LEN DEIGHTON

Bomber

Events relating to the last flight of an RAF Bomber over Germany on the night of June 31st, 1943

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape Ltd 1970

Copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 1970

Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2009

Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design © Arnold Schwartzman 2009

The words from the song ‘Easy Come, Easy Go’ (composed by John Green and written by Edward Heyman; copyright 1934 by Warner Bros 7 Arts Music) are reproduced by kind permission of Chappell & Co Ltd

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780586045442

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007347728

Version: 2017-05-22

Epigraph

Ritual: A system of religious or magical ceremonies or procedures frequently with special forms of words or a special (and secret) vocabulary, and usually associated with important occasions or actions.

Dr J. Dever,

Dictionary of Psychology (Penguin Books)

Between February 1965 and July 31st, 1968, the American bombing missions in Vietnam numbered 107,700. The tonnage of bombs and rockets totalled 2,581,876.

Keisinger’s Continuous Archives

The attitude of the gallant Six Hundred which so aroused Lord Tennyson’s admiration arose from the fact that the least disposition to ask the reason why was discouraged by tricing the would-be inquirer to the triangle and flogging him into insensibility.

F. J. Veale,

Advance to Barbarism (Mitre Press, 1968)

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Map

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Map

Introduction

Bomber was the first fiction book written using what is now called a ‘word processor’. In 1969 that name did not exist. It was an IBM engineer visiting my home at the Elephant and Castle in London to check my golfball typewriter, who asked me: ‘Do you know how many times your secretary has retyped this chapter?’ He waved pages in the air.

‘Half a dozen times?’ I said defensively. I knew my wonderful Australian secretary Ellenor Handley retyped chapters only when her typewritten words were almost obscured by my handwritten changes.

‘Twenty-five times,’ said the IBM man. ‘Your poor secretary!’

I tried to look repentant.

Along the street at the mighty Shell Centre, IBM had installed banks of computer-driven machines that produced printed in-house essentials such as instruction manuals.

‘Come along and see them,’ urged the IBM man. Being somewhat obsessed by machinery (while not really understanding it) I went along. Soon I became the only private individual permitted ownership of an IBM MT 72 computer. It was the size and shape of a small upright piano. I was very proud of that machine, I showed it to everyone who visited me, but it was Ellenor who mastered it.

My friend Julian Symons, the writer and doyen of critics, said I was the only person he knew who actually liked machines. ‘Perhaps you should write a book about them’, he said, only half seriously. That was the start of Bomber. Does everyone hate machines? Perhaps they do; so suppose I wrote a story in which the machines of one nation battled against the machines of another? Yes, I knew about that. I had been bombed every night for months at a time in London. The night bombing campaigns were fought in complete darkness, with both the enemy aircraft and the terrain below depicted only as tiny blips and blobs on glass screens. The combatants never saw their enemies. It had a spooky fascination for me but would such a grim mechanical theme overshadow a story’s human element?

The human element was already a difficult aspect of writing such a story. Most of the characters – both British and German – would be able-bodied young men chosen for their physical, emotional and psychological similarity. To make it more difficult, my preliminary notes showed that I would need a cast of well over a hundred of these similar young people. This meant a style that would bring a character to life in only a sentence or two of dialogue. And do it well enough for the reader to pick up on that character two or three chapters later. And I was determined to do it without resorting to crude regional pronunciations.

It was daunting. I began to talk to experts and discovered how deep I was going to have to dig for my research. German radar was very advanced by 1943; it was only after that that Anglo American technology took the lead. But the Germans lost their technical lead and lost the war too. That meant that very few people had taken any interest in the history of German air defences. I went to Germany and sought out the technicians and radar operators as well as the night-fighter pilots and Flak crews. Then I had to put their explanations together well enough to understand the basis of the German air defence system. The more I learned about it, the more it fascinated me.

If 1943 German radar controllers and night-fighter veterans were a complex challenge, then wait until I started to delve into the social life, scandals and Nazi-led politics of a small Westphalian town. Everyone seemed to have a war story. One lady found for me some striped overalls that she had made from her nurse’s uniform. A man I met in a restaurant had kept all his wartime documents and when I showed interest in them insisted that I kept them. My wife Ysabele’s fluent German was the key to this conversational research and greatly expanded the number of people and stories available to me.

It was almost overwhelming but it was too late to stop, and anyway I enjoy research. One large room of my London home was devoted entirely to Bomber. I collected everything available: films, air photos, logbooks, letters, recordings, tele-printer orders and target maps. Pasting aeronautical maps together I covered one whole wall with northern Europe. Tapes of the bomber routes, turning-points, dog-legs and feints showed each aircraft in the story. Tabs for times meant I could see where each fighter or bomber would be at any chosen moment.

The anchor of the story was to be found in England’s Bomber Command airfields. I knew many of them from my time in the RAF and I returned to see them again. My RAF veterans were great companions with anecdotes galore, and during my service years I had flown in Mosquitos and in Lancaster bombers. In Germany Adolf Galland found for me some of the best of his night fighter crews. The Dutch air force allowed me to spend some time on a military airfield that was very little changed from 1943. By amazing luck I was able to find, enter and climb around one of the very few Luftwaffe ‘Opera House’ command centres just days before its demolition began. It was a vast echoing place and by chance the demolition crews had left all the electric lights burning, probably for safety reasons. Back in London my good friends at the Imperial War Museum gave me a room filled with Luftwaffe instructional films about the night-fighter version of the Junkers Ju 88 and by bending the rules a little I also got to climb inside one.

Right from the first notes I had decided upon the twenty-four hour time format. It meant that I would describe only one RAF bombing raid but I could depict it in detail. By describing mechanical elements (such as the number of fragments into which the average anti-aircraft shell breaks) I wanted to emphasize the dehumanizing effect of mechanical warfare. I like machines but in wars all humans are their victims.

Len Deighton, 2009

Although I have attempted to make its background as real as possible this is entirely a work of fiction. As far as I know there were no Lancaster bombers named ‘Creaking Door’, ‘The Volkswagen’ or ‘Joe for King’. There was no RAF airfield named Warley Fen and no Luftwaffe base called Kroonsdijk. There was no Altgarten and there were no real people like those I have described. There was never a thirty-first day of June in 1943 or any other year.

L.D.

Chapter One

It was a bomber’s sky: dry air, wind enough to clear the smoke, cloud broken enough to recognize a few stars. The bedroom was so dark that it took Ruth Lambert a moment or so to see her husband standing at the window. ‘Are you all right, Sam?’

‘Praying to Mother Moon.’

She laughed sleepily. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Do you think I don’t need all the witchcraft I can get?’

‘Oh, Sam. How can you say that when you …’ She stopped.

He supplied the words: ‘Have come back safe from forty-five raids?’

She nodded. He was right. She’d been afraid to say it because she did believe in witchcraft or something very like it. In an isolated house in the small hours of morning with the wind chasing the clouds across the bright moon it was difficult not to fall prey to primitive fears.

She switched on the bedside light and he shielded his eyes with his hand. Sam Lambert was a tall man of twenty-six. The necessity of wearing his tight-collared uniform had resulted in his suntan ending in a sharp line around his neck. His muscular body was pale by comparison. He ran his fingers across his untidy black hair and scratched the corner of his nose where a small scar disappeared into the wrinkles of his smile. Ruth liked him to smile but lately he seldom did.

He buttoned the yellow silk pyjamas that had cost Ruth a small fortune in Bond Street. She’d given them to him on the first night of their honeymoon; three months ago, he’d smiled then. This was the first time he’d worn them.

As the only married couple among Cohen’s guests, Ruth and Sam Lambert had been given the King Charles bedroom with tapestry and panelling so magnificent that Sam found himself speaking in whispers. ‘What a boring weekend for you, darling: bombs, bombing, and bombers.’

