Jack Higgins
Flight of Eagles

Dedication

For my wife Denise,

for special help with this one.

Amongst many virtues, pilot

extraordinaire …

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Publisher’s Note

The English Channel

1997

1

When we lost the starboard engine I knew we were…

2

The German connection for me was simple enough. National Service…

The Beginning

1917

3

August 1917. At 10,000 feet over the lines in France,…

Europe

1934–1941

4

Max sat on the terrace of their country house with…

5

The Blitz on London, the carnage it caused, was so…

6

It was two weeks later that Sarah Dixon left the…

Interim

1941–1943

7

Harry now found a different kind of war: desert, baking…

End-game

1943–1944

8

During October, Harry worked for West, visiting various squadrons throughout…

9

It was a day or two later that Abe Kelso…

10

Harry reported to Croydon at ten the following morning and…

11

In London two days later, and staying with Munro again,…

12

Jacaud was not what Harry had expected at all. He…

13

At Fermanville, Max was enjoying a drink in the mess…

14

At noon Bubi led the way along a corridor to…

15

A headwind slowed him down, but the flight was no…

16

Max and Molly danced on the crowded floor but he…

17

Max spent the afternoon brooding in the bedroom Carter had…

Cold Harbour

1998

18

It was almost a year to the day when Denise…

About the Author

Other Books by Jack Higgins

Copyright

About the Publisher

Publisher’s Note

Flight of Eagles was first published in the UK by Michael Joseph in 1998. It was later published in paperback by Penguin but has been out of print for several years.

In 2011, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a wonderful story languishing on his shelves. So we are delighted to be able to bring back Flight of Eagles for the pleasure of the vast majority of us who never had a chance to read the earlier editions.

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

1997

1

When we lost the starboard engine I knew we were in trouble, but then the whole trip was bad news from the start.

My wife had been staying with me for a few days at our house in Jersey in the Channel Islands when a phone message indicated a strong interest from a major Hollywood producer in filming one of my books. It meant getting over to England fast to our house at Chichester, a staging post to London. I phoned the air-taxi firm I usually used, but they had no plane available. However, they’d see what they could do. What they came up with was a Cessna 310 from Granville on the coast of Brittany and a rather ageing pilot called Dupont. Beggars not being choosers, I booked the flight without hesitation because the weather forecast wasn’t good and we wanted to get on with it. I sat in the rear, but the 310 having dual controls, my wife, being a highly experienced pilot, chose to occupy the right-hand seat to the pilot. Thank God she did.

The Channel Islands and the English Channel are subject to fogs that appear in an incredibly short time and close down everything fast, and that’s exactly what happened that morning. Taking off from Jersey was fine, but within ten minutes, the island was fogged out, and not only the French coast but Guernsey also.

We started for the South Coast of England, Southampton our destination. Dupont was close to sixty from the look of him, grey-haired, a little overweight. Sitting behind my wife and looking to one side as he worked the plane, I noticed a film of sweat on his face.

Denise was wearing headphones and passed me a spare pair, which I plugged in. At one stage she was piloting the plane as he engaged in conversation with air traffic control. He took over and she turned to me.

‘We’re at five thousand. Bad fog down there. Southampton’s out, including everything to the east. We’re trying for Bournemouth, but it doesn’t look good.’

Having avoided death as a child from IRA bombs in the Shankill in Belfast, and various minor spectaculars in the Army years later, I’ve learned to take life as it comes. I smiled above the roar of the engine, confident in my wife’s abilities, found the half-bottle of Moët et Chandon champagne they’d thoughtfully provided in the bar box, and poured some into a plastic glass. Everything, I’ve always thought, worked out for the best. In this case, it was for the worst.

It was exactly at that moment that the starboard engine died on us. For a heart-stopping moment, there was a plume of black smoke, and then it faded away.

Dupont seemed to get into a state, wrestling with the controls, frantically making adjustments, but to no avail. We started to go down. In a panic, he started to shout in French to the air traffic control at Bournemouth, but my wife waved a hand at him and took over, calmly, sweetly reasonable.

‘We have fuel for perhaps an hour,’ she reported. ‘Have you a suggestion?’

The air traffic controller happened to be a woman and her voice was just as calm.

‘I can’t guarantee it, but Cornwall is your best bet. It’s not closed in as fully there. Cold Harbour, a small fishing port on the coast near Lizard Point. There’s an old RAF landing strip there from the Second World War. Abandoned for years but usable. I’ll put out your details to all rescue services. Good luck.’

We were at 3000 for the next twenty minutes and the traffic on the radio was confusing, often blanked out by some kind of static. The fog swirled around us and then it started to rain very hard. Dupont seemed more agitated than ever, the sweat on his face very obvious now. Occasionally he spoke, but again in French and, once more, Denise took over. There were various voices, lots of static and the plane started to rock as a thunderstorm exploded around us.

Denise spoke, very controlled, giving our details. ‘Possible Mayday. Attempting a landing at airstrip at Cold Harbour.’

And then the static cleared and a voice echoed strong and true. ‘This is Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Cold Harbour, Zec Acland speaking. No way you’re going to land here, girl. Can’t see my hand in front of my face.’

For Dupont, this was the final straw. He gave a sudden moan, seemed to convulse and his head lolled to one side. The plane lurched down, but Denise took control and gradually levelled it out. I leaned over and felt for a pulse in his neck.

‘It’s there, but it’s weak. Looks like a heart attack.’

I pushed him away from her. She said calmly, ‘Take the life-jacket from under his seat and put it on him, then do the same for yourself.’

She put the 310 on automatic and pulled on her own life-jacket. I took care of Dupont and struggled into mine.

‘Are we going into the drink?’

‘I don’t think we’ve got much choice.’ She took manual control again.

I tried to be flippant, a personal weakness. ‘But it’s March. I mean, far too cold in the water.’

‘Just shut up! This is business,’ she said and spoke again as we went down. ‘RNLI, Cold Harbour. I’ll have to ditch. Pilot seems to have had a heart attack.’

