Air Bridge Part 14

He nodded.

'Goodbye then for the moment. I'll get through somehow and then we'll get you to a hospital. Hold on to that. You'll be all right.'

The corners of his lips twitched in a tight smile. 'Good luck!' he whispered. And then as I rose from the bed, his hand came out from beneath the sheets and closed on mine. 'Neil!' I had to bend down to hear him. 'I want you to know - I won't say anything. I'll leave things as I find them. The plane crashed. Engine failure - ignition.' His voice died away and his eyes closed.

Bending close to him I could hear the sob of his breathing. I reached under his pillow for his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The handkerchief was dark with blood. I knew then that his lung was punctured. I wiped his forehead with my own handkerchief and then went quietly out of Hans's little bedroom and down the dark stairs to the kitchen.

They gave me a bed and I slept until it was dark. Then, after a huge meal by the warmth of the kitchen stove, I said goodbye to the Kleffmanns. 'In a night or two,' I told them, 'I will be back with a plane and we'll get him away.'

'Gut! Gut!' The farmer nodded. 'It is better so. He is very bad, I think. Also it is dangerous for us having him here in the farm.'

Frau Kleffmann came towards me. She had a bulky package in her hand. 'Here is food for your journey, Herr Fraser - some chicken and some bread and b.u.t.ter and apples.' She hesitated. 'If anything happens, do not worry about your friend. He is safe here. We will look after him. There has been war between us, but my Hans is in Russia. I will care for your friend as I would have others care for Hans if he is sick. Auf wiedersehen!' Her gnarled hand touched my arm and her eyes filled with tears. She turned quickly to the stove.

The farmer accompanied me to the door. 'I try to arrange for you to ride in a lorry who go once a week to Berlin with potatoes. But' - he spread his hands hopelessly - 'the driver is sick. He do not go tonight. If you go three miles beyond Hollmind there is a cafe there for motor drivers. I think you will perhaps get a ride there.' He gave me instructions how to by-pa.s.s Hollmind and then shook my hands. 'Viel Gluck, Herr Fraser. Come soon, please, for your friend. I fear he is very sick.'

More snow had fallen during the day, but now the clouds had been swept away by a bitter east wind and the night was cold and clear. The moon had not yet risen, but the stars were so brilliant that I had no difficulty in seeing my way as soon as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness. High above me the airlift planes droned at regular three-minute intervals - I could see their navigation lights every now and then, green and red dots moving steadily through the litter of stars and the drift of the Milky Way. The white pinpoint of their tail-lights pointed the way to Berlin for me. I had only to follow them through the night sky and I should arrive at Gatow. For them Gatow was twenty minutes flying time. But for me.. ..

I turned south on the hard straight road that led to the town of Hollmind, wondering how long the journey would take me. The snow was deep and crisp under my feet. Kleffmann had given me an old field-grey Wehrmacht greatcoat and a Wehrmacht forage cap; Hans's cast-off clothing. For the first time since I'd landed in Germany I felt warm and well-fed.

Nothing stirred on the road. The snow seemed to have driven all transport off it. My footsteps were m.u.f.fled and I walked in a deep silence. The only sound was the drone of the planes overhead and the hum of the wind in the telegraph wires. I reached the fork where the road branched off that I was to take in order to by-pa.s.s Hollmind. There was a signboard there -Berlin 54 km.

Fifty-four kilometres isn't far; not much more than thirty miles. A day's march. But though I had had a good rest, I was still tired and very stiff. I was wearing shoes and my feet were blister-sore. And there was the cold. For a time the warmth of exercise kept it out, but, as I tired, the sweat broke out on my body and chilled into a clammy, ice-cold film, and then the wind cut through my clothing and into my flesh, seeming to blow straight on to my spine. G.o.d, it was cold! For miles, it seemed, I walked along by-roads through unmarked snow and there was no traffic. I must have missed the turning back on to the Berlin road, for it was almost midnight when I finally found it again and I saw no transport cafe - only dark woods and the illimitable miles of white agricultural land, flat and windswept.

Several times I tried to thumb a lift. But each time the heavy, long-nosed German trucks ignored me, thundering by in a shower of snow that spattered icily on my face. However the fourth truck I waved to stopped and a voice called out,' Wohin, Freund?' 'Berlin,' I shouted.

