Читать книгу The Schneider Papers - David M Thomas - Страница 12
ОглавлениеChapter 8: Tuesday, September 22nd 1936
He got to Croydon aerodrome in good time for the 10.30am Deutsche Lufthansa (DLH) flight to Templehof aerodrome Berlin with a stop at Schiphol Amsterdam. The morning was dull and overcast, with low featureless clouds covering the whole south of England like a grey blanket. From the passenger hall he recognised the three engine airliner waiting on the grass apron, engines not yet started, and with a crew of ground mechanics in their brown coveralls busily finishing pre-flight inspection of the ailerons and undercarriage. To the left, about 400 yards away, was a sleeping and physically impressive four-engine Imperial Airways Handley Page HP-42 airliner. That would be for the Bulawayo and Cape Town run, he reckoned.
Check-in at the DLH reception counter was quick and efficient. He slipped into German easily, unconsciously. He moved to a bench seat to await the call to proceed through passport control to the ‘airside’ holding area. Within sight of the Imperial Airways bi-plane, he remembered his own flight to Cape Town in ’31.
That old battered Fokker monoplane. What was it called? … Cat? … No. Mouse … that’s it. Owned by ‘Chalky’. It was a Royal Aero Club event, thought up one rainy afternoon in the Piccadilly clubhouse. First prize was to get there in one piece! Three of them, Ronny ‘Chalky’ White and himself designated pilots, and Billy Westlake as navigator. He was in charge of necessary crew documentation, and Billy was lumbered with the logistics of gasoline supplies and planned stopovers. Any Aero Club event is by definition a bit amateurish, deliberately so, members insist on it! all part of the fun! As three serving officers they only got to go because of the intervention of Chalky’s father, Air Vice Marshal Arthur ‘Chalky’ White. Approval given. ‘Good for service morale,’ was his executive explanation.
He remembered the beauty of the desolation; and shadows and the rocks being shaded from light brown to pale mauve to deep purple, depending on the angle of the sun. A kaleidoscope of moving colours. Nubian desert magic.
He was in deep contemplation: we followed the Nile most of the way passing over the Aswan dam and reaching Khartoum in the early afternoon. Yes, that’s right. After Khartoum the desert region pettered away to scrubland. Is that when we had that engine misfire fright? Anyway it sorted itself out and we landed at that new station … Juba in southern Sudan. That’s where we had a spot of bother taxiing, one of the wheels sank deep into the mud after a heavy downpour. No damage done. Got a lot of friendly villagers to push us out. Then they all stood in a row and waved us off. After Juba, Billy and I had to concentrate hard on navigation. Dodoma, or was it Tabora, in Tanganyika, where Billy got the jippy tummy? Then the persistent low cloud near Fort Rosebery forced us down to less than a thousand feet – treetop flying. First sighting of wild giraffes ever was around that area. We left the hill country and dropped down to swamp and forest from horizon to horizon. Now where was it we stayed at the District Commissioner’s house? N’dola? Mosquito capital of Africa, Chalky called it. Poor bugger was bitten all over, covered in bites, we thought it was smallpox! Well, we said it was smallpox, just to scare Chalky! Then it was Broken Hill aerodrome. Mining camp. Never did find out what they mined for. Hotel name was … can’t remember. But I remember Chalky looking for ointment. Then we went off course, dodging low cloud and thunderstorms. Billy said that we could land up in Livingstone and possibly see the Victoria Falls …
In his mind far away flying the equatorial skies of East Africa heading for Bulawayo and the Transvaal, his wandering eyes focused on a hanger with the name Olley Air Services painted in red above the doors. Brought down to earth; immediate transfer from Africa to a dull Croydon morning. The sign associated itself with his old RAF colleague Cecil Bebb, who flew out of this very airport a few months ago to pick up General Franco in the Canary Islands and drop him off somewhere in Spanish Morocco. The act fanned, if not started, this Spanish war business.
