The Hidden War

by David Fiddimore

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Lesley.’

  ‘Your hubbie back home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then signal him to meet you at Croydon tonight. I’ll see you under the Watch Office clock at two. OK?’

  ‘Me too . . . th?’ my charge lisped very slowly, and dribbled. His voice faded away. Lesley gently mopped his chin.

  ‘Shut up, and go back to sleep,’ I told him. ‘I’ll wake you up when you’re free again.’

  So that was how I got an unexpected trip home. It only happened because of that fool, and because Randall was flying in three civil servants in the red Oxford. They were going to inspect the Airlift. Like most civilian inspectors of the Airlift they had probably never seen the inside of an aircraft in their lives before. I hope they enjoyed the adventure.

  I borrowed a phone line in the dispatcher’s office at Celle, sat down and hunted around for Tommo. It was the first time it had actually occurred to me that you could telephone someone’s haunts one after the other until you caught up with them. I caught up with him at Tempelhof, where he was squiring some Yankee bigwigs around the airfield for his boss.

  ‘Can you talk, or are you busy?’

  ‘I can talk. They’re swallowing a champagne and caviar reception with the Mayor.’ It wouldn’t have occurred to him that there was anything odd about a champagne reception in a city that was starving to death: I don’t think he’d ever gone short of anything in his life.

  ‘Can you contact the guys in the Neutral Zone, and tell them I have to go away for a couple of days; but not to worry – I haven’t forgotten them.’

  ‘Why can’t you tell ’em yersel’?’

  ‘They might not believe me.’

  It made him think. Then he said, ‘Yeah; I can buy that. Gettin’ twitchy, ain’t they?’

  ‘That’s what I thought. That Red Greg makes me nervous.’

  ‘Where ya goin’?’

  ‘Home. Prisoner’s escort.’

  ‘One o’ yours?’

  ‘Yes, Tommo.’

  ‘What’s he do?’

  ‘He breaks up people and places, especially policemen and police stations. I’m going to take him home and fire him. Then I’ll kick arse when I find out who took him on in the first place.’

  ‘I like that,’ Tommo told me. ‘Y’almost speakin’ American. What’s it like where you are?’

  ‘As cold as nuns’ tits.’

  ‘Same here, buddy. It’s going to be a long cold winter. Time I went home . . .’ The line crackled. That was never a good sign. ‘You want me to look out for that German girl o’ yourn?’

  ‘No thanks, Tommo: she’d only get you into trouble . . .’ He was laughing when the phone went dead. He may have hung up on me. Not like me to be possessive, I realized.

  Randall wasn’t that keen on the cargo. He made me borrow another couple of pairs of shackles. We put the jerk as far back in the aircraft as we could, snapped both his arms to his seat separately, and hobbled him. Then we gave him another sqwoosh of vet’s juice for good measure. He slept all the way. Pity he was a snorer.

  The VIPs had left a couple of magazines on the Oxford. Nurse L had the Picture Post, and I read Lilliput. They’d done something to the cheeky photos in mine, and the naturist girls had somehow lost their genitalia: their abdomens ended in – well . . . nothing really. If Dieter was like most boys he’d already seen a few of these already, so he was in for a surprise when he met the real thing at some time in his life. Odd; that was the thought that did it.

  I suddenly missed Maggs, the Major and the boys and wondered if I could slip away to meet them. I’d put what Elaine had said to me to the back of my mind of course; tried to pretend she hadn’t said it. I tried to talk to Randall on the trip, but something was bothering him and he wouldn’t open up. His replies were short and factual. No malice there, but he wasn’t saying anything either. Eventually Lesley leaned her head on my shoulder and dozed. It was actually quite a sweet way of telling me that there was nothing much doing.

  Her husband met us at the aircraft. He was part of a ring of about a dozen people who surrounded the door. The rest of them were bloody policemen. I had noticed a couple of cars and an ambulance, but didn’t suppose that they were waiting for us. Lesley went down the small step first, went over and hugged a thin boy in a long mac. Randall and I manhandled our drowsy passenger out between us, and the engineer was bundled away surrounded by coppers: he was still smiling his broken smile. I noticed a couple had small wooden truncheons in their hands.

