Читать книгу Last Man to Die - Michael Dobbs - Страница 8

Cazolet squeezed on to the narrow seat and tried to make himself comfortable, knowing he had little chance of success. When the House of Commons had been hit by a stray Luftwaffe bomb in 1941 the team of firefighters, already sadly depleted by the firestorms blazing around London, had faced the choice of saving either the Commons or the more ancient and gracious construction of neighbouring Westminster Hall. The comfort and convenience of politicians was balanced in the scales by the firemen against the preservation of an important part of the nation’s Tudor heritage; the Commons had been left to burn until gutted.

For a while this had caused considerable disruption until the members of the House of Lords came to the rescue and gave over to their common-born colleagues the facilities of the undamaged Upper Chamber, a still more impressive Gothic edifice than the one left smouldering in ruins. Yet their hospitality had not stretched to the civil servants who accompany ministers, and so Cazolet and his kind were condemned to squashing on to a row of hard wooden stools tucked away in one corner. Not even the glories of uninhibited Victorian craftsmanship could do much to distract from the numbness that crept over Cazolet’s body less than ten minutes after perching on one of those hideous stools. Still, today he had other distractions and for once had forgotten that he could feel little from his shirt tail down.

An air of expectation filled the Chamber. Members of Parliament, many of them in the uniforms of the armed forces in which they served, bustled to find themselves a position on the red leather benches while others loitered around the extravagantly carved oak canopy covering the sovereign’s throne. Something was up. The word had gone round – the Prime Minister was coming to the House to make an important statement – everyone wanted to be in on it. Cazolet sat with a conspiratorial smile; these were the times he found his job so rewarding, when the whole world seemed to wait upon a prime ministerial utterance, the words of which Cazolet himself had drafted. And this one was going to be a cracker.

The Prime Minister walked purposefully into the Chamber, conspicuous in full morning dress with flowing coat tails, a spotted and loosely secured bow tie at his throat and his father’s gold watch fob stretched across the front of his waistcoat. The outfit was not new, indeed it gave the solid impression of having been made for him at least twenty years earlier, since it bulged and stretched in too many places. It should have been replaced long ago, but he felt comfortable in it. Anyway, Clemmie was always nagging him to be less extravagant.

No sooner had he found his place on the front bench than he was given the floor. ‘Mr Speaker, I pray the House will forgive the exuberance of my attire,’ he began, a thumb stuck firmly in his waistcoat pocket. The Old Man was teasing them, keeping them waiting, building up the atmosphere. ‘I have not, as some Honourable Members might conclude, come straight from the racecourse’ – there was a ripple of polite laughter. It wasn’t a very good joke, but if he could begin with any form of joke the news must be exceptional – ‘but from an audience with His Majesty the King. Just an hour or so ago I received news which I thought it only right to share with him and with the House at the first possible opportunity.’

‘He’s called an election,’ someone shouted from the back benches. It was a Labour MP renowned for his ready heckle, and Churchill rose willingly to the bait as more laughter washed across the House.

‘No, sir! The Honourable Gentleman must contain his impatience. He reminds me of a Black Widow spider, anxious for his date with destiny but who will undoubtedly discover that his love affair with the electorate will end only in his being brutally devoured.’

The Old Man was in good form, and there was general waving of Order Papers around the Chamber. The antagonisms of partisan politics had been laid to one side during the lifetime of the coalition government which Churchill led, but they were never far below the surface and were getting less restrained as it became apparent that an election and a return to normal parliamentary hostilities must be only weeks away.

‘Mr Speaker, sir, the whole House will know that a few days ago the Allied armies reached the western bank of the Rhine, the historical border of Germany.’ A low chorus of approval rose from the MPs, but Churchill quickly raised his hand to silence them. His tone had grown suddenly more serious. ‘No one could have been in any doubt that the crossing of the Rhine would be a deeply hazardous enterprise, with all the bridges across that vast river destroyed and the Nazi armies fighting fanatically to protect the homeland with their own towns and villages at their backs.’ He paused while he took a large linen handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers to clear his nose, and the habitual crease that ran down the centre of his forehead deepened into a frown. The Chamber was completely silent. Was it bad news after all? He had them all in his grasp – all, that is, except Cazolet, who struggled to contain his smile as he watched his master trifling with their emotions.

‘The Rhine is the last great barrier standing between our armies and complete victory. I have to tell this House that late last night a junior officer, a lieutenant, of the United States First Army, succeeded in’ – he hesitated slightly, toying with the words – ‘walking across a bridge at a small town called Remagen. It appears that the Germans, in their anxiety, failed to blow the bridge properly. Mr Speaker, the Rhine has been crossed. We have a bridgehead on German soil!’

The announcement was greeted with an outpouring of relief and jubilation on all sides, many Members rising to their feet to applaud and others shaking the hands of opponents they would normally have difficulty addressing in a civil tone. Churchill stood, triumphant in their midst, yet wishing for all the world that he were young again and could exchange his role for that of the lowly American lieutenant.

