Last Man to Die

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘Misch. We need Peter Hencke!’

  The bloom fell to the ground, crushed.

  ‘I will not submit to your blackmail, General!’ Churchill clenched both his fists, as if he were ready to take a swing at Eisenhower should he come a few inches closer.

  ‘No blackmail, Prime Minister. Only facts. Hard and cruel, perhaps, but facts you can’t avoid.’ Eisenhower had taken out a cigarette and was lighting it carefully. He needed one, to be sure, but more importantly he wanted Churchill to see his steady hand, how much in control he was.

  ‘What facts are these?’

  ‘The fact, Prime Minister, that after this shooting match is over, there’s going to be only two great powers in Europe. The Americans and the Russians. Germany and France are defeated. Britain is exhausted. Don’t get me wrong, I take no pleasure in it. But my admiration for what you and your countryfolk have done can’t change the fact that you’re down on your knees.’

  Churchill was flexing his bottom lip as if chewing Eisenhower’s words in preparation for spitting them out, but for the moment he held his silence.

  ‘You can’t duck it, you can only pick sides. American or Russian. It may not be fair, but Britain has no other choice.’

  ‘What sort of choice is that?’

  ‘Not much of a choice, I admit. A power from halfway round the world which left Europe to rot after the last war, or a bunch of Communists led by a ruthless son-of-a-bitch who’d slit his grandmother’s belly just for the practice.’

  ‘Then why, oh why, give him Berlin?’ The tone was almost pleading.

  ‘Because Berlin is of less military importance than cutting Hitler off from his hideaway in the Alps. And because it’s my duty to see that the piles of dead which get left behind in the rubble are Russian rather than American!’ He drew long and thoughtfully on his cigarette. ‘Time to choose, Mr Churchill.’

  There was a long silence. Less than a mile away, a Dakota returning from the dropping zone came down in flames, the explosion as it hit the ground emitting a deep roar and sending a ball of fire and black smoke many hundreds of feet up in the air, but neither of the men noticed. They were busy deciding the future of post-war Europe, two elderly and overweight men stuffed uncomfortably into khaki uniforms.

  Eventually Churchill broke the silence. ‘What is it that you want of me?’

  ‘I want you to stop fighting over Berlin. Not another word, a sigh, no raised eyebrow or even an impatient puff of cigar smoke. For me it has become an article of faith that you accept my judgement on this matter and we put it behind us. Or else.’

  ‘Or else what?’

  ‘Or else I’ll let Stalin know you’re trying to fiddle him out of Berlin. If he knew, he’d tear up every bargain he’d made with you British and he’d never let you near the negotiating table again.’

  ‘You would do that?’

  ‘If you force me, I’d even let the Labour Party know. Wouldn’t look too good in the run-up to an election, would it? Cheating Stalin out of Berlin and me out of my troops.’

  ‘You would go to such lengths …?’ A timbre of uncertainty had begun to infect the voice.

  ‘I don’t want to, believe me I don’t. You and me, we’ve always worked so well together. More than allies, I thought; friends. I know how passionately you feel about this but it was you who raised the stakes. You’ve lost. Now it’s time to pay.’

  Churchill swallowed deep. It was sticking in his maw. ‘How?’

  ‘I want an end to the games you’ve been playing. Not another step towards Berlin. Above all I want those troops.’

  ‘But I need the troops to prevent Hencke getting back to Germany. He would be such a prize for them. And he killed a widow, you know …’ It was a weak card, played with an uncharacteristic lack of vigour, but it was the only one Churchill had left.

  ‘Then there’s only one solution. Do your job. Get Hencke!’

  In the garden of the Chancellery, the crumpled daffodil lay at Goebbels’ feet. ‘So that’s your task, Misch. Hencke is our talisman, our good luck charm, the one who can rekindle the German will to resist and buy us time. This may be our last chance, the only thing standing between us and total annihilation. Find him, whoever he is, wherever he is, before the Allies do, and bring him to Berlin. If it’s the last thing you do, you must bring me Hencke!’