There was a pause and then a Red Army soldier clambered down from the cabin. He was sleepy and he'd left his rifle in the truck. That was the only thing that saved me. He asked me in vile German for my papers. Fortunately the edge of the road was wooded. I dived into the dark shelter of the pines, ignoring the branches that lashed at my face, running until I was exhausted.

Dawn found me trudging through powdery snow along a narrow side road flanked with trees, following blindly the drone of the airlift planes. It was a blood-red dawn, wild and violent and full of cold. The sun was a misty red disc above the pines. I staggered into the shelter of the woods, ate Frau Kleffmann's chicken and bread, wrapped myself in pine needles and slept.

All that day I slept, if you can call it sleep. It was more like a bone-chilled coma. I suppose I was suffering from mental as well as physical exhaustion. At all events I found the present and the past inextricably mixed in my mind, so that the urge to reach Berlin became confused with the urge to get out of Germany and I was back in those cold, wretched, starved weeks of escape.

Night came at last, cold and black. There were no stars. I stumbled to the road and headed south-east, the drone of the planes my only guide. I pa.s.sed through a small town, not bothering to note its name, joined a broader road where the snow had been churned up by traffic, and the first truck that came along stopped beside me. In the headlights I saw that the country bordering the road was flat. If there had been woods I should almost certainly have dived into them. But it was bare, open plain. 'Wo wollen Sie bin, mein Lieber?' the driver called.

'Berlin,' I heard myself answer in a cracked, trembling voice. Any moment I expected the brown, tunic clad figure of a Red Army man to jump out and face me. But all that happened was that the driver called, 'Kommen Sie rauf, Kamerad. Ich fahre auch nach Berlin.' It was almost too good to be true. I hauled myself up into the cabin. The driver was alone. There was no mate with him. The gears ground and the old vehicle lurched forward, wheels spinning in the snow. The cabin was hot and stuffy and smelt comfortingly of exhaust fumes. 'Was wollen Sie in Berlin?' the driver asked.

'Work,' I answered him gruffly in German.

'Out of Russia into the Western Sectors, eh?' He grinned at me. He was a small, hard-bitten little man with ferrety eyes. 'Well, I don't blame you. If I thought there was a trucking job for me in the Western Sectors I'd be across the border in no time. But I have a wife and family up in Lubeck. Every night I come down this same road. Sometimes I wish I was up there flying the . I was in the Luftwaffe, you know. Radio operator. Had a little radio business before the war. But now, of course, it is finished. There are so few radio sets. It is better to drive a truck. But those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds up there get to Berlin a lot quicker than I do. My wife always tells me ...'

He went on and on about himself and the drone of his voice merged with the engine and the eternal distant hum of aircraft throbbing through the clouds. My head nodded, sleepy with the sudden, unaccustomed warmth of the cabin. His voice lost itself in the engine. I slept fitfully, conscious of the lights of a town, of a signboard caught in the headlights that said Berlin 27 km, of the unending dirty yellow of hard-packed snow slipping away beneath us.

And then finally he was shaking me. 'Aufwachen! Aufwachen! Berlin!' I opened my eyes blearily and surveyed unlit, slush-filled streets flanked by the empty, blasted sh.e.l.ls of buildings which had not been touched since we'd smashed them to rubble five years ago. So this was Berlin! 'Where are you making for?' I asked him.

'Potsdam.' He peered at me out of the corners of his eyes. 'That's in the Russian Zone. Don't imagine you'll be wanting to go there.' He laughed mirthlessly, his breath whistling through broken front teeth.

'Where are we?' I asked.

'Oranienburg.' He was still looking at me out of the corners of his eyes. 'You are a Pole, no? You are not German. Not with that accent.'

I didn't say anything and he shrugged his shoulders. 'Na was, schadet es schon?' He eased his foot on the accelerator pedal. 'Well, where do you wish to go, eh? In a few moments I turn right. I have to keep inside the Russian Zone. But if you follow this road it will lead you to Frohnau. Frohnau is in the French Sector.'

Frohnau! Frohnau beacon! Frohnau meant Berlin to every airlift pilot. But the warmth of the truck held me tight in my seat. Frohnau was many miles from Gatow. I should have to walk right across Berlin, more than twenty kilometres. 'Where do you go when you turn right?' I asked.

'Velten, Schonewald Airfield, Falkensee, Staaken Airfield, past Gatow and then into Potsdam. Choose which you like. It's all the same to me.'

'You're going near Gatow?' I asked him.