That strong voice sounded again. ‘Do you know what you’re doing, girl?’

‘Oh, yes. One other passenger.’

‘I’ve already notified Royal Navy air sea rescue, but not much they can do in this pea-souper. The Cold Harbour lifeboat is already at sea and I’m on board. Give me a position as accurately as you can.’

Fortunately the plane was fitted with a Global Positional System, satellite linked, and she read it off. ‘I’ll go straight down,’ she said.

‘By God, you’ve got guts, girl. We’ll be there, never fear.’

My wife often discusses her flying with me, so I was aware of the problems in landing a fixed wing light twin aircraft in the sea. You had to approach with landing gear retracted and full flaps and reasonable power, a problem with one engine dead.

Light winds and small waves, land into the wind, heavy wind and big waves, land parallel to the crests. But we didn’t know what waited down there. We couldn’t see.

Denise throttled back and we descended and I watched the altimeter. One thousand, then five hundred. Nothing – not a damn thing – and then at a couple of hundred feet, broken fog, the sea below, small waves and she dropped us into the wind.

For those few moments, I think she became a truly great pilot. We bounced, skidded along the waves and came to a halt. The shock was considerable, but she had the cabin door open in an instant.

‘Bring him with you,’ she called and went out fast on to the wing.

I leaned over, unfastened Dupont’s seat-belt, then shoved him head first through the door. She reached for him, slid off the wing into the water and pulled him after her. I went then and slipped off the wing. I remembered some statistics she’d shown me on landings at sea. Ninety seconds seemed to be about par for the course before the plane sank.

Denise was hanging on to Dupont as they floated away in their yellow life-jackets. As I followed, the plane sinking, she shouted, ‘Oh God, Tarquin’s in there.’

This requires a word of explanation. Tarquin was a bear, but a unique bear. When we found him sitting on a shelf in a Brighton antique shop, he was wearing the leather flying helmet, flying boots and blue flying overalls of the Second World War’s Royal Air Force. He also wore Royal Flying Corps Wings from the First World War. He had had an enigmatic look on his face, which was not surprising, the dealer informed us, because he had flown repeatedly in the Battle of Britain with his former owner, a fighter pilot. It was a romantic story, but I tended to believe it, and I know my wife did, because he had the appearance of a bear who’d done things and been places. In any case, he’d become her mascot and flew with her frequently. There was no question of leaving him behind.

We’d placed him in the rear of the cabin, in a supermarket shopping bag, and I didn’t hesitate. I turned, reached for the handle of the rear cabin door, got it open and dragged out Tarquin in his bag.

‘Come on, old lad, we’re going for a swim,’ I said.

God, but it was cold, like acid eating into the bones and that, I knew, was the killer. You didn’t have long in the English Channel, as many RAF and Luftwaffe pilots had found to their cost.

I held on to Dupont and Tarquin, and she held on to me. ‘Great landing,’ I said. ‘Very impressive.’

‘Are we going to die?’ she demanded, in between gagging on sea water.

‘I don’t think so,’ I told her. ‘Not if you look over your shoulder.’

Which she did, and found an RNLI Tyne Class lifeboat emerging from the fog like some strange ghost. The crew were at the rail in yellow oilskins and orange life-jackets, as the boat coasted to a halt beside us and three men jumped into the water.

One old man stood out, as he leaned over the rail. He was in his eighties obviously, white-haired and bearded, and when he spoke, it was that same strong voice that we’d heard on the radio. Zec Acland. ‘By God, you brought it off, girl.’

‘So it would appear,’ Denise called.

They hauled us into the boat – and then the strangest thing happened. Acland looked at the soaked bear in my arms, a look of bewilderment on his face. ‘Dear God, Tarquin. Where did you get him?’

Denise and I sat on a bench in the main cabin, blankets around us, and drank tea from a thermos flask while two crew members worked on Dupont, who lay on the floor. Zec Acland sat on the bench opposite, watching. He took out an old silver flask, reached over and poured it into our mugs.

‘Rum,’ he said. ‘Do you good.’ At that moment, another man entered, black-haired, energetic, a younger version of Acland. ‘This is my boy, Simeon, cox of this boat, the Lady Carter.’

Simeon said, ‘It’s good to see you people in one piece. Makes it worthwhile.’

RNLI crews being unpaid volunteers, I could imagine how he felt. One of the two crew members kneeling beside Dupont fastened an oxygen mask over the Frenchman’s face and looked up. ‘He’s still with us, but it’s not good.’

‘There’s a Navy Sea King helicopter landing at Cold Harbour right about now,’ Simeon Acland said. ‘Take you people to civilization in no time.’

I glanced at Denise, who made a face, so I said, ‘Frankly, it’s been one hell of a day. Our friend Dupont needs a hospital, that’s obvious, but do you think there’s a chance my wife and I could stay overnight?’

Simeon laughed. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. My Dad, here, is publican at the Hanged Man in the village. Usually has a room or two available.’ He turned and saw the very wet bear on the bench beside his father. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s Tarquin,’ Zec Acland said.

A strange expression settled on Simeon’s face. ‘You mean –? Dear God, you weren’t lying, you old bugger. He really existed. All these years, I thought you just made it up.’ He picked Tarquin up and water poured out. ‘He’s soaked.’

‘Not to worry,’ Zec Acland said. ‘He’ll dry out. He’s been wet before.’

It was all very intriguing, and I was just about to take it further when my wife had a severe bout of seasickness, due to swallowing so much water. I followed her example only minutes later, but we were both back to normal by the time we rounded a promontory and saw an inlet on the bay beyond, a wooded valley above.

There was a grey stone manor house in the trees, no more than two or three dozen cottages, a quay, a few fishing boats moored. The Lady Carter eased into the quay, two or three fishermen came forward and caught the thrown lines, the engines stopped and then there was only the quiet, the fog and pouring rain.

In the near distance, we heard a sudden roaring, and Simeon said, ‘That’ll be the helicopter. Better get him up there.’ He nodded at Dupont.

