I awoke in a big chair in the MO’s office. No music this time. Scroton was sitting on the MO’s desk – his arm was moving around again. When I looked at him he waved it, grinned and said, ‘Good as new. Just bruised.’
My ankle and foot hurt. When I looked down I saw that my boot and sock had been removed, and I was all bound up in wet crepe bandage. The foot was pointing the right way again. I didn’t even have to ask. ‘You too; but bruised and dislocated. We were lucky, they tell me. Now you’re no longer dislocated. You swore in your sleep when the Doc rearranged your foot. You’ll get around on a stick for a bit.’
Christ, I was tired. ‘When?’
‘Now. They want us off the airfield before we talk to anyone else about it.’
‘Surely someone will want to know what happened?’
‘Yep. But not now. They’re flying a specialist in apparently, but he won’t be here until tonight. Hardisty spoke to Mr Halton who says we have to go out to an apartment he’s got here.’
‘Then what?’
‘I told you already, boss. Tell no one, and wait.’
I thanked the MO, who curled his lip and said he’d send in his bill. I curled my lip back at him but couldn’t think of anything to say. Scroton helped me up. My ankle hurt like hell if I put weight on it the wrong way. After a couple of steps I learned the right way – balanced between my good leg and a stout stick which had appeared from somewhere. I hadn’t had much luck with my feet recently: I’d also messed them up after a parachute jump in France the year before. A big drab staff car outside looked to be a much better way to get around. Warrant Officer Powers was driving it. As I slumped into the back with Dave he turned and said, ‘Bad luck, sir. Are you going to be OK?’
‘I will be as soon as you put a gun in my hand,’ I snarled, ‘. . . and a Russian in front to shoot at.’
He laughed. I thought there was sod all to laugh at.
‘Don’t take it personally now, sir. These things happen, don’t they?’
Scroton jumped into the conversation hastily. ‘We told Mr Power how you’d stumbled getting down from the kite, and sprained your ankle.’
‘Mr Power is not stupid,’ I told him. ‘He’ll want to know why Whisky is full of bullet holes and came back with dead people in it.’
‘No he won’t,’ Dave said, surprisingly firmly. ‘I think we’ll find that no one will.’
Power still hadn’t moved us off. He switched his glance from Scroton to me, and said, ‘Don’t you worry, sir, I’ll have her patched up as good as new in a couple of days.’ Then he winked and added, ‘Your company should be more careful of its Dakotas: that’s what I think.’ Then he turned away, and set us rolling. My toes were cold. Why is it that no one ever tells you to be more careful with your people?
The security detail at the end of the road was three men in long dark leather coats, fedoras and a black Mercedes; like mine but bigger. It had been polished to a mirror finish.
‘Christ,’ I muttered, ‘. . . the Gestapo are back!’ That raised a couple of smiles.
Power said, ‘Nah. It’s the Froggies; being mysterious again.’
So it seemed that all of the friendly powers were providing security details for this wide street.
‘How come we’re all so keen on this street?’ I asked him.
‘This is where the embassies are going to be if we stay. They’re the biggest houses this side of Berlin not too knocked about to live in. The guards are there to keep the riff-raff at bay.’ The riffraff who Ed and Trask had just given their lives for.
The Troll was on the bottom step waiting for me. She treated me like a lost chick coming home; pushed Dave out of the way, and lugged me up the steps like one of the coal sacks we’d just brought in. Outside Frieda’s place she slapped her chest and barked, ‘Hanna,’ at me a few times as if I was an idiot.
At least it was a less wary greeting than the last time I’d stood there. She kissed me on both cheeks, and would have carried on if Frieda hadn’t opened the castle door and dragged me inside. Scroton followed. I overbalanced on Frieda of course, and dropped the boot I was carrying in my free hand . . . but Dave was there to catch us, and steady me up.
‘This is David Scroton, my pilot,’ I explained to Frieda. She’d shut the door on Half-ton Hanna, who’d started to look weepy: maybe she loved me after all.