His eyes narrowed. 'What do you want Gatow for, eh?' His voice was harsher. He braked violently and the lorry skidded as he swung right off the main Oranienburg-Berlin road. 'Why Gatow?' he repeated. And when I didn't say anything, he added slowly, 'Gatow is in the British Sector. It's owned by die verdatnmten Tommies. Night after night they come. Die verfluchten Kerle! I have send my family to my parents in Hamburg. Night after night the English come. They flatten Hamburg and the Schweinehunde kill both the kids - the boy was nine and the girl five. They were crushed when the building they shelter in collapses.' He stopped talking and stared at me. 'Why do you want Gatow, eh?'

'I have a job to go to in the British Sector,' I answered.

'What sort of a job?'

I thought desperately. Remembering the crowded Nissen huts at the edge of the off-loading ap.r.o.n at Gatow, I said, 'Labour corps. I have a friend who is a checker at Gatow, unloading the airlift planes.'

His lips tightened. 'You say airlift, when we always say . Why do you say airlift?' I shrugged my shoulders. 'Only die verdammten English and Americans call it airlift.' For a long time there was a tense silence in the cabin. We were entering Falkensee now. Staaken aerodrome lay ahead, and then Gatow. 'Please, your papers. I wish to see your papers.'

I hesitated. 'I have no papers,' I said. I felt empty and cold inside.

'So! No papers, eh?' He peered through the winds.h.i.+eld, searching the road ahead with his eyes. There were few lights. Falkensee was asleep. Then, far ahead in the gleam of the headlights, I saw two figures in the grey of the German police. The driver's foot checked on the accelerator and his eyes swung nervously to me. I knew what he was going to do then. I could see him working it out in his mind. There was only one thing for me to do. I felt with my hand for the handle of the door and pushed. It swung back violently and a stream of bitter air struck my face. I heard the door clang against the tin of the cabin, saw the rutted, slushy snow spraying up from the wheels, heard the driver shout as he leaned across to grip my arm - and I jumped.

I hit the snow with my feet and was flung down, striking the side of the lorry with my head. A sudden blackness enveloped me as the snow closed over my face. I could not have been out for more than a few seconds, for the lorry was still screeching to a halt, its horn blaring excitedly, as I lifted my head from the cold, gritty filth of the snow. I pressed myself upwards with my hands, feeling suddenly sick at the sight of my blood scarlet against the yellow, gravel-covered surface of the snow. Then I was on my feet and running for the shelter of a side-street, shouts echoing after me.

As I turned out of the main street, I looked over my shoulder and saw that the two German policemen were level with the stationary truck now and running towards me. Whistles shrilled. The side-street was narrow and flanked with the rubble ruins of shattered buildings. I scrambled over a pile of bricks and mortar and half staggered, half fell into a cleared s.p.a.ce that had been the cellars of houses in the next street. An open doorway gaped black and I slid into the welcoming darkness and leaned panting against the wall almost oblivious in my fear of the nauseating smell of human excreta.

More whistles shrilled and voices shouted in the darkness outside. Boots climbed the mound of rubble up which I had scrambled. Mortar dust streamed down in a choking cloud in the open doorway. 'Hier, Kurt. Hierlang ist er gelaufen.' The voice was heavy and menacing. The man was standing right above my hideout. There was a clatter of dislodged bricks higher up the crumbling rubble and a voice answered faintly, 'Nein. Komm hierlang. Hier kann er zur Friedrich-stra.s.se durchkommen.' The chase went thudding and slithering over my head and gradually faded into the distance. . -,,. All the time I had been standing there rigid. Now my muscles relaxed. I wiped the sweat from my forehead. My hand was gritty and I winced with the pain of the grit on raw flesh. It was the old cut in my forehead that had opened up. My hand came away, wet and sticky with my own blood. The moon was s.h.i.+ning opaquely through low cloud and the faint, ghostly light of the doorless gap showed my hand all red and dripping. The blood was trickling down my face, getting into my eyes and into the corner of my mouth the way it had done that first time I'd come to Membury. Only there was grit in my mouth now, sharp and hard, setting my teeth on edge as I clenched them.

I wiped my hands on the inside of my clothes and then tied my handkerchief over the cut. For a long time I just stood there, trying to stop the trembling of my limbs. It was very cold. It seemed as though my body had no warmth and the wind cut like a knife through the gaping doorway - nervous reaction and the shock of my fall from the moving lorry! I wished to G.o.d I had some liquor with me, something to warm the frozen guts of my belly.

