The Pathfinder

by Margaret Mayhew

  The Russians didn’t hold all the aces, though. There was no shortage of either British or American pilots with wartime flying experience to call on and the Americans, particularly, had large numbers of transport planes. And one more thing – the trump card in their hand – was their first-class system of radar-controlled talk-down. A controller sitting out in a cabin on Gatow airfield had been able to direct the Dakota through heavy low-based cloud from the Frohnau beacon ten miles out and bring it safely down onto the runway. All thirteen aircraft had been landed that way, and there was no reason why controllers couldn’t handle a steady stream of them. They could certainly increase the traffic by a hundred per cent and the long summer hours of daylight would help. Come to that, with radar there was no reason why they couldn’t fly at night as well. All night. And all day. The logistics would be a nightmare, but seemingly impossible military rescues had been miraculously achieved before – Dunkirk, for one.

  He had been too busy to get into the city since the crisis had begun but he’d heard that things were pretty bad already. There’d been big power cuts, down to only four hours of electricity a day, cuts in the gas supply, cuts in public transport, cuts in food rations, breakdowns in services . . . western Berlin was sliding back into its former miserable, desperate state. Tough luck on the civilians. Bizarrely, there was no restriction on moving about the city. The Russian soldiers, apparently, still goose-stepped several times a day to change their guard at the Soviet war memorial on the western side of the Brandenburg Gate, acting as though nothing had happened, and the Russian-controlled Radio Berlin, also in the British sector, continued to pour out a never-ending stream of Soviet propaganda from the Rundfunkhaus.

  The Leicht family would be all right in the Soviet zone, of course. There would be electric lighting, the same ration of food as before, everything pretty much as usual. There was enough rubble left to provide Lili Leicht with manual labour for decades to come. And Dirk was a survivor. The Leichts would be all right, he thought dispassionately. They were lucky.

  Somehow Dirk had got hold of an old bicycle. He had come back with it from one of his forays into the country and refused to give a proper explanation.

  ‘It was in an outhouse. Rusting away in a corner. I could see this old couple didn’t want it any more.’

  ‘You mean you stole it?’

  He looked injured. ‘It wasn’t like that, Lili.’

  ‘Did you ask their permission?’

  ‘I didn’t have to. They were past riding it and, anyway, it wasn’t fit to ride. The chain was off and the brakes didn’t work.’

  ‘Did you give them something for it?’

  He shook his head, grinning. ‘Actually, they gave me something. Beetroots. A whole lot of them. Look.’

  He produced the sack from behind his back – at least three kilos’ worth. She didn’t ask what he had given for them, or if he had given anything at all; he could easily have simply dug them up. But it was hard to find any fault when they needed the food so badly. For all the Russian promises of good rations and the propaganda comparisons to the stark situation in western blockaded Berlin, they had been without any meat or fresh food for nearly two weeks. They’d been living on old potatoes – green ones, sprouting eyes – and stale bread. The beetroots looked firm and must have some goodness in them – vitamins of some kind. Vitamin C, certainly, and perhaps others, too. They would surely help Rudi. She would grate the smaller, better ones and they could eat them raw, the rest she would turn into soup. She showed them to Rudi who was lying listlessly on the couch. He kept on coughing.

  ‘Look what Dirk has found for us.’

  He turned his head to look, but without much interest. The plane that the English squadron leader had given him was still clutched in one hand; he had been making small swoops in the air with it earlier – but feeble ones. His pallor was frightening.

  ‘I have forgotten the name of that plane,’ she said in an effort to cheer him up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A Dakota. That’s what the RAF call it. The Americans call it a DC3. It’s funny, they often call the same plane different names.’

  ‘Do they? How strange.’

  He lifted the plane up and let it flop down again. ‘Do you think the squadron leader will come back here again?’

  She thought of their last bitter encounter. ‘I very much doubt it.’

  ‘I’d like him to. He was very nice. And he knows all about planes. He might even bring me some more pictures.’

  ‘I’m sure he would. But I don’t think he’ll have time to come back, Rudi. He must be very busy.’