‘Is he a good pilot?’
‘He just saved my life.’
‘Then he must also be a stupid one.’ But she was smiling at us. ‘I was brought a message from Geoffrey. He says that I must look after you, and keep you safe.’
‘Too late for that. One of his aircraft nearly killed me.’
‘One of Geoffrey’s aircraft, or the Russian who was shooting at it?’
So the word was out anyway. Berlin was like a girls’ school: nobody had any real secrets there. I went back a couple of years ago – that hasn’t changed.
‘Would you mind if I sat down?’ I asked her. ‘My foot’s squeaking.’ Actually what was happening was that the conversation around me was washing in and out like a bad signal. They helped me to a massive wooden chair that looked as if Charlemagne might have owned it once. That thought went through my mind again: Christ: I’m tired! I heard Scroton saying, ‘The Doc gave him enough morphine to scuttle a horse, but he’s still talking. He’s a stubborn little cuss.’
‘Stubborn?’ That was Frieda. ‘Is that good?’
‘In his case, yes. You need stubborn cusses like him around to make things work.’
What’s the silly phrase they use to describe that sort of thing these days? Positive feedback? Dave must have thought I wouldn’t hear it; he didn’t usually fling the compliments around. ‘I think we ought to put him to bed, don’t you?’
Night. It was the second time I had awoken in that big bed. I was wearing pyjamas which didn’t belong to me. Silk. I could get used to that. The room was lit by a dim and flickering table lamp. Either the bulb or the electricity supply was about to go. A familiar figure sat by the bed: the Station Intelligence Officer Who Never Was, from Wunstorf. I recognized his tweed suit and narrow moustache. I recognized his hooded eyes and his black widow’s peak. I also recognized his voice.
‘Hello, old bean. Back in the land of the living?’
I struggled to sit up. ‘Don’t know. Ask me again in an hour.’ My tongue felt big in my mouth. ‘Rotten headache – I feel as if I’ve been on the binge.’
‘Morphine. Don’t worry about it.’
I’d got the events arranged in my head in the right order by then. ‘You’re the specialist they told me about, aren’t you?’
‘Spot-on, old bean. Sorry I was late. Your little excursion messed the flight schedules up a tad. Took me longer than we thought.’
‘Do you call everyone old bean?’
‘Ye-es. Upsets some bods fwight-fully.’
‘Is that why you do it?’
‘Yes, old bean.’
I laughed. Sometimes I think that I laugh when I don’t know what else to do. I noticed that he had his little notebook open on his knee, and an expensive pen in his hand. From outside I heard a distant air-raid siren. It wasn’t the same as the sirens I remembered from England – its cadence was more insistent somehow. The light flickered once and went out. I said, ‘Either the bulb’s blown, or we’re at war again.’
After a moment he said, ‘Neither, old bean. It’s the ten o’clock Lights-Out. Starting tonight, they’re chopping off the electricity supply at ten to save the fuel – and it will get worse before it gets better. There’s a rumour that you’ll all be down to six hours a day by December.’
‘What was the siren for?’
‘Warn people to get their candles out. I wonder how long before we start to run out of those?’
I’d thought that his voice had a sort of plummy, seedy quality: now I realize that there was a bleakness in there somewhere as well. The moon was only a few days off full, and that threw us some light.
‘Can you see
to write in this?’
‘Just. Don’t worry about it. Feel like talking?’
‘OK. You’ve already spoken to my aircraft skipper?’
‘Yes, old bean, but can’t do any harm to get it from another angle. What do you think happened?’
‘I think the bloody Reds tried to shoot us down.’
‘Absolutely fwightful of them . . .’ It was almost as if he was taking the mickey.
‘We were on the coal train, twenty minutes from Berlin, and cleared to descend. Then I heard Ed shouting. When I looked over his shoulder I saw a little grey MiG barrelling straight at us at ninety degrees. It was flying right across the corridor: a proper kamikaze effort. Dave turned hard away from him, and dropped . . .’