I moved at last and went out of the nauseous cell. I was facing a cleared strip where demolition gangs had been working. There was a railway and a line of loaded tip trucks. The snow was a thin layer of powder that had deepened into windy little drifts in the corners of still-standing masonry. Behind rose a hill of brick and rubble over which the gaunt finger of a building pointed a broken chimney at the pale, luminous clouds. There was no sound except the distant rumble of the airlift rolling into Gatow. The pursuit had moved on and lost me.

I stood for a moment, getting my bearings. This was Falkensee, a western suburb of Berlin. The sound of the planes landing and taking off from Gatow drew me as something familiar, friendly and homelike. I could almost smell the coffee and cakes in the Malcolm Club. But if I went direct to Gatow I should all the time be in the Russian Zone. To the east lay the British Sector and I knew it couldn't be far away. I faced into the wind and began to walk.

My left leg was very stiff and painful when I moved. I had grazed my knee-cap when I fell and had strained a muscle somewhere in the groin. But I didn't care about that. My one thought was to get out of the Russian Zone and into the British Sector. The sight of another human being sent me scuttling into the doorway or into the shadows of the broken buildings that flanked the streets. And yet, not more than two or three miles away in the same sort of streets I should be able to stop the first person I met and demand his help.

I twisted and turned through narrow, broken streets, always keeping the sound of Gatow over my right shoulder. At length I came out on to a broad highway that led almost due east. It was Falkenhagener Chaussee and it ran straight like a ruled line towards Spandau - and Spandau I knew was in the British Sector.

It It was three o'clock in the morning and the Falkenhagener Chaussee seemed dead. Nothing stirred. The snow-powdered thoroughfare was deserted. The crumbling ma.s.ses of the buildings were white mounds in the darkness marked occasionally by a still-standing wall, tottering skyward like some two-thousand-year-old tomb seen along the Appian Way. Somewhere in Berlin a train whistled like "an owl in a forest of dead oaks. There were no lights, no people - no suggestion even that anything lived here. It was all devastation and slow, timeless ruin.

For an hour or more I limped along that arrow-straight road without seeing a living soul, with only the constant drone of Gatow to remind me I was still in a living world and to give me hope. Then at last, when I was tottering with weakness, I saw the distant gleam of lights s.h.i.+ning on a road barrier. I was nearing the limits of the Russian Zone. That knowledge gave me fresh strength. I walked to within five hundred yards of the barrier and then turned down a side-street.

At a crossing a small truck slipped quietly eastward without lights. I followed it on to a quiet, rubble-packed track that ran close beside the railway. A goods train clanked noisily, a rattle of buffers that seemed to split the night it was so loud in the utter stillness.

For half an hour I walked eastward, searching the track ahead, trembling and scuttling into the shadows at every sign of movement. But always it was nothing but my eyes playing me tricks. And at the end of half an hour I knew I must have pa.s.sed over into the British Sector. A blockade-running German lorry had shown me the way through the road checks.

I followed thei railway right into Spandau and there a German railway worker going on duty at five in the morning directed me to a British Army M.T. Section. I must have looked a pretty sight, for all the time he was talking to me the German kept looking nervously about him and when he had given the directions I wanted he was almost running in his hurry to get away from me.

I found the place without difficulty. It was an R.A.O.C. Depot and a big board directed me into the sidings of what had once been a huge factory. I was trembling with fatigue and feeling sick with relief when I faced the German orderly who seemed to be the only person awake in the depot. At first he refused to do anything about me. His eyes were coldly contemptuous. I began to curse him in English, all the filthy words I could think of spewed off my tongue as I consigned the whole German race to perdition with tears of frustration hot on my eyeb.a.l.l.s. Still he didn't move, and then I saw hanging on a peg a web belt complete with holster and revolver. I dived towards it, pulled the revolver out and thumbed forward the safety catch with trembling fingers. 'Now, get the duty officer,' I shouted. 'Quick! Or I shoot.'

The man hesitated and then hurried out, returning a few minutes later with a tall, lanky youth who had an officer's greatcoat wrapped over his pyjamas, a solitary pip gleaming on its shoulder. 'What's the trouble?' he asked sleepily, rubbing at his eyes.