‘I like to listen. I’m in the RAF too, remember. Anyway we had to come. He’s one of your crew, sort of family.’

‘Yes, you’ve got half a dozen brand-new relatives.’

‘I like your crew.’ She said it tentatively, for just a few trips ago her husband had flown back with his navigator dead. They had never mentioned his name since. ‘Has the rain stopped?’ she asked.

Lambert nodded. Somewhere overhead an aeroplane crawled across the cloud trying to glimpse the ground through a gap. On a cross-country exercise, thought Lambert, they’d probably predicted a little light cirrus. It was their favourite prediction.

Ruth said, ‘Cohen is the one that was sick the first time?’

‘Not really sick, he was …’ He waved his hand.

‘I didn’t mean sick,’ said Ruth. ‘Shall I leave the light on?’

‘I’m coming back to bed. What time is it?’

‘No,’ said Ruth. ‘Only if you want to. Five-thirty, Monday morning.’

‘Next weekend we’ll go up to London and see Gone with the Wind or something.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise. The thunderstorm has passed right over. It will be good flying weather tomorrow.’ Ruth shivered.

‘I had a letter from my dad,’ he said.

‘I recognized the writing.’

‘Can I spare another five pounds.’

‘He’ll drink it.’

‘Of course.’

‘But you’ll send it?’

‘I can’t just abandon the poor old bugger.’

There were cows too, standing very still, asleep standing up, he supposed, he knew nothing about the country. He’d hardly ever seen it until he started flying seven years ago. There was so much open country. Acres and acres young Cohen’s family had here, and a trout stream, and this old house like something from a ghost story with its creaking stairs, cold bedrooms and ancient door latches that never closed properly. He reached out and ran his fingers across the tapestry; they’d never allow you to do that in the V and A Museum.

Some of the windowpanes were discoloured and bubbly and the trees seen through them were crippled and grotesque. At night the countryside was strange and monochromatic like an old photograph. To the east, over the sea beyond Holland and Germany, the sky was lightening enough to silhouette the trees and skyline. Eight-tenths cloud, just an edge of moonlight on a rim of cumulus. You could sail a whole damned Group in over that lot, and from the ground it would be impossible to catch a glimpse of them. He turned away from the window. On the other hand they’d have you on their bloody radar.

He walked across the cold stone floor and looked down at his wife in the massive bed. Her black hair made marble of the white pillow and with her eyes tightly closed she was like some fairy princess waiting to be awoken with a magic kiss. He pulled the curtains of the ancient four-poster bed aside and it creaked as he eased his body down between the sheets. She made a sleepy mumbling sound and pulled his chilly body close.

‘He was just tense,’ said Lambert. ‘Cohen’s a bloody nice kid, a wizard damned navigator too.’

‘I love you,’ Ruth mumbled.

‘Everyone gets tense,’ explained Lambert.

His wife pulled the pillow under his head and moved to give him more room. His eyes were closed but she knew he was not sleepy. Many times at night they’d been awake together like this.

When they married in March it had rained when they arrived at the church, but as they came on to the steps the sun came out. She’d worn a pale-blue silk dress. Two other girls had married in it since then.

Her face pressed close to him and she could hear his heart beating. It was a calming, confident sound and soon she dropped off to sleep.

The one-time grandeur of the Cohens’ country house was defaced by wartime shortages of labour and material. In the breakfast room there was a damp patch on the wall and the carpet had been turned so that the worn part was under the sideboard. The small, leaded windows and the clumsy blackout fittings made the room gloomy even on a bright summer’s morning like this one.

Each of the airmen guests was already coming to terms with the return to duty and each in their different ways sensed that the day would end in combat. Lambert had smelled the change in the weather, and he chose a chair that gave him a glimpse of the sky.

The Lamberts were not the first down to breakfast. Flight Lieutenant Sweet had been up for hours. He told them that he had taken one of the horses out. ‘Mind you, all I did was sit upon the poor creature while it walked around the meadow.’ He had in fact done exactly that, but such was his self-deprecating tone that he was able to suggest that he was a horseman of great skill.

Sweet chose to sit in the Windsor hoopback armchair that was at the head of the table. He was a short, fair-haired man of twenty-two, four years younger than Lambert. Like many of the aircrew he was short and stocky. Ruddy-complexioned, his pink skin went even pinker in the sun, and when he smiled he looked like a happy bouncing baby. Some women found this irresistible. It was easy to see why he had been regarded as ‘officer material’ from the day he joined up. He had a clear, high voice, energy, enthusiasm, and an unquestioning readiness to flatter and defer to the voice of authority.

‘And an ambition to get to grips with the Hun, sir.’

‘Good show, Sweet.’

‘Goodness, sir, I can’t be any other way. That sort of thing is bred into a chap at any decent public school.’

‘Good show, Sweet.’

Temporarily Sweet had been appointed commander of B Flight’s aircraft, one of which Lambert piloted. He was anxious to be popular: he knew everyone’s nickname and remembered their birthplace. It was his great pleasure to greet people in their hometown accent. In spite of all his efforts some people hated him. Sweet couldn’t understand why.

This month the Squadron had been transferred to pathfinder duties. It meant that every crew must do a double tour of ops. Double thirty was sixty, and sixty trips over Germany, with the average five-per-cent casualty rate, was mathematically three times impossible to survive. Lambert and Sweet had already completed one tour and this was their second. Actuarily they were long since dead.

Sweet was telling a story when Flight Sergeant Digby came into the room. Digby was a thirty-two-year-old Australian bomb aimer. He was elderly by combat aircrew standards and his balding head and weathered face singled him out from the others. As did his readiness to puncture the dignity of any officer. He listened to Flight Lieutenant Sweet. Sweet was the only officer among the guests.

‘A fellow drives into a service station,’ said Sweet. His eyes crinkled into a smile and the others paid attention, for he was good at telling funny stories. Sweet knocked an edge of ash into the remains of his breakfast. ‘The driver had only got coupons for half a gallon. He says, “A good show Monty’s boys are putting on, eh?” “Who?” says the bloke in the service station, very puzzled. “General Montgomery and the Eighth Army.” “What army?” “The Eighth Army. It’s given old Rommel’s Panzers a nasty shock.” “Rommel? Who’s Rommel?” “OK,” says the bloke in the car, putting away his coupons. “Never mind all that crap. Fill her up with petrol and give me two hundred Player’s cigarettes and two bottles of whisky.”’

It was unfortunate that Sweet had cast the driver as an Australian for Digby was rather sensitive about his accent. Appreciative of the smiles, Sweet repeated the punch line in his normal voice, ‘Fill her up with petrol and give me two hundred cigarettes.’ He laughed and blew a perfect smoke ring.

‘That’s a funny accent you’re using now,’ said Digby.

‘The King’s English,’ acknowledged Sweet.

‘I hope he is,’ said Digby. ‘With a ripe pommy accent like his he’d have a terrible time back where I come from.’

Sweet smiled. Under the special circumstances of being fellow guests in Cohen’s father’s house he had to put up with a familiarity that he would never tolerate on the Squadron.

‘It’s just a matter of education,’ said Sweet, referring as much to Digby’s behaviour as to his accent.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Digby, sitting down opposite him. Digby’s tie had trapped one point of his collar so that it stood up under his jawline. ‘Seriously, though, I really admire the way you fellows speak. You can all make Daily Routine Orders sound like Shakespeare. Now, you must have been to a good school, Flight Lieutenant Sweet. Is that an Eton tie you’re wearing?’

Sweet smiled and fingered his black Air Force tie. ‘Harrods actually.’

‘Jesus,’ said Digby in mock amazement. ‘I didn’t know you’d studied at Harrods, sport. What did you take, modern lingerie?’

