Air Bridge Part 13

'Well, that's that,' Saeton said. He was grinning like a child who has set fire to something for fun, but his eyes as he looked at me reflected a more desperate mood. Another explosion shook the hangar and flames licked out of the shattered windows at the side. Saeton reached up to the throttle levers, the engines roared and we swung away to the runway end.

A moment later we turned our backs on the hangar and took off into the frosted night. At about a thousand feet Saeton banked slightly for one last glimpse of the field. It was a great dark circle splashed with an orange flare at the far end. As I peered forward across Saeton's body the hangar seemed to disintegrate into a flaming skeleton of steel. At that distance it looked no bigger than a Guy Fawkes bonfire.

We turned east then, setting course for Germany. I stared at Saeton, seeing the hard inflexible set of the jaw in the light of the instrument panel. There was nothing behind him now. The past to him was forgotten, actively erased by fire. There would be nothing at Membury but molten sc.r.a.ps of metal and the congealed lumps of the engines. As though he knew what I was thinking he said, 'Whilst you were sleeping this evening I went over this machine erasing old numbers and stamping in our own.' There was a tight-lipped smile on his face as he said this. He was warning me that there would be no proof, that I would not be believed if I tried to accuse him of flying Harcourt's plane.

The moon rose as we crossed the Dutch coast, a flattened orange in the east. The Scheldt glimmered below us and then the snaking line of water gave place to frosted earth. 'We're in Germany now,' Saeton shouted, and there was a note of triumph in his voice. In Germany! This was the future for him - the bright, brilliant future to replace the dead past. But for me ... I felt cold and alone. There was nothing here for me but the memory of Tubby's unconscious body slumping through the floor of this very machine - and farther back, tucked away in the dark corners of my mind, the feel of branches tearing at my arm, the sight of the barbed wire and the sense of being hunted.

My brain seemed numb. I couldn't think and I flew across the British Zone of Germany in a kind of mental vacuum. Then the lights of the airlift planes were below us and we were in the corridor, flying at five thousand feet. Saeton put the nose of the machine down, swinging east to clear the traffic stream and then south-west at less than a thousand with all the ground laid bare in brilliant moonlight, a white world of unending, hedgeless fields and black, impenetrable woods.

We found Hollmind, turned north and in an instant we were over the airfield. Saeton pressed the mouthpiece of his helmet to his lips. 'Get aft and open the fuselage door.' His voice crackled in my ears. 'You can start shovelling the bits out just as soon as you like. I'll stooge around to the north of the airfield.' I hesitated and he looked across at me. 'You want me to land down there, don't you?' he said. 'Well, this machine's heavily overloaded. And that runway hasn't been used for four years. It's probably badly broken up by frost and I'm not landing till the weight's out of the fuselage. Now get aft and kick the load out of her.'

There was no point in arguing with him. I turned and went through the door to the fuselage. The dark bulk of the fuel tanks loomed in front of me. I climbed round them and then I was squeezing my way through the litter of the old Tudor that was piled to the roof. Jagged pieces of metal caught at my flying suit. The fuselage was like an old junk shop and it rattled tinnily. I found the fuselage door, flung it back and a rush of cold air filled the plane. We were flying at about two thousand now, the countryside, sliding below us, clearly mapped in the white moonlight. The wings dipped and quivered as Saeton began to bank the plane. Above me the lights of a plane showed driving south-east towards Berlin with its load of freight; below, the snaking line of a river gleamed for an instant, a road running straight to the north, the black welt of a wood, and then the white weave of ploughed earth.

The engines throttled back and I felt the plane check as Saeton applied the air brakes. I caught hold of the nearest piece of metal, dragged it to the wind-filled gap and pushed it out. It went sailing into the void, a gleam of tin twisting and falling through the slipstream. Soon a whole string of metal was falling away behind us like pieces of silver paper. It was like the phosph.o.r.escent gleam of the log line of a s.h.i.+p marking the curve of our flight as we banked.

By the time I'd pitched the last fragment out and the floor of the fuselage was clear, I was sweating hard. I leaned for a moment against the side of the fuselage, panting with the effort. The sweat on me went cold and clammy and I began to s.h.i.+ver. I pulled the door to and went for'ard. 'It's all out now,' I told Saeton.

