Berlin Red by Sam Eastland Read Free Book Online Page A

desert, but were now confined to the few corners of the Reich that the Allies had not yet wrestled from their grasp.
    He shared this tedious duty with another radio operator, a squat and fleshy Austrian named Zeltner, whose toes had frozen off when he fell asleep in a bunker outside Borodino in the winter of 1941. The injury removed him from any possibility of service on the front line, and he had helped to run the switchboard at the Chancellery until, like Misch, he had been transferred down into the bunker. Zeltner moved about surprisingly well for a man with no toes and, when in uniform, showed almost no sign of his deformity. This was accomplished by stuffing the ends of his boot with crumpled sheets of newspaper.
    Other than this, Misch knew very little about the man with whom he exchanged a few words twice a day, when he began and ended his shift, and whose body heat he each day felt in the padded chair they shared at the switchboard.
    ‘Anything come in?’ Misch asked.
    ‘Only this,’ replied Zeltner, handing over a message form, which had been filled with only two words. ‘It’s from a general named Hagemann, somewhere on the Baltic coast.’
    Misch squinted at the message form. ‘“Diamond Stream observed”. What the hell is that?’
    ‘The man was probably drunk,’ laughed Zeltner. ‘I suppose you could do the general a favour and not hand it in.’
    Misch tossed it back on to the desk.
    Zeltner climbed out of his chair and slapped Misch on the back to say goodbye.
    Misch had only been at his station for a few minutes before he heard a familiar shuffling sound coming up the corridor behind him.
    He did not turn around. He didn’t need to.
    Misch heard the sharply exhaled breaths and the switchblade noise of a man sucking at his teeth.
    It had become almost a game for Misch, allowing himself to be sneaked up on in this way.
    He felt a hand settle lightly on his shoulder, and then a voice softly calling his name. ‘Misch.’
    Misch turned, rising from his chair. His heels crashed together as he came face to face with Adolf Hitler.
    He wore a pearl-grey, double-breasted jacket, a green shirt and black trousers. Fastened to the jacket was an iron cross from the Great War and a gold-rimmed National Socialist Party member badge with a serial number of 001. In a few days, Hitler would turn fifty-six, but he looked at least a decade older than he was. His pale blue-grey eyes were watery and unfocused and he held his left hand against his side to stop the trembling which had taken over much of his body.
    There was a rumour going around that he suffered from Parkinson’s disease.
    ‘I will just . . .’ Hitler gestured at the headphones lying on the radio desk.
    He did not need to say more. This eavesdropping on the outside world had become a regular occurrence.
    Misch stepped aside, offering his seat.
    ‘Go up to the mess and have some coffee,’ said Hitler. His tone with Misch was gentle, as it often was with those of lower rank who shared this subterranean existence. ‘Come back in twenty minutes.’
    There was no coffee. Not any more. At least not for men of Misch’s rank. There was only a substance made from ground chicory root that Misch could not stand. Instead, he used the time to return above ground and smoke a cigarette, since there was no smoking in the bunker.
    Just before Misch turned the corner to climb the first flight of steps, he glanced back at the radio station, watching Hitler squint as he fiddled with the frequency dials. Misch had no idea what Hitler listened to while he was gone. Was it music? Was it some message meant for him alone, transmitted from some distant corner of the universe? Misch had resigned himself to never knowing the answer since by the time he returned from his break, the dials had all been returned to their original positions.
    With Misch out of the way, Hitler turned the receiver dial until the familiar voice of Sender Station Elbe appeared through the rustle of