Sweet saw Digby’s attitude as a challenge to his charm. He gave him a very warm smile, he was confident that he could make the man like him. Everyone knew that Digby’s record as bomb aimer was second to none.

Young Sergeant Cohen played the anxious host, constantly going to the sideboard for more coffee and pressing all his guests to second helpings of pancakes and honey.

Sergeant Battersby was the last down to breakfast. He was a tall boy of eighteen with frizzy yellow hair, thin arms and legs and a very pale complexion. His eyes scanned the room apologetically and his soft full mouth quivered as he decided not to say how sorry he was to be late. He had less reason than anyone to be delayed. His chin seldom needed shaving and most mornings he merely surveyed it to be sure that the pimples of adolescence had finally gone. They had. His frizzy hair paid little heed to combing and his boots and buttons were always done the night before.

Batters was the only member of Lambert’s crew who was younger and less experienced than Cohen. And Batters was the only member of Lambert’s crew who would have contemplated flying under another captain. Not that he believed that there was any other captain anywhere in the RAF who could compare with Lambert, but Battersby was his flight engineer. An engineer was a pilot’s technical adviser and assistant. He helped operate the controls on take-offs and landings; he had to keep a constant watch on the fuel, oil, and coolant systems, especially the fuel changeovers. As well as this he was expected to know every nut and bolt of the aeroplane and be prepared ‘to carry out practicable emergency repairs during flight’ of anything from a hydraulic gun turret to a camera and from the bombsight to the oxygen system. It was a terrifying responsibility for a shy eighteen-year-old.

Until recently Lambert had flown fifteen bombing raids with an engineer named Micky Murphy, who now flew as part of Flight Lieutenant Sweet’s crew. Some people said that Sweet should never have taken the ox-like Irishman away from Lambert after so many trips together. One of the ground-crew sergeants said it was unlucky, some of Sweet’s fellow officers said it was bad manners, and Digby said it was part of Sweet’s plan to arse-crawl his way to become Marshal of the Royal Air Force.

Each day Batters hung round the ground crew of his aeroplane watching and asking endless questions in his thin high voice. While this added to his knowledge, it did nothing for his popularity. He watched Lambert all the time and hoped for nothing more than the curt word of praise that came after each flight. Batters was an untypical flight engineer. Most of them were more like Micky Murphy, practical men with calloused hands and an instinct for mechanical malfunction. They came from factories and garages, they were apprentices or lathe operators or young clerks with their own motorcycle that they could reassemble blindfold. Battersby would never have their instinct. He’d been a secondary-school boy with one afternoon a week in the metalwork class. Of course Batters could run rings round most of the Squadron’s engineers at written exams and luckily the RAF set high store by paperwork. His father taught physics and chemistry at a school in Lancashire.

I marked your last physics paper while on fire-watching. The headmaster was on duty with me. He’d given the sixth form the same sample paper but he told me that yours was undoubtedly the best. This, I need hardly say, made your father rather proud of you. I am confident however that this will not tempt you to slacken your efforts. Always remember that after the war you will be competing for your place at university with fellows who have been wise enough to contribute to the war in a manner that furthers their academic qualifications.

This week’s sample entrance paper should prove a simple matter. Perhaps I should warn you that the second part of question four does not refer solely to sodium. It requires an answer in depth and its apparent simplicity is intended solely to trap the unwary.

Mrs Cohen came into the breakfast room from the kitchen just as Battersby was helping himself to one pancake and a drip of honey. She was a thin white-haired woman who smiled easily. She pushed half a dozen more upon his plate. Battersby had that sort of effect upon mothers. She asked in quiet careful English if anyone else would like more pancakes. In her hand there was a tall pile of fresh ones.

‘They’re delicious, Mrs Cohen,’ said Ruth Lambert. ‘Did you make them?’

‘It’s a Viennese recipe, Ruth. I shall write it for you.’ They all looked towards Mrs Cohen and she cast her eyes down nervously. They reminded her of the clear-eyed young storm-troopers she had seen smashing the shopfronts in Munich. She had always thought of the British as a pale, pimply, stunted race, with bad teeth and ugly faces, but these airmen too were British. Her Simon was indistinguishable from them. They laughed nervously at the same jokes no matter how often repeated. They spoke too quickly for her, and had their own vocabulary. Emmy Cohen was a little afraid of these handsome boys who set fire to the towns she’d known when a girl. She wondered what went on in their cold hearts, and wondered if her son belonged to them now, more than he did to her.

Mrs Cohen looked at Lambert’s wife. Her WAAF corporal’s uniform was too severe to suit her but she looked trim and businesslike. At Warley Fen she was in charge of the inflatable rafts that bombers carried in case they were forced down into the sea. Nineteen, twenty at the most. Her wrists and ankles still with a trace of schoolgirl plumpness. She was clever, thought Mrs Cohen, for without saying much she was a part of their banter and games. They all envied Lambert his beautiful, childlike wife, and yet to conceal their envy they teased her and criticized her and corrected the few mistakes she made about their planes and their squadron and their war. Mrs Cohen coveted her skill. Lambert seldom joined in the chatter and yet his wife would constantly glance towards him, as though seeking approval or praise. Cheerful little Digby and pale-faced Battersby sometimes gave Lambert the same sort of quizzical look. So, noticed Mrs Cohen, did her son Simon.

It was eight-fifteen when a tall girl in WAAF officer’s uniform stepped through the terrace doors like a character in a drawing-room play. She must have known that the sunlight behind her made a halo round her blonde hair, for she stood there for a few moments looking round at the blue-uniformed men.

‘Good God,’ she said in mock amazement. ‘Someone has opened a tin of airmen.’

‘Hello, Nora,’ said young Cohen. She was the daughter of their next-door neighbour if that’s what you call people who own a mansion almost a mile along the lane.

‘I can only stay a millisecond but I must thank you for sending that divine basket of fruit.’ The elder Cohens had sent the fruit but Nora Ashton’s eyes were on their son. She hadn’t seen him since he’d gained his shiny new navigator’s wing.

‘It’s good to see you, Nora,’ he said.

‘Nora visits her mother almost every weekend,’ said Mrs Cohen.

‘Once a month,’ said Nora. ‘I’m at High Wycombe now, Bomber Command HQ.’

‘You must fiddle the petrol for that old banger of yours.’

‘Of course I do, my pet.’

He smiled. He was no longer a shy thin student but a strong handsome man. She touched the stripes on his arm. ‘Sergeant Cohen, navigator,’ she said and exchanged a glance with Ruth. It was all right: this WAAF corporal clearly had her own man.

Nora pecked a kiss and Simon Cohen briefly took her hand. Then she was gone almost as quickly as she arrived. Mrs Cohen saw her to the door and looked closely at her face when she waved goodbye. ‘Simon is looking fine, Mrs Cohen.’

‘I suppose you are surrounded with sergeants like him at your headquarters place.’

‘No, I’m not,’ said Nora. They seldom saw a sergeant at Bomber Command HQ, they only wiped them off the black-board by the hundred after each attack.

After they had finished eating Cohen passed cigars around. Digby, Sweet, and Lambert took one but Batters said his father believed that smoking caused serious harm to the health. Sweet produced a fine ivory-handled penknife and insisted upon using its special attachment to cut the cigars.

Ruth Lambert got up from the table first. She wanted to make sure their bedroom was left neat and tidy, no hairpins on the floor or face powder spilled on the dressing-table.

She looked back at her husband. He was a heavy man and yet he could move lightly and with speed enough to grab a fly in mid-air. His was a battered face and wrinkled too, especially round the mouth and eyes. His eyes were brown and deep-set with dark patches under them. Once she had written that his eyes were ‘smouldering’.

‘Then mind you don’t get burned, my girl.’

‘Oh Mother, you’ll both love him.’

