Читать книгу Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse - Len Deighton - Страница 13

The huge layer of cold air that was approaching Altgarten moved eastwards across Europe at twenty miles per hour. As it moved, the cold front’s sharp edge chiselled under the unstable humid summer air and levered it skywards to form thunderclouds. There was thunder too and lightning and in places rain. Eighty miles north-west of Altgarten the rain fell upon the IJsselmeer, the great inland sea that opened the heart of Holland to the northern storms. At first the rain was light and constant, dropping from the low nimbostratus cloud like black columns that propped up the sky. Then came the rain from the cumulonimbus, falling ten miles, right through the nimbostratus, and crashing in great sheets upon the rough waters of the IJsselmeer. The wind had veered to the north and sudden gusts of it pushed the rain horizontal. It deluged the little lakes near Utrecht. Hundreds of ducks, herons and hundreds of other water-birds sheltered miserably along the water’s edge and under wooden piers from which even the anglers had departed. At Kroonsdijk the rain beat upon the farm-style buildings and the duck pond and hammered the flat cobbled and asphalt causeways, so that fine spray rebounded like tall white grass.

In building number thirty-one the rain awoke Oberleutnant Baron Victor von Löwenherz when even the thunder had failed. He looked at the clock; it was ten o’clock Central European Summer Time and the barometer had fallen dramatically. He reset the barometer, for when the pressure started to rise and the wind steadied and backed he would know that the cold front and its line squalls had nearly passed. Löwenherz took a close interest in the weather, for he was a pilot and Kroonsdijk was a Luftwaffe night-fighter airfield.

The military installations had been designed to look like Dutch farm buildings. The big roofs that sloped almost to the ground and the timber exteriors disguised concrete block-houses. The shutters painted with gay peasant designs were made of six-millimetre steel. Instead of a rectangular fire hydrant tank, here was an oval pond, and upon it the Luftwaffe had installed ducks to complete the illusion. Grazing near the runways were herds of pantomime cows made from lath and plaster. The subject of jokes and derision, they were enough to deceive the air cameras.

Outside the window, motor vehicles and beyond them twin-engined fighter aeroplanes were parked under the trees. Nothing had been left to chance. This site had been selected, surveyed and decided upon, the architect’s plans had been completed and all was ready, three years before Holland was invaded. Now Kroonsdijk had become a key factor in the air defence of Germany. It lay upon the direct route from the bomber airfields in Eastern England to the heart of industrial Germany, as a toll-gate on a dark busy road.

It was not surprising that Oberleutnant Baron Victor von Löwenherz had many times been photographed for the Nazi magazines Der Adler and Signal, for he was the personification of National Socialist propaganda – although they often chose to omit his title, for the new Nazi state had created its own aristocracy. Tall, slim and elegant, his hair was blond and by this time of year the sun had turned it almost white. His face had the sharp-edged, bony look that sculptors invent and his teeth were white and even.

He jumped out of bed and did his physical exercises: twenty press-ups, eight hundred paces on the spot, knees high, stretching, knees bending and arms flinging, watched with deadpan interest by the young bulldog that was lying in its usual spot under the writing-table. Löwenherz’s room was small and rather dark, for windows were kept as small as possible to reduce the danger from blast and shrapnel. In one corner was an iron bedstead with grey blankets which he now carefully remade, folding each corner neatly and expertly as he had done every morning since he joined the Army as an officer cadet in 1937.

For well over three hundred years the Löwenherz family had supplied soldiers to Prussia. A Heinrich Löwenherz had served under the mighty Wallenstein and shared his grim defeat by Gustavus Adolphus at Lützen in 1632. But Heinrich’s son had become a senior officer in the Kriegskommissariat of the Great Elector and had lived to see the Swedes driven from the battlefield of Fehrbellin some forty-three years later.

There was a painting of Heinrich on the staircase of the house in Grawiec. A pale-faced man with the Löwenherz nose and dark, broody eyes. His beard and moustache are trimmed in the Spanish style and he is wearing the broad lace collar and red sash even upon his breastplate and leather fighting clothes. As a child, Victor had been frightened to go past it down the stairs, especially after dark when there were only flickering candles to light the hall and the howl of wolves came from the hills above the village.

In the First World War Baron Hans-Georg von Löwenherz – Victor’s father – had lost an arm at Langemarck, Ypres, serving with the Prussian Guards, and had gone on to become a staff operations officer. After the war he had taken command of one of the secret instruction schools that the Reichswehr formed to replace the Military Academy forbidden by the peace treaty.

It was natural that Victor should go into the Army and although he had never been truly happy as a cadet he could look back upon it with pride and pleasure. Tucked into the corner of a silver-framed portrait of his mother there was a fading snapshot taken in Austria – at the time of the Anschluss. Five smiling cavalry officers, their caps bearing the commemorative Brandenburg dragoon eagle of which they had been so proud. The following day, in Linz, they had caught a glimpse of the Führer himself. A month later Löwenherz had been transferred from the Army to the Luftwaffe and was a part of the intensive aircrew training programme that followed the Munich Agreement.

He looked again at those boys who had been his close comrades through the agonies of cadet school. They’d teased him mercilessly when they heard of his application to become a flyer, but they’d come to the railway station at four-thirty in the morning to bid him goodbye. He looked at their childish faces; the amateur photo was creased and faded. One was buried in Narvik, another had been crippled in an amphitheatre near Sparta, the third was an Oberst on Manstein’s staff at Army Group Don. The fourth was commanding a Bewährungs-kompagnie (a suicide unit for enemies of the régime) near Kharkov.

The group in the small ivory frame was his class at the Neu Bieburg A/B Flying School, with an old Bücker biplane in the background. Only half of those recruits finally got their wings.

Twenty-five men sepia-toned and defaced by youthful signatures: pupils and instructors at Schleissheim Fighter Pilot School. He was blinking in the strong sunlight. He’d just completed two hundred flying hours when that photo was taken. It had seemed a lot at the time. Scowling in the front row was his present commanding officer who, like most of the instructors there, had just returned from fighting in the Spanish Civil War. To Löwenherz he had seemed a remote and glamorous figure with his four victories over Loyalist Spanish planes. Now, he supposed, the new replacements on his Staffel saw himself as a similarly forbidding figure: distant and cold and expert. Löwenherz hoped so.

He stopped looking at the photos and pulled on his silk dressing-gown before going to the end of the officers’ billets for a shower. He scrubbed himself energetically under the cold water and dried himself thoroughly. He had a catlike grace of movement that fitted his fastidiousness with food and his concern for clean personal linen. When he returned to his room he spent forty minutes ironing the shirts and underclothes that he had washed and left to dry the previous night.

