out that the driver and guard in the front had been hurt, we just ran. Everyone was terribly frightened, you see -- and so I’m afraid to say that we probably left some of the injured behind.”

“And you quickly got to a Roman Catholic chapel. How did you find it so easily?”

“As soon as I found my bearings,” Geier said, “I remembered that the day after my arrival I had seen people coming from Sunday mass in the district of the chapel.”

“What was the chapel called?”

“The brothers were a silent order, so to this day I do not know to whom I am so deeply indebted.”

“Surely you saw inscriptions, at least. You are doubtless an observant man; what did they say?”

“I -- well, as I have explained, my Dutch is not excellent, but I can remember several inscriptions about -- St. John, I believe it was.” It was a blind guess, but unless British counterintelligence already had intimate knowledge of the inscriptions in every Catholic religious structure in Amsterdam, they would have no way of confirming the truth.

“You see, this information can be of great use to us. If we can figure out to which order they belong, we can perhaps use the channels of that order in other neutral countries to help other hunted people escape to freedom. What did the brothers at this chapel wear?”

“Robes and sandals. They were not discalced, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“What color were the robes, though? Different orders wear black or brown or white.”

“I saw both white and black robes. As it happened, there were several congregations of brothers in the complex around the chapel, and the prior usually wore white.”

“Where did the brothers hide you and your companions in the weeks that you stayed with them?”

“We spent most of our time in the cellar.”

“Did either German soldiers or the Gestapo ever come looking for you?”

“We heard that they searched other parts of the city, but they never searched the chapel itself.”

“And who told you about Captain Petrus?”

“de Waal talked to an officer of the underground who came to stay at the chapel briefly several weeks after our own arrival.”

“What was this man’s name?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“Would Mynheer de Waal know?” The major’s expression betrayed nothing of the purpose behind this dangerous question. Geier chose noncommittal.

“He may, but of course it is commonplace for such people to use a nom de guerre.”

“And you trusted Mynheer de Waal, who had previously been a total stranger, to be telling the truth about this member of the underground and the captain who would be willing to take you?”

“Yes. You see I had come to know de Waal very well in our confinement together, and I was becoming quite desperate. I knew we could not remain undetected forever if we stayed in Holland.”

The Dutch Major nodded. “How did you first meet Captain Petrus? Was it on or before the day or your actual escape?”

“It was on the day. The underground people coordinated it, and we slipped out of the chapel early one morning in rough work clothes and came to the docks. The guard wasn’t terribly tight, as many fishermen and other seamen were coming in at that hour, and so our conductor just led us right through to what looked to be a fishing ship of some kind, gave a sign to the captain, and the captain took us below. It was there that he took our payment, and gave Lyles and myself the revolvers which you will have found in our baggage. He hid all five of us in cramped equipment storage space, and piloted his vessel down to the Scheldt estuary and past whatever hazards were on the way.”

“I see. When he told you that he had to turn back, was that unexpected or had he told you that that was the plan all along?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Did Captain Petrus tell you before you left Amsterdam that he wouldn’t take you all the way the British coast?”

“No. But I do not believe he was of bad faith. I think instead that we did not make as good speed as he would have liked, and that this forced him to turn back before we were closer so that he could get back on schedule.”

“One more thing, Mr. Thorpe. Some of the sailors on the launch which picked you up reported seeing someone on your raft throwing a briefcase into the water as soon as you were spotted. Did that take place?”

“I do not believe so. Perhaps he saw us bailing water, as some had come into the boat. But not with a briefcase, for we had none -- only the two small trunks which were confiscated from us.”

At this, the Dutch Major twisted the last stub of his cigarette into the ashtray on the table before lighting a new one. It was several seconds before he spoke. “Yours is a very interesting story, Mr. Thorpe. I am perhaps not an infallible prophet, but I do believe that we shall see whether or not it’s true tomorrow. Good evening.”

With that, he was gone, and Geier taken out for his nighttime visit to the latrine. Despite the sweet crackers, he was becoming painfully hungry and he knew that whatever rest he could snatch in the hard chair in the interrogation room would not be refreshing. Nonetheless, he reasoned to keep up his morale, the Dutch Major seemed less hostile than the Wing Commander and could perhaps be manipulated. It was a thought that made the discomfort bearable.

“I knew at once, then, that I had you.” In Geier’s cell, the major eyed him keenly.