His father said, ‘Good lad. I’ll see to these two. Hot baths in order. Decent dinner.’ He picked up Tarquin.

I said, ‘And an explanation. We’d love that.’

‘You’ll have it,’ he said, ‘I promise you.’

They had Dupont on a stretcher by then, carried him out and we followed.

The whole place had been put together in the mid-eighteenth century by a Sir William Chevely, we were told later, the cottages, harbour, quay, everything. By repute, Chevely had been a smuggler, and the port had been a front for other things. The pub, the Hanged Man, had mullioned windows and timber inserts. It certainly didn’t look Georgian.

Zec took us in and found a motherly sort of woman behind the bar who answered to the name of Betsy and who fussed around Denise immediately, taking her off upstairs. I stayed in the old, beamed bar with Zec and sat in front of the roaring log fire and enjoyed a very large Bushmills Whiskey.

He sat Tarquin on a ledge near the fire. ‘Let him dry natural.’

He took out a tin of cigarettes and selected one. I said, ‘The bear is important to you?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He nodded. ‘And to another. More than you’ll ever know.’

‘Tell me.’

He shook his head. ‘Later, when that wife of yours is with us. Quite a girl, that one. Got a few years on you.’

‘Twenty-five,’ I said. ‘But after fifteen years together, we must have got something right.’

‘Take it day by day,’ he said. ‘I learned that in the war. A lot of dying in those days.’

‘Were you in the Navy?’

‘Only for the first year, then they pulled me back to be coxswain of the lifeboat. It was like a full-time occupation in those days. Ships torpedoed, pilots down in the Channel. No, I missed out on the real naval war.’

As I discovered later, this was a totally false impression of a man who had earned the Distinguished Service Medal during his year with the Navy, then the George Cross, the MBE and four gold medals from the RNLI during his extraordinary service to that fine institution.

I said, ‘The sign outside the inn shows a young man hanging upside down suspended by his ankle. That’s a tarot image, isn’t it? I think it means regeneration.’

‘Ah, well, it was Julie Legrande painted that back in the big war. Housekeeper of the manor and ran the pub. We’ve had to have it freshened over the years, but it’s still what Julie painted.’

‘French?’ I asked.

‘Refugee from the Nazis.’ He stood. ‘Time you had a bath too. What business would you be in?’

‘I’m a novelist,’ I said.

‘Would I know you?’ I told him and he laughed. ‘Well, I guess I do. You’ve helped me get through a bad night or two. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Now, if you’ll excuse me …’ He stood and walked out.

I sat there thinking about it. Mystery piled on mystery here. The solution should be interesting.

We had dinner in the corner of the bar – sea bass, new potatoes, and a salad – and shared an ice-cold bottle of Chablis with Zec and Simeon. Denise and I both wore jeans and sweaters provided by the management. There were perhaps eight or more fishermen at the bar, three of them crew members of the lifeboat. The log fire burned brightly, rain rattled against the windows, and Tarquin steamed gently.

‘My dad used to tell me about Tarquin, the flying bear, when I was a kid,’ Simeon said. ‘I always thought it was a fairy story.’

‘So now you’ve finally learned the truth,’ Zec said. ‘You listen to me in future, boy.’ He turned to Denise. ‘Tell me where you got him.’

‘Antique shop in Brighton the other years,’ she said. ‘They told us he’d flown in the Battle of Britain with his owner, but they didn’t have any proof. I was always intrigued by the fact that besides RAF wings, he also wears Royal Flying Corps wings, and that was the First World War.’

‘Yes, well he would,’ Zec said. ‘That’s when he first went to war with the boys’ father.’

There was silence. Denise said carefully, ‘The boys’ father?’

‘A long time ago, 1917 in France, but never mind that right now.’ He nodded to Simeon. ‘Another bottle.’ Simeon went obediently to the bar and Zec said, ‘I last saw Tarquin in 1944. On his way to occupied France. Then all these years later, he turns up on a shelf in an antique shop in Brighton.’

He opened his tin, took out a cigarette and my wife said, ‘Could I join you?’ He gave her one and a light, and she leaned back. ‘Tarquin is an old friend, I think?’

‘You could say that. I took him out of the Channel once before. Nineteen forty-three. Went down in a Hurricane. Great fighters, those. Shot down more of the Luftwaffe than Spitfires did.’ He seemed to brood and as Simeon returned with the new bottle of Chablis, the old man said, ‘Harry, that was, or was it Max? We could never be sure.’

Simeon put the tray down. ‘You all right, Dad?’ There was concern in his voice.

‘Who, me?’ Zec Acland smiled. ‘Wasn’t there a book about some Frenchman who smelled or tasted something and the past all came flooding back?’

‘Marcel Proust,’ Denise said.

‘Well, that’s what that damned bear’s done for me. Brought it all back.’ There were tears in his eyes.

Simeon poured the wine. ‘Come on, Dad, drink up. Don’t upset yourself.’

‘My bedroom. The red box in the third drawer. Get it for me, boy.’

Simeon went obediently.

Zec put another log on the fire, and when Simeon returned with the box, Zec placed it on the table and opened it, revealing papers and photos.

‘Some of these you’ve seen, boy,’ he told Simeon. ‘And some you haven’t.’

He passed one of the pictures to Denise: the quay at Cold Harbour, a lifeboat moored, a much older model, Simeon on deck, a naval cap on the back of his head. Simeon and yet not Simeon.

‘I looked good then,’ Zec said.

Denise leaned across and kissed his cheek. ‘You still do.’

‘Now don’t you start what you can’t finish, girl.’ He fell about laughing, then passed photos across, one after another, all black and white.

The pub looked the same. There was a shot of an Army officer, engagingly ugly, about sixty-five from the look of him, steel-rimmed spectacles, white hair.

‘Brigadier Munro,’ Zec said. ‘Dougal Munro, Oxford professor before the war, then he joined the intelligence service. What was called Special Operations Executive. SOE. Churchill cooked that up. Set Europe ablaze, he said, and they did. Put secret agents into France, that sort of thing. They moved the local population out of Cold Harbour. Turned it into a secret base.’