Once he had resumed his seat, other MPs rose to offer their congratulations and thoughts, giving the Prime Minister fresh opportunity to bask in the sun of military success.

‘What did you advise the King?’ asked one.

The Prime Minister’s demeanour was full of mischief. ‘The House may not know that in the dark days of 1940 I gave His Majesty a carbine, for his own personal use in the event of invasion.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I advised him that it was my firm opinion he would no longer need it.’

They loved it. Churchill’s sole regret was that he couldn’t hold the election instantly in the midst of such unqualified rejoicing. More questions, more praise. No one expected other than further fulsome accolades when Captain the Honourable Gerald Wickham-Browne, MC, DSM, caught the Speaker’s attention. The captain, junior scion of minor aristocracy, had lost an eye during the retreat from Dunkirk yet still managed to regard military combat with the sort of unrestrained enthusiasm normally found only amongst schoolchildren at a cup final. He was on his feet, standing in parade ground fashion, hands clasped behind his back and black eye-patch thrust proudly towards the distant ceiling. But he was not a happy man.

‘Is the Prime Minister aware, as delighted as I am to hear the news, that the honour of being the first to cross the Rhine was to have been left to British troops under General Montgomery? While of course we are delighted at the Americans’ good fortune in being able simply to walk across’ – Cazolet marvelled at how Wickham-Browne managed to make it sound as if a mongrel had run off with a string of prize sausages – ‘what is now to be the role of British troops, who have been preparing for months for the storming of the Rhine and who by sheer bad luck have been denied their share of this triumph? Are we to get anything by way of …’ He hesitated, unsure of the most appropriate word, before deciding it didn’t matter a damn anyway. ‘… compensation?’

Churchill rose to respond, his chin working up and down as he sought for the words of his reply, rubbing his thumbs in the palms of his hands in instinctive search for the cigar he wished he were smoking. ‘Let us not quibble over the fortunes of war. It is enough that the Rhine has been crossed. But let us not forget what this event has proved to us. First, that German resistance is crumbling. And second, that if we can pursue the battle with speed and flexibility, and can grasp the opportunities which confusion and indiscipline amongst the enemy may present, then nothing can stop our march across Germany. I have no doubt that now is the moment of our greatest opportunity, and that British forces will be in the vanguard of the victory which is surely to come. I have already telegraphed my sincerest congratulations to General Eisenhower and told him that our troops stand ready for the next challenge. Onward Britannia! Nothing can stop us now!’

At times of great crisis, words can be more powerful than bullets. Churchill had proved that time and again during the days of the Blitz when he had precious few bullets and little else with which to resist the enemy and to maintain British morale. He was conscious of the effect his words could have, yet, as he resumed his seat to the congratulations of his parliamentary colleagues, he had not the slightest notion of the impact they were causing several hundred miles away, at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, where his congratulatory telegram was bursting into fire like a grenade thrown through the window.

‘What in God’s name is this crap?’ The message trembled in Eisenhower’s hand.

British troops are ready … Now is the moment to swarm across the bridgehead at Remagen …

The flush of anger was spreading across his face as he read every new sentence. The adjutant who had delivered the telegram took another precautionary step backwards; the general was reputed to have an unreliable temper, and he didn’t care to be around to suffer the uncertain consequences.

German resistance and morale may collapse if you strike before the enemy has time to regroup …

Eisenhower continued to quote from Churchill’s missive. ‘Shit, doesn’t he realize we’ve got less than two hundred men perched on that bridgehead and they could get blown away any time? If we put so much as another pack of paperclips across that stinking bridge it’ll topple into the river. What’ll happen then? Our guys on the bridgehead become sandwich meat, that’s what!’

Suddenly he pounded his head as if to inflict punishment on himself. ‘What a fool I am … Losing my wits. Why didn’t I realize straight away what that scheming old bastard was up to?’ He read on.

The arguments for a direct drive on the German capital become irresistible. Let us drive down the autobahns which Hitler himself has built and not dare to stop until we have reached Berlin.

‘Berlin! So that’s still his game.’

He turned in his chair and screamed through the open door into the next office to his chief of staff. ‘Beetle! Get in here and bring a stenographer. I want to send a reply.’

Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith and the stenographer scuttled in without a word and perched in front of Eisenhower. There they sat, pencils poised, for several long moments while Eisenhower remained lost in thought. Ice seemed to have taken the place of the fires within him. Eventually Bedell Smith could stand the uncertainty no longer.

‘Changed your mind?’

Eisenhower raised his head from his thoughts and looked at him with piercing blue eyes.

‘Beetle, how do I say “Fuck You” in British?’

The commander tapped his stick against the chair to demand silence. In the darkness of the night the entire prisoner complement of Transit Camp 174B huddled together on the exercise square in search of companionship and warmth, forming a human amphitheatre around the flames of an open fire. Their faces stared gaunt and drained of colour in the flickering light like ghosts gathered around a grave. They expected no comfort from the commander’s words. An Ehrenrat had been called, a ‘Council of Elders’, and that only happened when there was a real mess.