Like all British international airports, Croydon would have Special Branch scrutiny on comings and goings, and therefore, reasoned Mason, might not the Government be directly involved in the Franco airlift? He then remembered Cartwright’s comment, and decided it was. He cleared passport control and sat down in the airside lounge. He looked again at his unfamiliar but well used looking passport. He opened the front page, and there was his face perforated with a round blue stamp staring up at him, name of George Madden, journalist. He quickly flicked through pages of visas and customs stamps befitting a well-travelled journalist before putting it away in his inside jacket pocket. He swapped the passport for a packet of business cards tied with a rubber band advertising a Mr G Madden, Journalist, with The Daily Sketch logo and its Fleet Street address. He specialised in international affairs, apparently, and his brief was to write a general Germany review post a ‘highly’ successful 1936 Olympics. Ideal excuse to move around the country, if needs must. A driving licence was also included in his new identity package.
The female voice echoing around the hall sound system announced the immediate departure – ‘and please line up with your boarding cards ready at the departure desk’ – of Deutsche Lufthansa flight 1032 to Amsterdam and Berlin. What was it about a woman’s voice, thought Mason, the inflections, the natural, coaxing, caring delivery with the underlying message of ‘come on, fly me, I’m safe.’ In contrast, at railway stations all the announcers are men, and with deadpan unintelligible male muffled voices, indifferently inform of departure times of trains to Woking, Wolverhampton or Birmingham. Not quite the same.
A seemingly full complement of passengers answered the call, gathering shopping bags and briefcases; a mother and then the father called back a wandering daughter, and slowly all coagulated into an orderly line before the quite pretty, uniformed announcer at the departure desk. A mix, thought Mason, German and English, with some of indeterminate nationality. She’s Spanish or perhaps Portuguese; here’s a Slav family. I would guess a Prussian, sporting an impressive Kaiser moustache in the dark brown fur-collared overcoat and matching homburg hat. Two orthodox Jew businessmen dressed in long black coats and curly sidelocks, probably in the Amsterdam diamond trade. He noticed two professional types talking quietly behind him, obviously together he surmised, one, like him, without an overcoat, the other in a baggy, light beige topcoat, with large square pockets and with a belt loosely tied around the waist. Probably Berlin bound. He didn’t know why he thought this. He’d ponder that conclusion on the plane.
They left the departure area in single file and crossed the grass apron to the Junkers Ju52 airliner. Impressive was the word. A three-engine monoplane, currently the most popular and successful passenger aircraft in the world, painted all white, with black engine cowlings, in the corporate colour of Lufthansa, with a huge bold black swastika painted on the tailplane, the corporate logo of the German Reich; a deliberate juxtaposition image of the most aggressive and dangerous state in Europe and the most versatile of commercial 1930s airliners.
Mason stopped for a moment to assess the Ju52; he had not been this close to one. Three engines, one at the cone, directly in front of the cockpit, and one on each wing. BMW air cooled radial engines, good idea, saves on a radiator, but with complicated plumbing and maintenance. Earlier variants had an American Pratt & Whitney and even a good old Bristol Pegasus power-plant. BMW probably incorporated a few technical ideas from each manufacturer into this variant.
Next to the portable stairs leading to the interior of the airliner stood a white-jacketed steward who greeted each passenger in turn with the welcome invitation to board the aircraft.
Mason liked to sit at the back. He had been in a plane crash, and statistically the rear end is the safest part of the fuselage. It was free seating, first on gets the most choice. Now he realised why the Prussian had expertly manoeuvred himself in front of him in the final line-up at the departure gate. He was now ensconced at the front, immediately next to the galley. As he removed his heavy overcoat with the beaver fur collar, he gave a triumphant and arrogant stare down the aisle to the other passengers settling in behind him.