‘A jet?’
‘No; a piston-engined job – it looked a bit like a Mustang with red stars.’
I could hear his pen scratching.
‘Which took you to the edge of the corridor or beyond . . . ?’
‘Guess so. Then someone was shooting at us. They must have had another one upstairs; waiting to pounce as soon as we strayed over the edge.’
‘The first one was the beater, old bean, wasn’t he? He drove you under the other’s guns.’
‘That’s what it looks like to me. What were the mad buggers thinking about; did they want to start World War Three?’
‘To use our ally’s colourful terminology, either the Reds are playing hardball – or they have a particular grudge against you.’
‘Maybe a bit of both?’
‘I thought about it on the flight here. There is another way to look at it . . .’
‘Tell it to me . . .’
‘If you were a gung-ho Russian pilot – and these flying types are the same the whole world over, old bean, aren’t they? – who had been briefed he could force down any aircraft that strayed out of the air corridor, and had hatched a plan with a pal to make it happen . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘. . . well, old bean. Say you’ve decided to hassle a lumbering old Mary out of the corridor. You fly a parallel to the strip for a few miles, don’t you, and what do you see? You see drab green aircraft – one after the other, dull silver ones, grey uninteresting ones . . . and then in the middle of all this comes something painted as red as a letter box. Tell me, which one would you go for?’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Red rag to a bull, old bean.’
He was saying that we were being picked on because we were red. Either he was a genius or a fucking idiot. He went over my story another twice before he was satisfied. Eventually I asked him, ‘You like your job? Station Intelligence Officer.’
‘Not a bad screw, old bean. But not what I want to do . . .’
‘What’s that?’
‘Stand-up comedian on the Halls. I’d like to make them laugh.’
‘You’d be good at that, old bean,’ I told him. ‘What’s your name?’
‘John Thomas. See what I mean?’
I woke again in the middle of the night. The woman Hanna had been drafted in to sit with me, and she was snoring like an over-revved Tiger tank. That was probably what woke me up.
She opened her eyes as soon as I moved. ‘OK?’
‘Very thirsty.’
‘That’s the morphine they gave you. I know: I was a nurse.’ She poured me a glass of water and handed it to me. I remembered all the rumours, and hoped it had been boiled. ‘In the last days the soldiers called morphine angel juice.’ She used a single word which sounded like Engelsaft. ‘I sometimes think the war would not have lasted as long without it.’ That was a novel and very professional observation.
I don’t know what else she said, because I fell asleep again as she was talking.
She wasn’t there in the morning, so maybe I dreamed her. The walking stick was within reach so I swung my legs experimentally out of the bed, and took my weight on them. It was a piece of piss as long as I remembered to distribute my weight between my good foot and the cane. The problem was that until I had the weight balance worked out I zigzagged across the floor like a paranoid crab. I went looking for a bathroom and found one, after opening four other doors. It was probably as big as my bungalow at home.
A large lion-footed cast-iron bath stood in the centre of the room on a raised, tiled platform. Polished copper pipes dropped down from the ceiling to its taps. I couldn’t resist trying them: the water was scalding hot. Marthe would have loved this. After that I couldn’t resist trying the bath itself. I was half submerged in its luxury, bandaged foot and all, when I heard the door open and close. Frieda came through the wreaths of steam that were hanging in the air. She was wearing a long sensible dressing gown belted tightly about her waist. Maybe she even smiled at me.
‘You are feeling improved?’
‘I’m feeling improved.’
‘You can reach everywhere; to wash?’
‘I can reach everywhere to wash. But you can help if you wish.’
‘Of course not.’ She shook her head, smiled again and turned away. Either I was hallucinating or she had a softer side as well. I didn’t see her again until breakfast. I wasn’t sure of the way, but I whistled . . . and eventually got one back.
It was just a pity that it came from Dave Scroton. He’d tarted himself up before breakfast as well. I felt a sudden tug of jealousy wondering where he had spent the night. Not my business, but sometimes you can’t help it, can you? It was almost worth it to see his face when Frieda – fully and discreetly dressed now: a black flared dress with a wide white collar – came in with the coffee, and a tray of black bread for dippers. Almost.