He nodded. 'Good! I'm going down now. I'll take the perimeter of Hollmind airfield as my mark and fly in widening circles from that. Okay?' He thrust the nose down and the airfield rose to meet us through the winds.h.i.+eld. The concrete runways gleamed white, a huge cross. Then we were skimming the field, the starboard wing-tip down as we banked in a right turn. He was taking it clockwise so that I had a clear, easy view of the ground through my side window. 'Keep your eyes skinned,' he shouted. 'I'll look after the navigation.'

Round and round we circled, the airfield sliding away till it was lost behind the trees. There was nothing but woods visible through my window, an unending stream of moon-white Christmas trees sliding away below me. My eyes grew dizzy with staring at them, watching their spiky tops and the dark shadows rus.h.i.+ng by. The leading edge of the wing seemed to be cutting through them, we were so low. Here and there they thinned out, vanis.h.i.+ng into patches of plough or the gleam of water. The pattern repeated itself like flaws in a wheel as we droned steadily on that widening circle.

At last the woods had all receded and there was nothing below us but plough. Saeton straightened the plane out then and climbed away to the north. 'Well?' he shouted.

But I'd seen nothing - not the glimmer of a light, no fire, no sign of the torn remains of parachute silk -nothing but the fir trees and the open plough. I felt numb and dead inside. Somewhere amongst those woods Tubby had fallen - somewhere deep in the dark shadows his body lay crumpled and broken. I put the mouthpiece of my helmet to my lips. 'I'll have to search those woods on foot,' I said.

'All right,' Saeton's voice crackled back. 'I'll take you down now. Hold tight. It's going to be a b.u.mpy touchdown.'

We banked again and the airfield reappeared, showing as a flat clearing in the woods straight ahead of us. Flaps and undercarriage came down as we dropped steeply over the firs. The concrete came to meet us, cracked and covered with the dead stalks of weeds. Then our wheels touched down and the machine was jolting crazily over the uneven surface. We came to rest within a stone's throw of the woods, the nose of the machine facing west. Saeton followed me out on to the concrete. No light showed in all the huge, flat expanse of the field. n.o.body came to chal lenge us. The place was as derelict and lonely as Membury. Saeton thrust a paper package into my hand. 'Bread and cheese,' he said. 'And here's a flask. You may need it.'

'Aren't you coming with me?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'I'm due at Wunstorf at 04.00. Besides, what's the use? We've stooged the area for nearly an hour. We've seen nothing. To search it thoroughly on foot would take days. It doesn't look much from the air, but from the ground' He shook his head again. 'Take a look at the size of this airfield. Just to walk straight across it would take you half an hour.'

I stood there, staring at the dark line of the woods, the panic of loneliness creeping up on me. 'I won't be long,' I said. 'Surely you can wait an hour for me - two hours perhaps?' The plane was suddenly important to me, my link with people I knew, with people who spoke my own language. Without it, I'd be alone in Germany again in the Russian Zone.

His hand touched my arm. 'You don't seem to understand, Neil,' he said gently. 'You're not part of my crew - not yet. You're the pilot of a plane that crashed just north of here. I couldn't take you on to Wunstorf even if you wanted to come. When you've finished your search, make for Berlin. It's about thirty-five miles to the south-east. You ought to be able to slip across into the British Sector there.'

I stared at him. 'You mean you're leaving me here?' I swallowed quickly, fighting off the sudden panic of fear, 'The arrangement was that I should fly you back to Germany and drop you there. As far as I'm concerned that plan still holds. All that's different is that I've landed you and so saved you a jump.'

Anger burst through my fear, anger at the thought of him not caring a d.a.m.n about Tubby, thinking only of his plans to fly his engines on the airlift. 'You're not leaving me here, Saeton,' I cried. 'But I must know whether he's alive or dead.'

'We know that already,' he said quietly.

'He's not dead,' I cried. 'He's only dead in your mind - because you want him dead. He's not dead, really. He can't be.'

'Have it your own way.' He shrugged his shoulders and turned away towards the plane.

I caught him by the shoulder and jerked him round. 'All right, he's dead,' I shouted. 'If that's the way you want it. He's dead, and you've killed him. The one friend you ever had! Well, you've killed your one friend - killed him, just as you'd kill anyone who stood between you and what you want.'