The commander sat at their head, with his two senior officers on either side and several others standing behind. He was leaning on his stick even while seated, his face a lurid mask as some player in a tragedy.

‘My friends,’ the commander began. A few of them noticed that he had forsaken his customary formal greeting – ‘Men of the Wehrmacht!’; there was no suggestion of command in his voice. ‘My friends, I have gathered you all together to share with you the news I was given today. I can find no words to lessen the pain, and so I …’ He lowered his head, struggling for composure and fresh strength. He cleared his throat, as if the words were sticking in his gullet like phlegm.

‘The Russians are fighting on German soil. They are already well advanced into Pomerania, and have crossed the Oder. They are less than a hundred miles from the Hauptstadt, Berlin.’

The words carved like a razor through their midst as damp wood spat on the burning pyre, cremating their last hope of salvation. No one bothered to contest the news, to pretend it was enemy propaganda. Such bravado belonged to the days when they had bombers in the air and food in their bellies, and those days were long since gone. They all understood what the news meant. Many of them had fought on the Russian Front, had seen the bestiality with which the Russian peasant soldiers treated captured Wehrmacht and civilians alike. They had found the mass graves of butchered officers, shot in the back of the head, of the women raped and mutilated, of the children slaughtered for no reason other than they had got in the way. The Russians knew only one method of fighting war, to the bitter end, and that end was now in sight. Cossacks swarming through their homeland, penetrating their villages and their women, pillaging everything and everyone in their path. They, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht, had failed, leaving their loved ones to pay the price.

‘I’m so sorry,’ was all the commander could find to say. He fell into silence until it became oppressive and he had to find something else to break it. ‘My only satisfaction is that you have survived. You are brave men, I have fought and served with many of you. We have survived. That, at least, is something. Perhaps we may yet have the opportunity of rebuilding our country …’

He trailed off in a savage fit. of coughing. There was shrapnel in his lungs and in other vital parts of his body, and to a man they knew that whatever might lie in store for the rest of them, the commander would not be part of it. They had all seen the tell-tale translucence of the skin clinging to his skull, the glaze across his eyes and the bloodstains on his handkerchief; only his pride and sense of duty had kept him going this far. In sympathy and silent embarrassment they watched as the commander brought up a little more of his rapidly fading life.

They stood aimlessly, staring silently into the flames, dispirited and without hope, lost in contemplation of a homeland far away. Then something moved, a man, one of their own, who stepped forward into the circle surrounding the fire. He wore the tattered uniform of an Oberleutnant in some tank regiment – it was impossible to tell which; almost all the insignia were missing. Nevertheless he was a striking-looking figure, tall, lean to the point of gauntness, his cropped black hair parted near the middle so that it stood up in a defiant, almost disrespectful manner before flopping across the forehead of his long face. His features were finely carved as if sculpted from smooth clay, his cheekbones high – looks that suggested intelligence and sensitivity which seemed out of place in the middle of a band of warriors. Yet he had obviously seen combat, and sported a scar through the top of his lip which dragged one edge of his mouth downward, giving the impression of a perpetual sardonic smile. There was suffering in the face, and nowhere more clearly than in the eyes which were remarkably dark and deep-set as if trying to keep their distance from the world. They were careworn from more than just the numbing tiredness of past combat, yet as the commander gazed at him they became almost transparent. He felt he was peering right into the man’s inner soul, and inside he could see flames of torment. There was passion and anger in this man. The prisoner snapped to attention.

‘Permission to speak, sir?’

‘You are …?’

‘My name is Hencke, sir.’

The commander nodded for him to continue.

‘I have family in the east, in the Sudetenland. For all I know, the Russians are there already.’ There were sympathetic nods from amongst the men. ‘Your pardon, Commander, but I’m not content to sit idly back on my ass comforting myself in the thought that I am a survivor while those I love face the Russians. Sir!’

The reprimand implicit in his words and the rough language used to his commanding officer caused a stir of anger, but the commander waved it away. He was too tired to fight, particularly with one of his own men.

‘I intended no sense of satisfaction in what I said, Hencke, but survival is all we have to look forward to. I fear there is little other choice.’

‘I believe we always have a choice …’ The sting of accusation in his voice had guaranteed him a hearing, but now he had their attention and his voice softened. ‘Sir, it is the duty of German officers to resist. It is an oath of duty which we have all taken and which still, to us all, should be sacred.’

‘An oath to generals and politicians who got us into this mess?’ a voice interrupted from the darkness at the edge of the fire.

Hencke turned in the direction of the questioner. He had begun addressing the whole group, not just reporting to his senior officer, holding centre stage in the midst of an audience he could scarcely see in the night gloom. His gaze travelled around the group slowly, deliberately, piercing through the darkness at the shadowy masks which confronted him, probing like a scalpel into their inner thoughts. ‘I agree. What have our beloved generals and politicians done for me? I haven’t even got buttons to do up my flies anymore, and my proudest possession is the piece of string I use for a belt. It’s difficult marching unquestioningly behind your leaders with your trousers round your ankles – present commanders excepted, sir.’