  ‘Could you ask him?’

  She hesitated, not wanting to disappoint him. ‘I really don’t think so. In any case, I don’t know how to get in touch with him.’

  ‘Nico would. He knows everything. We could ask him.’

  She shook her head firmly. ‘No, I don’t want to do that. It’s better not. Look, we’re going to have beetroots for supper. You like beetroots, don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Well, you must eat as much of them as you can. They’ll do you lots of good.’

  He turned his head away again and presently closed his eyes. She sat with him for a while until she saw that he had drifted off to sleep. She wondered what on earth to do. It was a risk to take Rudi to the hospital. She did not trust them there. The Russians ran it and they did not care if German civilians lived or died – or so it seemed to her. In fact, they much preferred them dead. She went to find Dirk who was in the hallway, tinkering with the bike. ‘I’m going to see that doctor who lives down the street, Dirk. Dr Meier. He might come and look at Rudi.’

  ‘He’s a hundred years old and dotty.’

  ‘Even so . . . there’s nobody else. Rudi’s asleep at the moment, and so’s Grandfather. Will you stay here and watch them both?’

  ‘How long will you be? I have to go out.’

  ‘Not long. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  He nodded. ‘OK. I’ll wait till you get back.’

  ‘Must you go?’

  He went on fiddling with the chain. ‘It’s business.’

  ‘Will you ride out into the country tomorrow and see if you can find some more fresh vegetables? For Rudi.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. It’s not easy. The Soviets have stripped everything bare. Nothing’s easy since the blockade.’

  ‘Anything, Dirk. Anything.’

  He looked up, alarmed. ‘You don’t think Rudi’s seriously ill, do you? I mean, worse than he often gets?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m going to see Dr Meier.’

  ‘It won’t do any good.’

  She went, nonetheless.

  The old man lived alone in the cellar of a building at the river end of the street. Before, he had lived in one of the apartments above but a bomb had destroyed them all. He had been dug out of the ruins, the only occupant to have survived.

  Occasionally, Lili had seen him out on the street, always wearing a long, old-fashioned overcoat and black beret, whatever the weather, walking slowly and carrying a brown canvas bag for his rations. He was a widower and had been so for years – that was all she knew about him. That, and his name. It was also rumoured that he was a Jew, but she knew that must be false. If he had been Jewish he would not have been overlooked by the Nazis or spared. They had taken away very old people, just as they had taken very young children. Age had made no difference whatever. She remembered the time when the SS had come in the middle of one night to arrest the family who had lived on the floor above. How Frau Gross had begged and wailed and wept and the two little girls, Elsa and Christel, had screamed with terror. The wails and the screams had sounded all the way down the stairwell and then outside in the courtyard and then in the street when they were being pushed into the back of a lorry like animals going to market. And then still more cries when the lorry had been driven away, growing fainter until, finally, there had been silence.

  The entrance t
o the cellar was down stone steps from the pavement – a dark, dank and dismal well littered with all kinds of rubbish and filth accumulated from the street above. Lili knocked gently on the door and waited for several minutes before knocking again, louder. At last the door was opened and the old man stood there. Without his beret and long coat she scarcely knew him. He looked different: not so doddery. The beret had partly concealed a fine head of silver-white hair and his blue eyes were piercing.

  ‘Excuse me, Herr Doktor. My name is Lili Leicht. I also live in Albrecht Strasse.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘I have seen you passing in the street, Fräulein. What can I do for you?’ His voice was quite firm, not quavery at all. As she hesitated, he took a pace backwards. ‘Would you like to come in?’

  She stepped inside. Where they lived was bad enough but this cellar was worse. Like a prison cell. One small, barred window, set high in the wall, let in a little daylight and the few sticks of furniture were even more rickety than their own.

  He dragged forward a bentwood chair – the kind that belonged in cheap bars and cafés. ‘Please sit down, Fräulein.’ He sat on the only other one himself, moving slowly and stiffly. ‘How may I help you?’