‘Pity he can’t get a commission. Do him more good than that medal.’

‘A commission isn’t important, Father.’

‘Wait until you’re living in a post-war NCO’s Married Quarters. You’ll soon change your tune.’

He felt her looking at him. He looked up suddenly and winked. His eyes revealed more than he would ever speak. This morning for instance she had watched him while Flight Lieutenant Sweet was theorizing about engines, and had known that it was all nonsense by the amused shine in Sam’s eyes. Sam, I love you so much: calm, thoughtful and brave. She glanced at the other airmen around the table. It’s strange but the others seem to envy me.

Mrs Cohen also hastened away to pack her son’s case. Left to themselves the boys stretched their feet out. They were puffing stylishly at the large cigars, and clichés were exchanged across the table. They could talk more freely when a chap’s mother wasn’t there.

‘We’ll be on tonight,’ predicted Sweet. ‘I feel it in my corns.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll put a little salt on Hitler’s tail again, eh?’

‘Is that what we are doing?’ asked Lambert.

‘Certainly it is,’ said Sweet. ‘Bombing the factories, destroying his means of production.’ Sweet’s voice rose a little higher as he became exasperated by Lambert’s patronizing smile.

Cohen spoke for the first time. ‘If we are going to talk about bombing, let’s be as scientific as possible. The target map of Berlin is just a map of Berlin with the aiming-point right in the city centre. We are fooling only ourselves if we pretend we are bombing anything other than city centres.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Flight Lieutenant Sweet.

‘Simply that there are no factories in city centres,’ said Lambert. ‘The centre of most German towns contains old buildings: lots of timber construction, narrow streets and alleys inaccessible to fire engines. Around that is the dormitory ring: middle-class brick apartments mostly. Only the third portion, the outer ring, is factories and workers’ housing.’

‘You seem very well informed, Flight Sergeant Lambert,’ said Sweet.

‘I’m interested in what happens to people,’ said Lambert. ‘I come from a long line of humans myself.’

‘I’m glad you pointed that out,’ said Sweet.

Cohen said, ‘One has only to look at our air photos to know what we do to a town.’

‘That’s war,’ said Battersby tentatively. ‘My brother said there’s no difference between bankrupting a foreign factory in peacetime and bombing it in wartime. Capitalism is competition and the ultimate form of that is war.’

Cohen gave a little gasp of laughter, but corrected it to a cough when Battersby did not smile.

Lambert smiled and rephrased the notion. ‘War is a continuation of capitalism by other means, eh, Batters?’

‘Yes, sir, exactly,’ said Battersby in his thin childish voice. ‘Capitalism depends upon consumption of manufactured goods and war is the most efficient manner of consumption yet devised. Furthermore, it’s a test of each country’s industrial system. I mean, look at the way we are developing our aeroplanes, radios, engines, and all sorts of secret inventions.’

‘What about man for man?’ said Digby.

‘Surely after the great victories of the Red Army you don’t still subscribe to the superhuman ethic, Mr Digby,’ said Battersby. ‘Evils may exist within our social systems but the working man who fights the war is pretty much the same the world over.’

They were all surprised to hear Battersby converse at length, let alone argue.

‘Are you a Red, Battersby?’ said Flight Lieutenant Sweet.

‘No, sir,’ said Battersby, biting his lip nervously. ‘I’m just stating what my brother told me.’

‘He should be shot,’ said Sweet.

‘He was, sir,’ said Battersby. ‘At Dunkirk.’

Sweet’s rubicund face went bright red with embarrassment. He stubbed his cigar into a half-eaten pancake and, getting to his feet, said, ‘Perhaps we’d best get cracking. Just in case there’s something on tonight.’

Digby and Battersby also went upstairs to pack. Lambert was silent, sipping at his coffee and watching the cigar smoke drifting towards the oak ceiling.

Cohen poured coffee for himself and Lambert. The two of them sat at the table in silence until Cohen said, ‘You don’t believe in this war?’

‘Believe in it?’ said Lambert. ‘You make it sound like a rumour.’

‘I think about the bombing a lot,’ admitted Cohen.

‘I hope you do,’ said Lambert. ‘I hope you worry yourself sick about it.’

On the Squadron Lambert usually spoke only of technical matters and like most of the old-timers he would smile without committing himself when politics or religion was discussed. Today was different.

‘What do you believe then?’

‘I believe that everyone is corruptible and I’m always afraid that I might become corrupt. I believe that all societies are a plot to corrupt the individual.’

‘That’s anarchy,’ said young Cohen, ‘and you are never an anarchist by any measure. After all, Skipper, society has a right to demand a citizen’s loyalty.’

‘Loyalty? You mean using another man’s morality instead of your own. That’s just a convenient way of putting your conscience into cold storage.’

‘Yes,’ reflected Cohen doubtfully. ‘The SS motto is “my honour is my loyalty”.’

‘Well, there you are.’

‘But what about family loyalty?’

‘That’s almost as bad: it’s giving your nephew the prize for playing the piano when the little boy down the street plays better.’

‘Is that so terrible?’ asked Cohen.

‘I’m the little boy down the street. I wouldn’t have even got as far as grammar school unless a few people had let a prize or two go out of the family.’

‘What you are really saying,’ said young Cohen trying to make it a question rather than a verdict, ‘is that you don’t like bombing cities.’

‘That is what I’m saying,’ said Lambert and the young navigator was too shocked to think of a reply. Lambert drained his cup. ‘That’s good coffee.’

Hastily Cohen reached for the pot to pour more for him. He wanted to demonstrate his continuing admiration and regard for his pilot. ‘Coffee isn’t rationed,’ said young Cohen.

‘Then fill her up, and give me two hundred Player’s.’

The roses on the table were now fully open. Lambert reached out to them but as he touched one it disintegrated and the pale-pink petals fell and covered the back of his hand like huge blisters.

‘Men are disturbed by any lack of order.’ The voice by his shoulder made Lambert start for old Mr Cohen had entered the room without either of them hearing him. He was a tall man with a handsome face, marred only by a lopsided mouth and yellow teeth. He spoke the careful style of English that only a foreigner could perfect. However a nasal drone accompanied his flat voice which gave no emphasis to any word nor acknowledged the end of a sentence.

‘You and I might be able to see the virtue of chaos,’ he continued, ‘but dictators gain power by offering pattern, ranks, common purpose, and men in formations. Men want order, they strive for it. Even the world’s artists are asked only to impose meaning and symmetry upon the chaos of nature. You and I, Sergeant Lambert, may know that muddle and inefficiency are man’s only hope of freedom but we will not easily convert our fellow men.’

‘You are mocking me, Mr Cohen.’

‘Not me, Sergeant. I have seen men line up to dig their own graves and turn to face the firing squad with a proud precision. I am not mocking you.’

‘The British are not easy to regiment, Father.’

‘So they keep telling me, my son, but I wonder. In this war they have gained the same sense of national identity and purpose that the Nazis gave the Germans. The British are so proud of their conversion that they will almost forgo their class system. I see the clear eyes and firm footfalls of the self-righteous and that is a good start on the road to totalitarian power. History is being quoted and patriotic songs revived. Believe me, the British are proud of themselves.’

There was a commotion outside as Digby stumbled down the stairs with his suitcase but Mr Cohen did not pause.

‘Some day, in the not-so-far-distant future, when the trade unions are being particularly tedious, students are being unusually destructive, and the pound is buying less and less, then a Führer will appear and tell the British that they are a powerful nation. “Britain Awake” will be his slogan and some carefully chosen racial minority will be his scapegoats. Then you will see if the British are easy to regiment.’

Sergeant Cohen smiled at Lambert. ‘For goodness’ sake don’t argue with him or we’ll be here all day.’ He got to his feet.