A stirring of appreciation rustled through the prisoners.

‘Whether our leaders have let us down or not, my oath of duty wasn’t taken for their personal benefit but for my country and for those I left behind. It’s them I’m interested in. They are the ones who deserve our help. And we’re doing nothing to help them sitting round here scratching ourselves and gossiping about three “Fs”.’

‘Three “Fs”?’ enquired the commander wearily.

‘Er, “Food”, “Freedom” and …“Females”, sir,’ one of his subordinates leaned over to advise him.

‘Forget the females. I’d sell my mother for a tin of corned beef,’ a voice volunteered from out of the shadows to general approval.

‘Tell me, Hencke,’ the commander continued. ‘I share your frustration. But what on earth can we do? This is a prison camp, for God’s sake.’

Hencke delayed his reply, giving them time to silence their shuffling, giving him command of the stage. When he resumed his tone was once again harsh. ‘What can we do? Why, we can roll over and let the guards kick us whenever they feel bored. We can continue to scrabble around in the mud for the scraps of food they choose to throw at us, hoping they’ll get so tired of all this that one day they will simply throw open the gates and let us struggle back home. “One day. Some day. Never”,’ he mimicked the words of a song of lost love popular in Germany. ‘In the meantime what are we left with? “Wag your tail” – “Lick my boots” – “Sit up and beg” – “Bend over”.’ He was moving around the circle, inviting contradiction as he threw the guards’ taunts at them. None came. ‘Or we can remind our captors that we are still German soldiers, that simply because they wish to treat us like dogs there’s no need for us to act like dogs. Show them that we’re not garbage, that we’re not here just for them to piss on whenever they feel like a bit of fun. OK, they may have captured us, but for God’s sake don’t allow them to crush us. Let’s show that we’re still men!’

‘How? In Heaven’s name, how can we resist in here?’ The commander’s voice was plaintive as he swung his cane around to indicate the barbed wire surrounding them.

‘Not in here, sir. Out there.’

‘What? You mean …’

‘Escape.’

‘But that’s preposterous, Hencke. No German has managed to escape from Britain back to Germany through the course of this entire war. Not a single one! And you are willing to risk your life gambling against odds like that?’

‘It’s better than staying here to have a finger shoved up my ass. Sir.’

‘I cannot allow you to escape, Hencke. It would be folly.’

‘I’m not suggesting that I escape, sir. I’m suggesting we all do.’

His words hit the assembly like ice water, and the men began to shake themselves as if to get rid of an unwelcome drenching.

‘Think about it, just for a second,’ Hencke continued, anxious not to lose their attention as he resumed his walk, cat-like, around the circle. ‘It’s because no one’s ever escaped that it makes such sense. The guards are pig-lazy and idle, the last thing they expect is trouble. And if we all get out, the confusion will be huge, there’ll be a far greater chance of at least one of us making it back.’

‘It’s worth a shot,’ someone prompted.

‘That’s all you’re likely to get – shot!’ retorted the commander, wiping spittle from his lips. He had seen so much unnecessary death, his conscience couldn’t take responsibility for permitting still more.

‘Sir, when did you ever hear of a German POW being shot after trying to escape? These British are sticklers for the rules. Twenty-eight days’ solitary is the maximum they’re allowed to throw at us.’

‘Yes, but these Canadians don’t play by the rule book …’

‘This is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to get our own back. What the hell are the Canadians going to do if they lose an entire campful of prisoners? More to the point, what are the British going to do to the Canadians? It’s our chance to get our own back, to catch them with their trousers down!’

‘Oh, yes. It’d screw the verdammten Canadians rigid,’ a prisoner applauded. ‘I’d just like to see Pilsudski’s face the morning after. I’d risk anything for that.’

‘But what purpose would it achieve?’ the commander began, lacking the strength to join in the enthusiasm that was beginning to bloom around him.

‘It would show our loved ones back home that, whatever they are about to go through, we have not forgotten them,’ Hencke responded quietly, his words massaging away the doubts. ‘That we remembered our duty to them. That we share the burden of their suffering. That we are still their men. Anyway, what’s the alternative? Staying behind for more of this!’ He stuck his middle finger in the air, imitating the gesture Pilsudski had thrown at the commander, and a shiver of fury cut through the assembly.

The commanding officer could sense the change of mood and motivation amongst his men. A chance to revenge the humiliation, to end the despair, no longer to be Pilsudski’s catamites. To become whole men once again. It was his duty to stop it, of course; it was folly. But he no longer had the energy to resist. He sat, head resting in exhaustion on the top of his cane, unable to find any further protest while those around him began to chatter away with more animation and spirit than they had found since entering Camp 174B.