  ‘It’s my brother, Rudi. He is nine years old.’

  ‘I have seen him too. And you have another brother, I think?’

  ‘Dirk.’

  ‘He would be about seventeen, I think. And your grandfather still lives?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But your father was executed in the war. In a Nazi camp. And your mother and grandmother died when your apartment was bombed. Is this all correct?’

  ‘Yes.’ How could he know so much about them? They had only nodded to each other, never spoken more than a polite greeting: Guten Morgen, Guten Tag, Guten Abend.

  ‘So, now you must be mother and father to all the family. That is a big responsibility. What is it about your Rudi that worries you so much?’

  ‘He’s not well. For a long time he has been in poor health. Last year he got polio and nearly died. I’m not sure what is the matter with him now but I am afraid for him.’

  ‘Forgive me, Fräulein, but much as I sympathize with you, I do not know how I can help you.’

  ‘I thought perhaps, Herr Doktor, that you would be kind enough to come and see him.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘To give an opinion. Of course, you will have been retired for many years, but I am sure that a doctor does not forget everything he has learned.’

  He shook his head. ‘But you are under a misapprehension, Fräulein. I am not a doctor of medicine. I am a doctor of music.’

  She blushed at her stupid mistake. ‘I’m sorry. I have disturbed you for nothing.’

  ‘It is I who should be sorry that I cannot help you. To be a doctor of medicine would be much more useful, especially since I can no longer play any music.’ He held up his mittened hands and she saw that the fingers were bent like claws. ‘I suffer badly from rheumatism.’

  ‘How sad for you.’

  ‘It no longer seems important. I am an organist, or was; regrettably there are not many churches left in Berlin. Do you play an instrument, Fräulein?’

  ‘The piano,’ she said. ‘But the Russians chopped ours to pieces.’

  He gestured round the cellar. ‘They came here too but there was nothing much for them to destroy. They were quite annoyed.’ He smiled at her. Once, long ago, she thought, he must have been very handsome. ‘I met your father once or twice – at the university. Our paths did not cross often but I remember him well. He was a most gifted man. Much respected and admired. And most courageous. I deeply regret what happened to him.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s a pity that there were not many more like him. If there had been our country’s history might have been quite different. As it is, we find ourselves in a pitiable state, do we not, Fräulein? Defeated and disgraced. Unable to hold up our heads because we are all Nazis – that is how our conquerors perceive us.’

  ‘But it’s not true.’

  ‘That may be so but I am afraid our former enemies will never believe it. Why should they? They have seen the photographs of the big rallies, the swastika flags flying, thousands of people saluting our Führer; and, most damning of all, they have seen film of the death camps and the great piles of corpses. The camera does not lie.’

  She shuddered. ‘We knew nothing of that. Nothing.’

  ‘Nevertheless, we are seen to be guilty as a people, Fräulein, if not as individuals. Your father did everything he could against the Nazis and paid for it with his life. You can, at least, remember that with pride.’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘I remember it always.’

  ‘It should give you strength. Courage.’

  She said wearily, ‘But there is so little to hope for. When the British and Americans arrived, I thought for a while that everything was going to get better, but now they are sure to abandon us because of the blockade and it will be just as terrible as it was before. Worse. We will have to live under the Russians for ever.’

  ‘You are so certain that the western Allies will go?’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘No. Not at all. I think they will stay. The British and the Americans are not the kind to give up easily. Have you met any of their people here?’

  ‘A Royal Air Force officer – a bomber pilot in the war. He dropped bombs on Berlin and he didn’t care a bit about killing civilians and reducing the city to rubble.’

  ‘They saw it as the only way to defeat the Nazis. And who knows, perhaps they were right. In any case, we must look upon them as our allies now – the only hope we have against the Russians. Our fate lies in their hands.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘The children of Berlin have suffered badly. They have gone without the food they need to grow up straight-limbed and healthy. You are afraid for your young brother. You want, above all, for him to get his health and strength back. You love him dearly and doubtless you would do anything for him. Am I right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘If I may suggest it, you should find a friend among the Occupation Forces here in Berlin. I believe the Americans have plenty of supplies and are very generous.’ He paused as she was silent. ‘You understand me?’