The Ju52 seat configuration was a single row of patent leather chairs on each side, with a central aisle. Mason sat just in front of the rear embarkation door. The seat was comfortable, plenty of leg-room, a folding table attached to the back of the seat in front and a fishing-net type arrangement for the storage of magazines and newspapers. He found his own personal hot air duct, located under his seat and operated by a convenient lever between the seat and the fuselage wall. His rectangular window was generous in size and with heavy side curtains. Yes indeed, quite acceptable.
From his seat he assessed the airworthiness of his fellow passengers. It is easy to differentiate the nervous, the first time flier, from the more experienced and confident traveller. Some simply plop down in their seats and don’t move, whilst other fidget and are up and down from their seats like meerkats. There were some of those.
The flight itself was relatively uneventful. The uniform blanket of dull weather over southern England gave way to fluffy, broken cumulus clouds at the Belgian coast. He could make out the long sandy beach and dunes between Dunkirk and Ostend through the clouds. Mason figured they were flying through the cold front and would soon head for a high pressure zone centred somewhere in Europe. This could promise clear skies and fine weather over Germany. From his window seat, he noticed the slow left hand turn to follow the coastline up to Amsterdam Schiphol aerodrome. The port of Zeebrugge with its docks and cargo ships soon passed below him. This meant that the medieval town of Bruges was to his right. Bruges had come through the Great War unscathed, luckily too far north to be affected by the Schiffen Plan. The cemeteries of Ypres and Passchendaele were only forty kilometres away to the south.
As he was trying to identify the ship canal from Bruges to Zeebrugge through the broken clouds, a steward appeared from the galley, working his left, then to his right. Refreshment time. ‘Coffee or tea Herr Madden, and perhaps a schnapps?’ A plate of fish paste and meat sandwiches was also complimentary and carefully laid on the fold down table.
The islands and peninsulas of Zeeland, surrounded by speckled white dots of sail boats and wakes of fishing craft, with convoys of bigger tramp and freight ships leaving and entering the Westerscheldt estuary, told Mason that the port of Antwerp was under the starboard wing of flight DLH 1032. The air got a bit bumpy – he heard the clinking of cups on saucers up and down the aisle, and the steward quickly cleared them away; instructions from the cockpit. Soon heavy cloud obscured the ground. He felt the Ju52 turn to the right – inland and then left again. He assumed this was to quickly pass through the frontal system and its bumpy transition into more stable air. Passenger comfort comes first – just as long it’s not too much of a detour. Commercial pilots have to think of fuel costs and timetable deadlines these days. Different type of flying; for a military pilot air turbulence came with the job. Commercial pilots have to think of the passengers. The extra detour distance and the fuel consumption would be offset by the tail wind. Stand with your back to the wind and the low pressure is to your left and high pressure to the right. Counter-clockwise low pressure air movement, supplementing the clockwise direction of the high pressure system, equals a good tailwind. He remembered a scene from his preliminary flight training, and smiled to himself. Happy days.
The consistent, and to him, somnolent sounds from the droning radial engines changed suddenly and he felt a slight dip in his stomach. Descent, and a quick one, through the cloud and into clear air, and level off at about two thousand feet. Fields and marshes and the sand dunes of Zandvoort, then a sharp right and a right again for final approach and landing into the wind at Schiphol aerodrome.
‘Well, that was a good flight.’ He looked at his watch, 12.04 pm, eleven minutes early. Passengers had time to stretch their legs, either on the apron in front of Arrivals or inside to the Transit lounge. He saw a couple of Royal Dutch Airlines KLM Douglas DC-2s and the new DC-3, which probably serviced the Dutch East Indies, he reckoned. KLM had made a good choice in buying the new DC series of airliners. Good reliable planes, air cooled radial engines as well.
Mason decided to stay on the concrete apron, lit his pipe and watched the mechanics give the engines the once-over. Fuel was topped up and the oil tank on each engine filled. There was a crew change, and he heard one of the pilots talk of his afternoon flight to Cologne. A metallic tannoy voice announced immediate boarding of DLH 1032 to Berlin. Back on board.