'My name's Fraser,' I said. 'Squadron Leader Fraser. I've just got out of the Russian Zone. I've got to get to Gatow at once.'

He was staring at the weapon in my hand. 'Do you usually go about threatening people with revolvers?' He came across to me and took the revolver out of my hands. 'This is an Army revolver. Is it yours?'

'No,' I said. 'I got it there.' And I nodded to the belt hanging on the hook.

The lieutenant swung round on the orderly. 'What's that equipment doing there, Heinrich?'

They began a long discussion as to why an officer had left it in the orderly room. At length I shouted at him, 'For Christ's sake!'

He turned and stared at me blankly. 'Heinrich here says you threatened him with this revolver,' he said accusingly.

'Look!' I couldn't keep my hands still, I was so angry. 'Can't you understand what I'm trying to tell you? I'm an R.A.F. officer. I'm a pilot on the airlift and my plane crashed at Hollmind. I've just got out of the Russian Zone. I must get to Gatow quickly. I want transport. Do you understand? Some transport. I've got to get to Gatow.' I was talking wildly. I knew that. I knew I must seem like a lunatic, but there was nothing I could do about it. My nerves were all to pieces.

'May I have a look at your papers, please?'

I fumbled for my wallet, dropping the papers on the floor in my nervous haste. The German orderly picked them up for me and handed them back with a click of the heels. His eyes were no longer contemptuous.

The lieutenant glanced through them. 'You say you crashed at Hollmind?'

I nodded.

'When?'

When? Was it the night before last or - no I mustn't say that. It was the original night he wanted, the night when Tubby had gone out through the door. My mind searched desperately for a date, but I'd lost all sense of time. 'Several days ago,' I mumbled. 'What's it matter when I crashed?'

'What's your base ?'

'Wunstorf.'

'You were flying a York?'

'No. A Tudor tanker.'

'A Tudor. His face suddenly cleared and he gave me a sheepish grin. 'I say, I'm awfully sorry, sir. Of course, I know who you are now. You're the chap who flew that Messerschmitt out of Germany during the war. I mean - well, there's been a lot about it in the papers. n.o.body could find any trace of the plane and you and Carter were missing.' He looked at me, hesitating awkwardly. 'You look as though you've had a rough trip, sir. Are you all right? I mean, oughtn't I to run you down to a first-aid post?'

'I must get to Gatow,' I said.

'Yes, of course. I'll drive you myself. I'll just put some things on. Won't be a jiffy.' He hesitated in the doorway. 'Would you like a cup of char? And you'd probably like to get cleaned up a bit. That's an awfully nasty cut you've got.'

He took me through to the washroom. The water was icy cold. However, I cleaned off some of the dirt and he produced a proper bandage from a first-aid kit. Then the German orderly appeared with a steaming tin mug of dark, sweet tea. Ten minutes later we were in an Army fifteen hundredweight roaring along the Wilhelmstra.s.se.

We turned left on to the Gatower Damm. I knew I was home then, for planes were thundering low overhead with their flaps down and the underbelly of the low cloud was illumined by the brilliant fire-glow of the sodium lights and high-intensity cross bars that marked the approach to Gatow.

We were stopped at the barrier to Gatow Airport and a corporal of the R.A.F. Police came out and peered at the car, a gleam of white-blancoed webbing against the blue of his battledress. Then he asked for our papers. 'Squadron Leader Fraser is just out of the Russian Zone,' my lieutenant explained quickly. 'He's the pilot of that Tudor that crashed.'

The corporal handed my papers back without looking at them. 'Glad you're safe, sir.' He drew himself up stiffly and saluted. The truck ground forward. 'Where do you want to go?' the lieutenant asked. 'Terminal building?'

All the time I'd been getting closer to Gatow I'd been wondering about what I should do when I got there. There was Diana. That was the first thing I had to do - tell Diana that Tubby was alive and safe. And I wanted to get hold of Saeton. Now that I was back in the organised life of Occupied Berlin I had a feeling that there might be difficulties raised about landing an R.A.F. plane in the Russian Zone. Officially it would be embarra.s.sing. If the plane were captured by a Russian patrol the diplomatic repercussions would be endless and far-reaching. But if Saeton would land there unofficially .. . He had the nerve to do it. He wouldn't be hide-bound by regulations and diplomatic dangers. Saeton was the person I had to see. 'Will you take me straight to the Malcolm Club, please,' I said.

'Malcolm Club? That's down by FASO, isn't it?'