When Löwenherz finished he put away the electric iron and dressed carefully. He inspected his gleaming high boots and fixed the Iron Cross and the German Cross Order to the pocket of his newly laundered tunic. He briefly checked his appearance in the mirror: the white tunic was immaculate and he slanted the white-topped cap rakishly. The bulldog came out from under the table and prepared for the walk through the woodland to the Officers’ Mess.

‘It’s wet outside, Bubi,’ he warned, but, like his master, the dog enjoyed walking through the fragrant grass. The rain had ceased and sunlight shone upon the wet grass. The dog sniffed each patch of it and ran across the road and cocked its leg at the slit-trench bomb shelters. Löwenherz used to scold Bubi for doing that, but since the shelters had never been used from the day they were dug he had ceased to care if the dog fouled them.

As Löwenherz stepped out from his quarters four Dutch civilians arrived carrying mops and brooms. Behind them cycled Feldwebel Blessing, the civilian staff overseer. The Feldwebel dismounted from his bicycle when he saw Löwenherz and saluted him with precision. Blessing was a young, over-weight Bavarian with heavy features and small piercing eyes.

‘Good morning, Feldwebel Blessing,’ said Löwenherz. ‘There’s rust in the water supply again. The same trouble as last March, I suspect.’

‘It will be investigated, Herr Oberleutnant.’

‘Excellent, Blessing, I am confident that it will.’ Although he was unpopular, Blessing’s efficiency was a byword and his civilians kept the billets clean and shining. A few generals like Blessing in the OKW and perhaps we shouldn’t be on the defensive in the East, nor preparing Italy for an Allied invasion, thought Löwenherz. Blessing cycled energetically away towards the main barracks with Bubi barking at his rear wheel. Löwenherz walked towards the Officers’ Mess and soon the dog returned, racing after him, splashing through the puddles.

Along the perimeter fence sat hundreds of sea-birds driven inland by the summer storm. Bubi chased them along the fence, barking and jumping high into the air. Lazily the wet white blobs stretched their wings and circuited briefly before settling back into place.

As he neared the Officers’ Mess, Löwenherz recognized one of his pilots walking towards him through the sunspotted woodland. The boy would probably have avoided a meeting with his Staffelkapitän if he had been looking where he was going.

Christian Himmel was a twenty-two-year-old Unteroffizier. His basic pay was one hundred marks per month plus another forty marks in Wehrsold (war pay) and seventy-five marks Fliegerzulage (flying pay). This, even allowing for income tax and contributions to Nazi funds and winter relief, still left him with more comforts than he had known in civil life and just double what his father earned as a gardener. He was a muscular boy with short untidy hair that he inexpertly trimmed himself. His face was round and his serious mouth full-lipped. ‘Angel-face’ he had been called at the camp where he had done his labour service, and the lack of wrinkles in his clear skin did make him look like one of those carved cherubs that crowd together around the altars and pulpits of the baroque churches near his Bavarian hometown.

Himmel was shy, although no one at Kroonsdijk had less reason to be daunted by Oberleutnant von Löwenherz than he had. In July 1940 during the Kanalkampf (as the Luftwaffe named the early period of the Battle of Britain) the circumstances had been very different. Löwenherz was a young ensign newly posted to a Messerschmitt 109 squadron where Himmel was a very experienced pilot, with a Polish Lós bomber and two Spitfires to his credit and a novel reputation. It was said that Himmel had shot down more enemy aircraft than he claimed, and on at least three occasions he had been more than generous in allowing kills to be credited to others.

Löwenherz’s first two kills – a Hurricane and a Defiant – had a considerable number of Himmel’s bullets in them, as Löwenherz was the first to admit. But Löwenherz had been Himmel’s wingman, and, as Himmel said, a good wingman should share credit for every victory. A wingman flew two hundred yards on the beam of his leader and covered him from stern or quarter attack. The leader navigated, led the attack and made the decisions. Himmel had done that well. Himmel was also a skilled mechanic. His concern for the aircraft on the Staffel amounted almost to hypochondria, an obsession that was his excuse for being shy, silent and alone. When he spoke with his ground-crew men he tried to confine the conversation solely to technical matters. Sometimes Löwenherz could almost believe that Himmel ticked and whined and roared, and made better contact with his machines than with his fellow men.

‘Good morning, Himmel.’

‘Good morning, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said the boy. There was a gust of wind and Himmel, clad in black mechanic’s overalls, shivered.

‘Plugs still oiling up, Christian?’

‘They fitted new rings but that was just a waste of labour, Herr Oberleutnant. There’s only a very slight improvement.’

The dog made playful rushes at the Unteroffizier’s boots. Himmel pretended to punch Bubi’s head and the dog growled and made fearsome open-fanged passes at his fast-moving hands.

‘Kugel won’t be able to do it today. The Major has had trouble with his supercharger capsule. He’s given strict instructions that his plane must be ready this evening.’

‘Then Kugel will be busy,’ said Himmel.

‘Very, very busy,’ smiled Löwenherz, picturing the potbellied old mechanic facing the Gruppenkommandeur’s wrath.

Löwenherz said, ‘I’ll tell him to do a run up when you land tonight. If you’re still getting a drop in revolutions I’ll tell him he must fit a new engine. How’s that, Christian?’

‘Thank you, Herr Oberleutnant.’

‘Are you going to breakfast?’

‘I’m not hungry. I will have coffee when it’s sent out to the dispersal. Shall I take Bubi with me?’

Löwenherz passed Bubi’s collar and lead to Himmel. Bubi barked happily. Löwenherz watched the young NCO and the dog move out of sight through the trees. Himmel was running and the dog chased him until Himmel’s black overalls merged into the patches of shade.

The temperature had dropped slightly in spite of the sunshine and Löwenherz noticed that the gusts of wind were coming from the direction of the HQ buildings to the northwest. The cold front had moved well past Kroonsdijk now, and the great cold air mass was steadying. When he reached the Officers’ Mess he looked at the barometer; it had risen. Everything pointed to a few days of fine summer weather.

Löwenherz was a methodical man. He deposited his peaked cap on the cloakroom counter and picked up a copy of the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung that was set aside for him. He looked up the prices of his Daimler-Benz, Zeiss Ikon and Siemens shares. He believed in good solid companies. He’d bought a few shares of Sachs Engineering because it was owned by the father of his radar operator and, although they had done wonders until a year ago, they had now begun to stick a little. He thought he might sell. He looked at the back page for the annual reports but there was nothing of interest. Neither was the war news of any great importance. The war was at a time of hiatus. He didn’t want to fold the paper and stuff it into his pocket for it would make bulges in his newly pressed uniform jacket. So he rolled it carefully and took it with him. There were no new notices on the board. Glancing at his reflection as he passed, he smoothed his hair and opened the door of the dining-hall.