He poured more wine and Simeon said, ‘You never told me that, Dad.’

‘Because we and everyone else here had to sign the Official Secrets Act.’ He shook out some more photos. A woman with Brigadier Munro. ‘That was Julie Legrande. As I said, housekeeper at the manor and ran the pub.’ There was another picture with Munro and an officer, a captain with a ribbon for the MC, a stick in one hand. ‘That was Jack Carter, Munro’s aide. Left his leg at Dunkirk.’

There were others, and then he came to a large brown envelope. He hesitated, then opened it. ‘Official Secrets Act. What the hell. I’m eighty-eight years old.’

If the photos before had been interesting, these were astonishing. One of them showed an airstrip with a Junkers 88S night fighter, the German cross plain on the fuselage, a swastika on the tailplane. The mechanic wore black Luftwaffe overalls. To one side was a Fieseler Storch spotter plane. There were two hangars behind.

‘What on earth is this?’ I asked.

‘The airstrip up the road. Yes, Cold Harbour. Night flights to France, that sort of thing. You foxed the enemy by being the enemy.’

‘Not too healthy if they caught you, I should have thought,’ Denise observed.

‘Firing-squad time if they did. Of course, they also operated RAF stuff like this.’ He passed her another photo. ‘Lysander. Ugly beast, but they could land and take off in a ploughed field.’

Another photo showed the Lysander, an officer and a young woman. He wore an American uniform, the bars of a lieutenant-colonel, and a string of medal ribbons. I could make out the DSO and the DFC, but the really fascinating fact was that on the right breast of his battledress blouse were RAF wings.

‘Who was he?’ I asked.

His reply was strange as he examined the photo. ‘Harry, I think, or maybe Max, I could never be sure.’

There it was again, that same comment. Simeon looked as bewildered as I did. I was about to ask what he meant, when Denise said, ‘And the young woman?’

‘Oh, that’s Molly – Molly Sobel, Munro’s niece. Her mother was English, her father an American general. Clever girl. A doctor. Trained in England before the war and worked in London during the Blitz. Used to fly down from London with Munro when a doctor was needed. It was all secret, you see.’

He seemed to have gone away to some private place of his own. We said nothing. The fire crackled, rain battered the window, the men at the bar talked in a low murmur.

Simeon said, ‘You all right, Dad?’

‘Never better, but better I’ll be with a large rum in me. I’m cutting loose a burden tonight, a secret nurtured over the years.’ He shook a fist at Tarquin. ‘All your fault, you damn bear.’

Simeon got up and went to the bar. Tarquin, still slightly steaming, sat there, enigmatic to the end.

Simeon, obviously concerned said, ‘Look, Dad, I don’t know what this is about, but maybe it’s a bit much for you.’

Again, it was Denise who cut in, leaning forward and putting her hand on Zec’s. ‘No, leave him, Simeon, he needs to talk, I think.’

He clasped her hand strongly and smiled. ‘By God, I said you were a woman of parts.’ He seemed to straighten.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘The pilot, the American, Harry or Max, you said?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Which doesn’t make sense.’

‘Dear God, girl, all the sense in the world.’ He leaned back, laughing, then opened another envelope from the box. ‘Special these. Very, very special.’

They were large prints and once again in black and white. The first was of an RAF flight lieutenant standing against a Hurricane fighter. It was the same man we’d seen earlier in American uniform.

‘Yank in the RAF,’ Zec said. ‘There were a few hundred before America joined the war at the end of ’41, after Pearl Harbor.’

‘He looks tired,’ Denise said and handed the photo back.

‘Well, he would. That was taken in September 1940 during the Battle of Britain just after he got his second DFC. He flew for the Finns in their war with the Russians. Got some fancy medal from them and when that caved in, he got to England and joined the RAF. They were funny about Yanks at that time, America being neutral, but some clerk put Harry down as a Finn, so they took him.’

‘Harry?’ Denise said gently.

‘Harry Kelso. He was from Boston.’ He took another large print out, Kelso in American uniform again. ‘Nineteen forty-four, that.’

The medals were astonishing. A DSO and bar, a DFC and two bars, the French Croix de Guerre, the Legion of Honour, the Finnish Gold Cross of Valour.

I said, ‘This is incredible. I mean, I’ve a special interest in the Second World War and I’ve never even heard of him.’

‘You wouldn’t. Thanks to that clerk, he was in the records as a Finn for quite some time and, as I said, there were reasons. The Official Secrets Act.’

‘But why?’ Denise demanded.

Zec Acland took another photo from the envelope and put it on the table, the show-stopper of all time.

‘Because of this,’ he said.

The photo was in colour and showed Kelso once again in uniform, only this time, that of the Luftwaffe. He wore flying boots and baggy, comfortable trousers in blue-grey with large map pockets. The short flying blouse with yellow collar patches gave him a dashing look. He wore his silver pilot’s badge on the left side, an Iron Cross First Class above it, a Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves at his throat.

‘But I don’t understand,’ Denise said.

‘It’s quite simple,’ Zec Acland told her. ‘Munro gave me that. The other photos, the Yank in the RAF? That was Harry. This is the Yank in the Luftwaffe, his twin brother, Max. American father and German mother, a baroness. So Max, being the eldest by ten minutes, was Baron Max von Halder. The Black Baron, the Luftwaffe called him.’ He put the photos away. ‘I’ll tell you what I can, if you like.’ He smiled. ‘Make a good story for you.’ He smiled again. ‘Not that anyone would believe it.’

By the time he’d finished, the bar was empty, Betsy locking the door after the last customers and bringing us tea on a tray without a word. Simeon, I think, was as astonished as Denise and I were.

Again, it was Denise who said, ‘Is that it?’

‘Of course not, girl.’ He smiled. ‘Lots of pieces in the jigsaw missing. I mean, the German end of things. Top secret there too. Can’t help you there.’ He turned to me. ‘Still, a smart chap like you might know where to pull a few strings.’

