The Greatest Traitor Read Online Free Page A

served as a driver and motorcycle despatch rider on the Western Front. He was, indeed, seriously wounded, sustaining a fractured back and skull and contusions to his face and hands. Such injuries certainly resemble the damage that might have been caused by an exploding shell, but his service notes include the word ‘acc’, suggesting that the words were accidentally incurred. Either way, he was evacuated to England for treatment on 25 May 1918. While recovering in hospital in London, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for gallantry and commendable war service.
    Albert’s last posting with what was by then called the Royal Army Service Corps was to Rotterdam, in December 1918. It was early in the following year, as he helped the British Expeditionary Force wind down its wartime operations, that he met Catherine.
    Despite unanswered questions about his background and her family’s disapproval, the marriage went ahead. Given their strength of purpose, Albert and Catherine felt they had little choice but to elope and so headed for London, a city Albert knew well after spending time there recuperating after his wartime exploits. The wedding ceremony took place at Chelsea Registry Office on Monday, 16 January 1922. The certificate shows that they both listed 11 Markham Square – just 300 yards away – as their residence at the time of the marriage. Two men named G. Challis and A.J. Grimes – Army colleagues of Albert – were noted as the witnesses.
    The Behars’ opposition to that marriage would remain total. They would have little or no contact with their son and his growing family for the next thirteen years. The Beijderwellens, however, were gradually worn down. They were reconciled with Catherine and accepted Albert before George was born.
    The new arrival quickly became the subject of great attention from his many aunts and uncles. His favourite companion was Aunt Truss, his mother’s unmarried youngest sister, who held a good job with an established Dutch bank. On long weekend walks, she would regale him with interesting tales of her workplace, skilfully imitating the speech and mannerisms of her colleagues and keeping young George endlessly amused.
    Albert, meanwhile, had a secret and meant to keep it. The battle he had fought to persuade Catherine’s parents to accept him was difficult enough, and he felt – almost certainly correctly – that to disclose the nature of his true self to them would still have disastrous consequences. Having listed his religion as Roman Catholic for the British Army, he now promptly declared he was Evangelical Lutheran when registering for citizenship in Rotterdam.
    Initially Albert relied on two sources of income to provide a comfortable life for his family. One was his Army pension, but the other – more significant – came from his Turkish railway bonds. Those were rendered worthless, however, when Kemal Atatürk’s governmentnationalised the railway industry in 1927. For several years, Albert ran a store selling leather and sports goods down in the Leuvenhaven, one of Rotterdam’s oldest harbours. Then, in 1928, he decided to open a small factory – from the ground floor of his house – making leather gloves for the longshoremen in the port. That venture was barely underway when it was hit hard by the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the subsequent worldwide recession. Little work was taking place in the shipyards, and the widespread laying off of workers had a perilous knock-on effect for small businesses like Albert’s.
    George’s aunt’s husband, who was a grain dealer, went bankrupt at this time. ‘Like several other ruined and embittered middle-class people my aunt and uncle began to look towards National Socialism for salvation,’ Blake recalled. ‘At home the daily conversation centred around the ups and downs of business, the difficulties of paying creditors, how many people and who should be sacked and kept on, whether there were signs that things