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s safe with us now,’ one said. He turned away. So did I. I turned to Randall, who looked decidedly iffy.

  ‘What the hell’s going on, Randall?’

  ‘I got Control to signal them before you boarded, Charlie. His picture’s in the English papers. He’s wanted for killing someone in Nottingham. The papers say he’s a nutcase . . .’

  I was angry, but I held my tongue for once, and thought about it. There were one or two photo flashes as they wrestled the ambulance doors shut. I tried to ignore them. I looked around for the nurse and her old man, but they were five hundred yards away and walking with their arms around each other. A brief flash of envy? Yes, if you like.

  I looked back at Randall and said, ‘Don’t worry. You did exactly the right thing. Thank you . . .’

  What were going through my mind were pictures of Bozey and Ronson and the question, How many other buggers do I have who are wanted by the police?’

  You know, I’ve spent my whole life keeping my head down and trying not to be noticed. You know another thing? It’s never bloody worked. The next morning Randall and I were on the front pages of some London papers, photographed with the alleged Butcher of Nottingham between us as we pulled him from the plane.

  I didn’t mess around in the morning but hopped on a rattler first to the south coast and then turned right for Chichester, and Dieter’s school. I walked into the playground when the kids were on their mid-morning playtime. Dieter detached shyly but immediately from a game of miniature cricket; the wicket was chalked against the school wall. There were no hugs in front of his mates, but he held my hand as we walked into the school and asked, ‘Why are you here, Dad? Is everyone all right?’ He was still that kind of kid; still waiting for the next blow.

  ‘Everyone’s fine as far as I know. I haven’t been home yet. I only have a day or so down here so I thought I’d ask your Beak if you could play hooky.’ Dieter’s face went blank because I’d used words he hadn’t understood, so I explained, ‘We used to call the headmaster the beak, in my school days, and playing hooky was taking a day off. I thought we could go to a cafe, and then maybe take a wander around town.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Now, where do we go?’

  The oddest thing about the school was how small its proportions seemed. The schools I remembered all seemed to have corridors a mile long and thirty yards high. Now I could almost reach up and touch the ceiling. The corridors were as claustrophobic as some of the aircraft I’d flown in. It took me half an hour to disengage, but not because wangling Dieter a day off was a problem. The head wanted to talk, and I finally got away by promising to come back to talk to his senior year about flying the Airlift.

  We had tea and a bacon sandwich in the Cathedral Tea Room fussed over by a talkative matron, then we walked over to the cathedral itself and Dieter took me round before we rode the bus to Bosham. He’d recently been taken on a school visit to it, and delighted in lecturing his Old Man. The first time you know something that your father doesn’t is always a turning point for a boy.

  Two days later I was back flying down the corridor looking over my shoulder for the Reds. If I could have caught up with the lyricist who wrote Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries this time, I would have throttled the bastard.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  As it happened Ivan wasn’t doing all that much: he didn’t have to. Winter was beginning to show its teeth, and ove
rflown aircraft and crews were falling out of the sky without their help. Our very own Berliners were also cold and starving, so the international effort to supply them went into overdrive. When you look back you tend to see the Airlift as a huge humanitarian effort with lives lost and broken in support of it. It didn’t feel like that to me; it just felt like bloody stubbornness – we hadn’t let the Jerry get us down, and neither would we the Reds. So we flew where we were asked to, when we were asked to and with what they asked us. Sometimes we took DPs back on the outward trip. If we’d been flying coal in the Dakotas the DPs would get off the other end as black as miners, but they didn’t seem to mind. I flew some trips. Bozey flew a few more. Our aircraft and crews rotated occasionally back to Lympne. Spares were produced when and as we needed them, and none of my people did anything new to be arrested for. God was in his heaven.

  I went to the Leihhaus to talk about Frieda’s fur coat. Marthe and Magda were there. Magda said, ‘It’s not fun any more, is it?’