He looked me over, measuring my mood, and then his eyes were cold and hard. 'I don't think you've quite grasped the situation,' he said slowly. 'I didn't kill Tubby. You killed him.'

'Me?' I laughed. 'I suppose it wasn't your idea that I should pinch Harcourt's Tudor? I suppose that's your own machine standing there? You blackmailed me into doing what you wanted. My G.o.d! I'll see the world knows the truth. I don't care about myself any more. What happened to Tubby has brought me to my senses.

You're mad - that's what you are. Mad. You've lost your reason, all sense of proportion. You don't care what you do so long as your dreams come true. You'll sacrifice everything, anyone. Well, I'll see you don't get away with it. I'll tell them the truth when I get back. If you'd got a gun you'd shoot me now, wouldn't you? Or are you only willing to murder by proxy? Well, you haven't got a gun and I'll get back to Berlin somehow. I'll tell them the truth then. I'll'

I paused for breath and he said, 'Telling the truth won't help Tubby now - and it won't help you either; Try to get the thing clear in your mind, Fraser. Tubby's dead. And since you killed him it's up to you to see that his death is to some purpose.'

'I didn't kill him,' I shouted. 'You killed him.'

He laughed. 'Do you think anybody will believe you?'

'They will when they know the facts. When the police have searched Membury, when they have examined that plane and they've interrogated'

'You've nothing to support your story,' he said quietly. 'The remains of Harcourt's plane are strewn over the countryside just north of here. Field and Westrop will say that you ordered them to bale out, that the engines had packed up. You yourself will be reporting back from the area of the crash. As for Membury. there's nothing left of the hangar now except a blackened ruin.'

I felt suddenly exhausted. 'So you knew what I'd do. You knew what I was going to do back there at Membury. You fooled me into pus.h.i.+ng out that load of sc.r.a.p. By G.o.d'

'Don't start using your fists,' he cut in sharply. 'I may be older than you, but I'm heavier - and tougher.' His feet were straddled and his head was thrust forward, his hands down at his sides ready for me.

I put my hands slowly to my head. 'Oh, G.o.d!' I felt so weak, so impotent.

'Get some sense into your head before I see you again,' he said. 'You can still be in this thing with me -> as my partner. It all depends on your att.i.tude when you reach Berlin.'

For answer I turned away and walked slowly towards the woods.

Once I glanced back. Saeton was still standing there, watching me. Then, as I entered the darkness of the trees, I heard the engines roar. Through needle-covered branches I watched the machine turn and taxi to the runway end. And then it went roaring across the airfield, climbing, a single white light, like a faded comet, dwindling into the moonlit night, merging into the stars. Then there was silence and the still shadows of the woods closed round me. I was alone - in the Russian Zone of Germany.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

For a long time after the plane had disappeared I stood there on the fringe of the woods gazing at the empty expanse of the airfield. A small wind whispered in the upper branches of the fir trees and every few minutes there was the distant drone of a plane - airlift pilots flying down the corridor to Berlin. Those were the only sounds. The cold seeped through my flying suit, stiffening my limbs, and at length I turned and walked into the woods. A few steps and I had lost the airfield. The trees closed round me and I was in a world apart. It was very still there in the woods, even the sound of my footsteps was m.u.f.fled by the carpet of pine needles. I could still hear the planes, but I couldn't see them. The branches of the trees cut me off from the sky and only a ghostly radiance told me that the moon still filled the world with its white light.

I found a path and followed it to the earth mound of an old dispersal point. The frost-cracked concrete was a white blaze in the moonlight, cutting through the dark ranks of the trees to the open plain of the airfield. I stopped there to consider what I should do. My mind went back to the scene in the plane. We had been flying almost due south when Tubby's body slid through the open doorway. I had gone straight back to the c.o.c.kpit and then I had looked through my side window and seen Hollmind airfield below me. That meant that Tubby had gone out north and slightly west of the field.

I followed the line of the concrete till I came out on to the edge of the airfield and turned left, walking in the shadow of the woods till I reached the north-west extremity of the field. Buildings began there, shapeless heaps of broken rubble. I skirted these and entered the woods again, following a path that ran in the direction I wanted to go.