‘A possibility,’ I said.

‘Well, then.’ He stood up. ‘I’m for bed and Simeon’s wife will wonder what he’s about.’ He kissed Denise on the cheek. ‘Sleep well, girl, you deserve it.’

He went out. Simeon nodded and followed. We sat there by the fire, not speaking, and then Denise said, ‘I’ve just thought. You served in Germany for a while in the Army. You mentioned those German relatives from years ago. Didn’t you say one of them was in the police or something?’

‘In a manner of speaking. He was Gestapo.’

She wasn’t particularly shocked. The war, after all, had been half a century before, well before her time. ‘There you are, then.’

‘I’ll see,’ I said, and pulled her up. ‘Time for bed.’

The room was small, with twin beds, and I lay there, unable to sleep, aware only of her gentle breathing as I stared up through the darkness and remembered. A long time ago – a hell of a long time ago.

2

The German connection for me was simple enough. National Service with the old Royal Horse Guards, a little time with the Army of Occupation in Berlin, a lot more patrolling the East German border in Dingo scout cars and Jeeps in the days when the so-called Cold War was hotting up.

The area we patrolled was so like the Yorkshire moors that I always expected Heathcliff and Cathy to run out of the mist or the snow or the torrential rain for I can honestly say that inclement was a mild word to describe the weather in those parts.

The border at that time was completely open and, as a kind of police action, we were supposed to stem the tide of refugees trying to flee to the West as well as the gangs of black marketeers, usually ex-SS, who operated out of East Germany, using it as a refuge.

Our opponents were Siberian infantry regiments, hard men of the first order and occasionally the odd angry shot was fired. We called it World War Two and a Half, but when your time was up, you went home to demobilization. American troops doing the same work in their sector got three medals. We got nothing!

Back home in Leeds, as I started a succession of rather dreary jobs, I received a buff envelope from the authorities reminding me that I was a reservist for the next ten years. It suggested that I join the Territorial Army, become a weekend soldier and, when I discovered there was money to be earned, I took them up on it, particularly as I was considering going to work in London. There was a Territorial Army Regiment there, called the Artists Rifles, which the War Office turned into 21 SAS. When the Malayan Emergency started many members volunteered for the Malayan Scouts, which in 1952 became a Regular Army Unit, 22 SAS.

When in London job-hunting, I reported to 21 SAS with my papers and was enthusiastically received as an ex-Guards NCO. I filled in various papers, had the usual medical and found myself finally in front of a Major Wilson, although in view of what happened later, I doubt it was his real name.

‘Just sign here, Corporal,’ he said and pushed a form across the desk.

‘And just what am I signing, sir?’ I asked.

‘The Official Secrets Act.’ He smiled beautifically. ‘This is that kind of unit, you see.’

I hesitated, then signed.

‘Good.’ He took the form and blotted my signature carefully.

‘Shall I report Saturday, sir?’ I asked.

‘No, not yet. A few formalities to be gone through. We’ll be in touch.’

He smiled again, so I left it at that and departed.

I had a phone call from him about two weeks later at the insurance office in Leeds where I worked at that time, suggesting a meeting at Yates’ Wine Bar near City Square at lunchtime. We sat in a corner enjoying pie and peas and a light ale while he broke the bad news. I was surprised to find him in Yorkshire, but he didn’t explain.

‘The thing is, old son, the SAS can’t use you. The medical shows a rather indifferent left eye. Although you don’t advertise the fact, you wear glasses.’

‘Well, the Horse Guards didn’t object. I fired for the regimental team at Bisley. I was a crack shot. I had a sharpshooter’s badge.’

‘Yes, we know about that. At least two Russians on the East German side of the border could confirm your skill, or their corpses could. On the other hand, you only got in the Guards because some stupid clerk forgot to fill in the eye section on your records and, of course, the Guards never admit mistakes.’

‘So that’s it?’

‘Afraid so. Pity, really. Such an interesting background. That uncle of yours, staff sergeant at Hamburg headquarters. Remarkable record. Captured before Dunkirk, escaped from prison camp four times, sent to Auschwitz to the enclave for Allied prisoners considered bad boys. Two-thirds of them died.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Of course they’ve kept him at HQ Hamburg because of his excellent German. He married a German war widow, I see.’

‘Well, love knows no frontiers,’ I told him.

‘I suppose so. Interesting family though, just like you. Born in England, Irish-Scot, raised in the Shankill in Belfast. What they call an Orange Prod.’

‘So?’

‘But also raised by your mother’s Catholic cousin in Crossmaglen. Very republican down there, those people. You must have fascinating contacts.’

‘Look, sir,’ I said carefully. ‘Is there anything you don’t know about me?’

‘No.’ He smiled that beatific smile. ‘We’re very thorough.’ He stood up. ‘Must go. Sorry it turned out this way.’ He picked up his raincoat. ‘Just one thing. Do remember you signed the Official Secrets Act. Prison term for forgetting that.’

I was genuinely bewildered. ‘But what does it matter now? I mean, your regiment doesn’t need me.’

He started away then turned again. ‘And don’t forget you’re a serving member of the Army Reserve. You could be recalled at any time.’

What was interesting was a German connection he hadn’t mentioned, but then I didn’t know about it myself until 1952. My uncle’s wife had a nephew named Konrad Strasser, or at least that was one of several names he used over the years. I was introduced to him in Hamburg at a party in St Pauli for my uncle’s German relatives.

Konrad was small and dark and full of energy, always smiling. He was thirty-two, a Chief Inspector in the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department. We stood in the corner in the midst of a noisy throng.

‘Was it fun on the border?’ he asked.

‘Not when it snowed.’

‘Russia was worse.’

‘You were in the Army there?’

‘No, the Gestapo. Only briefly, thank God, hunting down some crooks stealing Army supplies.’

To say I was shaken is to put it mildly. ‘Gestapo?’