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘This isn’t: Berlin. On the radio they said that even Dietrich is on her way back. How boring can that be?’ Marlene was singing on the radio at that very moment: it must have reminded her.

  ‘Don’t you like her?’

  ‘Germans should be proper Germans; not pretend Americans.’ Then she said, ‘I’m not supposed to talk like that. The Denazification people would call me in if they knew: they’re worse fascists than the fascists.’

  ‘I thought you were Czech or Hungarian or something?’

  ‘Polish, but only since the war. Before that I was a good German.’ She looked uncharacteristically down in the mouth. ‘You won’t tell them, Charlie, will you?’

  ‘No reason to. Where’s Greg anyway?’ I couldn’t keep his transport hanging around for ever, and when was his famous court martial going to happen?

  ‘He’s over in the East recruiting civil judges I think. What did you want him for?’

  ‘Frieda’s been a cunt.’ I immediately regretted my crudeness, but couldn’t take it back.

  ‘Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be?’ Magda could still get it back over the net when she wanted to.

  ‘No. Sorry. I mean she’s been really stupid. She went down to the market wearing a fur coat, and nearly caused a bloody riot. Some poor woman ripped it off her back, so Frieda clouted her with a lead and leather sap she always carries. The police released her after a couple of hours, but still say they want to question her.’

  ‘Do all your women carry offensive weapons, Charlie?’

  ‘Thinking about it; most of them seem to have. I wonder why that is?’

  ‘What happened to the coat?’

  ‘It was taken into custody, and now seems to have disappeared. Frieda’s shouting the house down and is demanding an investigation. I need her to attract less attention, so I thought your Greg might be able to oblige me with another one: there’s none to be had over on my side.’

  ‘Nor here, lover. They all ended up in Moscow. Why don’t you ask your pal Tommo?’

  ‘He seems to have disappeared. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?’

  ‘His snake bit a Belgian diplomat. Might that have had anything to do with it?’

  ‘I dunno, Magda. What’s the matter with you people? Every time I’m away you get into trouble.’

  ‘That’s why you love us. What y’ wanna do?’ That was nice, but I realized that she was someone that I genuinely thought of as a friend, and this time I wasn’t going to mess it up. I got my wallet out.

  ‘Scroton’ll be in later. Why don’t we get drunk and wait for him?’

  Marthe came out on cue. She was carrying a tray with two bottles of wine and four glasses. The labels on the wine bottles were overstamped PX, and they appeared to have originated in Sicily. Otto followed her. I’d stopped calling him Moppo because Frieda had told me it was cruel. She was right. Time I bloody grew up.

  Frieda had also been out of Berlin again, and returned the day before me. Halton had fixed her a lift with Flight Refuelling. She told me that it had been ‘an interesting interlude’, which could have meant anything. I wasn’t jealous at all, which was a bit of a relief actually. She had been sitting on her bed in the only heated room in the icy apartment, wearing what Hollywood stars call a negligee and you and I call a long nightie. It wasn’t large enough to contain all her assets, if you see what I mean, so opening the door and looking in was like coming face to face with a couple of old friends. It was after coffee and black cardboard the next morning that she had told me about her fur coat, and threatened to call the Old Man down on me. I promised to see what I could do. Then she asked me what was the situation with the other thing, and I promised to see what I could do about that as well.

  You already know that what I did about both was get drunk.

  That didn’t go down too well either, but for the moment I was almost all she had, so we circled each other like a couple of boxers looking for an opponent’s weakness. I used to drag myself into the office or Flying Control in the mornings feeling as if I’d done ten rounds with Freddy Mills. Love with Frieda could leave you hurting in places that love had never been before. I’m using the word love euphemistically of course. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone. The one thing I never tired of surprised me. We often slept with the door of her small windowless room open so that I could listen for intruders. I never tired of the play of the early daylight through that door on her curves: I could have spent hours just looking at her. I didn’t tell her that. She would have only made fun of me.