It was four o'clock when I began my search. I remember thinking that Saeton would be at Wunstorf. 1 The plane would be parked on the loading ap.r.o.n in the row of Tudors where it had stood before. Only the crew would be different - and the numbers and the engines. He'd be reporting to Ops and checking in at the mess, finding a bed in the echoing concrete corridors of that labyrinth that housed the human force of the airlift. He'd be one of them now, getting up when the world was asleep, going to bed when others were shaving. In a few hours perhaps it would be his plane I'd hear droning over on its way to Berlin. He'd be up there, with success ahead of him, whilst I was down in these grim, dark woods, searching for the body of the man who'd given two years to help him build those engines. d.a.m.n it, it wasn't even his plane. It was my plane. Nothing was really his. Even the design of the engines he'd pinched from Else's father.

Blind anger drove everything else out of my head for a moment. Then I steadied myself, forcing my mind to concentrate on the thing I'd set myself to do. I decided to walk east and west, backwards and forwards on a two mile front working gradually northwards. The impossibility of complete coverage was apparent from the start. I had a small pocket compa.s.s, that was all. The trees, fortunately, were well s.p.a.ced out, but they were all alike. There was nothing to guide me. It was obvious that at some points I should be covering the same ground twice, maybe three times, whilst at other times I should be leaving large gaps uncovered. But it was the only course open to me and with a feeling of hopelessness I turned west on my first beat. It was past five when I came to the western fringe of the woods and looked across the dreary flatness of the Mecklenburg plain with the moon dipping over it towards the horizon. And in that time I had stopped a hundred times to investigate a deeper shadow, a dead branch that looked like an arm or a patch of white where a beam of direct moonlight shone on the bark of a pine trunk.

Dawn found me at the end of the eastward beat. The daylight penetrated slowly into the woods, a slight lightening of the deeper shadows, a paling of the moon's whiteness. I didn't really see it until I was in a clearing that showed me the bomb-battered ruins of the hangars that lay along the north fringe of Hollmind airfield. It was a grey dawn, still, but pitilessly cold, with great cloud banks rolling in from the north and the feel of snow in the air.

I ate two sandwiches and took a nip from the flask Saeton had given me. There was rum in that flask and I could feel the warmth of it trickling into my stomach. But as I turned westward again on my third beat I was already tired. There was no breath of wind. The woods seemed frozen into silence. The only sound was the drone of aircraft. That sound had been with me all the time. It was monotonous, unending. But G.o.d, how glad I was of it! That sound was my one link with the world, with reality. And as the daylight increased, I began to look for the planes in the gaps in the trees. At last I saw one. It was flying across my line of march at about three thousand feet, the thick belly unmistakable - a York. That meant that it had come from Wunstorf. The men in that plane would have breakfasted before dawn with the electric lights on and the mess warm with the smell of hot radiators and food. They had hot food in their bellies and hot coffee.

I stood there in the clearing, watching the plane rill it was out of sight, the smell of coffee stronger than the smell of the pines, remembering a shop I'd known as a kid that had a big grinder always working in the window, spilling its fragrance into the street. As the plane disappeared over the tops of the trees another came into sight, exactly the same, flying the same route, flying the same height. I watched another and another. All Yorks. All exactly the same. It was as though they were on an endless belt going behind the trees, like those little white clay airgun targets you find at fairs.

The smell of coffee lingered with me as I went on into the sombre gloom of the woods.

Shortly after midday it began to snow, the flakes drifting gently down out of the leaden sky, dark, widely-s.p.a.ced specks until they landed and were transformed to little splashes of virgin white. It was less cold after the snow began to fall. But by then I was feeling sleepy, exhausted and hungry. There were two sandwiches left and half a flask of rum. I saved them for the night and stumbled on.

On my eighth beat I found a crumpled piece of metal. It was lodged in the branches of a tree - a piece of the tailplane of the Tudor Saeton had pranged at Membury. It didn't seem possible that it was less than twelve hours since I'd slung that fragment out of the open door of the fuselage with these woods flas.h.i.+ng by below me. .

An hour later I nearly walked into a Russian patrol. I was almost on top of them before I heard the low murmur of their voices. They were in a group, short men with round, sallow faces, black boots and brown tunics b.u.t.toned to the neck. The soldiers leaned on their rifles while two officers bent over a piece of metal that gleamed dully.