“I had feared as much,” the Prisoner sighed through a cigarette. “But I knew there was no advantage to allowing myself to think that so soon.”

“Wing Commander Brown had other ideas, of course. Several times that morning I had privately wondered whether his view would be the better supported one when time ran out.”

“If that’s true, then, your final conclusion was all the more remarkable.”

Geier awoke on what he immediately told himself was the seventh of November to the sound of the door being opened.

“I should like the truth for once, Mr. Thorpe.”

Geier looked up. It was the Wing Commander, still very red-eyed, and his stenographer. From the name he used, Geier instantly knew that none of the others had broken during the night. For the first time since his capture, he began to sense that he might have gained the upper hand. “I have always given it to you faithfully, sir, but I shall answer whatever questions you have for me.”

“Tell me about the ornithology paper you claim to have been working on before going to Amsterdam.”

Reading from his notes, the Wing Commander asked each one of the questions that the Dutch Major had. Since the latter had not taken notes of any kind, this suggested to Geier the presence of hidden microphones in the room. The Dutchman must have gone without a stenographer in an effort to lure his prisoner into more informal conversation.

They only managed to repeat this longer and more elaborate interview seven times before the Wing Commander and his stenographer were again summoned from the room.

In the hallway, Geier overheard a brief exchange between the Wing Commander and the Dutch Major. It was mostly in code and euphemism, but they addressed each other as “Stanley” and “Frank” respectively. These were surely pseudonyms, of course -- it was standard practice in counter-intelligence for officers to refer to one another strictly by fictitious names so as to guard against successful spies reporting useful names back to their own services. Deciding against using the names in his next interview, Geier nonetheless tried to commit every detail he overheard to memory. If nothing else, it kept his mind and memory sharp and bolstered his spirits and will to resist -- he sensed that hunger, fatigue and discomfort were beginning to take their toll.

“Good morning, Mr. Thorpe,” the Dutch Major said, offering him a cigarette.

“Good morning.”

“I’d like to ask you more about three aspects of your story. Is that alright?”

“Of course.”

The Dutch major gave Geier a light, and got his own cigarette underway before continuing. “Three points you raised strain credibility, and if you wish to prove to us that you are, as you say, innocent, I’d like to be satisfied on them. First: the matter of your transit to Amsterdam. You have stated that you got there five days before before the start of the invasion. You confirmed this by placing your second day in Amsterdam as a Sunday, for the invasion began on a Thursday. Yet the port records, which have survived, show no passenger ships arriving from Sweden on the twenty-first of September. How did you get from Stockholm to Amsterdam?”

There was only one thing to do. “I flew in an aeroplane.”

“From which aerodrome and in what kind of aircraft?”

“From the Bromma aerodrome and in a three-engined aircraft. I am afraid I didn’t learn the name.”

“What time did your flight leave Stockholm?”

“Some time in the morning. Eleven, perhaps, or something on that order.”

“What was the weather like? Was there turbulence, rain or calm?”

Geier paused. That question meant that the Dutch Major had weather records. “I know it might sound terribly convenient, if you understand, but I slept through most of the flight. As I recall, it was clear when I got off the plane.”

“Sometimes the truth is convenient, of course, so let’s see how you answer the next question.” He tapped ash into he tray. “You said that there were perhaps more than a thousand people left behind at the docks when the last of the destroyers -- the Duncan as irony would have it -- pulled away from its moorings. Was the crowd really that small, relatively speaking?”

“As I said, it may have been closer to five thousand. It could even have been more, but my view was limited.”

“Why was it limited?”

“Because I was at the dockside, and the crowd was thick, and all ‘round me.”

“So a person might have been able to better estimate the size of the crowd from high up?”

“Yes, I reckon so.”

“I quite agree, Mr. Thorpe. For I myself was aboard the Duncan watching the whole thing from the rails, and was pleased to count no more than two hundred people left behind. With what feat of quick wits will you answer that?”

Geier was silent. His mind had at last gone numb.

“I think my third question can help to settle things, then. I need your answer to come from sincerest reflection, here, Mr. Thorpe. With what degree of certainty can you vouch for the bona fides of the other four men who were captured with you?”

“I -- after spending as much time as I did in close and familiar contact with them, I can vouch with complete certainty for each of them.”

“None of them are German spies?”

“No.”

“Not even one, perhaps -- slipped into your party to use your own legitimacy as a cloak for his mission?”