The Mess Hall was a large sunlit room with long refectory tables and a high ceiling. At the far end there was a patriotic mural covering the entire wall. Firm-jawed soldiers and radiant girls in peasant costume and flaxen plaits marched with flags under a canopy of bomber formations. There were posters that reminded crews of the dangers of careless conversation in public places. Another depicted a gull in flight: ‘Pilots, he too is your enemy!’ A photo of a birdstrike-damaged plane was also shown. A cartoon pilot said, ‘If you are lost, climb to safety height. Don’t descend through cloud, it’s dangerous.’

Over the serving-hatch there were listed the civilian rations side by side with the more generous Wehrmacht issue of the same items. ‘Remember …’ it was headed.

There were two officers of his Staffel sitting over a pot of coffee. Löwenherz joined them. Some of the tables were set for the ‘brunch’-style meal that the night-fighter crews had at midday after sleeping late. It was still only ten AM and as yet these three flyers were the only ones up and about.

‘Can I join the Kaffeeklatsch?’ said Löwenherz.

‘The whole points system should be revised,’ said Leutnant Kokke, a young Berliner. He was a swarthy man with long black hair, full moustache and a beard trimmed just close enough to fit under his oxygen mask. Löwenherz noted his grubby grey shirt and unpolished boots. Kokke was noted for his devastating sarcasm and polished flying skill, but he was invariably the untidiest officer on the unit. Löwenherz decided that he must speak to Kokke about this on a more suitable occasion.

Kokke went on, ‘On the Eastern Front any fool can shoot down a dozen a day. One hundred victories, two hundred victories, what’s it matter? Any day now they’ll have a fellow there with three hundred victories.’

‘While we struggle and sweat to see who will be the first man to get thirty,’ complained Beer, a sad little Leutnant from Regensburg who before the war had been a racing-car driver. His face was lined with worry and his wavy hair surmounted a very tall forehead. He too was trying to grow a moustache but after nearly three weeks its growth was less than luxuriant. He fingered it for a moment before laying aside his copy of the Völkische Beobachter and sipped at the bitter coffee.

A Mess waiter put a plate of chopped raw swede on the table along with a fresh pot of coffee. The Luftwaffe medical authorities said it would improve night vision. Few aircrew ate it, fewer still believed in it, but Löwenherz bit into a piece now to set a good example. Then he reached for a tin of vitamin tablets and took two.

‘Do you think the tablets improve night vision, Herr Oberleutnant?’ asked Beer.

‘Night adaption,’ corrected Löwenherz.

‘Yes,’ said Beer.

‘There’s a whole world of difference,’ said Löwenherz.

‘And you think the vitamin A tablets improve night adaption?’ asked Beer.

‘It’s on orders,’ said Löwenherz. ‘Two each morning before breakfast and two immediately before flying.’

‘They should revise the points system,’ said Kokke. ‘At present a pilot has to destroy, say, thirteen four-engined bombers at three points each and a twin-motor escort at two points in order to get a Knight’s Cross. At night! My God, we should get a Knight’s Cross just for finding one. And now with this wet weather our radar aerials will be all to hell.’

Beer nodded agreement. It was all Kokke needed to expound further. ‘Why, on the Eastern Front you can knock down a couple of antique American Airacobras and a couple of LaG3s every morning before breakfast and get yourself a sheet-metal tie in a week or two. Isn’t that right, Herr Oberleutnant?’

‘Are you two still talking about Knight’s Crosses?’ said Löwenherz. It was no surprise, though, that’s what everyone in the Gruppe spent their spare time talking about; perhaps the whole damn Luftwaffe did. ‘Knocking down Ivans is not so easy,’ said Löwenherz. ‘I’ve never seen a LaG3, but its newest variant is the La5FN. It’s got fuel injection, a 1,650-hp motor, and the exhaust gases – carbon dioxide and nitrogen – are passed into the fuel tanks as a precaution against incendiary bullet hits. It’s got two cannons with supplementary rockets. A Red pilot defected with a new one last month; I flew it at Rechlin Testing Centre. It’s a good plane.’

‘How fast?’ asked Kokke.

‘I got nearly 400 mph out of it at 15,000 feet.’

‘That’s fast,’ said Beer.

‘But what can it do at higher altitudes?’ asked Kokke.

‘It doesn’t matter what it can do higher,’ explained Löwenherz. ‘It’s a low-altitude air war in the east. If the Ivans are ground strafing, or bombing at low level, then we’ve got to come down low and fight them.’

‘I suppose so,’ agreed Kokke.

‘What’s more,’ said Löwenherz, ‘our technical people say its air-cooled motor will be simpler to service in bad winter conditions than the liquid-cooled ones are. The report also said that the airframe will take more punishment.’

‘We could do with a few of those La5s to replace these crappy old wrecks that we have to nurse through the air,’ said Kokke.

‘There’s nothing wrong with the Richards,’ said Beer. ‘Last year I was flying 110s. That really is an obsolete design.’

‘Nothing wrong with the Richards?’ scoffed Kokke. ‘Where did you read that, the Völkische Beobachter in 1937?’ He tapped off criticisms on the fingertips of his stubby pianist’s hands. ‘Designed as a dive bomber, we’re using it as a night fighter. Four years out of date. Poor pilot visibility. Very high landing-speed. So, land a dive bomber with poor visibility at night with a high landing-speed and you’ve got a handful of aeroplane.’

‘I like having a handful of aeroplane,’ said Löwenherz. ‘Anyway, next year we’ll have the Heinkel 219.’

He was inclined to agree with Kokke about the Ju88R, especially in respect to the landing-speed, but the last thing he was prepared to do was to destroy the confidence his aircrews had in their equipment.

‘With all respect, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Kokke, ‘next year might be too late.’

‘By next year we shall all be on the East Front,’ said Beer. He helped himself to bread and cherry jam. A wasp was buzzing round the table and Beer shooed it away nervously.

‘You’re a miserable bastard,’ said Kokke. ‘When shall I ever hear you say a cheerful word?’

‘Well, I don’t say defeatist things like you do,’ said Beer. He smiled thinly as he said it, but there was more than a trace of accusation in his voice.

‘What did I say?’ Kokke reached for Löwenherz’s Börsen-Zeitung and swatted the wasp with a loud crack.

‘The war in the east was like a travelling circus and a travelling zoo battling in a wilderness to decide which should put on a show.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t just make that up?’ asked Kokke.

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Beer angrily.

‘More coffee, Herr Oberleutnant?’

‘Thank you, Kokke,’ said Löwenherz. He watched the bearded man handling the coffee cups. Those were a musician’s hands. Kokke had wanted to be a professional pianist until the war had interrupted his studies. By now a career of the sort he’d once hoped for was impossible. He had only to touch the Mess piano to know how much skill had slipped away from him. Kokke poured coffee for Löwenherz and grinned at him provocatively. Some people said the young Berliner was an agent provocateur in the pay of the Gestapo. Löwenherz suspected that to be a story Kokke himself had circulated to provide an excuse for constant criticism of the régime and its methods and equipment.