I wondered what they'd make of these sc.r.a.ps of metal scattered through the woods as I slipped past them and continued eastward. The snow thickened and the sky darkened. Patches of white showed in the gaps between the trees and these I had to avoid for fear of leaving footprints. In the gathering darkness and my growing weakness every shadow became a Russian soldier. My progress became wretchedly slow. Finally it was too dark to go on and I dug a hole for myself close under the low-sweeping branches of a large fir and lay down in it, covering myself with pine needles.

I finished the two sandwiches and drank the rest of the rum. But within an hour the warmth of the rum had completely evaporated; the cold of the night moved in on me, gripping my limbs like a steel sheet. Sleep was impossible. I lay and s.h.i.+vered, my mind a blank, my body in a coma of misery. The cold covered everything. The snow became hard and powdery, the trees cracked.

By midnight I was so frozen that I got to my feet and stamped and swung my arms. My breath hung like smoke in front of my face. The snow clouds had pa.s.sed. Stars shone frosty-clear above my head and the moon had risen showing me a beautiful, fairy-white world of Christmas trees.

I started moving westward, walking blindly, not really caring where I went so long as I got some warmth into my limbs. And that was how I found Tubby's flying helmet. I just stumbled on it lying on a patch of snow. I suppose what had happened was that it had been caught on one of the branches of a tree and when the snow weighed the branch down it had slipped to the ground.

I don't remember feeling any excitement. I think I was too numbed with cold to have any feelings at all. And I had no sense of surprise either. I had been so determined to find him that it hadn't occurred to me that I should fail. I have always believed that if you go out for a thing hard enough, you get it in the end, and I didn't bother to consider the virtual impossibility of the task I had set myself. But though I had found his helmet I could find no trace of Tubby himself. There was just the helmet. Nothing else.

After a thorough search of the area I returned to the spot where the helmet had lain. The trees were very thick and in the darkness of the shadows it was impossible to see whether there was anything lodged in the branches. In the end I climbed to the top of the tree that overhung the spot. With my head thrust above the snow-laden branches I looked over a plain of white spikes that glistened in the moonlight. By shaking the tree I got rid of most of the snow. The needle foliage looked very green, but there was no sign of anything that would prove that this was the spot where Tubby had fallen.

I was half-way down the tree, back in the world of half-light and shadows, when my hand slid from the gritty surface of the bark to something softer. My fingers closed on it, feeling the smoothness of light material. I didn't need to look at it to know that this was nylon. I pulled at it and my hand came away with a torn strip of parachute silk about the length of a scarf.

I was excited then. That strip of nylon silk showed that Tubby had pulled his parachute release before he hit the ground and I went tumbling down the tree, oblivious of the snow that fell on my neck and trickled in icy streams down my back, oblivious of everything but that single fact - Tubby wasn't dead. He might have hurt himself, but he'd regained consciousness, he'd pulled the release and his parachute had opened. And I realised then how the fear of finding him, a mangled, blood-stained heap of broken bones and torn flesh, had haunted me. In a frenzy I searched the area again, trampling the snow in my haste to find out what had happened to him after he'd crashed through the trees.

But the snow hid all trace.

At length, utterly exhausted, I sat down on a dry patch of ground with my back against the bole of a tree and lit one of my last cigarettes. I had searched the area in a circle extending about fifty yards from the spot where I had come upon the helmet. I had found no trace of him. Clearly one of two things had happened -either he had been all right and had left the area on foot or else he had been injured and some woodman had found him and got him away. Or perhaps it had been the Russians who'd found him. Maybe the patrol I'd seen in the afternoon had come upon him and carted him off to Hollmind. The possibility that he might be dead was nagging at me again. I had to be sure that he was alive.

I got to my feet again. I would have to widen my search, radiate out until I found some trace. I began walking again, circling out from the spot where the helmet had lain. The snow helped me here, for all I had to do was walk outside the footprints I'd made on my previous circuit. The moon was high overhead now and it was much lighter under the trees. At four o'clock in the morning, after walking for over two hours in a widening circle, I stumbled upon a broad track running through the woods. One side of the track was sheltered by the trees and was clear of snow and there I found the marks of a farm cart. I traced it back to a spot where it had stood for some time. The tracks did not continue. They finished there and I knew then that Tubby was either dead or injured. Cold and wretched, I turned westward and followed the track till it left the shelter of the woods and ran out into the bitter flatness of ploughed land that was all white under the moon.