“It is unthinkable. I assure you that all are legitimate.”

The Dutch Major pursed his lips. “Then you must be the spy, Mr. Thorpe. For you told us that you were conducted out of Amsterdam by a member of the underground there. We have personally checked your story with the underground by wireless. Its leader, a personal friend of mine, assures us that no such party was ever conducted out of Amsterdam by boat.”

The silence that followed was deep. Faintly, Geier could hear his interrogator’s cigarette burning.

“Your story could nonetheless be true, of course. But if it is, that means that your conductor in the underground was not in the underground at all, and rather in the employ of the Gestapo. I doubt you would have me believe that the Gestapo would arrange the escapes of five fugitives all loyal to the Allies. Clearly, either one of your companions is a spy and has hoodwinked you, you are a spy and have hoodwinked all your companions, or all five of you are in league together. I suppose you’ll tell me it’s the first.”

“I --”

“And just because you will -- for, naturally, it’s your only hope to escape the gallows -- I have left one less thing to chance. I have spoken to your four companions, and all agree on the details of your meeting. All remember being herded into the lorry more or less at random by the Germans. All remember seeing one another and even speaking to one another in the lorry. All remember fleeing together after the accident -- and all remember seeing some of the Germans lying injured after the lorry got into a wreck. If the Germans had planted a spy among you, he could only have been introduced to the chapel after the other four.

“The only possibility that could spare you -- that the Germans deliberately caused the accident which allowed you to flee, in order to embed a planted man in your group, strains belief far past the breaking point, as even you must agree. For as you told me yourself, you led the group to the chapel in the first place, having remembered it from days before. Surely if you are innocent, even the cleverest German spymaster could not predict that you would be aboard that particular lorry in order to be in a position to lead three other innocent men and their true spy to the chapel.

“This leaves the only remaining possibility that all five of you are spies, and in my lengthy career as a spy-catcher I have developed instincts which conclude quite decisively that you are their leader.”

“I --”

“And a last thing, before you answer.” Smoke curling from his lips, the Dutch Major opened a drawer under the table and produced a sheet of paper with black printing. He passed it forward and turned it so that Geier could see. It was a telegram from Canada.


Abstract of Certificate of Death

Name: John Sydney Thorpe
Date of Death: April 2, 1926
Place of Death: Calling Lake
Age: 36
Birthplace: York, UK
Residence: London, UK

Given under my hand at Edmonton, Alberta this 26 day of April in the year 1926.

John A. Halvorsen
Official Records Registrar



“I sincerely suggest that you stop insulting my intelligence by maintaining this childish charade. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Geier’s eyes began to brim with tears. “I -- I must confess that I have not been truthful with you.” The words came out in shuddering gasps. “I must throw myself upon your mercy, for I can lie no more! Although I never meant to, and although I was only forced into it by circumstances, I have done a terrible thing.”

“What is it?”

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Apologies for the long wait on this, everyone! Hopefully its quintuple length will make it up to you :D.

Also, I've run into the 50,000 character cap per post. I'm going to see what can be done about that as far as the index linking.

Thanks for reading!


EDIT: Problem Solved
 
Hey, TheExecuter! Great to hear from you. Thanks, I'm glad to you liked it!

Sharp on picking up on the Dutch Major.

I was going to open that one up to speculation -- an honorary Iron Cross 1st Class to the first reader who can identify the Dutch Major or the Wing Commander!

Because you asked, though, if no one can quickly come up with the former, I'll let you know, TheExecuter.
 
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At first I thought the Wing Commander was Leigh-Mallory due to his past legal record, but one he wasn't Wing Commander in 1936, was promoted to Group Captain in 1932. Two, he wasn't in England in 1936 (unless your story moved him around), he was in Iraq till 1937

When you were describing the Wing Commander, dark eyes and mustache, I was thinking Sir John Cotesworth Slessor. So is the Wing Commander Slessor?
 
Excellent guesses, Slaughts. It's neither Leigh-Mallory nor Slessor, though.

I realize that there are a lot more potential identities for the Wing Commander than the Dutch Major.

As a hint, the Wing Commander in OTL would rise to become an Air Chief Marshal, although he became most famous for a high-level command and a series of colorful experiences rather than his interwar work in intelligence.

The Dutch Major should be easier to identify, because in OTL he went on to receive considerable acclaim for his intel/counterintel work after the war -- although his name and career are sadly now rather obscure.
 
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