  Fergal telephoned me, and asked me to visit. Red Greg called as well, and asked when I’d be back in the Neutral Zone. I saw no reason to deny either.

  I’d been putting off visiting Fergal; I guess you realized that. I’m not really all that good with kids. I took Frieda with me. She was even worse, which made me feel better. I parked up in the street and gave a group of urchins hanging around outside a dollar to watch the jeep, promising another couple if it still had all its wheels when we came back. You entered the orphanage through a large street door, up a couple of wide steps. It looked like any other door in the terrace, but the terrace was just a war-damaged façade. Once through the door we found a cloister on either side, and a quad in front of us. The noise was tremendous because the quad was full of shouting children playing games. Frieda suddenly held my hand; that was nice. A nun who looked too pretty by half to be a nun hustled up to meet us. She had a toddler in her arms. He was whooping it up in no uncertain fashion. The nun was laughing, and tickling the kid. The little girl pushing a small pram behind her was the girl I’d once met in the street – it seemed months ago. There was a child sleeping peacefully in the pram. Was she still caring for the same one? The girl looked fed and relaxed – the way kids should – and her cheeks had colour. They were no longer pinched. She smiled, and said in grave formal German, ‘Good morning, sir,’ and after a correct pause, ‘Thank you for sending us to your house.’

  I squatted down to get eye-level. ‘This is not my house; it is the priest’s house. I am glad that he is looking after you well.’

  ‘I think that is your house also.’ She smiled, and turned the pram back to the melee. The playing children parted to let her through, like the Red Sea parted for Moses. I thought that Fergal would have liked that simile. The beautiful nun took us to Fergal’s door, but then spirited Frieda away; to do the woman-to-woman stuff I presumed.

  I’d never thought of Fergal as an executive or an organizer, but there again, what did I know? I hadn’t expected to end up running an airline, had I? He had a large office full of shelves. It had probably once been a study or a library. Many of the shelves now hosted neatly stacked and laundered children’s clothes, and there were a few wooden crates of vegetables. He got up from the trestle table that served as his desk and came round to greet me. He said, ‘I sold the books. You can’t eat or wear them.’

  ‘From what I can see you don’t have to. You’ve done a g
rand job with these kids.’

  ‘We have. I couldn’t have survived without you and Halton. Thanks for the clothes.’

  ‘What clothes?’

  ‘The ones that your secretary puts on your flights back from England. I think she organizes a collection in the nearest towns.’

  ‘I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘They probably don’t bother you with every little thing. That’s what good staff are for.’

  ‘What are yours like?’

  ‘The sisters? They’re wonderful. I couldn’t run this show without them.’

  Another nun put her head around the door to offer us tea, of all things! She was also improbably beautiful.

  ‘Are all your women that good-looking? The two I’ve seen so far are.’

  He still hadn’t let go of my hand, but looked away as if embarrassed.

  ‘There’s something beautiful in all women, Charlie.’ Then he looked back; the old Fergal. ‘Yes. They do seem to be corkers, don’t they? I have five working with me; all volunteers. One was in Spain before the war. She can nurse.’

  ‘Which side was she on?’

  He looked pained, but it wasn’t real.

  ‘There are no winning sides in war, Charlie, only losers.’ It was the sort of guff that he must have been taught in the Seminary.

  ‘You know that’s bollocks, Fergal. She was a bloody fascist, wasn’t she? All your lot were, over there.’

  ‘I’ve learned to forgive, Charlie.’

  ‘I’ll forgive her if she’s . . .’ I managed to stop it before it came out – as the gardener said to the art mistress. Maybe I was learning after all. I suppose the pause before he spoke meant that he was deciding how much to tell me.

  Whatever else they teach them in convents they teach them how to make a fair cup of char. It was the best I’d had in Germany all year. They were short of neither milk, tea nor sugar. In fact I remarked later, as Fergal showed me around, they didn’t seem to be short of anything. This was a very un-Berlin situation that winter. I wondered what he wanted me for. Eventually he told me.