Hencke smiled grimly. The escape was on. His mission had begun.

Churchill attempted to wipe the dribble of rich gravy from his waistcoat with a crisp linen napkin, but all his effort served only to impregnate the grease more firmly into the fibre. He gave up the unequal struggle; the stain wouldn’t be noticed, anyway, amongst all the rest. Perhaps he should have felt a prick of conscience surrounded by so much good food while most of the country were struggling on a weekly meat ration that looked no more appetizing than a Trafalgar Square pigeon and eating breakfasts concocted from powdered egg that had the consistency of fast-drying concrete and much the same impact on the digestive system. Still, he could no more stand the pace on an empty stomach than he could run a war without shedding blood. Conscience often had to go into cold storage. So he would enjoy his food and his bathtime and continue to exhort others to use no more than five inches of water.

The Old Man was content. A few close friends, their wives glittering in all their pre-war finery, made an attentive audience. The ten diners had just finished demolishing a haunch of venison shot a few days previously on the Scottish estate of the host, Sir William Muirhead, and ferried down to London for the occasion. Runner beans from the hot-houses of Cornwall had also been served, bought off-ration but at lavish price, and washed down with a splendid claret. The war had played merry hell with current French vintages, but the best stock had been well preserved, stored deep in cellars, far out of reach of the Luftwaffe. All part of God’s great plan, mused Churchill as he finished another glass.

‘Seems that the flood of American soldiers through London is playing havoc with prices in the West End,’ chirped Sir William’s wife. That afternoon she had come back from an expedition to Fortnum’s, bemoaning the fact that not only had their prices for afternoon tea gone up but, far worse, she’d had to queue for more than ten minutes behind a group of GIs before getting a table. They had even left their tip, not discreetly under the plate but on top, right out for everyone to see. So vulgar.

‘Makes a change from the Free French, I suppose,’ Churchill pouted through a lopsided, indulgent grin.

Lady Muirhead failed to notice the glint in his eye. ‘I’m sorry, Winston?’

‘Prices in the West End. The Free French. Apparently every street-walker in London claims to belong to the Free French. Although scarcely any of them are French. And none of them, so I’m told, are free!’

There was general laughter as the PM relaxed amongst old friends, only the long-suffering Clemmie showing little appreciation. She’d heard it all before.

Another of the wives joined in. ‘Do you know, I heard the other day that a bus full of schoolchildren had been brought into the West End to see the lights turned on, now the blackout has been lifted. Seems they were all terrified. Never seen anything like it before. Burst into tears and demanded to be taken back home.’

The laughter was less genuine, and Churchill chose not to join in. The comment had been silly and insensitive. What was there to laugh about with a generation of children brought up in a world of darkness and fear, where even the half-lights allowed by the new regulations caused confusion and misery? It was going to take a very long time to get back to normal after this war; indeed, it would take an effort as great as the war itself to rebuild what had been shattered. Did the country – did he – still have the fight for it? He thought of the forthcoming election once more, and that feeling of nervousness returned.

His host noticed the faraway look beginning to creep into Churchill’s eye and decided to intervene. ‘Winston, I think it’s time for a toast,’ he said, refilling the Old Man’s glass. ‘I sometimes wondered whether we would ever reach this point, but at last it seems as if the war is almost over. We’ve won – no, you’ve won the war, Winston. I know those Yankee interlopers have come in for the finish, just like they did last time, and will no doubt claim much of the credit …’

‘Just like they did last time!’ someone added.

‘But it wouldn’t have happened, couldn’t have happened without you and what you’ve done. I know there will be many more toasts in the weeks and months ahead, but as an old friend it would do me great honour if this could be the first.’ He raised his glass. ‘To you, Winston. With our thanks for winning the war.’

It was a genuine accolade, made all the more poignant because as an old friend there was no need for Muirhead to have made the gesture. There was a mutter of appreciation from around the table as the others joined in, and already Churchill’s eyes were brimming with tears. He wiped the trickle away with the flat of his hand.

‘Not quite over yet, you know. Still all to play for,’ was the only response he seemed able to mount as Clemmie reached over to pat her own tribute.

‘Still all to play for’, Churchill heard the echo in his mind. Was it so? Eisenhower’s response to his telegram, received that afternoon, had been blunt. ‘Keeping all options open,’ it had said. ‘Review the situation on an ongoing basis … No rush to judgement.’ All the cliches at which an American military mind could clutch. But in the event, Eisenhower’s unwillingness to impair his authority over military matters had been clear and uncompromising. The hard facts were inescapable.

‘I have not won this war, Bill,’ Churchill continued, in a tone that dampened the reverie around the table. He waved down the polite protest of his host. ‘Perhaps historians will be kind and maybe it will be said that I prevented us from losing the war, after Dunkirk. But look around us. Look not just at the West End of London, but across the battlefields of Europe. This war is now an American war, fought with American guns, American money and American lives. Today they have more troops engaged in combat than the whole of the British Empire. It is the Americans who will win this war, eventually. And, to my everlasting regret, it is they who will be largely responsible for the peace.’