  ‘Yes, perfectly. I already know this. There was no need to tell me.’ She stood up. ‘I am sorry to have taken your time.’

  ‘I have all the time in the world.’ He waited until she had reached the door before speaking again. ‘I am afraid that I have offended you, dear Fräulein.’

  She shook her head. ‘You didn’t offend me, Herr Doktor. And it was very good advice.’

  Dirk was bent over the bike in the apartment hallway, doing something to one of the pedals. He looked up. ‘Well?’

  ‘He’s not a doctor of medicine. He’s a doctor of music.’

  He spun the pedal backwards very fast so that it made a whirring sound. ‘I told you it would be a waste of time.’

  Tubby, growling away like a bear in his corner chair in the Officers’ Mess, was in a belligerent mood. ‘That Yank general, Clay, has a point, you know, Michael. Why not use an armed convoy and force a way through on the autobahn? Make the buggers give way? I’m on his side. I’ve decided that all this pussyfooting around, trying not to upset the Ruskies, is a lot of bloody nonsense and I’ve had enough of it.’

  ‘And risk starting another war?’

  ‘They’d never dare. They’d back down, like all bullies.’

  ‘We can’t be sure of that, Tubby. We’ve only got something like a third of the number of troops in Berlin that the Soviets have and there are thousands more of theirs out in their zone, surrounding the city. We’re not equipped to start any kind of a showdown, let alone a full-scale war. Nor are the Americans. And the first thing the Russians would do would be to take Berlin – the very thing we’re trying to stop.’

  ‘They may have hordes of troops but most of ’em are badly trained peasants. A
nd they haven’t got the technical know-how, have they? No long-range aircraft. Obsolete weapons.’ Tubby wagged a finger. ‘And we’ve got the atomic bomb. The Yanks haven’t sent those B29s over to England for nothing and they made damned sure Stalin knew about it.’

  ‘The bomb’s a deterrent, that’s all. A bit of sabre-rattling. It would be unthinkable to use it in this situation.’

  ‘Well, I’m thinking of it. How much longer is this tomfoolery going to drag on? Damn it, they’re rationing the whisky and the food’s uneatable. Everything’s bloody dried. Dried eggs, dried potato, dried milk, dried meat, dried carrots, dried peas . . .’

  ‘Water’s heavy,’ Harrison said mildly. ‘Dehydrated foods are much lighter to transport and take up less room.’

  ‘I know that, but is it worth all the effort, I ask myself? We can’t possibly fly in enough stuff. Only two airfields we can use in Berlin and some chap from out at Wunstorf told me that it’s a shambles their end. Flying Control there can’t cope with the traffic. Not enough people to run the show, everything keeps breaking down and they’re chronically short of spares. Chaos. Pretty chaotic here, too, I’d say.’

  ‘It was at the start but those days are past. We’re getting some sort of proper system going and it’s beginning to work. And we’ll have a third airfield before long when Tegel’s finished.’

  ‘Huh! I was over there the other day. Looks like a bomb site. Hundreds of German fraus in frocks hauling tons of rubble about. It’ll be next year before anything can be flown in there.’

  ‘I bet you they’ll get it done a lot sooner than that. Those women work damn hard.’

  ‘I know they do. I’ve seen them at it all over the place. But there are limits to their muscle power, especially on their measly rations. Soup and bread, that’s all they get given. Not exactly body-building fare. Let’s be realistic.’

  ‘I am,’ Harrison assured him. ‘You’re forgetting their will power, Tubby. They know it’s their only chance to beat the Russians. So do we, come to that. And now we’ve got the Yorks and the Hastings as well as the Daks, we’re carrying far bigger loads. And the Sunderlands are doing a damn good job coming in on the lake. The Americans have thirty-five C-54s as well as their C-47s. Between us we’re bringing in a pretty steady flow.’