'That's right.'

'Sure you don't want to report in to Ops first?' he asked.

'No. The Malcolm Club, please.'

'Okay.'

The truck slipped down through the trees, past the lighted entrance of the mess and then suddenly there were the yellow and purple runway and perimeter lights of Gatow with the concrete square box of the terminal building to the right, rising to the tall, lighted windows of the control tower. The truck turned left through the white-painted boundary fence, skirted a B.E.A. Skymaster and hummed across the tarmac which was streaked with a white, wind-driven powder of snow. The hangars were dark, rectangular shadows to our left and ahead the lights of Piccadilly Circus shone yellow, showing the PLUME standing empty of aircraft. Planes moved along the perimeter track, engines roaring, drowning the thinner sound of planes streaming in along the runway. Everything was normal, familiar. I might never have been outside the organised bus-service of the airlift.

We skirted Piccadilly Circus, tyres jolting rhythmically on the joints of the concrete, and then we were on the FASO ap.r.o.n where big arc lamps blazed and there was the bustle of planes and lorries and German offloading teams. The control tower shack on its scaffold stilts stood high and dark above the line of Nissen huts.

'Shall I wait for you?' the lieutenant asked as he drew up at the roundel signboard of the Malcolm Club.

'No, thanks,' I said. 'I'll be all right now. And thank you very much for running me out.'

'Not at all.' He got down and opened the door for me, his hand steadying me as though he thought I were too weak to climb out on my own. 'Good-bye, sir. And good luck!' He gave me a parade ground salute.

I hesitated at the entrance of the club and stood watching him get back into his truck, turn and drive off. The red tail-light dwindled and was lost amongst the litter of lights. I stared at the planes coming in. They were Daks from Lubeck with coal. There was a line of them standing in the slush of the ap.r.o.n. I stared at them dully. A girl checker with the nearest German labour team looked up from her manifest and stared at me. She was big and fair-haired with high cheek bones. She reminded me of Else, except that she was covered in coal dust. I turned towards the entrance to the Malcolm Club, still hesitating, reluctant to go in. If Diana were there it would be all right. But if she weren't ... I'd have to explain myself and the filthy state I was in and I should be surrounded by a barrage of questions as air crew after air crew came in and wanted to know the story of the crash.

A group of R.A.F. boys tumbled out of the hut, laughing and talking, bringing with them through the open doorway that familiar smell of coffee and cakes. There was no point in putting it off any longer -besides, the smell of the place had made me realise how hungry I was. I brushed quickly at my filthy clothing and pushed open the door.

It was hot inside, the stove roaring red and the place full of smoke and cheerful chatter. I crossed the long room, pus.h.i.+ng my way towards the counter, conscious of the gradual fall of conversation as eyes fastened on my scarecrow figure. 'Is Mrs Carter here?' I asked the girl behind the counter. I had spoken quietly, but even so my voice sounded loud in the silence that had developed.

The girl looked nervously to the mute groups behind me. 'No,' she said. 'She doesn't come on until seven.'

I glanced at my watch. It was half-past six. 'I'll wait,' I said. 'Can I have some coffee and a plate of sandwiches, please?'

The girl hesitated. 'All right,' she said.

A hand touched my shoulder. I spun round and found myself facing a big blond man with a wide moustache. 'Who are you?' he asked. The silent circle of eyes echoed his question.

'My name's Fraser,' I answered.

'Fraser.' He turned the name over in his mouth as though searching for it in his memory. And then he suddenly boomed out, 'Fraser! You mean the pilot of that Tudor?'

'That's right,' I said.

'Fraser! Good Christ Almighty!" He seized hold of my hand. 'Don't know you from Adam, old man. But allow me to do the honours and welcome you back. You look about all in. Here, Joan - the coffee and sandwiches are on me. What happened? Come on, tell us all about it. We've got to go in a minute. What happened?' The circle of faces closed in like a pack of wolves, avid for news. Their eyes shone with excitement. Questions were hurled at me from all directions.

There's nothing to tell,' I murmured awkwardly. 'The engines failed. The plane crashed near Hollmind.'

'And you've just got out of the Russian Zone?'

'Yes.' The girl thrust a cup of coffee and a plate of sandwiches into my hand. 'If you don't mind - I'd rather not talk about it.' The heat of the room was making my legs shake under me. 'I'm very tired. You must excuse me. I must sit down.'