As his host picked up the conversation, Churchill could not but remember the words of Eisenhower’s response. Far from pouring through the bridgehead at Remagen, the Supreme Allied Commander was being cautious, blaming the fragile state of the bridge, stating that it would take several days before it was clear whether the bridgehead would hold. So British troops in the north who were ready to advance on Berlin would have to continue sitting on their backsides while Eisenhower’s penpushers dithered about whether US troops had enough prophylactics and nylons for the battle ahead. Damn the man! The war wasn’t over yet and he wasn’t ready to watch American generosity give away everything he had fought for. As he poured himself a brandy, Churchill resolved once more: He wasn’t going to let go, there was too much at stake. While Eisenhower prevaricated, the peace was being lost. The Americans would have to be persuaded or pushed into changing their plans, to set aside their fears of an Alpine Redoubt. Not for the first time he cursed the shortsightedness of others; once again, as at Dunkirk, he was fighting alone. But fighting he was. By one means or another, they would get to Berlin first!

Dinner that night at Camp 174B had been a quiet affair. Not that a mixture of sausage, canned herring and white bread eaten out of an empty corned beef tin and washed down with a mug of tea ever excited great enthusiasm, but the guards were grateful it had been finished rapidly. It left more time for a game of cards and a quiet cigarette.

It was shortly before dusk when one of the Canadian captors’ attention had been attracted by a soldier beckoning in his direction from the shadows of a tent. As he approached he saw the prisoner held a watch in his hand; it was to be a trade. Another Kraut who wanted extra rations or a dry pair of boots.

They moved behind the tent to put themselves away from the general body of prisoners. Illicit trading like this went on all the time, but it paid to be cautious. You didn’t want the whole world to know that you were getting a genuine Swiss watch with twelve diamonds in the movement for the price of a couple of packs of cigarettes. Yet this deal was proving tricky. It was an excellent watch, one of the best the guard had seen in the camp, but the prisoner was demanding a ridiculous price.

It was as they were bent over in heated discussion, the guard wondering whether he should just confiscate the thing anyway, that he felt the cold touch of steel on the back of his neck.

‘Don’t try to be a hero. Just do as you’re told, friend,’ a voice said in heavily accented English. ‘Put down your rifle slowly.’

He tried to turn round but the steel jabbed into his neck. ‘I’ll blow your head off if you try anything stupid.’

‘You can’t have got a gun – even if you had you wouldn’t dare use it,’ the Canadian protested, the uncertainty flooding through.

‘You’re going to gamble your life on it?’

‘What do you want?’

‘Your rifle laid on the ground, very slowly.’

‘Or else?’

‘Or else you die, my friend.’

Shit, why did it have to be him? The war nearly over, soon back to the farm outside Calgary with lots of silly stories to impress the girls about how he personally beat Hitler and won the war. And there would be no damn medals for getting his balls blown off in this God-forsaken part of Britain, a million miles from the front. Slowly, very slowly, he bent down and placed his rifle on the ground.

‘Wise move, soldier.’

The guard didn’t even have time to stand erect. No sooner was his hand away from the trigger than he was hit from behind with the heavy metal bracket that had been wrenched from a camp bed and held against his neck. It wasn’t a very good imitation gun, but now it didn’t matter. They had a real one, and a guard’s uniform. All the tools they hoped they would need …

The brandy was flowing, and Churchill was once again in excellent humour. The women had withdrawn to another room, leaving the men to their own devices. In the absence of the ladies it had been confirmed that prices in the West End had indeed soared, and the only thing the whores were offering free was abuse.

‘It was the same during the last war,’ Muirhead confirmed, to the amusement of his guests. ‘Nothing changes.’

‘My dear sir, but it does,’ Churchill interjected forcefully, wagging his cigar across the table and scattering ash everywhere. ‘How well I remember, when I had returned from the Boer War, I received several very encouraging propositions from such ladies who made it abundantly clear that there would be no charge. I can only ascribe the present unhappy bout of inflation in the West End to a sad decline in values.’ He chortled along with the rest, enjoying his own joke.

‘That was rather special,’ Muirhead chided. ‘You had just escaped from a Boer prison camp and been chased across half of Africa by their army.’

This was why the Old Man enjoyed Muirhead’s dinners; the host always made a point of giving him plenty of scope for relating some of his favourite stories.

‘Why bother to escape, Winston? What drove you to it?’ enquired one of the guests.

And with scarcely time for a perfunctory cough of modesty, he was off. ‘The Boer’ – he pronounced it ‘Booa’, as if to emphasize the race’s reputation for thick-skinned stubbornness – ‘the Boer has so little imagination. A diet of maize and dried beef or, if we were fortunate, dried beef and maize – it was impossible! I would simply have faded away. So you see, my escape was not a matter of bravery. I had no choice in the matter. My stomach insisted.’ He smiled, using his fingers to pop a little cube of cheese into his mouth which he chewed with relish.