He grinned. ‘Let me complete your education. The Gestapo needed skilled and experienced detectives so they descended on police forces all over Germany and commandeered what they wanted. That’s why more than fifty per cent of Gestapo operatives weren’t even members of the Nazi party and that included me. I was about twenty in 1940 when they hijacked me. I didn’t have a choice.’

I believed him instantly and later, things that happened in my life proved that he was telling the truth. In any case, I liked him.

It was 1954 when Wilson re-entered my life. I was working in Leeds, as a civil servant at the time, still writing rather indifferent novels that nobody wanted. I had a backlog of four weeks’ holiday and decided to spend a couple in Berlin because my uncle had been moved there on a temporary basis to Army headquarters.

The phone call from Wilson was a shock. Yates’ Wine Bar again, downstairs, a booth. This time he had ham sandwiches, Yorkshire, naturally, and off the bone.

‘Bit boring for you, the Electricity Generating Authority.’

‘True,’ I said. ‘But only an hour’s work a day. I sit at my desk and write.’

‘Yes, but not much success there,’ he informed me brutally. There was a pause. ‘Berlin should make a nice break.’

I said, ‘Look, what the hell is this about?’

‘Berlin,’ he said. ‘You’re going to stay with your uncle a week next Tuesday. We’d like you to do something for us.’

Sitting there in the normality of Yates’ Wine Bar in Leeds with the muted roar of City Square traffic outside, this seemed the most bizarre proposition I’d ever had.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I tried to join 21 SAS, you said my bad eye ruled me out, so I never joined, did I?’

‘Not quite as simple as that, old boy. Let me remind you, you did sign the Official Secrets Act and you are still a member of the Army Reserve.’

‘You mean I’ve no choice?’

‘I mean we own you, my son.’ He took an envelope from his briefcase. ‘When you’re in Berlin, you’ll take a trip into the Eastern Zone by bus. All the details are in there. You go to the address indicated, pick up an envelope and bring it back.’

‘This is crazy,’ I said. ‘For one thing, I remember from my service in Berlin that to go through on a British passport is impossible.’

‘But, my dear chap, your Irish antecedents earn you an Irish passport as well as a British one. You’ll find it in the envelope. People with Irish passports can go anywhere, even China, without a visa.’ He stood up and smiled. ‘It’s all in there. Quite explicit.’

‘And when I come out?’

‘All taken care of.’

He moved away through the lunchtime crowd and I suddenly realized that what I was thinking wasn’t ‘When I come out.’ It was ‘Will I come out?’

The first surprise in Berlin was that my uncle had been posted back to Hamburg, or so I was informed by the caretaker of the flat he lived in.

She was an old, careworn woman, who said, ‘You’re the nephew. He told me to let you in,’ which she did.

It was a neutral, grey sort of place. I dropped my bag, had a look round and answered a ring at the door to find Konrad Strasser standing there.

‘You’re looking good,’ he said.

He found a bottle of schnapps and poured a couple. ‘So, you’re doing the tourist bit into the Eastern Zone, boy?’

‘You seem well-informed.’

‘Yes, you could say that.’

I swallowed my schnapps. ‘What’s a Hamburg detective doing in Berlin?’

‘I moved over last year. I worked for the BND, West German Intelligence. An outfit called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Our main task is to combat Communist infiltration into our part of the country.’

‘So?’

He poured himself another schnapps. ‘You’re going over this afternoon with Germanic Tours in their bus. Leave your Brit passport here, only take the Irish.’

‘Look, what is this?’ I demanded. ‘And how are you involved?’

‘That doesn’t matter. What does is that you’re a bagman for 21 SAS.’

‘For God’s sake, they turned me down.’

‘Well, not really. It’s more complicated than that. Have you ever heard the old IRA saying? Once in, never out?’

I was stunned but managed to say, ‘What have you got to do with all this?’

He took a piece of paper from his wallet and passed it over. ‘There’s a crude map for you and a bar called Heini’s. If things go wrong, go there and tell the barman that your accommodation is unsatisfactory and you must move at once. Use English.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘That someone will come for you. Of course, if everything works, you come back on the tour bus, but that would imply a perfect world.’

I said, ‘You’re part of this. Me, Wilson. My uncle’s not here, yet you are. What the hell goes on?’

I suddenly thought of my desk at the office in Leeds, the Astoria ballroom on a Friday night, girls in cotton frocks. What was I doing here?

‘You’re a fly in the web, just like me in the Gestapo. You got pulled in. All so casual, but no way back.’ He finished his schnapps and moved to the door. ‘I’m on your side, boy, remember that.’ He closed the door and was gone.

The tour bus took us through Checkpoint Charlie, everything nice and easy. There were tourists from all over the world on board. On the other side, the border police inspected us. In my case, my tourist visas and Irish passport. No problems at all.

Later, at lunch at a very old-fashioned hotel, the guides stressed that if anyone got lost on any of the tours, they should make for the hotel, where the coach would leave at five.

In my case, the instructions in the brown envelope told me to be at my destination at four. I hung in there for two boring hours and dropped out at three-thirty, catching a taxi at just the right moment.

The East Germans had a funny rule at the time. The Christian church was allowed, but you couldn’t be a member of the Communist Party and go to church – it would obviously damage your job prospects. The result was that the congregations were rather small.

The Church of the Holy Name had obviously seen better days. It was cold, it was damp, it was shabby. There was even a shortage of candles. There were three old women sitting waiting at the confessional box, a man in a brown raincoat praying in a pew close by. I obeyed my instructions and waited. Finally, my turn came and I entered the confessional box.

There was a movement on the other side of the grille. I said, ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,’ and I said it in English.

‘In what way, my son?’

I replied as the instructions in the envelope had told me. ‘I am here only as God’s messenger.’

‘Then do God’s work.’

An envelope was pushed under the grille. There was silence, the light switched off on the other side. I picked up the envelope and left.

I don’t know how long it took me to realize that the man in the brown raincoat was following me. The afternoon was darkening fast, rain starting to fall and I looked desperately for a taxi with no success. I started to walk fast, moving from street to street, aiming for the River Spree, trying to remember the city from the old days, but at every corner, looking back, there he was.