  Churchill stood on the hilltop, his Golgotha as he later came to call it, where Eisenhower and his aides had left him alone with his misery. It was a long time before Cazolet dared disturb him.

  ‘It’s over, Willie. We’ve lost. We shall not have Berlin now. He wants the troops back in the front line. And he wants Hencke’s head on a plate.’ He wiped his damp eyes with a huge linen handkerchief. ‘To win the war, Willie. To win after all the toil and bloody tribulation, yet to lose the peace, to have it thrown away at the last gasp. Will they ever forgive us?’

  ‘Defeat is but a state of mind, Prime Minister.’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘You did. Back in 1941.’

  ‘The whole of the world is turning on its head, Willie. We went to war to prevent Germany moving east; now the East is about to come to us.’ He blew his nose in one final, huge, tempestuous fashion. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? Eisenhower insists I destroy Hencke, and in doing so I shall only destroy myself.’

  ‘You mean … because we will lose Berlin?’

  ‘More than that. Much, much more than that. Hencke has become the most devilish and dangerous man in Europe.’ He looked at Cazolet through bleary eyes. ‘And it’s all my fault.’

  Part Two

  FIVE

  Hencke shivered uncontrollably, feeling more wretched and forsaken than a fox before hounds. Even on a bad day a fox has some chance, he mused. Hiding in a copse, doubling back to confuse the pack, taking advantage of sudden bad weather which might deter his pursuers and take the sting out of their efforts before the light fades and they eventually tire or get bored and go home. But he would get no such chance. He had become the most wanted man in Europe. Every hour of every day, in any hiding place he chose, he would be hunted. They would never tire.

  He was hungry and was sheltering in a doorway of a back-street in Cricklewood. The despicable rain, that most underestimated of English weapons, had scarcely ceased bombarding him since he had left the camp and he knew not where to turn; he was on the verge of despair. Prompted by the couple who thought he was a draft-dodger, many pairs of eyes had been turned on him in the Underground, eventually forcing him out of his shelter. The money thrust at him by the Spanish diplomat had largely gone in buying a hot meal and a fresh set of clothes to make him look less conspicuous, but now the second-hand suit was little more than sodden rags clinging to his back. Thoughts of giving up were beginning to bombard his mind. It was the easy course and the more wretched his physical condition the more attractive it seemed. Just to let go, to sink gently back into the relative warmth and comfort of captivity, to stop running.

  But he wasn’t going to stop; he owed too many people, had too many memories to do that. His aunt had always said he could never make it on his own, that without her he was nothing. She’d been wrong then and he wasn’t going to prove her right now, not after all this time. He’d drown in this damned English rain first.

  He huddled in the recesses of the doorway, flinching every time someone passed by, wondering how soon it would be before a policeman found this vagrant and demanded to see the identity papers which didn’t exist and realized that he had stumbled upon the most important prize of his career. Hencke had discovered during the last few days of wretched weather that doorways were not all the same. Some gave better protection, deeper shadows, warmer corners. Others gave easy access to a maze of back-streets into which he could disappear, given half a head start. This doorway was different; it gave him a view. Across the street there was a pub, with a fresh supply of beer and with the noise and jostle of ordinary people enjoying themselves. Somewhere inside a piano was being played, not very well but w
ith a captivating enthusiasm. At that moment Hencke needed the sight and sound of people more than a four-course meal, to be reminded that there was a world outside his life of fear and flight, and to cling to the hope that some day he might be allowed to return to it.

  Cricklewood was the Irish quarter, poor, rundown, dirty, like all immigrant communes. Yet perhaps because of the deprivation the moments of relaxation were embraced with more vigour and genuine relish than in less grubby areas of London, particularly on a Friday night. And although Hencke was losing track of time and didn’t know it, tonight was Friday. The piano beat out song after Irish song, the laughter was as coarse and disrespectful as the conversation, and Hencke longed to be part of it. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the few coins he had left. Eight pence. Enough for a small glass of beer. He hauled himself out of the doorway and stepped towards the pub.