‘Here’s to our Knight’s Crosses,’ toasted Löwenherz with coffee.

‘I’ll not drink to yours,’ said Kokke smiling. ‘If the bloody thing isn’t on its way by now, it must be because they’ve decided to stop awarding them.’

Löwenherz bowed gratefully at the compliment. He had gained more than enough victories for the coveted Knight’s Cross to be at his neck. His seniority and experience deserved a promotion but the Führer’s birthday, a traditional date for promotions to be announced, had come and gone.

The pilots drank their coffee in silence, and Löwenherz held his napkin carefully in his free hand lest a drip of coffee fall upon his gleaming white summer jacket. Somehow Löwenherz always had the answer and the technical data to back it up. It was amazing how he found time to handle the office routine and paperwork that fell to him as Staffel Leader, as well as reading and remembering all the intelligence reports, doing the same blind-flying minimum that he had ordered for his Staffel, consistently winning the clay-pigeon stakes as well as maintaining a string of girlfriends from Brussels to Wilhelmshafen.

Finally it was little Beer who spoke. ‘The Knight’s Cross is always conferred by Hermann Göring in person?’

‘A visit to Karinhall’ – Löwenherz nodded. ‘And the cauliflower for the Knight’s Cross means an audience with the Führer.’

‘With the knives and forks they give you a two-bedroom apartment at Berchtesgaden,’ said Kokke mischievously.

‘It’s all right for you two to talk of Oak-leaves and swords,’ said Beer. ‘You, Herr Oberleutnant, have twenty-eight confirmed victories, and Kokke has twelve, but as yet I have none and might never get one.’

‘Cheer up,’ said Kokke. ‘We all have the Iron Cross on our pocket.’

‘That makes it even worse,’ said Beer. ‘How do I explain that mine was awarded for doing twenty flights without ever catching sight of a Tommi?’

‘Perhaps you’ll get a chance tonight if the weather clears,’ said Löwenherz.

Beer pinched his face and refused to be cheered up. ‘Each night the controller sends up his most successful crews first. They get the first crack at the Englishmen while the rest of us spend all day practising instrument-flying and all night playing chess.’

‘It’s necessary for the defence of the homeland that the best crews are put into battle as soon as the first radar contact is made,’ said Löwenherz.

‘Beer thinks the war has been arranged solely for his sport,’ said Kokke.

‘You must remember that these bombers are tearing the hearts out of our cities,’ said Löwenherz. ‘Ask Kokke if he prefers the best crews to go up first when it’s his town of Berlin that’s being bombed, or ask poor old Oberfeldwebel Krugelheim, my chief mechanic, whose wife was killed in Stuttgart last April.’

Kokke added, ‘Or Leutnant Klimke, my radar man, whose wife and three children were killed in a bombing raid on Duisburg last Christmas, one day before he went on leave.’

‘All I want to do,’ protested Beer, ‘is help shoot the murdering bastards out of the sky.’

‘Don’t be downhearted,’ said Löwenherz. ‘You will soon have your opportunity.’ He finished his coffee and wiped his mouth carefully with his napkin. He stood up and after nodding a good day to them he eyed Beer’s black leather zipper-jacket, breeches and high boots.

‘You’re not thinking of flying in those boots, Leutnant Beer?’

‘No, sir,’ said Beer.

‘Good. There is a regulation about it. The Luftwaffe medical service has informed High Command that foot injuries are very difficult to attend to if the injured crewman is wearing close-fitting high boots.’

‘I read your memo, sir.’

‘Excellent, then that’s clear. Good morning, gentlemen.’ He looked at his newspaper with the remains of the wasp spattered across the headline in ugly brown stains. He didn’t pick it up.

They both nodded goodbye to him.

‘Kaffeeklatsch,’ said Beer; ‘patronizing bastard.’

‘May I quote you?’ said Kokke.

‘It’s all right for a Krautjunker like him,’ said Beer. ‘Son of a baron, enormous estates in East Prussia well out of the reach of the RAF …’

‘That’s why he’s worried about those Russian aeroplanes,’ said Kokke. ‘You know, the mechanics across on Staffel number three have got a nice fiddle going. When the long-range Aunty Jus fly in with spares, the crews bring tins of caviar from Odessa to swap for bottles of Dutch schnapps. They say that that tall Oberfeldwebel with the motorcycle is making a fortune out of it. The other day the mechanics opened a tin of caviar out there on the dispersal apron. They were sitting around in the sun eating it, when Löwenherz walks up. The Oberfeldwebel gives him a big salute and spreads a great heap of caviar on a biscuit and offers it to him. “Beluga caviar, sir,” he says. Löwenherz looks down his nose at it and says, “Never mind what kind of caviar it is, Oberfeldwebel. Have you washed your hands?”’

Kokke laughed heartily at his own story but Beer didn’t. ‘Prussian bastard,’ said Beer. ‘And that damned white jacket he wears as though this was a peacetime training school. Did you notice him looking at your dirty shirt? I bet there’ll be another reminder about officers’ appearance circulated next week.’

‘Screw him,’ said Kokke.

‘He’s always wiping his mouth and fingers,’ said Beer. ‘He makes me feel like I’m suffering from some sort of contagious disease.’

‘You are,’ said Kokke. ‘It’s called poverty.’

‘Well, you know what I mean. And I hate men who wear cologne. He’s obsessed with cleanliness, he’s always in that shower whenever I want to use it.’

‘Which isn’t often,’ said Kokke. ‘Well, that’s probably because he’s terrified of getting a dose of clap from all those girls he runs around with.’

‘One of these days, Kokke, you’re going to get yourself arrested saying things like that.’

‘Yes, well I can always count on you to help. Fancy telling Löwenherz that stuff about the East Front.’

‘A man should be prepared to live with the statements he makes,’ said Beer.

‘You know, Beer, sometimes I think you would have made a bloody wonderful Pope.’

As Löwenherz reached the foyer of the Mess half a dozen aircrew officers were arriving for their noon meal. He nodded curtly to each of them and collected his peaked cap from the orderly in the cloakroom. In the foyer there were soft leather chairs and low tables with copies of Luftwelt, Signal and Der Adler scattered on it. Sitting nervously on the edge of his armchair was Blessing, the man in charge of civilian labour. Sitting next to him, leaning well back and reading the Deutsche Zeitung, there was an elderly man in civilian clothes. Blessing tapped the other man on the knee. He lowered his paper and looked up. Blessing nodded towards Löwenherz. The man was too old to be local civilian labour, and his clothes were a little too good and of German cut. My God, thought Löwenherz, it must be a relative of some recent aircrew casualty. The man reached for a soft hat and leather briefcase, got to his feet and approached Löwenherz with a sad smile.