Turning into one unexpected alley, I ran like hell and suddenly saw the river. I turned along past a line of decaying warehouses and ducked into an entrance. He ran past a few moments later. I waited – silence, only the heavy rain – then stepped out, moving to the edge of the wharf.

‘Halt! Stay exactly where you are.’

He came round the corner, a Walther PPK in his left hand, and approached.

I said, in English, sounding outraged, ‘I say, what on earth is this?’

He came close. ‘Don’t try that stuff with me. We both know you’ve been up to no good. I’ve been watching that old bastard at the church for weeks.’

He made his one mistake then, coming close enough to slap my face. I grabbed his right wrist, knocked the left arm to one side and caught that wrist as well. He discharged the pistol once and we came together as we lurched to the edge of the wharf. I turned the Walther against him. It discharged again and he cried out, still clutching his weapon, and went over the edge into the river. I turned and ran as if the hounds of hell were at my heels. When I reached the hotel, the coach had departed.

I found Heini’s bar an hour later. It was really dark by then. The bar, as was to be expected so early in the evening, was empty. The barman was old and villainous, with iron-grey hair and a scar bisecting his left cheek up to an empty eye socket. I ordered a cognac.

‘Look,’ I said in English. ‘My accommodation is unsatisfactory and I must move at once.’

It seemed wildly crazy, but to my surprise, he nodded and replied in English. ‘Okay, sit by the window. We’ve got a lamb stew tonight. I’ll bring you some. When it’s time to go, I’ll let you know.’

I had the stew, a couple more drinks, then he suddenly appeared to take the plates. There were half a dozen other customers by then.

‘Cross the street to the wharf where the cranes are beside the river. Black Volkswagen limousine. No charge, just go.’

I did as I was told, crossed the road through the rain and found the Volkswagen. In a strange way, it was no surprise to find Konrad Strasser at the wheel.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

I climbed in. ‘What’s this, special treatment?’

‘Decided to come myself. What was your score on the border? Two Russians? Well, you’re now an Ace. A Stasi agent went into the Spree tonight.’

Stasis were members of the East German State Security Police.

I said, ‘He didn’t give me a choice.’

‘I don’t imagine he would.’

We drove through a maze of streets. I said, ‘Coming yourself, was that in the plan?’

‘Not really.’

‘Risky, I’d have thought.’

‘Yes, well, you are family in a way. Look, the whole thing’s been family. You, the border, your uncle, me, the old Gestapo hand. Sometimes we still have choices. I did tonight and came for you. Anyway, we’re returning through a backstreet border post. I know the sergeant. Just lie back and go to sleep.’ He passed me a half-bottle. ‘Cognac. Pour it over yourself.’

The rain was torrential as, minutes later, we drove through an area where every house had been demolished, creating a no-man’s-land protected from the West by barbed-wire fences. Of course, the Berlin Wall had not been built in those days. There was a red and white barricade, two Vopos in old Wehrmacht raincoats, rifles slung. I lay back in the seat and closed my eyes.

Konrad braked to a halt and one of the men, a sergeant, came forward. ‘In and out, Konrad,’ he said. ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘My cousin from Ireland.’ Konrad offered my Irish passport. ‘Pissed out of his mind.’ The aroma of good cognac proved it. ‘I’ve got those American cigarettes you wanted. Marlboros. I could only manage a thousand, I’m afraid.’

The sergeant said, ‘My God!’, thrust my passport back and took the five cartons Konrad offered. ‘Come again.’

The bar lifted and we drove forward into the bright lights of West Berlin.

In my uncle’s flat, Konrad helped himself to whisky and held out a hand. ‘Give me the envelope.’

I did as I was told. ‘What is it?’

‘You don’t need to know.’

I started to get indignant but then decided he was right.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask. You told me I was a bagman for the SAS. I was given the job by a Major Wilson, but by a strange coincidence, you’re involved. Why is that?’

‘It’s no coincidence – grow up! Everything fits like a jigsaw. Let me fill you in on the facts of life. Twenty-one SAS is comprised of weekend soldiers, everything from lawyers to cab drivers and most things in between. A hell of a range of languages. Twenty-two Regiment, the regulars, spends its time shooting Chinese in Malaya and Arabs in the Oman and things like that. People in Twenty-one are odd-job men like you. You were coming to Berlin, it was noted. You were useful.’

‘And expendable?’

‘Exactly, and a coincidence that I was lurking in the family background.’

‘You probably saved my life.’

‘Oh, you managed.’ He laughed. ‘You’ll be back at that favourite ballroom of yours in a few days, picking up girls, and none of them will know what a desperate fellow you are.’

‘So that’s it,’ I said. ‘I just go back?’

‘That’s about the size of it. Wilson will be quite pleased.’ He finished his Scotch. ‘But do me a favour. Don’t come back to Berlin. They’ll be waiting for you next time.’

He moved to the door and opened it. I said, ‘Will there be a next time?’

‘As I said, Twenty-one uses people for special situations where they fit in. Who knows?’ For a moment he looked serious. ‘They turned you down, but that was from the flashy bit. The uniform, the beret, the badge that says: Who Dares Wins.’

‘But they won’t let me go?’

‘I’m afraid not. Take care,’ and he went out.

He was accurate enough. I went through a totally sterile period, then numerous jobs, college, university, marriage, a successful teaching career and an equally successful writing career. It was only when the Irish Troubles in Ulster really got seriously going in the early seventies that I heard from Wilson again after I’d written a successful novel about the situation. He was by then a full colonel, ostensibly in the Royal Engineers when I met him in uniform, although I doubted it.

We sat in the bar of an exclusive hotel outside Leeds and he toasted my success in champagne. ‘You’ve done very well, old chap. Great book and so authentic.’

‘I’m glad you liked it.’

‘Not like these things written by television reporters and the like. Very superficial, whereas you – well, you really understand the Irish, but then you would. I mean, an Orange Prod, but with Catholic connections. Very useful that.’