After I pushed the plate back, and Frieda had poured me the dregs of the coffee, I told him, ‘If you’re really OK, go back to the field and supervise the work on Whisky. Get her back in the air as soon as you can. Offer the erks some dash if you have to.’
‘Dash?’
‘Money: an inducement. My dad uses the word all the time.’ I suddenly realized that I hadn’t spoken to my father for months; he probably didn’t even know I was back in Germany. ‘Help Hardisty if he needs it. Hardisty can take out the next crate that Borland flies in, and then Bozey’s in charge until I’m hopping around a bit. Got it?’
‘Got it.’
‘You’re sure you’re OK?’
‘When we were in the RAF we used to get crash leave.’
‘We didn’t crash this time, and anyway . . . my air force is too small for crash leave.’
‘Right, boss.’
‘Right, boss,’ Frieda echoed. They were both taking the piss. She laughed.
Dave asked, ‘Anything else?’ He lit a Turkish cigarette that Frieda had given him. I waved away the smoke.
‘If you can speak to Elaine it would be helpful. We’ll have to make arrangements for Trask and Crazy Eddie. Be careful how you bring the subject up: she may not know yet. Tell her I’ll write the letters to their people, and dictate them to her over the phone if that’s OK . . . she can forge my signature; she’s good at that.’ I had one of those bad moments: I suddenly realized what I’d said, and felt sick. I knew that I wasn’t a callous officerish bastard, but I’d bloody well sounded like one, hadn’t I?
‘Are you OK? You’ve gone quite white.’
It took a moment to reply. ‘Yes, Dave, I’m OK. I just heard myself speaking and didn’t like what I heard.’
He blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. ‘I woke up in the middle of the night and found I was crying: just like a girl. I’ve known Crazy Ed on and off for years, and flown with him for nearly two. I know absolutely nothing about him. We put all the personal stuff off: plenty of time to check that later. Now he’s gone, and I felt ashamed. I also feel very silly.’ He was a perceptive man.
‘We can give him a decent send-off somewhere: it’s the least we can do.’
‘Yes, boss. Thank you.’ He wasn’t sending me up this time.
I filled a pipe, and lit it. The smoke was always bluer than that from cigarettes
. It spiralled above me to the ceiling. Frieda lit and smoked another cigarette. An American one this time. Neither of us spoke. We listened to Dave clattering around as he sorted himself out, until eventually the apartment door boomed shut behind him. We listened to the silence. It was the first time that I’ve liked it.
Frieda never wasted time or words. Without any preliminaries she observed, ‘There is every good chance that my relatives are dead, you know, Charlie. I promised my mother that I will find them, but I may not be able to – especially if they are dead.’ The word tot seemed oddly melodic when she spoke it. This time she had dropped naturally into German as soon as we were alone. I could just about keep up with her.
‘Yes. I understand. I will . . .’
She waved me quiet.
‘. . . No, you don’t understand. I wanted to explain to you that I, too, feel guilty . . . just like you feel at this moment. Guilty at being unable to change things back for my mother, and guilty for being alive if they are now dead. We can do nothing with those guilts, Charlie, except’ – she reached across the table and grasped my wrist to emphasize her earnestness, and spoke fiercely: like a schoolmistress – ‘throw them away!’ . . . and when she let go, she almost threw my hand away from her. It was as if the emotion in the words was too powerful to contain.
When she started to speak again it was as if someone had switched over one of those poncy new European taps that move from hot to cold water in one motion: she was all business once more. ‘That door . . .’ She pointed to a pale green door about half a mile away. ‘. . . is to Geoffrey’s study. A desk you can work at, and a telephone to use. The telephone is connected between eleven and twelve hours in the morning, and eighteen and a half and nineteen hours in the evening. Having a private telephone is a privilege.’
The Hidden War Page 28