‘Oberleutnant Victor von Löwenherz?’ said the man. The suit he was wearing was of pre-war quality but had been darned carefully at the corner of the pocket. There were three pens in his waistcoat and under it he was wearing a grey home-knitted sweater. The man’s eyes stared calmly at him through gold-rimmed spectacles. His eyes were moist, as old men’s eyes become, but they were as active and alert as they had ever been. His face was heavily lined and had the mauve tints that afflict the skin of heavy drinkers. His stiff white collar was of an ancient style and the knot of his tie was secured by a gold pin. A doctor or lawyer most people would have guessed him to be, and rightly. Blessing saluted carefully while the man extended a hand to Löwenherz. It was while they were shaking hands that the man said ‘Heil Hitler’ in a disinterested voice that he also used for commenting on the weather. He smiled bleakly and introduced himself. ‘Feldwebel Dr Hans Starkhof of AST Nederlands, Group IIIL.’

The man’s eyes flickered short-sightedly behind his spectacles and yet Löwenherz wondered whether this myopia – like his hesitations and eyebrows raised in surprise – was a ruse feigned for his own purposes. The man watched for Löwenherz’s reactions to his low rank and the manner of its coupling to his doctorate, and to the Nazi greeting with his soft civilian handshake. He watched too for the reaction to the word AST – the Abwehr, or Military Intelligence, office: the technique of surprise was one that Starkhof had perfected many years ago as a criminal lawyer in Hamburg. There was always work for a criminal lawyer in Hamburg and a surprise immediately upon meeting could often help a case to a quick conclusion. From Löwenherz came no reaction, but Starkhof still had a card to play.

‘Perhaps I should introduce …’ he half turned towards Blessing.

‘Feldwebel Blessing I already know,’ said Löwenherz coldly.

‘Ah, yes, precisely, which is why I should tell you that Blessing is employed by RSHA and has a SIPO rank of Untersturmführer.’

‘May I see your identity papers?’ asked Löwenherz.

‘Alas, we carry none except a Wehrpass, but you may phone my office if you are worried.’

‘I am not worried,’ said Löwenherz.

‘Excellent.’ He gestured towards the entrance. ‘We’ll talk as we walk,’ he suggested. ‘You’ll perhaps feel more comfortable in the open air.’ He put on his trilby hat and stepped out into the sunshine. The three men walked down the long gravel drive, their shadows sharply drawn on the path by the warm sun. When he realized that Löwenherz had no intention of speaking first, the man said, ‘There has been a theft of some documents, Herr Oberleutnant.’ He paused but still nothing came from Löwenherz. ‘Some secret documents,’ he added. ‘We are in no doubt about the identity of the thief.’

‘I am sure,’ said Löwenherz, ‘that you have not come here to boast to me of your success.’

‘Precisely,’ said the man in civilian clothes. ‘We should value your frankness and aid.’

‘You will in any case be treated to the former,’ said Löwenherz. ‘As to the latter, until you are more forthcoming who knows what it might entail?’

‘Dear comrade Löwenherz,’ said Starkhof. ‘You must be patient with an old man. Secret documents have been stolen and they must be recovered.’

‘This is the Medical Centre, Herr Doktor,’ interrupted Blessing.

‘They were stolen from this building,’ Starkhof explained to Löwenherz. ‘We know the thief but lack the …’

‘Corpus delicti,’ supplied Löwenherz.

‘Precisely,’ said Starkhof. He turned to his colleague, ‘The corpus delicti, Blessing, that’s what you must find.’

They stood on the road between the farm-like headquarters buildings. Everywhere was quiet, for the true working day of this night-fighter station had not yet begun. A lorry rattled noisily through the main gate loaded with oil drums. Outside the Pay Section a line of men had formed and assumed the relaxed attitudes with which Servicemen accept inevitable delay. From the Medical Centre two orderlies were bringing chairs and piling them together in the sunshine, while from inside came the sound of buckets and mops and tuneless singing.

Starkhof said, ‘The thief first misappropriated the documents. It was later that he stole them.’

‘If that means that someone hid them behind a cupboard and went back for them later, why not say so more clearly?’

Eagerly Blessing said, ‘The papers were secreted behind a cupboard and the thief did return later. How did you know that?’

‘Deduction,’ said Löwenherz. ‘And I’ll tell you another deduction too.’

‘If you …’

‘Comrade Untersturmführer Blessing’ – the old man interrupted them. He raised a finger at Blessing. ‘My witness, I believe.’ He smiled; Blessing nodded.

The old man said, ‘My dear Löwenherz. We should both be most interested in your deduction.’

Löwenherz said, ‘You knew where the documents were, and yet did not retrieve them. Then you hoped to catch the thief taking them to some other place …’

‘Or other party,’ nodded Starkhof. ‘Excellent, Oberleutnant.’

‘You do not have the documents therefore you did not catch the thief in …’ Löwenherz paused.

‘You were about to say flagrante delicto, my good friend. Do say it.’ In a quick aside to Blessing the old man added, ‘Red-handed, my dear Blessing.’ Blessing smiled.

It was difficult to be sure whether the man was trying to make a fool of Löwenherz or of Blessing. When Löwenherz walked forward again the others kept by his side.

Löwenherz said, ‘Since Blessing pointed out the Medical Centre to you, I deduce that you have not seen it before. So it was’ – Löwenherz feigned difficulty with the SS rank and pronounced it in a precise and ponderous manner – ‘Untersturmführer Blessing who set a trap for the thief but was outwitted.’

‘Sunt lacrimae rerum,’ said the man to Blessing. ‘Tears are a part of life, as I said to Blessing at the time.’ Blessing scowled.

‘Is it someone on my Staffel?’ said Löwenherz.

‘There you go again,’ said Starkhof. ‘Straight to the heart of the problem. Yes, it’s someone on your Staffel.’

‘Unteroffizier Himmel,’ supplied Blessing.

‘Young Himmel,’ said Löwenherz. ‘Why, that’s impossible. I’d stake my life on Himmel.’

‘Is that your considered opinion, Herr Oberleutnant?’ asked Blessing weightily. They walked in silence for a moment, then Starkhof said, ‘Of course not, the Herr Oberleutnant was speaking merely as a comrade in arms. Such sentiments nobly become front-line soldiers.’

‘Would you stake your life on this thief Himmel?’ persisted Blessing.

‘My dear Blessing,’ said Starkhof. ‘The Oberleutnant often does exactly that. For isn’t Himmel one of his most experienced pilots and thus essential to the safety of the whole Staffel?’

‘Young Himmel is a fine pilot, hard-working and loyal,’ said Löwenherz.

Blessing said, ‘You went to breakfast at a few minutes to ten?’

Löwenherz said, ‘I spoke with you.’ He said it quickly and defensively, and was angry at himself.

‘And you gave Himmel your dog?’

‘Himmel took my dog to the dispersal.’

‘Did Himmel often walk your dog?’ asked Blessing. He smiled at Löwenherz and filled the simple question with complex innuendo.