  Inside the lights were bright after the darkness of the street, and it made him conscious of the bedraggled state of his clothes. He needn’t have worried; most of the men were still in their working clothes and, judging by the amount of paint and cement dust on their trousers and mud on their boots, they had arrived straight from a building site. The cursory glances thrown at him through the smoky atmosphere were warm and friendly; fate had chosen his pub with care. He bought his small glass of beer at the brightly polished bar without problem; in spite of indications around the pub that the English – or Irish, at least – had a seemingly infinite variety of beers from which to choose, there was only one on offer this evening. He settled into a corner and soaked up the warmth.

  He didn’t rush his beer; he wanted time to relax and, in any case, the beer tasted awful with a sharp, bitter tang. He put it down to wartime shortages. All around the conversation was of home, of Ireland, conducted in broad accents difficult for him to follow. Most people seemed to wish themselves in a different place, ‘across’ as he heard them refer to it; he identified with their longing and understood. It was a different world, like the one he could remember from many years ago, before the time when all conversation became dominated by the war, when men still joked about tomorrow and complained about their work and their wives. There seemed to be little talk about the war, and in their tales and reminiscences he could detect no sympathy for the British. At the next table two young women were talking about ‘the boys’ and ‘the struggle’ but it was clear they were not referring to the battle with Germany. He sat back and let their conversation drift over him.

  He soon realized he had made a dreadful mistake. While the chatter washed around him and he listened to nostalgic talk of times past and a homeland far away, his own memories came flooding back. Of the happiness he once enjoyed in a homeland he had loved, of the bright faces that used to smile at him before they were riven with pain and death, of the love that he had shared and which had been shattered by shrapnel and taken from him by the men he would hate for ever. Normally such memories made him hard and determined, but he was weak from exposure and hunger and the mouthfuls of beer were beginning to have a soporific, sentimentalizing effect. He felt the resistance ebbing away from him; he wanted to curl up into a ball, to cast the world aside, to forget and to sleep for ever.

  But the world had other ideas. As he felt himself floating off and the atmosphere of the pub stripping away his defences layer by layer, he picked up the conversation of the young women at the next table. Of Patrick, who would be out in another eight months. ‘And never any chance of parole. Mind you, there was never much chance of his giving them any good behaviour.’ Of the different ways in which a coat might be refashioned. Of the longing to be back home, with a job and a husband. Of the bitterness at having been forced by poverty to exchange the empty rolling pastures of Donegal for a flea-bitten bed in Cricklewood which three people used in shifts. Of the offal which could be bought off-ration and disguised as food. And of ‘that little German bastard who’s got the bloody Tommies on the run. Mother preserve him!’

  It wasn’t a choice, more an instinct grown mighty with desperation. He had no one else to trust and nowhere else to go. He’d run out of ideas, money and strength. As the piano struck up a new tune and the men in the bar began to sing in deep, sorrowful voices the words of a republican battle hymn, Hencke reached across and touched one of the women on the arm.

  ‘Excuse me. I’m that little German bastard. Would you help me, please?’

  They looked at him in a mixture of astonishment and alarm, unable to utter a word, their world stopped. He wondered what they would do when they recovered – cry out in alarm? – yet in his exhaustion his worries had a distant, almost academic air.

  Base reality came flooding back as the door of the pub burst open to reveal eight London policemen, truncheons drawn. They stood blocking the entrance, staring around, while silence and resentment descended between walls which a moment before had been ringing with gaiety. For one interminable moment nothing moved except for the eyes of the policemen as they roved around the pub. Hencke felt his mouth run dry. One of the bobbies was looking straight at him.

  She could find no fear in his expression, it was all too sudden for that, but she couldn’t fail to see desperation and defiance. It was a look she knew well. She had seen it in Paddy’s face when the army came for him, and again when the judge had sent him down. She’d seen it in her mother’s face when they told her that her husband wouldn’t be coming home again, ever, not with all those bullets in him. In the depths of Hencke’s steady, dark eyes she could see memories of pain and anger, and she knew about those, too. She had little time for the Germans and their violence, but she had no time at all for the British and she would do almost anything to get her own back. Yet hadn’t she troubles enough without walking into new ones in the pub?