The wheel tracks were lost under the snow now, but the track was still visible - two deep ruts swinging south-west towards a Christmas card huddle of steep-roofed farm buildings. As I approached I saw the yellow glow of a light. It came from the half-open door of a barn. Inside the barn a man was filling sacks with potatoes from a deep, square hole in the floor. Wooden boards heavy with earth were stacked against the heaped-up straw and earth had been piled near the door.

The man must have sensed my presence, for he suddenly paused in his work and looked straight at me where I stood in the gaping doorway. He was short and wiry with a broad forehead and his eyes looked startled and afraid.' Wer sind Sie? Was wollen Sie?' 'I am an English flier,' I replied in German. 'I am looking for a friend of mine who may be injured.'

He put down his fork and came towards me, his dark, frightened eyes peering first at my face, then at my clothes. 'Come in then and close the door please. The wind blow it open I think.' He fixed the latch with trembling fingers. 'I was afraid it was the Russians.' He laughed nervously. 'They want everything - all my crops. For the East, you know.' His speech was jerky. 'To feed our pigs we must keep something.' He held the lantern close to me, still examining me uncertainly. Apparently he was finally satisfied, for he lowered the lantern and said, 'You look tired. You walk far, yes.'

'What has happened to my friend?' I asked 'He was brought here, wasn't he? Is he - is he dead?' I waited, dreading his answer.

He shook his head slowly. 'Nein. He is not dead. But he injure himself very much when he land in the trees. Now you lie down in the straw there. I must finish my work before it is light. Then I get you something to eat, eh?'

But I wasn't listening. Thank G.o.d!' I breathed it aloud. Tubby was alive. He was alive and I'd found him. I hadn't killed him after all. I felt suddenly lightheaded. I wanted to laugh. But once I started to laugh I felt I should never stop. I held my breath, fighting to control myself. Then I stumbled into the straw, sinking into it, relaxing, knowing I had done everything I could and that G.o.d had been with me. I had found Tubby and he wasn't dead. 'When did you find him?' I asked.

'Four days ago,' the man answered. He had returned to his work.

'And you have not handed him over to the Russians?'

He paused with a forkful of potatoes. 'No, we do not hand him to the Russians. You have to thank my wife for that. Our daughter is in Berlin. She live in the French Sector with her husband who work on the railways there. But for the , she would be like us - she would be under the Russians.'

I mumbled my thanks. My head kept nodding. It was very warm and comfortable there in the straw. 'Is he badly hurt?'

'Ja. He is not so good. Several ribs are broken and his arm and he has concussion. But he is conscious. You can speak with him.'

'He should have a doctor.' My voice sounded very far away. I couldn't keep my eyes open.

'You do not have to worry. Our doctor is coming here to see him every day. He is a good doctor and he do not love the Russians because they take him to the East for a year to work with our prisoners. Once he meet my son. My son, Hans, is a prisoner of the Russians since 1945..Before that he is in North Africa and Italy and then on the Eastern front. I do not see him now for almost six years. But soon I hope he will come home. We have had two letters ...'

His voice droned pleasantly and my eyelids closed. I dreamt I was back in Stalag Luft I, but the guards all wore right-necked brown tunics and black knee-length boots, and there was always snow and no hope of release or escape - only the hope of death. They kept on interrogating me, trying to get me to admit that I'd killed Tubby - there were intensely bright lights and they kept on shaking me ... I woke to find the farmer bending over me, shaking my shoulder. 'Wake up, Herr Fraser.' He p.r.o.nounced the V sharply and not as a 'z'. 'It is seven o'clock. We will have some food now and then you can talk with your friend.'

'You know my name?' I murmured sleepily. And then I felt in my breast pocket. My papers were still there. He must have put them back after examining them. I clambered stiffly to my feet. I was cold and very tired.

'I think perhaps we put your flying clothes under the straw, eh? I do not wish my men to know I have a British flier here. By talking, one of them might be given my farm. That is something they learn from the n.a.z.is.' He said the word 'n.a.z.is' unemotionally as one might talk of an avalanche or some other act of G.o.d.