‘The dog chooses carefully the people with whom it will walk,’ said Löwenherz.

‘Himmel was one of the chosen people?’ said Blessing.

‘You seem better provided with malice than with evidence,’ said Löwenherz. ‘Perhaps it’s merely that Himmel is easier to apprehend than the real thief who seems to have eluded you so effortlessly when the crime was committed.’

‘Dear comrade Löwenherz,’ said Starkhof wearily. ‘You are not the judge in this case and, even if you were, it is not Blessing who would be on trial. We have asked your assistance merely to recover the documents which we believe – with excellent reason – Himmel stole from the Medical Centre.’

‘How can I help?’

‘Thank you, Herr Oberleutnant. That is what I was hoping that you would say.’

‘Earlier,’ added Blessing.

‘Blessing,’ sighed the older man, ‘there are times when I believe that making witnesses hostile is your sole creative endeavour.’ He turned again to Löwenherz. ‘Last night Unteroffizier Himmel had this document in his bedside locker. This morning when Blessing arrived at his billet to arrest him he was not there. Neither was the document. The only person he met this morning was you …’

‘What do you suspect Himmel did?’

‘There are many possibilities: he might have learned it by heart and then destroyed it; he might have buried it so that he could return to retrieve it; or he might have handed it to an accomplice.’

‘You don’t seriously think Himmel is a spy?’

Starkhof shrugged.

Löwenherz said, ‘How did he gain access to this document?’

‘By accident, we think. He was due for a routine medical check on the fourteenth of the month. Eighteen NCOs attended the Medical Section that morning. Himmel was tenth; when he saw the Medical Officer to have his card signed the document was on the desk.’

‘Sounds circumstantial,’ said Löwenherz.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Blessing.

‘I rather agree with Löwenherz,’ said Starkhof. ‘The way the evidence is at present it would be difficult to put a very good case.’

‘Impossible to put a case at all unless you mean against Blessing for incompetence.’

‘That’s rather severe, Herr Oberleutnant,’ said Starkhof. ‘But I must say, Blessing, you will come out of this looking rather foolish, and your chiefs are probably expecting you to prove that a young SIPO officer can run circles around an antique Abwehr Feldwebel like me.’

Blessing said, ‘I will take that chance.’

‘There’s the Medical Officer too,’ said Starkhof reflectively. ‘He was undoubtedly negligent. Secret papers should go into the safe.’ He noted Löwenherz’s face. ‘Never mind, as long as the culprit is caught and the papers recovered there will perhaps be no need to bring any of Himmel’s colleagues or superior officers into this. You hear me, Herr Oberleutnant?’

‘I do.’

‘Splendid. Young Blessing and I searched along the perimeter this morning. In the hedge, in the ditch, and then retraced our steps on the far side of the fence. Nothing there, I’m afraid. I’m glad to see you’re concerned about the fate of the doctor. A charming man, I thought, something of an aristocrat one might almost think.’ He smiled. ‘If it wasn’t for that unfortunate Austrian accent.’

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Taking you? My goodness we’re not taking you anywhere, Oberleutnant. You have your duties for the Third Reich just as we do, but if you can spare us a moment, the Kommandeur was kind enough to take an interest in our problem.’

Löwenherz looked carefully into the man’s wrinkled face. Starkhof stared back coolly with an amused contempt for all the world. On the estates in Prussia Löwenherz had seen the same easy-going manner among the senior farm hands and foresters. It was the quality one looked for when employing or promoting such men. Some policemen had it and so did high-court judges, It came from dealing with many people and being able to predict their reactions well in advance. It came from the certainty that no one would ever disobey the suggestions that made orders unnecessary.

They walked into the Operations Building, Blessing in the lead. The Kommandeur must have seen them through the window for he stepped out to greet them. He was dressed in boots, breeches and grey uniform shirt. At his throat dangled the coveted Knight’s Cross. ‘My good Untersturmführer Blessing,’ he said, ‘and Herr Doktor Starkhof.’

‘Heil Hitler,’ said Blessing.

‘Heil Hitler,’ said the Kommandeur.

‘Heil Hitler,’ said Starkhof, doffing his hat cheerfully to the Kommandeur.

Major Peter Redenbacher put on his jacket and buttoned it. He was thirty-three years old: elderly by fighter-pilot standards. He commanded Löwenherz’s Staffel of ten aircraft plus two other Staffeln that shared Kroonsdijk. He was an impressive man in spite of his battle-scarred appearance. His shortness of stature and some false teeth were common among those who had grown up in the blockaded Germany of the First World War. His powerful arms were an inheritance from his furnace-worker father in Essen, and his clear blue eyes and full-lipped mouth from his hardworking Mutti. The thick muscular legs were developed in his teens by sixty-eight-kilometre weekend cycle rides to a DLV gliding club. Most weekends he had come no nearer to a flight than hauling the winch, positioning the club’s sole glider or helping to build a second one. The small scar visible under his closely cropped blond hair dated from a heavy landing at Wasserkuppe, on the bare high plateau of the Rhön. That year he had won a minor prize in the National Gliding Championships. The permanently arched little finger on his left hand had come under a Communist boot after holding a Nazi standard aloft in Essen in 1927. The sustained hatred that made him a killer was born in March 1923 when he saw a French officer of the occupying army strike his father and uncle for not removing their hats as a military funeral passed. The cold confident gaze dated from 1934 when he was one of twenty chosen from four thousand applicants to go to the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule at Brunswick. This airline pilots’ school was a secret training centre for the Nazi Air Force. When the Luftwaffe was officially born in 1935 Peter Redenbacher was stunting a Bücker Jungmann biplane above the heads of Hitler, Göring, the foreign Press and a deliriously happy German crowd. His forearm scarred badly because there was no doctor in the Spanish village of San Antonio when a Republican Rata shot his He51 down in flames there in November 1936. He landed by parachute in the village. The Russian pilot did a low pass over the rooftops and waved to Redenbacher from the open cockpit: a big smile and an ancient leather flying helmet, and low enough to see that the pilot was a woman. No one would believe him, until in January 1937 a high-ranking Russian woman was shot down near Madrid.

It was at the Schleissheim fighter school near Munich that a pupil turned without power on take-off, thus writing off an old He50 biplane that would have floated unharmed to the ground hands off. It was the worst crash of all. The pupil died and Redenbacher spent six weeks in hospital. Although he would never admit it, even to his wife, still to this day in cold weather the base of his spine ached like the very devil.

His four victories in Spain, fourteen on the East Front and thirty-two French, RAF and US aeroplanes downed had brought him a Knight’s Cross with Oak-leaves and made him something of a celebrity. He had been shot down over the sea by an American P-47 the previous May, and had spent four miserable hours bobbing from wave-top to wave-top perched on a one-man dinghy. He was too old to take that sort of punishment without suffering after-effects. A medical board had detected his symptoms in spite of Redenbacher’s denials. Now he had been advised that a staff job was to be his. Meanwhile he flew every sortie possible.