‘I wouldn’t mind that at all,’ said Lambert. The old man bowed courteously. As the two airmen went into the hall old Mr Cohen followed Lambert closely, as if to separate him from his son. Lambert turned to the old man and waited for him to speak but he didn’t do so until his son had left.

‘All fathers become old fools, Lambert,’ he said and then stopped. Lambert looked at him, trying to draw the words from him as one does with a man who stutters. The words again came in a rush: ‘You’ll look after the boy, won’t you?’

For a moment Lambert said nothing. Sweet came down the stairs. He took the old man’s arm and said airily, ‘Don’t worry about that, sir,’ but Cohen had selected only Lambert for his plea.

Lambert said, ‘It’s not my job to look after your son, sir.’

Young Cohen was still within earshot on the balcony above them. Digby saw him and felt like tugging the back of Lambert’s tunic in warning.

Lambert knew they were all listening but he didn’t lower his voice. He said, ‘It simply doesn’t work like that. A crew all need each other. Any one of them can endanger the aircraft. Your son is the most skilful navigator I’ve flown with, probably the best in the Squadron. He’s the brains of the aeroplane; he looks after us.’

There was silence for a moment, then Mr Cohen said, ‘He certainly should be good, he’s cost me a fortune to educate.’ The old man nodded to himself. ‘Look after my boy, Mr Lambert.’

‘I promise.’ Lambert nodded to the old man and hurried upstairs cursing himself for saying it. How the hell could he protect anyone? He was always amazed to get back safely himself. He passed young Cohen who was coming downstairs with a large case.

When he was alone with his son the old man said, ‘You hear that? Your Captain Lambert says you’re the best.’

Mrs Cohen appeared from nowhere and brushed her son’s coarse blue uniform distastefully.

‘His captain says he’s the best. Best on the Squadron, he said.’

Mrs Cohen ignored her husband. She pulled a piece of cotton from her son’s sleeve. ‘I see that Mr Sweet, the officer, is wearing gold cufflinks. Why don’t you take yours with you? They look so nice.’

‘Not in the Sergeants’ Mess, Mother.’

‘How old is Captain Lambert?’ she said.

‘He’s not a captain, Mother, he’s a flight sergeant. That’s one rank above mine. We call him captain because he’s the senior man on our aircraft.’

His mother nodded, trying to understand and remember.

‘Twenty-six or twenty-seven.’

‘He looks much older,’ said Mrs Cohen, looking at her son. ‘He looks forty, an old man.’

‘Do you want him to fly with a child?’ said Mr Cohen.

‘This Mr Sweet can help to make you an officer, Simon.’

‘Oh, Mother, you’ve been talking about me.’

‘Would it be so bad, Simon?’ said Mr Cohen.

‘It would mean changing to another crew.’

‘Why?’

‘They don’t like officers flying under NCO captains. Anyway, it would make Lambert’s job more difficult, having me sitting behind him with shiny little officer’s badges. And we wouldn’t be together in the Sergeants’ Mess. And perhaps I’d have to go away to a training school.’

‘Quite a speech,’ said Mr Cohen. ‘The most I’ve heard you say all weekend.’

‘I’m sorry, Father.’

‘It doesn’t matter. But if Mr Lambert is such a fine fellow, why is he not an officer? You tell me he has more experience, medals, and does the same job as your friend Mr Sweet.’

‘Surely you know the English by now, Father. Lambert has a London accent. He’s never been to an expensive school. The English believe that only gentlemen can be leaders.’

‘And this is the way they fight a war?’

‘Yes. Lambert is the best, most experienced pilot on the Squadron.’

Mrs Cohen said, ‘If you became an officer perhaps you could fly with Mr Sweet.’

‘I’d rather fly with Lambert,’ he replied, trying to keep his voice amiable.

She said, ‘You mustn’t be angry, Simon. We’re not trying to make you stop flying.’

‘That’s right. Just thinking of you earning more cash,’ his father joked.

‘I keep telling both of you I’m just not ambitious. I’m never going to be an officer and I’m never going to be a philosophy professor like Uncle Carol. Nor a scientist like dad. I’m not sure I could even run the farm. This job I’m doing in the Air Force …’

Cohen raised a finger to interrupt. ‘There is a common mistake made by historians: to review the past as a series of errors leading to the perfect condition that is the present time. It’s a common mistake in life too, especially in one of our closed societies like a school or a prison camp. It’s easy then to forget that the outside world or future time exist. Now in the middle of 1943 your Messrs Sweets and Lamberts seem to have attained the highest pinnacle of prestige and achievement. But it’s all glamour and tinsel. When the war is over, being the finest bomber crew that ever flew across Germany won’t get any of you so much as a free dog licence.’

‘You’ve got the wrong idea, Dad. I don’t like being in the Air Force. It’s dangerous and uncomfortable, and a lot of the people I work with are pretty nasty fellows.’ The old man looked up quizzically. ‘But if nasty fellows can destroy the Fascists I’ll put up with it. I know how to do my job theoretically at any rate so don’t worry about me. You’ve both got to understand that this is my life now. The whole of my life and I’ve got to live it in my own way. Without gold cufflinks or your talking to anyone about commissions or pocket money even. And most of all, no more parcels.’

Mrs Cohen nodded. ‘I understand, Simon, I always overdo things. I’ve embarrassed you with your captain, have I?’

‘No, no, no, it’s fine. It’s been a wonderful weekend and wizard food.’

‘Wizard,’ repeated Mrs Cohen, making a mental note of the superlative. She reached for her handbag but after a warning glance from her husband did not open it.

‘Have a good journey, Cosy,’ said his father.

‘My nickname is Kosher. Kosher Cohen they call me.’

‘So what’s wrong with that?’ asked his father. Kosher smiled but did not answer. The old man nodded and patted his son on the arm. They were closer than ever before.

‘Nora Ashton always asks about you,’ said Mrs Cohen. ‘She’s a fine girl.’

The hall clock struck nine. ‘I must go. They are waiting. There’s probably too much moon but we might fly tonight.’

‘Over Germany?’

‘There’s not time to go far on these short summer nights. Probably we’ll be dropping mines into the North Sea. All the boys like that, it’s a milk run but it counts as a full operation.’

Digby heard the last bit of that. ‘That’s right, Mrs Cohen, these gardening trips go off as quiet as a Sunday in Adelaide.’

‘Phone me in the morning, Simon.’

Chapter Two

‘One thing about these short summer nights,’ an elderly Wing Commander said, ‘we can usually shortlist the target files and have them in the old man’s hands the moment he makes the decision.’

Nora Ashton, the young WAAF officer, smiled at him briefly and then went back to checking the target files. Each one had been started on orders from the Targets Selection Committee at Air Ministry. She identified each file by its code name: Whitebait was Berlin and Trout was Cologne. The code names were the idea of the Senior Staff Officer, who was a keen angler. Recently he had taken up collecting butterflies and moths but the C-in-C said that code names like Broad-bordered Bee Hawk would be inconvenient. Inside each target file there were population figures, industrial descriptions, photos and intelligence about searchlights and guns. The files varied a great deal: some files were as fat as phone directories and packed with reports from resistance workers and secret agents, while many contained little that didn’t appear in a prewar city guide. Others were contradictory or out of date, and some were so thin that they scarcely existed at all. In each file there was a record of Bomber Command’s previous attacks.

‘The Ruhr tonight,’ said the elderly Wing Commander. ‘I’ll bet you my morning tea-break: Essen or Cologne.’

‘What, on my wages?’ said the WAAF officer. ‘When you buy three or four sticky buns.’

He shrugged. ‘You would have lost.’

Quickly she picked up a newspaper and turned to the astrology section. Under Aries it said, ‘Someone dear to you will make a journey. Financial affairs promising.’ She folded it and pushed it into the drawer.