‘“Winston Churchill: Dead or Alive”,’ Sir William offered.

‘If only the British electorate had wanted me as passionately as the Boers!’

While the other guests chuckled, Churchill paused to scratch his crotch with a total lack of self-consciousness. His table manners were atrocious. He had long ago ceased to bother about such trivial things, and when Clemmie had forcefully reprimanded him he had justified his behaviour as the self-indulgence of an old man. Anyway, he countered, it hadn’t caused any slackening in the flood of dinner invitations.

‘Seriously, Winston. If you had been captured you most certainly would have been shot, if only to discourage others. Why risk your life? Was it really that important?’

‘I never realized how important until I returned home, where I found that my escape had been the focus of the newspapers’ attention for weeks. Unwittingly I had become a hero, a symbol of national resistance, and my escape had succeeded in bolstering the determination of the entire country to continue with the war until victory. It is a matter of morale, and you cannot fight a war without morale. As one editor kindly wrote, “One man, by his actions and example, can so inspire a nation that he will light a fire across a whole continent”.’

There was an appreciative silence around the room and a look of sheer wickedness crept into the Old Man’s eye. ‘And, as I discovered, you can get a good discount into the bargain!’

The camp was in darkness. There were no lights along the perimeter fence and the only illumination came from within the old football changing rooms, which now served as a guard hut, and from the bright moon. But it was a blustery night with clouds scudding across the sky. Had any of the guards bothered to look they would have found shadowy figures flitting between the tents, playing hide-and-seek in the sporadic moonlight, but most of the Canadians were relaxing in the guard hut. There were just four guards on the main gate into the compound, and two patrolling the walkway between the double perimeter fence. Guard duty was a pain; there had never been any trouble and no prisoner in his right mind would want to escape back to the hell pit they’d just left in Europe. They were all, prisoners and guards alike, marking time till the fighting was over.

So when, from inside the shadowy compound, the pair patrolling the perimeter walkway saw one of their number beckoning to them, no suspicion was aroused. He had probably found two prisoners screwing or some other bit of fun to enliven the endless night hours of cold and boredom. They let themselves into the compound through a side gate in the wire; they didn’t even think twice that the gateway was shielded from the main guard house across the compound by the prisoners’ tents. After all, they hadn’t put the tents there. Even after they darted between two of the tents and came face to face with their fellow guard pointing his Lee Enfield straight at them, they were still not concerned. It was only when they heard the familiar click of a round being forced into the chamber that they realized all was not well, and not until the moon had squeezed briefly between the clouds and fallen across Hencke’s lean and determined face did they realize that this was not, after all, going to be their night.

‘But you’re …’ one gasped in sudden understanding. It came too late. They had already raised their hands and were being relieved of their weapons.

‘I … don’t want to die,’ the youngest guard blubbed as his wrists were tied behind him with a length of guy rope.

‘Keep your miserable mouth shut and you won’t have to,’ a prisoner responded. The young guard was almost relieved when he felt the gag pushed firmly between his teeth.

The guards’ legs were pinioned and they were bundled into the corner of one of the tents. It was only when the prisoners were leaving that one of them remembered. ‘You’re the miserable little bastard who held my head down on the table the other day, aren’t you?’ The youngster’s eyes, all that could be seen above the gag, showed large and white. He was petrified. ‘I’ll never forget that. You were laughing your head off.’ The prisoner stiffened and swung back a leg as if to smash the Canadian’s testicles. None of the other prisoners did or said anything to stop him; the guard deserved everything he got. But as the German looked at the whimpering body on the ground in front of him, he seemed to change his mind. He knew what it was like to be defenceless and scared. He spat in disgust and turned on his heel. Escape would be revenge enough.

A few minutes later a group of men moved towards the guard house, eight prisoners being marched sullenly along with three uniformed guards, rifles at the ready, escorting them from the rear.

‘Open the gate!’ one of the guards shouted. ‘Got a bunch of troublemakers who need a little gentle reminding of who’s in charge of this friggin’ camp.’

The gates swung open and the prisoners marched through. The duty sergeant nodded as they approached, his rifle slung over his back as he took a drag from a cigarette. He waved a lazy torch in their direction. Hencke was standing directly in front of him before the beam fell across his face.

‘Heil Hitler,’ Hencke snapped.

‘What …?’ was the only word the sergeant managed to expel before a rifle butt thumped him in the gut, putting him on the floor and rendering him incapable of any noise except a low gurgling retch. Around him the other guards were receiving similar treatment before being trussed and dragged off to join their companions in the tent.

The prisoners now had seven rifles. They also had surprise on their side and there was scarcely a protest when they burst into the guard hut and over-powered sixteen other guards. The seventeenth, the captain on duty, was taking a shower and thought the interruption was some prank by the other guards. He was not in good temper when he stepped from under the water to remonstrate, with nothing more than a sponge to maintain the dignity he thought due his senior rank. He was in even poorer temper after he had been bound and, minus even his sponge, dumped with the other captive guards.