When he went to spend the rest of his life flying a desk he’d asked that Löwenherz should take over as Gruppenkommandeur. He had been one of his pupils at the fighter school, and one of his best. Redenbacher was glad to have a young aristocrat like him in his Gruppe because, for Redenbacher, National Socialism meant the end of classes and social groupings. During all the wars of the last century only a hundred or so German NCOs had been made officers. In this war, under National Socialism, thousands and thousands of rankers had so far been commissioned. There were, at that moment, twelve Nazi generals who had come from the ranks. It made Redenbacher very proud to be a member of the Wehrmacht. It had become a simple matter of being a good Nazi.

Redenbacher looked at the men across the room. The young SIPO officer was a good Nazi. There was no other explanation. Only a dedicated young officer would be happy to do his duty as a lowly Feldwebel engaged on menial tasks. The old Abwehr man was a more doubtful case. Why had he never been promoted to officer rank? That shrewd old swine, like too many men in today’s Germany, guessed Redenbacher, survived by evading conflict. Major Redenbacher walked round his desk, but he did not sit down behind it, neither did he invite the others to sit. There were in any case only two chairs. The white-painted office was bare and austere: only a framed portrait of the Führer, one of Reichsmarschall Göring, and a small photo of Redenbacher and his wife framed by Nazi banners on their wedding day.

The major’s table-top was clear and efficient. A gleaming piston-top from the wrecked Heinkel biplane stood near the blotter. It would have made a fine ashtray for anyone who dared to smoke here. Instead it was a paperweight but there were no papers awaiting attention; the trays were empty, ink-wells full and sharpened pencils placed to hand. The major picked one up and tapped the table-top reflectively. He raised his eyes to Löwenherz. ‘What do you make of Himmel, Victor?’

Löwenherz came correctly to attention, his white-topped cap clutched tight under his arm. ‘He has six years’ service, sir. Service record excellent.’ Löwenherz related Himmel’s Service record. It was easy to remember, for so much of it was the same as his own.

‘But is he loyal, Victor? Is he a true National Socialist?’

‘Yes, Herr Major.’

Blessing came to a noisy attention. ‘With respect, Herr Major, loyalty is something best left to my department.’

‘I’m sure my Oberleutnant had a reason for testifying to Unteroffizier Himmel’s loyalty,’ said Redenbacher. He nodded to Löwenherz.

‘Himmel was one of the pilots assigned to the Führer’s Kurier flight in March 1941 for three months. All personnel were cleared for security by Kommandostab RF-SS.’

For a moment there was a complete silence.

‘Why the devil didn’t you say so, man?’ said Starkhof angrily. Redenbacher admired the way in which Löwenherz had caused the old man to lose his careful temper.

‘No one asked me, Herr Doktor.’

‘That was over two years ago,’ said Blessing.

‘If his clearance had been changed recently, I would have been informed,’ said Redenbacher.

‘Even our Kommandostab security people are not infallible,’ said Blessing, taking folded papers from his pocket. ‘Let me read you a part of a letter written by Himmel …’ There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ said Redenbacher.

Leutnant Kokke entered. He was the Gruppe Technical Officer in addition to his other duties. In his hand he was carrying neatly drawn training schedules for the coming twelve-week period.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Kokke. ‘I will come back.’ He ran a hand through his black untidy hair.

‘Come in, Kokke,’ said Redenbacher. Kokke was an excellent example of the new order. From the melting-pot into which National Socialism had poured the old Germany had come men like himself and Kokke. In the old days they would have had no chance to become professional officers. Kokke pretended that he would sooner be a musician, but this cut no ice with Redenbacher who recognized him as a man born to be a pilot as few men were. He still had much to learn, there was no short cut to experience, but Kokke might be a great flyer of tomorrow’s Reich. Even now – Staffelkapitäns excepted – he was one of the best pilots on the Gruppe. He had top grades in navigation, instrument-flying and engine: theory and practical. He reminded Redenbacher of the oil-stained old pilots home fresh from the first war, with their medals, tall stories, hard drinking and acid Galgenhumor.

Many people thought that Redenbacher was too soft on Kokke, but this was because he knew that Löwenherz kept a tight rein on him. He looked at them now. Young Löwenherz in his white jacket, standing primly with his cap under his arm like a fashion-plate, and Kokke, relaxed and smiling, with his shirt bulging under his short Air Force jacket and bread-crumbs on his tie.

‘Do you know what brings these officers here today, Kokke?’ asked Redenbacher.

‘No, Herr Major. Is it something in connection with the ablutions?’

‘No,’ said Redenbacher. ‘The man you have in the past known as Feldwebel Blessing, overseer of the local foreign labour, is an officer of the Sicherheitspolizei.’

‘Ach so!’ said the satanic Kokke with a smile. ‘Congratulations, Blessing.’ He said it as though Blessing too should be surprised at his new status.

Blessing clicked his heels.

‘Unteroffizier Himmel has stolen some documents,’ said Major Redenbacher. ‘At least it is alleged so. He spoke with the Herr Oberleutnant here shortly before breakfast. You were seated by the window, Kokke. Perhaps you saw Himmel this morning.’

‘He spoke with Herr Oberleutnant Löwenherz.’

‘I have just said so, but did he meet anyone else?’

‘Didn’t he meet Blessing?’

‘No. I was waiting to arrest him at his barracks,’ said Blessing.

‘But didn’t I see you tiptoeing through the woods, Blessing? I would have sworn it was you. Your ears, if you don’t mind my saying so, and a huge fat arse very reminiscent of yours came past the Mess window just about ten o’clock. I turned to my friend Beer and said, “Tell me if my eyes deceive me, Beer, but doesn’t that look very like the big protruding ears and great arse of our friend Feldwebel Blessing who cleans the ablutions?” At the time of course I had no way of knowing that Blessing was an officer.’

When Kokke stopped speaking Major Redenbacher said nothing; he flicked open the training schedules that Kokke had drawn neatly in coloured inks. This inquiry was distasteful to him. They all waited for him to comment. The gossip on the Staffel said that Redenbacher had not been truly well since his ditching last May. Some said that he would soon be posted to a less active unit. In which case, thought Kokke, that humourless stuffed-shirt Löwenherz would probably take over the Gruppe. Ah well, he was a fine pilot, bloody efficient and fair-minded, so it could be worse. He’d never replace Redenbacher in Kokke’s eyes though. The Major was a tough, barnstorming veteran who would break every rule in the book for his men. What was more, unlike Löwenherz, Redenbacher had a sense of humour. Redenbacher still said nothing.

The old Abwehr man said, ‘If you did speak to Himmel, you may as well tell me, Blessing.’