Mason noticed that one of the professional industry types he had tagged earlier had now moved from his original seat for’ard and now sat across the aisle, and looked over at his direction a few times. It was not a curiosity series of glances, decided Mason, more of a succession of short penetrating stares. It was as if this person was willing Mason to turn his head. Mason complied, and looked him squarely in the face. The starer, startled by this unexpected movement, quickly turned away, not acknowledging the eye contact, bowed his head, fiddled with his tie, and continued to read the journal he had on his knees. Well, thought Mason, if he is an agent of some sort, he’s not very good at it, and I made it known that I acknowledged him and will recognise him in the future. And also, from his clothes, and after eavesdropping his conversation with the steward, he’s definitely English.
What exactly was the point of that exercise? A warning? We know who you are! We know what you’re up to!
The flight over Lower Saxony was boring, nothing but the flatness of the North German plain to look down upon. This vast geomorphological feature extended north into Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark, and further east to the Baltics and Poland. After the eye confrontation with this annoying and suspicious man opposite, Mason became as bored as the vista offered through his window. He closed his eyes and dozed a few times, but also kept an eye on his new friend through half closed eyelids. Refreshments arrived when, according to the steward, they were over Hanover, and this time he accepted a glass of schnapps.
Templehof airfield came into sight as the pilot banked and readied the Junkers 52 for the downwind circuit approach. The weather had cleared, an idyllic September afternoon, with a gradient of a sun yellow-blue horizon in the west to a light blue overhead sky. Marvellous views over the city. He could easily recognise the light green carpet of the Tiergarden with its criss-cross sandy paths, a little to the east along the Unter den Linden was the Embassy and then, to define the edge of Berlin central, the winding indigo coloured Spree river on its way to join the Elbe and the North Sea. Templehof was only a few miles from the city centre, and Mason decided to travel by the Deutsche Lufthansa airport bus to Potsdamer railway station. Flight DLH 1032 touched down at 4.18pm, on time.
Mason took off his wristwatch and moved the hour hand forward an hour. Germany was one hour ahead of its neighbours. France, Belgium and Holland were on English time. Contrary Germany. It would be wouldn’t it! thought Mason, and smiled.
***
The reality of the new Germany struck home at the arrivals hall. It was a large marble floor and pillar palace with an all glass front overlooking the parking apron and runway. It had opened just in time for the 1936 Olympics, or at least the Arrivals building upgrade was finished. He could hear the engine noise of aircraft taxiing for take-off and others landing. Late afternoon arrival was a popular time and white transit buses disgorged tourists, business people and returning Berliners. Black uniformed officers, guardians of peace and order, either solitary or in pairs, stood or walked slowly around, eyeing the herd of disembarked passengers like predatory beasts. The atmosphere was silent and noticeably nervous, the only noise from squeaking shoes on the marble floor and hand luggage put down or dragged along. Orderly queues formed under the brightly lit chandeliers, leading to rows of Passport Control booths, some open for business, others empty. Pictures of a welcoming ‘Der Führer’ and a giant swastika flag hanging horizontally from ceiling suspension cables greeted one and all to the new Germany. Nobody spoke unless in whispers, even the children, noise admonished by whispering parents. Deathly hush. Suddenly, a woman’s loud shrieky voice, followed immediately by a man’s shouted guttural indecipherable command, pierced the silence from the other end of the hall. Muffled sounds, black uniform movement towards the kerfuffle from Mason’s side of the hall; but because of the lines of people, he could not see what was going on. Everyone heard a door slam shut somewhere, then silence. No one looked at each other, just straight ahead. Back to the quiet queue and the slow shuffling of obedient feet towards the uniformed officer in the glass booth, at journey’s end.