She said, ‘Some day I’ll take you up on one of your bets. Anyway, look at the moon chart. After the casualties we’ve had on recent light nights they might decide a full moon is too dangerous.’

‘Too dangerous for some ops,’ said the Wing Commander, ‘but the Ruhr looks messy on radar screens. Moonlight gives a visual identification of the target. If the Met man predicts some cloud cover they’ll go, and the Ruhr’s the only logical target.’

The girl looked up and nodded agreement. It was 09.05 hours; another hour and a half before morning tea-break.

She said, ‘What was the weather like when you came in, sir?’

‘Quite delightful, a perfect summer’s day – not a cloud in the sky.’

‘I do hope so,’ said the WAAF officer. ‘Last night I had to get out of bed and close the window. The rain came down in torrents.’ She had planned to have her hair done that afternoon: rain would ruin it.

‘My garden needed the rain.’

‘So did the Met people: they’d been forecasting it every day for a week.’

Neither of them raised their eyes to the Met map on the wall where was written the finest weather prediction that money and daring could provide. Each hour it was amended according to reports from weather stations, aeroplanes, and ships at sea.

There was certainly no indication of prevailing weather conditions from inside this underground Operations Room, known to its inmates as ‘the hole’. The air was clean and at constant temperature and the bright lights shone unchanging night and day. Here arrived the strategic requirements from Churchill’s Cabinet War Room and from Air Ministry. From here went the orders that sent four or five thousand airmen into a three-dimensional night battle over Germany.

Every square foot of wall space was crammed with information. At desks around it sat the top brass of Bomber Command, an awe-inspiring array of rank. An Army officer sat near a hot line to the C-in-C Home Forces and a naval captain clutched an armful of Enemy Shipping reports. Two American officers had small change spread across a desk top while a WAAF officer explained for the third time that thirty of these big coins made half a crown. ‘Then what makes a whole crown?’

‘Nothing makes a whole crown,’ said his colleague, ‘it’s like saying what makes a bit. Two bits may be a quarter but you can’t have a bit.’

‘I think I’ve got it,’ said the first American doubtfully.

At this moment the SASO (Senior Air Staff Officer) and the Group Captain i/c Operations began to give the C-in-C a summary of the previous night’s bombing of Germany. All eyes were on the thirty-foot-wide blackboard upon which the previous night’s objectives and orders were chalked in yellow and results added in red.

Even as they spoke a sergeant climbed the ladder and altered the Failed to Return tally from 26 to 25. ‘What’s that make it?’ asked the C-in-C.

‘Four point five per cent.’

‘Not bad, I was expecting worse.’

‘What are we going to get tonight?’ the Met man was asked.

‘Here are the predicted positions of the fronts for midnight. Well-broken cloud all along the north-west coast but clear from Hamburg northwards. Residual thundercloud with thunderstorms near the cold front.’

‘The Ruhr?’ The elderly Wing Commander heard the C-in-C’s question to the Met man and nodded significantly.

The Met man shuffled his notes. ‘At present thunderstorms are moving across the Rhine with this cold front but they will clear by this afternoon. Midnight: thin layer of medium cloud somewhere between 1,000 and 20,000 feet but it will probably have gone by 01.00 hours. There’s a chance of a little stratocumulus at 2,000 to 3,000 feet. Expected visibility moderate.’

‘What about Northern France?’

‘Fine; moderate visibility. Well-broken layer cloud in north-west.’

‘And the weather over UK for the aircraft’s return?’

‘Fine. A little stratocumulus at 2,000 or 3,000 feet. Excellent visibility.’

The C-in-C walked slowly across the highly polished floor to look at the quarter-inch map of Northern Europe that almost covered one wall. Each of the target towns was marked by a colour-coded reference on a flat pin. He looked back towards the moon chart, then moved nearer to peer at the Ruhr. The short routes were marked with coloured tapes and his eyes scanned them, calculating the flying times and fuel-loads that each target would demand.

As the C-in-C followed the routes a knot of staff officers moved with him, murmuring discreetly like Harley Street specialists about to collaborate on an expensive job of surgery. Always their glances went back to the Met wall. As the moment of decision arrived the officers ceased to talk. The only sounds were the air-conditioning and the clock. Suddenly the voices began again; the decision had been taken.

‘Target files, Harry,’ a young Group Captain called to the elderly Wing Commander, for, although it was a high rank on the squadrons, in this place a Wingco was a dogsbody. Nora Ashton pushed it towards him. Once again they had guessed the target to within a few files.

‘Krefeld as primary, Bremen as weather alternative,’ said the C-in-C. ‘H-Hour will be 01.30 hours. No gardening tonight.’

In the centre of the room were large drafting-tables. On one was a map showing enemy radar and night-fighter units. Another displayed overlapping photographs mounted together to make a mosaic of the whole Ruhr. The C-in-C walked across to one and tipped it flat. The Krefeld target file was open and large-scale maps, target maps, plans, diagrams and vertical photos were arranged around it.

‘What’s our availability?’

‘We’ve much better deliveries from the factories this month. We are showing 783 heavy bombers, 148 mediums. The strength of the training units is unchanged.’

‘Well, I’ll use 650 heavies and 100 mediums. This target will give them all a chance.’

‘Very good, sir.’ The Staff Officer put a form headed ‘C-in-C’s Daily Allotment of Targets’ on the table, and arranged the most recent reconnaissance photos of the target.

‘Krefeld then, with 750 aircraft. I’m going to increase the proportion of high explosive to incendiary bombs slightly. I know that the HE raises dust at the beginning but we need the blast damage in order to expose the interiors and have something to set alight. Let’s have twenty-five minutes’ pause before the second wave goes in. That increases the risk from night fighters but gives us a chance of killing his firemen and policemen and air-raid people. I’ll give that second wave mostly HE; one-third of the aircraft will carry one bomb fused for long delay to keep them worried.’

While he was talking, the C-in-C filled in the Daily Allotment of Targets form.

‘Put some Mosquitoes over Berlin to make the sirens go and some leaflets on to Ostend. I want the Berlin route and the Ostend route near enough to our main stream route to confuse them.’ The C-in-C passed the written order to the Controller. He got up slowly and left the Operations Room.

As he stepped out into the daylight the sentry gave a smart salute. Bomber Command HQ was hidden in thickly wooded countryside but the sky seen through the beech trees was clear and blue.

The centre of the depression had moved across Northern England and out into sea-area Dogger. It was a young, vigorous depression and pulled the cold front eastwards after it, leaving England to enjoy a period of anticyclonic weather. There would be no rain.

Even before the C-in-C was through the door the SASO was on the phone to the first of the Group commanders.

‘It’s Krefeld tonight, old boy. Weather alternative Bremen. Our Met chaps seem sure the weather will clear but we’ll have the usual Met conference call. I want to leave it as late as possible today. Naturally you’ll plan for sky marking just in case …’

He glanced at the clock marked Double British Summer Time. It showed 09.55 hours. Alongside it another clock set to Central European Time showed that German clocks were set to the same time.

Chapter Three

‘Aren’t you glad we no longer live in Krefeld?’ Anna-Luisa asked.

‘You said there would be lions and tigers, and wild animals,’ the little boy said accusingly.

‘There are lions and tigers, and yesterday I saw an elephant in the woods near Frau Richter’s farm.’

‘You’re always saying that,’ the little boy said with a chuckle. ‘You just make those stories up.’

‘If you’ve finished your egg you ought to get along to school. It’s nearly nine o’clock.’

She took a handkerchief and wiped a trace of egg from his lips. Hansl hurried to get his schoolbooks. ‘Take your raincoat, Hansl,’ she called. ‘I’m sure it will rain.’

