Free Artillery of Lies by Derek Robinson

industry found a ready market in the German military leadership. Berlin
Abwehr
automatically sent summaries of the Eldorado reports to the OKW, the High Command of the Armed Forces. If a report was juicy enough it went straightto the Commander-in-Chief, the Fuehrer himself. Admiral Canaris knew that Hitler was impressed by this intelligence because Hitler sometimes congratulated him on it. Also because it changed Hitler’s thinking. Two months after Dieppe, Hitler had taken offense at some Allied misbehavior or other and had threatened to put in chains all prisoners-of-war captured in that raid. Churchill, naturally, had threatened to respond by putting German prisoners-of-war in chains. So far, fairly predictable. Then Hitler publicly ordered that all captured British Commandos should be executed. The British government protested, of course: a crude and barbaric breach of the Geneva Convention and all that. But it was Eldorado who discovered that a secret Anglo-American committee had recommended a wide variety of retaliations if Hitler’s orders were carried out. For every Commando executed, the British would hang a captured German general. When they ran out of generals they would work their way down the ranks. Alternatively (so Eldorado reported), for as long as Hitler’s order remained in force, the British would put five hundred German prisoners-of-war on board every freighter that crossed the Atlantic. That might give the U-boat commanders something to think about. Or … There were ten proposals in all, ending with the suggestion that an English town be re-named after each martyred Commando. Eldorado himself took credit for this piece of espionage but it was buttressed by the work of Seagull and Knickers. Knickers had overheard two Commando sergeants discussing, with approval, their CO’s idea that every man should fight to the death rather than surrender. Seagull’s contribution was the Russian view. He said the Russian leadership were pleased to hear that British troops were getting a taste of raw battle as Soviet soldiers had been fighting it since invasion by the Nazi murderers.
    â€œThe Fuehrer isn’t going to like this, sir,” said Major Schwartz, the duty officer at Berlin
Abwehr,
when he showed the Eldorado report to Admiral Canaris.
    The Admiral read it, twice. “You’re mistaken, Major,” he said. “The Fuehrer won’t enjoy it but he will undoubtedly be glad he has seen it.’ Canaris was right.” Hitler thought again. He didn’t give a damn if the Allies hanged every captured German general twice over—he had total contempt for failure—but he didn’t want to bolster Soviet morale by executing British Commandos. He let the idea slide.
    When Brigadier Christian came across all this in the files of Berlin
Abwehr,
he felt a little surge of pride. He had taken an unknown, untrained, penniless, cocky young Spaniard off the streets of Madrid, groomed him and polished him and kept faith in him, and now his faith had paid off. Now Eldorado led one of the most important spy rings in Europe; perhaps
the
most important, with Eldorado signals landing on the Fuehrer’s desk! Actually, the truth was that Christian had not found Eldorado on the streets of Madrid; Eldorado had walked off the streets into the Madrid embassy and had used his initiative and persistence to find the
Abwehr
department. What’s more, far from keeping faith with him, Christian had had so little confidence in Eldorado that as soon as the agent was sent to England, Christian had begun to think of sacrificing him by ordering him to carry out some particularly reckless piece of sabotage. Still, that was all ancient history now. Christian looked on Eldorado as his baby, and he said as much to General Oster.
    â€œOf course you do, old man,” Oster said affably. “Of course he is, and personally I think you deserve to be carried shoulder-high down the
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