Mason had an easy interview at the glass window. He was a journalist seeking to write about last month’s Olympics. ‘Why not come when it was on?’ asked the grey uniformed Unteroffizier, frowning as he looked through the false passport.
‘I have been asked to write about its obvious success and its positive influence on the people,’ was the reply.
‘Yes, it was a great success, all due to the Führer and National Socialism,’ agreed the Unteroffizier as he was just about to endorse Mason’s passport with a two week tourist visa stamp, when his silent observer partner sitting behind him and dressed in a black uniform, reached over and snatched the passport. He slowly assessed Mason’s face then the passport picture, then back to Mason then back to the passport. He flicked through the visa pages, pausing now and again to examine, re-examine and turn the passport in his hands for easier visa dates reading, then with a satisfied, if not disappointed grunt, gave it back for stamping. Mason remembered: never deliberately try eye contact with officials, acknowledge subservience though a slight bow of the head. It usually works.
After retrieving his suitcase, Mason remembered the two strangers on the plane. They had not got off at Amsterdam. Where are they? What was that staring business on the plane all about? He surreptitiously looked around, but he couldn’t see them anywhere. The trailer carrying the bags from London had been emptied by the baggage handlers onto the floor, and passengers were slowly filtering through from Arrivals and busily identifying and picking up their own. Still no sign of them.
Anyway, got my case, now for customs, airport bus, hotel and a drink. In that order, he said to himself.
The Lufthansa bus was waiting, engine running, behind the nearly empty taxi rank. He had bought a single ticket from the bus shuttle booth next to the Dresdner Bank currency exchange bureau. He gave the bureau a miss; he had been supplied with enough Reichsmark currency to get him through a few days of nominal expenditure. Whatever that meant, Mason thought, thinking of the Adjudant’s remark as he had meticulously counted out Reichmarks.
The bus was half full of mostly families and loud children, and ready to depart. Was there a holiday? He couldn’t remember. The start of Oktoberfest was the only festive period he remembered that started in late September, and was in Munich! He held this thought walking down the aisle, head bowed, hat off, half smiling to the seated passengers as he passed. He settled down at the back, his travelling preference. He was on his own; the driver had taken his suitcase off him at the front steps and pushed it into the luggage space that ran mostly the whole length of the bus under the seating compartment.
Mason had bought a ticket to Potsdamer Banholf, one of the main Berlin railway stations. His hotel was easily within walking distance. The bus moved off with a jerk and crunch of gears. He didn’t recognise any passengers from the London flight.
He remembered the last time he was in Berlin, five years ago, in 1931. The only change so far, he reflected, was the unpalatable taste of tension in the air. Black and grey uniforms everywhere; the wearers exuded an arrogance, and he decided, an aura of deliberate intimidation. Quite deliberate, he thought. A feeling of control. Yes, that was it. Control. He remembered the expressionless faces at the passport control queues. Frightened. ‘What has happened here?’ he whispered quietly to himself.
The distance from Templhof airport to the railway station was, as the crow flies, only four kilometers. The bus pulled out of the parking bay and through the perimeter gate manned by grey uniformed airport police, who watched impassively as it slowly passed through, an acknowledgement nod to the driver from one of them. The driver turned left and joined the main artery road to Berlin. Mason knew exactly where he was; they would soon pass through the suburb of Neukölln. He had been there as a boy, Britz Palace, he remembered, and his mother admonishing him for running though one of the halls, a long time ago. Neukölln was famous for its Protestant history – refugees fleeing religeon persecution in Bohemia settled here a long time ago. The bus took a new bypass route so all he could see was the spire of the church, he couldn’t remember its name.