Anna-Luisa made sure his coat was buttoned and his collar straight. She checked the schoolbooks in his case and ran a comb through his short hair. When all was approved she gave him a little salute. ‘All is in order, Herr Leutnant, say goodbye to Pappi.’

The little boy saluted gravely. Anna-Luisa reached for a second egg and placed it carefully in the simmering water.

‘Breakfast, Herr Bach,’ she called.

Neither the little boy nor his father, for whom she was preparing breakfast, belonged to Anna-Luisa. She was a member of the RADwJ, a uniformed labour force of mothers’ helps and social workers. A little over a year ago she had gone to work for Frau Bach in Krefeld, twelve kilometres away in the Ruhr district. She had liked the job, adored the child, and Frau Bach had been a not unreasonable employer. Within a month of her starting work Frau Bach had been killed in an air raid. Herr Bach and his elder son Peter, an infantry private just eighteen years old, had been flown back from the Russian Front. The authorities had a simple solution. They wanted to evacuate little Hansl to a Hitler Youth camp in the Protectorate of Czechoslovakia, but Herr Bach preferred that Anna-Luisa should stay with the boy. He wanted some place that he could think of as home, although the cost of renting an apartment just for one ten-year-old made terrible demands upon his Oberleutnant’s pay.

Herr Bach’s cousin suggested that they should move into this apartment in the town of Altgarten not far from the Netherlands border. It had been the home of Gerd’s father but had been unoccupied since the old man’s death almost two years before. Gerd had loaded Bach’s salvaged furniture into his grocer’s van and brought it here from Krefeld. That was a year ago, and since then August Bach, Luftwaffe Oberleutnant and Commanding Officer of radar station ‘Ermine’, had learned to call it home. Now that he was stationed on the Netherlands coast he was able to see his small son every two or three weeks. Last Christmas his grown-up son Peter had also come home on leave. It was a happy time.

‘Breakfast is ready, Herr Bach,’ called Anna-Luisa.

‘Did you hear the thunder?’ asked Bach.

‘I made Hansl take his raincoat.’

‘It’s just a summer storm,’ said Bach. ‘If it does rain it will soon be over.’

‘I hope so,’ said Anna-Luisa. ‘You’ve such a long journey.’

When August Bach sat down to breakfast she noticed that he was wearing his best uniform. She approved of his uniform, for although he was forty-six years old he was tall and slim and his greying hair served only to emphasize the tan on his face. At his throat the Pour le Mérite medal glittered.

‘The milk is sour. The thunder must have caused it,’ said the girl.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘This is the last of the real coffee you brought. Do you know, Herr Bach, I am so used to ersatz coffee that the real beans you bring from Holland keep me awake at night.’

‘Where is an egg for you, Anna-Luisa?’

‘There were only two, Herr Bach, the hens are not laying, and they cost six Reichsmarks each. There is a terrible shortage this month.’

‘Have this one. The Luftwaffe live well in Holland. Only last week Willi, my Stabsfeldwebel, laid his hands on some cream.’ He passed the egg to her.

‘You’ll never believe me, Herr Bach, but I don’t remember the taste of cream.’

‘I believe you,’ said August Bach. ‘I’ll speak to him when I get back and see if he can’t find some for me next month when I come.’

‘Did you notice, Herr Bach, little Hansl has picked up this terrible local accent?’

‘Like my cousin Gerd’s,’ said August smiling.

August Bach watched the girl eating his boiled egg. She looked up and smiled. What did an accent matter? She was very beautiful, especially when she smiled. Without her he would have no home and, unless you counted the occasional printed postcard from a Hitler Youth camp in the Protectorate, no young son either. Nowadays the children were being evacuated farther and farther away. Bombed-out children from Cologne had gone to Bulgaria and Hungary.

‘Herr Bach,’ said Anna-Luisa. ‘Is it true that many RADwJ girls are going to work on flak sites? There is a rumour that they will even be manning the guns.’

Bach had always feared that some day Anna-Luisa would decide that looking after little Hansl was not a great enough contribution to the war effort. Worse still, he feared that the RAD bureau would decide that for her, but here in the country the pace of things was slower. There was no RAD bureau in Altgarten, no SA, and even the Party HQ was closed on market day.

‘Are you unhappy, Anna-Luisa?’ he asked. ‘Are you thinking of leaving us?’

‘I would never leave you, Herr Bach,’ she said. ‘Never. I will look after Hansl all the rest of my life.’

‘Now, now, Anna-Luisa, you mustn’t make promises like that.’

‘I will, Herr Bach. I will. I love Hansl as though he was my own child.’

‘Then why do you ask me about the RAD girls going to the gun sites?’ asked August.

She got to her feet and began to clear the breakfast table. ‘Have you finished your coffee?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry, but there is now only the ersatz.’

‘Answer me, Anna-Luisa.’

‘Herr Bach,’ she said. She was standing at the sink now with her face turned away from him. He waited for her to continue. She was attractive in her neat white blouse and brown skirt with her blonde hair drawn back into a severe knot. Why had he not noticed before her long slim legs and strong young arms? Undressed, she would look … he killed the thought immediately. She was only a child, perhaps a year or so older than his infantryman son. Her service in the RAD was a patriotic duty. It was his job to look after her, not lust after her.

‘Are there’ – she paused – ‘any RAD girls working at your radar site?’

August Bach didn’t laugh, although the thought of girls in that desolate spot on the Dutch coast made him realize how little she understood the rigours of his life there.

‘There are no girls, Anna-Luisa. I only wish there were,’ he joked. And he looked up at her, still smiling, to discover her face racked with tears. He took his handkerchief to dry her eyes. ‘Anna-Luisa, whatever is the matter?’

‘Be careful of the washing-up water on your fine uniform,’ she said, raising her face to him, and the next moment he found that he was kissing her. She was sobbing as though she would never stop. It was difficult to understand what she was saying, but August Bach suddenly found that everything made sense to him. ‘I love you, Herr Bach,’ she said. He smoothed her blonde hair and made little clicking noises with his lips in the hope that it would stop her crying.

‘I love you,’ she said again. ‘Whatever shall we do?’

‘You can stop calling me Herr Bach for one thing,’ he said.

‘What will people say?’ she said.

‘Does it matter?’

‘This is a little country town, Herr August …’

‘Just August.’

‘August … people gossip here. There is no telling what stories will go round.’ He had his arms round her and felt her sobbing gently. He patted her shoulder awkwardly and paternally.

It was a damnable situation. Almost the whole town knew August’s cousin – Gerd Böll the grocer – and through him half the town knew August. Often strangers would talk to him in the street as though they were lifelong friends. ‘We must take things slowly,’ said August. Anna-Luisa nodded.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said, ‘do you think they’re not gossiping about us already?’

‘They are,’ said Anna-Luisa, ‘but it does not matter. I love you.’ He held her more tightly and less paternally.

‘And I love you,’ said August and he realized that he did. All these months of spending his leaves in the same house with this young girl. No wonder neighbours talked. To her he must have seemed unnatural or inhuman. He looked at her; she was a simple girl and for her perhaps he was a frightening figure. He asked himself to what extent he had been hurrying back here to see the child and to what extent because it was his home, a home that Anna-Luisa had created, a place where his favourite foods were placed before him and his favourite records near the gramophone. August realized that all these months he had been hurrying back to Anna-Luisa. ‘I love you, Anna-Luisa,’ he said. ‘I want you to marry me.’ She raised her reddened eyes to him. Her hair had fallen forward. She was remarkably beautiful even in this disarray. Even more beautiful, perhaps.

‘There are my parents, Herr Bach. You will have to visit them or at least write.’

‘I will do that today,’ he said. He stroked her head again and took her hand. It was a slim hand reddened by hard work, scrubbing floors and washing Hansl’s clothes and August’s shirts.

