Read Online Thunder Point by Jack Higgins - Free Book Online

mean?”
    “Read it for yourself. I’ll go and make some more coffee,” Travers said as the copier stopped. He shuffled the sheets together and handed them to Baker, who settled himself in the chair by the fire and started to read.
     
Bergen, Norway, 30 April 1944. I, Paul Friemel, start this account, more because of the strangeness of the task I am to perform than anything else. We left Kiel two days ago in this present boat designated U180. My command is in fact a craft that was damaged by bombing while under construction at Kiel in nineteen forty-three. We are to my certain knowledge carrying the number of a dead ship. My orders from Grand Admiral Doenitz are explicit. My passenger will arrive this evening from Berlin, although I find this hard to swallow. He will carry a direct order in the Führer’s own hand. I will learn our destination from him.
     
    There was a gap here in the diary and then a further entry for the evening of the same day.
     
I received orders to proceed to the airstrip where a Feiseler Storch landed. After a few minutes an officer in the uniform of an SS General appeared and asked if I was Korvettenkapitän Friemel. He in no way identified himself, although at that stage I felt that I had seen him before. When we reached the dock, he took me to one side before boarding and presented me with a sealed envelope. When I opened it I found it contained the order from the Führer himself, which had been mentioned in Grand Admiral Doenitz’s personal order to me. It ran as follows:
     
From the leader and Chancellor of the State. Reichsleiter Martin Bormann acts with my authority on a matter of the utmost importance and essential to the continuance of the Third Reich. You will place yourself under his direct authority, at all times remembering your solemn oath as an officer of the Kriegsmarine to your Führer, and will accept his command and authority as he sees fit and in all situations.
     
I recall now, having seen Bormann once at a State function in Berlin in 1942. Few people would recognize the man, for of all our leaders, I would conclude he is the least known. He is smaller than I would have thought, rough featured with overlong arms. Frankly, if seen in working clothes, one would imagine him a docker or laborer. The Reichsleiter enquired as to whether I accepted his authority which, having little option, I have agreed to do. He instructed me that as regards my officers and the crew, he was to be known as General Strasser.
     
1 May. Although the officers’ area is the most spacious on board, it only caters for three with one bunk lashed up. I have taken this for myself and given the Reichsleiter the Commanding Officer’s compartment on the port side and aft of what passes for a wardroom in this boat. It is the one private place we have, though only a felt curtain separates his quarters from the wardroom. As we left Bergen on the evening tide, the Reichsleiter joined me on the bridge and informed me that our destination was Venezuela.
     
2 May 1945. As the boat has been fitted with a snorkel I am able to contemplate a voyage entirely underwater, though I fear this may not be possible in the heavy weather of the North Atlantic. I have laid a course underwater by way of the Iceland-Faroes narrows and once we have broken into the Atlantic will review the situation.
     
3 May 1945. Have received by radio from Bergen the astonishing news that the Führer has died on the 1st of May fighting valiantly at the head of our forces in Berlin, in an attempt to deny the Russians victory. I conveyed the melancholy news to the Reichsleiter, who accepted it with what I thought to be astonishing calm. He then instructed me to pass the news to the crew, stressing that the war would continue. An hour later we received word over the radio that Grand Admiral Doenitz had set up a provisional government in Schleswig-Holstein. I doubt that it can last long with the Russians in Berlin and the Americans and British