‘I’ll freeze to death,’ he complained.

‘Be grateful that dying will take you so long,’ came the response, after which the captain ceased protesting and saved his energy for trying to burrow as deeply as possible into the pile of warm bodies inside the tent.

The break-out had been conducted with ruthless German team work, but now it was every man for himself. They knew the prospects were not good; there had been no time for preparations. There was no civilian clothing, no maps, precious little food or money, what chance did they have? But they were free. Even an hour of freedom was enough. It would be a night to remember.

‘Seeing the look on that stupid captain’s face made it all worth while for me,’ one of the prisoners smiled, pausing to shake Hencke’s hand. ‘The only pity is that Pilsudski’s not around for a little of his own treatment. Still, maybe he’ll get that from his court martial. Thanks, Hencke. We owe you,’ he said before turning to jog through the camp gates and into the unknown.

Then the commander was in front of him, bent over his stick, wheezing. ‘Good wishes, Hencke. It’s madness, but lots of luck.’

Hencke looked into the other’s exhausted face, then down at his stick.

‘I’m not going anywhere, you know that,’ the commander said. ‘Wouldn’t make it past the gate and I’d only be a burden. I’m going to stay here, if you don’t mind, and wait till the relief guard arrives in the morning. It will be enough for me to see what happens to Pilsudski when the British discover they’ve got the biggest prisoner escape of the war on their hands. Might stretch even their sense of humour …’ He tried to smile but the effort was too much for him and he began coughing again. There was an air past caring about him and his eyes had taken on that distant, dull look of approaching death. He rested his weight against Hencke, trying to regain his breath. ‘One thing, Hencke. I don’t know who you are or where you come from, but you’re special. I’ve seen the way you can lead men and the desire that drives you on. I don’t mind admitting that you frighten me a little; such passion is extraordinary. It makes me wonder how, with such commitment, we managed to lose this wretched war …’

‘It’s not over yet. There’s still plenty of dying to be done.’

‘Plenty of dying to be done … You’re right, of course.’ The commander reflected on the words for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose anyone will make it back home but, if they do, it will be you. I want to ask you a favour. I’m not going to get back, not this time or ever. I don’t have long, and you may be the last German I ever talk to.’ The commander’s hand reached out to grab Hencke with the force of desperation. ‘My wife and children … they’re in Stettin. If it’s not already in Russian hands it soon will be. Please …’ He scrabbled feverishly inside his uniform, producing a letter which he thrust at Hencke. ‘Get this to them. It’s my last chance, the last time I’ll ever …’ His breathing pattern was gone again and he struggled to find a little more energy, pulling in rasping lungfuls of air. ‘If you’ve ever loved anyone you’ll know how important this is to me. Do it for me, Hencke. Your word of honour, one German officer to another. Give this letter to them, with my love. If you get back.’

‘When I get back.’

The commander nodded in agreement. ‘How will you?’

‘There’s a motorbike around the back of the guard hut.’

‘You’re surely not going to use the main roads! They’ll be bound to pick you up.’

‘There are nearly two hundred and fifty escaping prisoners. None of them has the slightest idea what to do or where he’s going. Most of them have only the vaguest idea even where they are. So they’ll shy away from the towns and take to the countryside, moving by night. And the British will know that anything that moves through the woods at night for a hundred miles around this place will be either an escaped prisoner or a fox. In the mood they are likely to be in, chances are they’ll shoot, just to be on the safe side.’

The commander shook his head in confusion at this blunt assessment, so much more callous than the one Hencke had offered around the camp fire. ‘You talk about “them”, as if you are quite separate, on your own.’

‘The only chance anyone has is not to do what the rest of the crowd does. I’ve got four, maybe five hours to get well clear of this place before it starts swarming with troops. So I’m going to borrow the bike and take to the roads. All roads lead somewhere.’ He began his preparations to depart, buttoning up the Canadian tunic which he was still wearing.

‘Not in enemy uniform, for God’s sake. They’ll shoot you for sure!’

‘They’ve got to catch me first,’ Hencke shouted back over his shoulder.

Moments later the sound of an engine, a Norton 250, began throbbing through the night. ‘They even left a map with it,’ he smiled in triumph, revving the bike before letting out the clutch with a snap which sent a shower of wet dirt cascading into the air. Hencke was gone.

The commander gazed after the disappearing figure. ‘You are a strange one, Hencke. But I chose the right man. You’ll get back to wherever you came from, I’m sure. Even if it’s the other side of hell.’

He could neither see nor hear the motorbike by the time it pulled up sharply several hundred yards beyond the camp gates. Hencke reached into the pocket of his tunic where the commander had stuffed the precious envelope. ‘My word of honour,’ he whispered, ‘one German officer to another.’ The dark eyes glowed with contempt as he tore the letter into a hundred tiny fragments, sent scattering in the wind as he rode away.