‘Damn, damn, damn,’ said August Bach under his breath, and then began to undress her, still declaiming loudly about how foolish they were. He unpinned the RAD swastika brooch from her blouse and set it aside carefully.

‘How old are you?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Twenty-two,’ said Anna-Luisa.

‘Well, there you are,’ said August. ‘It’s stupid, absolutely stupid,’ but he did not undress her more slowly. The nearby church clock struck nine and a horse and cart clattered past the house. It made their intimacy more conspiratorial to hear the town going about its business just a few yards away.

‘I love you, Herr Bach,’ said Anna-Luisa.

‘August,’ insisted August.

‘You’ll write?’

‘Every day,’ swore August.

‘And to my father?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘I love you, Herr August,’ said Anna-Luisa. ‘I love both of you. We shall make a perfect family. You just see. I will buy new fabric for the front-room curtains, and Hansl needs new shoes.’

He pulled the pins from her hair and it tumbled down over her face. He had never seen her with her hair loose. It had always been rolled tight at the nape of her neck in a style suitable for her uniformed appearance. She laughed and kissed him again. By now they were in the bedroom and the big brass bed creaked loudly as she climbed onto it. August leaned across the bed to her, but she moved aside and giggled at outwitting him. For a moment, a terrible moment, August thought that she was just teasing him. It was the sort of thing that a young girl might do to an ardent lover of forty-six. But no sooner had the thought entered his mind than she undressed herself. Still standing on the bed, she threw her starched white uniform blouse across the room and stepped out of her brown skirt. Her underwear vanished as if by magic and there she was, naked, spinning round before his startled gaze. She pulled back the bedclothes and slid under them. Only her tousled flaxen hair and bright blue eyes were visible as she pulled the eiderdown up to her nose. It was the yellow silk eiderdown, that his wife had been so proud of, Bach remembered. They had saved so long to buy it.

He unbuttoned his uniform jacket and put it across the back of a chair.

‘Don’t come to bed with your medal on, Herr August. It hurts,’ she called.

He pulled the black-and-white ribbon of the Pour le Mérite over his head.

‘Show me.’ He threw the beribboned medal to her. He continued to undress while she looked at it.

She put the ribbon over her head and admired herself in the mirror, stiffening her naked body like a soldier on parade. The blue and gold of the medal matched her eyes and hair.

‘It’s the Pour le Mérite, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘That’s very clever of you.’

‘I asked someone about the cross you wore at your throat. What did you do?’

‘I shot down eleven English aeroplanes in the first war.’

‘You must have been only a boy.’

‘I was seventeen when I shot down the first one.’

She opened her arms to him and he climbed on to the bed with her.

‘You know,’ she told him in a whisper. ‘I have seen this room a thousand times from every place. I have even crawled under the bed to sweep and clean but I never thought I would see the room from this viewpoint.’ Her skin was soft and warm and contrasted with the cold stiffly starched sheets under his touch.

‘In future you will see it from this viewpoint as often as you wish,’ he said with a smile.

‘I shall always wish it so,’ said Anna-Luisa seriously. She touched his face with her fingertips and he caught the harsh smell of kitchen soap as it mingled with her cologne.

‘It’s a gloomy room,’ said August. The wallpaper was dark and the oak wardrobe huge and ancient. They were both reflected in its mirror. Their eyes met. A streak of lightning came through the lowered blind and lit them momentarily like a flashbulb. There was a growl of thunder. Anna-Luisa blushed and looked away. Hung here and there were old family photographs; unwanted in the sitting-room, but difficult to throw away. On the washstand a basin and jug glinted in the rosy light coming through the pink blind. A potted plant silhouetted against it shivered in the draught from the window. Anna-Luisa touched the Pour le Mérite medal. She grinned. ‘It looks better on me,’ she said.

‘It does,’ he agreed, and reached out for her.

‘And the red ribbon?’

‘For the East Front,’ he said. ‘The Eisbeinorden.’ The cold-feet medal.

‘That must have been terrible.’

‘It was.’ His voice was muffled as he kissed her ear.

‘Herr August,’ she whispered as they began to make love. ‘Shall I always sleep in this bed now?’

‘Yes,’ said August. Close to, he noticed that her hair was almost white and under its fringe her eyes were reddened by sobbing, and the tip of her nose was too. She smiled at him again. The light faded and there was the chilly gust of air that precedes a storm. Without hurry August made love to her as the thunderclouds darkened the gloomy room.

Afterwards she clutched him very tightly and made his arm wet with her silent tears. He reached for his cheroots and lit one. He wanted to tell her everything he had ever done and show her everything he had ever seen. There was so little time before he must go.

‘Will you be kind to me, Herr August?’

He kissed the side of her nose. ‘Kindness in a man is a quality few women admire,’ he said. ‘Especially very young, very beautiful women.’

‘I shall always admire you, Herr August. Tell me about the medal.’

We were all victims of these symbols and trinkets, totems and taboos, thought August Bach. Why should the girl be attracted by the blue enamelled cross? What could it mean to her?

‘The aeroplanes were different then. Biplanes: fragile little affairs of sticks and fabric.’ Why was he using those old clichés? They were tough little planes and agile too. Not like today’s sophisticated metal machines so full of fuelpipes, radio gear and delicate equipment that even a heavy bump on take-off made something malfunction.

‘They were painted with strange patterns of mauve and pink and grey. I can remember them.’ It wasn’t true. He could no longer remember the difference between a Halberstadt and an Albatros. It was the smell that he remembered, the fuel and the dope, shrill smells that caught the back of the throat. He remembered too the sound of the Mercedes motor firing and the roar of it echoing against the side of the hangar.

‘I remember the day I shot down my first Englishman. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky.’ Or was he telling it correctly? Surely that was the day he got the telegram about his mother dying. It was pouring with rain the day he shot down his first Englishman.

‘Were you afraid?’ asked Anna-Luisa.

‘I was afraid that someone would think I might be afraid,’ he said. It was a conventional answer. The true answer was that at eighteen he didn’t have enough intelligence to be afraid with.

‘Did you see the Englishman?’

He tried to remember. ‘It was a two-seater. I saw the pilot’s white silk scarf floating out of the cockpit. I came out of the sun.’

‘Were you proud?’

‘I’d killed two men, Anna-Luisa. It’s a terrible thing.’ He wondered what sort of men they were or might have become. The British should never have sent men out in those BE-2s, not over the lines anyway. After he landed and claimed his first victory his Staffel commander said, ‘A BE-2, I suppose.’ This one had already been shot up but he fought like the devil. On the third pass the gunner ran out of ammunition. He waved and pointed to his gun. A white-faced fellow with a moustache, no youngster. The pilot seemed unable to open the throttle. He looked over his shoulder to see how close the attack was coming. They stood no chance. He went out to the crash, to salvage the roundel markings as a trophy, but there was blood all over the canvas upon which they were painted. Both British flyers were dead. The sentry told him that one of the medical orderlies had kept an Englishman’s scarf. He’ll sell it for five marks, said the sentry. Bach had declined.

‘I want to walk with you, Herr August. Can we go shopping together?’

‘And we will lunch together at the Stube,’ he answered.

‘It will be wonderful, August.’ She stroked his head.

‘We will walk everywhere, Anna-Luisa. Everyone shall see us arm in arm.’

‘I love you, August. I shall always love you.’

The room lit up bright pink.

‘One thousand,’ said Anna-Luisa. ‘Two thousand …’ When he puffed at his cheroot he found it had gone out. He reached for his matches and relit it carefully, then he held up the match and Anna-Luisa blew it out but still counted on. When the thunder came she pronounced the storm to be four kilometres away. There was still no sound of rain.

‘Did you know how to tell how far away a storm is?’ she asked.

‘You can never be sure,’ said August.

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