What he could see, way in the distance, from the back window was the west side of the Hufeisensiedlung, or the ‘Horseshoe Estate’. A social building project, one of many, built in the 1920s in response to a desperate housing need, especially in the working class district of Neukölln. These housing schemes were before their time, he thought. Where in England could you find their equal? The bus stopped in Kreuzberg, next to the U-Bahn and the bridge over the Landwehr Canal. A few passengers got off. The traffic had slowly thickened from Neukölln, as did the increased tempo of city living in the capital of the Reich. White, yellow and green-painted buses and street trams, laden-down, open-backed delivery lorries, the occasional horse and cart weaving in and out of stationary obstacles, pedestrians crossing the street, some walking cautiously, some skipping in bursts as they negotiated their way across Wilhelmstrasse. He smelt cigar smoke and burnt coffee and exhaust fumes. Distinctive. He inhaled deeply. Yes, he was an urban man, he happily agreed with himself – except, of course, when he was in the country. He smiled at the contradiction.
He decided that the airport bus should soon turn left, and if it had continued up Wilhelmstrasse he would land at its junction with the Unter den Linden and the British Embassy. The airport bus did turn left, and now it’s a stright run up to Potsdamer Platz and the station, he said to himself, his Berlin navigation slowly coming back to him. He passed an imposing granite office building on the right with a giant swastika flag hanging down from the third floor. This brought him back to why he was here in Berlin. He had passed into another reality. Herr Madden, the tourist on a bus, shifting in his seat, looking to the left, then right, through the back window and straight ahead down the aisle and through the driver’s windscreen. Traffic was at a virtual standstill at Potsdamer Platz. Priority was given to buses and trams, and the traffic policeman finally waved permission for the queue of traffic for the railway station to slowly negotiate the left hand turn, around the clock tower, into the waiting bay outside the main entrance to Potsdamer Banholf. A traffic light tower was built in 1924 to control the traffic around the platz. The coloured lights were to mesmerise and instruct drivers as to when to stop and when to go. It was not working today. A traffic policemen on a wooden platform was today’s regulator.
Mason got ready to leave his seat, and he welcomed himself to the Platz. The Piccadilly Circus of Berlin. Opposite he saw the imposing brown bricked Fürstenhof Hotel, with its purple blinds shading the al fresco café society Berliners from the now setting sun.
He retrived his suitcase from the luggage compartment before the driver could get to it. He thanked him for the ride, and walked briskly towards the station.
First thing to do was to linger and mingle and check for followers. He had consciously chosen light grey as his German travel uniform; inconspicuous, ordinary and plain. The station concourse was busy with commuters heading home, the usual jostling and dodging busy people with minds elsewhere. He stopped to gaze through a newsagent’s window and there, for an instant, in the reflection, he saw someone he recognised, thought he caught a glimpse of the man in the beige overcoat, from the flight. He went cold and then felt a hot flush as life-preserving adrenaline is released into the blood stream. He moved slowly and deliberately into a seemingly glued together, snake-like lateral undulation of new commuters entering the station from another entrance. He quickened his movement as best he could in the mass of commuter humanity. Going this way towards a platform, then changing direction and heading against the tide for another. He decided the best mode of attack was to retreat, and pushed and swivelled his way against the commuter traffic to the south exit. He repeatedly encouraged himself to calm down, and walked briskly out into the open and onto Köninggätzer Strasse towards the sister railway station, the Anhalter Banhhof.
By a pavement florist stand he stopped half turned and dropped on one knee to fiddle with a shoelace, whilst using the pots of flowers as half cover. No following beige coat spotted. He got up, picked up his suitcase with a flurish and continued briskly southwards, loosing himself amongst the home-going crowds.
Mason followed the same surveillance formula in the Anhalter. This is a bigger station, built to accommodate the travelling needs of the greater Berlin surburbia. In he went, partially circumnavigating the mass of office workers desperate to catch trains that had just departed or were about to. The more frequent the train whistles the harder the commuters pushed and jostled for the ultimate goal: a homebound seat, with the evening edition of the Berliner Abendblatt as the preferred relaxant.