  The girl sat wrestling with the contradictions, not knowing if she wanted or would be able to help, until one of the policemen began beating his truncheon up and down in the palm of his hand, slowly thumping out a message of menace and hate. It was a message she knew all too well, and it was enough. She leaned across to two men on a neighbouring table and whispered urgently between their lowered heads. Just a few words, but there was a nod of understanding, the briefest pause, before the two men stood. It was the first sign of any response to the unwanted invasion, and all eyes were upon them. They stood staring at each other, no more than a foot apart when, without exchanging a word, one clenched his fist and struck the other full on the chin, sending him sprawling across a table and knocking glasses everywhere. A neighbour retaliated on behalf of his fallen friend and in an instant a volcano of commotion had erupted in front of Hencke. The pub became filled with a pandemonium of shouts, curses, waving arms, smashing glass, women’s screams and breaking furniture. A jacket ripped, a lip was bloodied. Then the truncheons started flying. Hencke scarcely had time to witness one of the policemen succumbing to an assault by two elderly and determined women armed with heavy handbags before he felt an insistent tugging at his arm. It was the girl.

  ‘Come on, Adolf. Time we left.’ She clasped his hand and dragged him, stumbling and uncomprehending, towards the rear of the pub. As they passed the bar he heard her shout, ‘Turn off the bloody lights, Harry!’ He ducked as a glass crashed off the panelled wall above his head and shattered into a hundred fragments. Still shaking the shards from his hair, he was dragged through a door and into the women’s toilet, a dim and squalid little place with a cracked and badly stained basin but, to his relief, another door. He found himself in a dark yard surrounded by a looming wall, but piled against the wall forming stepping places were several crates and already the girl was scrambling up. Peering cautiously over the wall, she urged him on. ‘It’s clear!’ she shouted, before disappearing over the other side.

  Hencke followed. Behind him the noise of battle inside the pub was beginning to subside; even the most determined of opponents were having trouble sustaining a good fight in total darkness. He threw himself over the wall. His jacket caught on something, there was a tearing sound and
he felt a burning sensation across his forearm, but before he knew any more he was in a cobbled back-street with the girl screaming at him to run. He had landed heavily and was winded, and it could be only moments before the police found the back door and were upon them. Stumbling through the puddles of rain, he followed the flapping tail of her raincoat into the night.

  They ran until they were both exhausted, through dark streets, avoiding the lights, alert for the sound of pursuit, until they could run no longer. Their lungs rasped from the effort, the rain trickled down their foreheads to mix with the sweat, their energy gone.

  ‘I think we’ve done it, Adolf,’ she panted, looking up at him through strands of russet hair which had hung in long tresses before the rain turned them into a soaking mat.

  ‘My name …’ he muttered doggedly between great gulps of air, ‘is not Adolf. It is Hencke. Peter Hencke.’

  ‘OK, Peter Hencke. Any ideas what we do for an encore?’

  She wrapped her raincoat around her, tying the belt tightly. Her efforts served to outline her slender waist and hips, while beneath the clutter of damp clothing her struggle for breath emphasized the shape of her breasts. She was young, less than twenty, he guessed, on the verge of full womanhood, with a handsome oval face and healthy skin which shone translucent in the rain. What the hell was she doing here, he began to wonder, before deciding that he was too weary even to speculate.

  As a fresh squall of rain hit them they heard the bells. A jangling alarm began to sound on all sides, approaching, growing louder, bells of warning, bells – so the sudden look of fear on her face told him – of authority. They were near, just around the corner, accompanied by much shouting and noise of commotion. His mind recognized peril, demanded action, but his body was confused with exhaustion; the louder the bells grew, the more distant and infirm his legs seemed to become. Hencke glanced desperately down the street, searching for some source of salvation, but all he could see was the unmistakable sight of a police car rushing through the night towards them. He might have run but it would have served no purpose. He couldn’t outpace a car and, anyway, he was drained, no reserves left. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed, waiting for the inevitable.