When I had hidden my flying suit he took me across the farmyard to the house. It was a cold, bleak dawn, heavy with leaden cloud that promised more snow. Overhead I heard the drone of the planes flying in to Berlin, but I couldn't see them, for the ceiling was not much more than a thousand.

My memory of the Kleffmanns' house is vague; a memory of warmth and the smell of bacon, of a big kitchen with a great, clumsy, glowing stove and a bright-eyed, friendly little woman with wisps of greying hair and the slow, sure movements of one who lives close to the earth and whose routine never changes. I also remember the little bedroom high up under the roof where Tubby lay, his fat cheeks strangely hollow, his face flushed with fever and his eyes unnaturally bright. The ugly, patterned wallpaper with b.u.t.terflies flying up vertical strips was littered with photographs of Hans Kleffmann who would some day come back from Russia and meet his mother and father again for the first time in six years. There were photographs of him as a baby, as a boy at the school in Hollmind, in the uniform of the n.a.z.i Youth Organisation and finally in the uniform of the Wehrmacht - against the background of the Hradcany Palace in Prague, in a Polish village, with the Eiffel Tower behind him, in the desert leaning on a tank, in Rome with St. Peter's Dome over his left shoulder. And there were a few less formal snaps - Hans in bathing shorts on the Italian Riviera, Hans with a dark-haired girl in Naples, Hans skiing in the Dolomites. Hans filled that room with the nostalgia of a boy's life leading inevitably, irrevocably to the Russian prison camp. They showed me a letter. It was four lines long -I am well and the Russians treat me very kindly. The food is good and I am happy. Love, Hans. Tubby, lying in that small, neatly austere bed, was an intruder.

He was asleep when I went in. The Kleffmanns left me sitting by his bed whilst they got on with the business of the farm. Tubby's breath came jerkily and painfully but he slept on and I had a long time in which to become familiar with Hans. It's almost as though I had met him, I got to know him so well from those faded photographs - arrogant and fanatical in victory, hard-faced and bitter in defeat. There in that room I was face to face with the Germany of the future, the Germany that was being hammered out on the vulcan forge of British, American and Soviet policy. I found my eyes turning back repeatedly to the grim, relentless face in the photograph taken at Lwow in the autumn of 1944 and comparing it with the smiling carefree kid in knickerbockers taken outside the Hollmind school.

Then Tubby opened his eyes and stared at me. At first I thought he wasn't going to recognise me. We stared at each other for a moment and then he smiled. He smiled at me with his eyes, his lips a tight line constricted by pain. 'Neil! How did you get here?'

I told him, and when I'd finished he said, 'You came back. That was kind of you.' He had difficulty in speaking and his voice was very weak.

'Are they looking after you all right?' I asked awkwardly.

He nodded slowly. The old woman is very kind. She treats me as though I were her son. And the doctor does his best.'

'You ought to be in hospital,' I said.

He nodded again. 'But it's better than being in the hands of the Russians.'

'Thank G.o.d you're alive anyway,' I said. 'I thought' I hesitated and then said, 'I was afraid I'd killed you. You were unconscious when you went out through the door. I didn't mean it, Tubby. Please believe that.'

'Forget it,' he said. 'I understand. It was good of you to come back.' He winced as he took a breath. 'Did you take the plane back to Saeton?'

'Yes,' I said. 'It's got our engines in now and Saeton's at Wunstorf. They ordered him over immediately to replace Harcourt's Tudor.'

His mouth opened to the beginning of a laugh and then he jerked rigid at the pain it caused him.

'You ought to be in hospital,' I said again. 'Listen,' I added. 'Do you think you could stand another journey in that cart, up to Hollmind airfield?'

I saw him clench his teeth at the memory.

'Could you stand it if you knew at the end there would be a hospital and everything in the way of treatment you need?'

The sweat shone on his forehead. 'Yes,' he breathed, so quietly that I could hardly hear him. 'Yes, I'd face it again if I knew that. Maybe the doc here would fix me up with a shot of morphia. But they've so little in the way of drugs. They've been very kind, but they're Germans, and they haven't the facilities for . ..' His voice trailed away.

I was afraid he was going to fade into unconsciousness and I said quickly, 'I'm going now, Tubby. Tonight I'll start out for Berlin. I'll make it just as quickly as I can. Then, within a few hours, I'll be back with a plane and we'll evacuate you from Hollmind. Okay?'