The Black Baroness Read Online Free PDF Page A

confidence about everything going accordingto plan and Hitler’s becoming the first World
Führer
in 1944. The Norwegians and the diplomat obviously accepted this forecast as quite inevitable and, far from showing any distress at the thought of their own countries becoming vassal states to a foreign power, appeared to consider themselves as the chosen vessels for carrying the Light of the new world order to their countrymen. In fact, Gregory had to keep on reminding himself that he really
was
in Norway and not attending a luncheon with a number of Nazi Party chiefs and their women in Berlin.
    He had always realised that the Scandinavian countries were strongly pro-German, however greatly the majority of English people liked to believe the contrary. During the last world-war they had seriously hampered the Allied blockade not only by selling most of their own produce to Germany but also by reselling to her a very large proportion of the raw materials which the Allies had allowed through for neutral consumption. Moreover, when the Allies had at last had the sense to tighten up their blockade, and Germany was beginning to feel the pinch, the Scandinavians had done their utmost to relieve the pressure by taking enormous numbers of German women and children as refugees for the remainder of the war. That was a work of humanity, but Gregory believed in facing facts. The Germans were waging unrestricted submarine warfare at that time; they were also bombing Paris and London on every possible opportunity, thus sending considerable numbers of our women and children to their deaths. As Germany was eventually brought to her knees through the pressure of the blockade, the fact that the Scandinavians were feeding a considerable section of her population during the latter part of the war simply meant that the war had gone on several months longer than it need have done, during which many thousands of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians owed their deaths entirely to this humanitarian gesture which had been made by the pro-German neutrals.
    Knowing all that, and having no reason to suppose that the attitude of the Scandinavians had materially altered in the past twenty years, Gregory had not expected to find the bulk of the people in Norway waving Union Jacks, but he had supposed that they at least had every intention of preserving their tradition of independence and he was utterly horrified at this revelation that such prominent and influential Norwegians as those at Paula’s luncheon-party had obviously sold out to Hitler.
    At luncheon he was given the place of honour on Paula’s right and she lost no opportunity of seeking to attract him. With her young, dark beauty and full-lipped smile she was a fascinating person but she got little chance to talk to him alone until the end of the meal, when the others all became involved in a general discussion on the eternal question as to where the
Führer
would really strike first now that spring was here. She then inquired about the reason for his visit to Norway, upon which he became intriguingly mysterious, but she only laughed at him and began to pull his leg.
    ‘Of course you mustn’t
tell
me,’ she mocked him. ‘Still it’s obvious that arrangements have to be made for the troops to land when the country is actually taken over and all the details must be seen to with the thoroughness for which our General Staff is so justly famous. But really you are to be congratulated upon having a delightfully “cushy” job, because there won’t be any fighting—or hardly any. With Hitler’s new technique you Army men will have to take a back seat for a change, and it’s girls like Erika and myself who will reap the real honours of the new war.’
    ‘You certainly seem to be getting a great deal of fun out of your baptism of fire,’ Gregory smiled.
    As the others were not listening she shrugged and went on in a low voice: ‘It’s quite true that most of us acted from compulsion to