Blessing was indignant. ‘You are not taking this clown’s words seriously?’

Kokke said, ‘Don’t you remember, Blessing, the dog tried to bite you?’

‘If you saw Himmel with the dog, say so,’ said the old man severely to Blessing.

‘Of course he saw them,’ said Kokke. ‘Look at his boots, look for yourself.’ Even Major Redenbacher looked away from the schedules and stared down at Blessing’s grass-wet boots.

‘That’s where the Oberleutnant’s dog peed on his boots. You know how that dog pees everywhere, and Blessing was mistaken for a tree by the careless beast.’

Blessing knew that he was being provoked by Kokke but he kept his temper and even managed a ghost of a smile. It was important that Redenbacher should not think him vindictive or precipitate.

Starkhof took off his spectacles in a gesture which had once been a part of his courtroom technique. ‘Did Himmel have a parcel? It was foolscap size with a brown cover.’

‘It’s difficult to remember,’ admitted Kokke. ‘As I said, there was so much activity.’

‘Thank you, Leutnant Kokke,’ said Starkhof.

‘Blessing,’ said Redenbacher, ‘what evidence do you have against Unteroffizier Himmel?’

Blessing was still holding Himmel’s letter. He said, ‘This is a letter from Himmel to his father dated May 27th, 1943.’ He skimmed through it mumbling, ‘“Weekend … well and happy … thanks for the home-made bread …” Ah, here we are!’ Having found the place, Blessing’s voice changed to one of stern officialdom. ‘“Do not be alarmed when the English terror bombers get through because that too is part of the Führer’s plan. Grandmama and Cousin Paul had to die and our cities must be laid waste as part of a great strategic scheme that my poor brain cannot guess at. It’s the very measure of the genius of our highest commanders that they can allow the Amis and Tommis to drop bombs on us while they lose the war. What fools the Russians must be to think that they are winning the war merely because they are advancing on all fronts. What simpletons the British were to fall into the trap of destroying the Afrika Korps and capturing the whole of North Africa when all the time our beloved Führer had planned it thus. Trust the Führer, he is full of surprises.”’

Blessing looked up triumphantly.

‘Well?’ he said. The words had brought a terrible silence upon the group.

‘Well what, Blessing?’ said Kokke. ‘Wasn’t it a noble letter?’

‘The traitorous swine,’ said Blessing. ‘The sarcasm stands out a mile.’

‘What sarcasm?’ said Kokke. ‘Did you detect sarcasm?’ he asked Starkhof.

‘Styles of writing can be deceptive,’ fielded the old man.

‘Perhaps you’d better point out which passages seem preposterous and quite beyond your belief, Blessing,’ said Kokke.

Blessing looked again at the letter. No one spoke. Aircraft were doing circuits and bumps. One approached down the funnel, slid on to Runway 25 and, at the very moment of landing, gunned the throttle and climbed away into the circuit again. The sudden noise of the motors being opened up to full power shook the windowpanes. Three more did it before Major Redenbacher said, ‘I think you’d better tell me what other evidence you have against Himmel.’

Blessing came to attention again. ‘The stolen document was in his bedside locker last night and the previous night.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘My staff reported it.’

‘I see,’ said Redenbacher. ‘How many of your civilian staff work for the Sicherheitspolizei?’

‘Respectfully, Herr Major, I could not say.’

‘But they have keys to bedside lockers?’

‘Yes, Herr Major.’

‘My quarters are cleaned by your local civilians, Blessing. Do they have a key for my bedside table?’ Blessing did not answer. Redenbacher said, ‘What about this Operational HQ. Do your staff examine my files and desk here in this office?’

‘Not regularly, Herr Major.’

‘Only when you instruct them to do so, eh, Blessing?’

‘With respect, Herr Major, we must confine the conversation to the arrest of the spy Himmel. I request permission to take him to the Wehrmacht Prison in The Hague where a case against him will be prepared.’

‘“Be prepared”?’ echoed Redenbacher indignantly. ‘This is Nazi Germany 1943, Blessing, not some damned little South American republic. We work by the rule of law, not by the odds and ends of guesswork that you assemble when you’ve slept too late on the morning you should have made your arrest. My soldiers are entitled to freedom and bread and the rule of law. If you want to deprive my combat station at front-line readiness of one of its most skilled pilots, you must provide the proper work from your side.’

‘With respect, Herr Major, fighting Communist spies and traitors is also front-line work. It is your duty to let me take Himmel to prison where he belongs.’

‘I don’t need you to remind me of my duty, Blessing,’ said Redenbacher. ‘As for fighting Communists, I was doing that in the streets of Essen when you were still wetting your bed.’

‘You are refusing to let the prisoner be taken away?’ said Blessing.

‘No, no, no,’ interrupted Starkhof. ‘The Herr Major has made his position very clear, Blessing. And a very reasonable position it is too, if I may say so.’ He nodded at Major Redenbacher and smiled. ‘He feels that you are going off at half-cock and wants to prevent you making a fool of yourself. He’s advising you to procure more evidence, prepare your case more thoroughly, and I agree with him. At this moment I really couldn’t support you, Blessing. I think you’d better release this fellow Himmel, on the Kommandeur’s assurance that he’s kept confined to the base.’

Starkhof had judged his timing nicely. His previous silence enabled him to sound like an arbitrator (although he would have said ‘like a judge’).

It took Blessing a few seconds’ silence to realize that he had been outmanoeuvred by the wily old Abwehr man.

‘Heil Hitler,’ Blessing called loudly, stamping into the salute.

‘Heil Hitler,’ replied everyone in the room, but Kokke’s voice was shriller and louder than the others. Blessing left before the the old man, who took his time shaking the hand of each of the airmen. As he got to the door he turned and smiled to them. ‘You young gentlemen have had your fun with Blessing, and it might well result in Himmel’s dossier becoming my sole responsibility. If it does, gentlemen, then when I return we must talk more seriously than we have today. We will start afresh. And you must be careful of what you tell me, for as we lawyers say, “Decipi quam fallere est tutius”.’ He smiled again. ‘Herr Oberleutnant Löwenherz will translate.’ He closed the door.

‘It’s safer to be deceived than to deceive,’ translated Löwenherz.

‘What a character!’ said Kokke.

‘He’s an Abwehr man,’ said Löwenherz. ‘There’s no love lost between them and the SIPO.’

Redenbacher said, ‘Victor, do you think that he precipitated the arrest of young Himmel just to take over control of this case by those very means?’

‘Yes, sir, I do,’ said Löwenherz. ‘I realize now that my conversation with him on the way way here was largely dedicated to making me antagonistic to Blessing.’

‘The old fox,’ said Redenbacher. ‘If I thought he was deliberately sabotaging the work of the Sicherheitspolizei I’d report him.’

‘I wouldn’t help those bastards get their hands on my worst enemy,’ muttered Kokke.