The station had a connecting tunnel to the Excelsior hotel opposite for the convenience of departing and arriving guests. It ran underneath the Königgrätzer. Again, working against a now less dense human tide, Mason climbed the tunnel steps into the lobby of the vast and impressive Excelsior, one of the largest hotels in Europe. All that is required by the discerning guest was here, from its multi-national themed resturants to ticket agencies and sauna parlours. Its very own bakery fed the multitude of guests and passing restaurant trade.
The lobby area proved as good as a railway station, co-mingling guests and the added bonus of numerous single men in grey suits with briefcases and suitcases going about their business; the perfect stage for loosing an unwelcomed follower. He acted the part, the business man walking brisky and business-like, glancing at his watch as an added emphasis of an important executive on his way to an important meeting. He walked round the corner to the long reception desk, deliberately not meeting or acknowledging eyes, then slipped through an unlabelled door, a service exit which led to a crossroad of service corridors. A window looked out directly onto an alley. He left the Excelsior via the tradesmen delivery alley, turned left, and the last port of call was his hotel.
St. Ermin, a tourist hotel, was next to its namesake church, located practically behind the Excelsior. The lobby decoration theme was that of a hunting lodge. Dark wood, he assumed mahogany, but probably varnished oak, with various mounted trophies of heads of African animals and even a framed hind leg of a long legged beast hung on the white emulsion wall behind the reception desk. A reproduction portrait of Der Führer, however, took centre spot over the reception desk, keeping a fatherly eye over the lobby. King of the jungle. Mason looked around; mounted black and white photographs of long dead hunters standing or kneeling next to equally dead safari beasts. To the left of the double-door entrance was a big black bear in a sleepwalking pose, with red glassy eyes standing guard. It wore an impressive mayoral chain with an engraved brass plaque: Shot in Lech Valley, Tirol 1894.
The reception counter itself was inaccessible due to two pairs of tourists discussing the best and cheapest way to get to the Zoological Gardens. The concierge, being a Berliner, thought he knew the answer, or even answers to interesting tourist routes ending up at the Zoo. After listening impatiently to repeated travel advice from the now-weary concierge, the tourists discussed the merits of tram versus bus and even, possibly, the S-Bahn with the concierge and then amongst themselves, then back to the concierge for clarification. The couples were in that exuberant state of mind only known to tourists in a strange city with the freedom to see and explore; and with the whole evening and night, and even days, before them. Not really interested in how they would get there, if at all; it was the excitement of the chase. Some of the wall-mounted exhibits would not totally agree with that sentiment. Herr Madden, aka Mason the bystander, the patient man, spotted an umbrella stand made out of a hollowed elephant foot. He thought, and smiled to himself; wouldn’t it be fun to introduce himself to the receptionist in Swahili.
His room was a pleasant surprise. The Air Ministry had used a travel agency to get him the airline tickets and a hotel room. The booking had stipulated a single room, but the receptionist, with great pleasure, had blessed him with a three quarter bed, as it was described. This was obviously meant for two anorexic people lying touching each other. There was a narrow writing desk and matching chair underneath the window overlooking Hedemannstrasse, the street from which he had entered the hotel. Opposite the bed and against the wall stood a narrow single wardrobe and a sideboard with a pot of fresh chrysanthemums. Nice touch. Hotel rating upgraded from adequate to fine, he concluded. Bathroom was down the corridor on the left.
After a turn in the bathroom, refreshed, and a change of shirt, he laid down on the bed thinking of the day. The mysterious duo situation was high on the list. Had he been mistaken about the beige apparition in the newsagent window? He thought not. Apart from the boys in blue, who else would know of his mission? Cartwright and the Foreign Office obviously, and, he remembered, that Nixon chap in the continental suit? But why follow him, and so obviously?! Insoluble right now, he decided. Therefore a waste of time concocting scenarios. Wait and see what develops, and then as an addendum to his thoughts, be careful, he advised himself. Thinking of developments, he decided to contact this man Lefoy, the ringmaster.