I was aware of a sense of déjà vu, Berlin all over again.

I said carefully, ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing too much. You’re doing an appearance in Dublin next week, book signings, television?’

‘So?’

‘It would be very useful if you would meet one or two people for us.’

I said, ‘Nearly twenty years ago, I met someone for you in Berlin and nearly got my head blown off.’

‘Another side to that. As I recall, it was the other chap who took the flak.’ He smiled. ‘Interesting that. It never gave you a problem, just like the Russians.’

‘They’d have done worse to me,’ I said. ‘They shouldn’t have joined.’ I took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘What am I supposed to do, repeat the performance, only in the Liffey this time instead of the Spree?’

‘Not at all. No rough stuff. Intermediary, that’s you, old chap. Just speak to a few people, that’s all.’

I thought about it, aware of a certain sense of excitement. ‘You’ve forgotten that I did my ten years in the Army Reserve and that ended some time ago.’

‘Of course it did, but you did sign the Official Secrets Act when you joined Twenty-one.’

‘Which threw me out.’

‘Yes, well, as I said to you a long time ago, it’s more complicated than that.’

‘You mean, once in, never out?’ I stubbed out my cigarette. ‘Konrad said that to me in Berlin. How is he, by the way? I haven’t seen him for some time.’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Very active. So, I can take it you’ll co-operate?’

‘I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?’

He emptied his champagne glass. ‘No need to worry. Easy one, this.’

No rough stuff? Easy one, this? Five trips for the bastard, bombs, shooting, glass on the streets, too many bad Saturday nights in Belfast until that eventful day when men with guns in their pockets escorted me to the airport with the suggestion that I not come back. I didn’t, not for years, and interestingly enough, I didn’t hear again from Wilson, although in a manner of speaking, I did, through the obituary page in the Daily Telegraph, his photo staring out at me, only he was a brigadier, not a colonel and his name wasn’t Wilson.

Dawn came over the Cornish coast with a lot of mist, as I stood on the little balcony of the bedroom at the Hanged Man. A long night remembering. My wife still slept as I dressed quietly and went downstairs to the lounge bar. She’d been right, of course. The German connection was what I needed on this one and that meant Konrad Strasser. I hadn’t spoken to him for a few years. My uncle’s death, and my German aunt’s, had tended to sever the connection, but I had his number on what I called my essential card in my wallet. Damp but usable. I got it out and just then the kitchen door opened and Zec Acland looked in.

‘Up early.’

‘And you.’

‘Don’t sleep much at my age. Just made a pot of tea.’

‘I’ll be in shortly. I’d like to make a phone call. Hamburg. Don’t worry, I’ll put it on the bill.’

‘Hamburg. That’s interesting. Early there too.’

‘Another older man. He probably doesn’t sleep much either.’

Acland returned to the kitchen, I sat on a stool at the bar, found my card and dialled the number. As I remembered, Konrad had been born in 1920, which made him seventy-seven. His wife was dead, I knew that. A daughter in Australia.

The phone was picked up and a harsh voice said in German, ‘Now who in the hell is that?’

I said in English, ‘Your Irish cousin. How’s Hamburg this morning?’

He lived at Blankenese on the Elbe. ‘Fog on the river, a couple of boats moving out.’ He laughed, still calling me boy as he always had. ‘Good to hear from you, boy. No more of that damned Irish nonsense, I hope.’

‘No way. I’m an older guy, now, remember.’

‘Yes, I do and I also remember that when you first met your present wife and told me she was twenty-five years younger, I gave you a year.’

‘And that was fifteen years ago.’

‘So, even an old Gestapo hand can’t be right all the time.’

He broke into a terrible fit of coughing. I waited for him to stop, then said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course. Blood and iron, that’s us Germans. Is your wife still Wonder Woman? Formula One, diving, flying planes?’

‘She was Wonder Woman yesterday,’ I said. ‘Saved our lives.’

‘Tell me.’

Which I did.

When I was finished he said, ‘My God, what a woman.’

‘An understatement. She can be infuriating, mind you.’

‘And the rest of the time?’

‘Absolutely marvellous.’

He was coughing again and finally said, ‘So, what’s it all about? A phone call out of the blue at the crack of dawn.’

‘I need your expertise. A rather astonishing story has come my way. I’ve got brothers, twins, born 1918, named Harry and Max Kelso. Father American, mother Baroness Elsa von Halder.’

He grunted. ‘Top Prussian aristocrats, the von Halders.’

‘The twins were split. Harry, the youngest, stayed in the States with his rich grandfather, who bankrolled the Baroness to return to Germany in 1930 with Max after her husband was killed in a car crash. Max, as the eldest, was automatically Baron von Halder.’

‘I’ve heard that name.’

‘You would. The Black Baron, a top Luftwaffe ace. The brother, Harry, was also a flyer. He flew for the Finns against Russia, then was a Yank in the RAF. Battle of Britain, the lot. More medals than you could shake a stick at.’

There was a silence, then, ‘What a story, so why isn’t it one of the legends of the Second World War?’

‘Because for some reason, it’s classified.’

‘After all these years?’

‘I’ve been talking to an old boy who’s past caring at eighty-eight so he’s given me a lot of facts, but the German side is virtually missing. I thought an old Gestapo hand might still have access to classified records. Of course, I’ll understand if you can’t.’

‘What do you mean if I can’t?’ He started to cough again. ‘I like it, I love it. It could give me a new lease of life, not that it matters. I’m on limited time. Lung cancer.’

God, but that hurt, for he was a man I’d liked more than most. I said, ‘Jesus, Konrad, leave it.’

‘Why should I? I’ll have such fun. I’m old, I’m dying, so I don’t care about classified information. What a joy. For once in a lengthy career in Intelligence, I can turn over the dirt and not give a damn. You’ve done me a favour. Now just let’s go over a few facts, whatever you know about the Black Baron, and then I’ll get on with it.’

A little while later, the aroma of frying bacon took me to the kitchen, where Zec had made sandwiches. I sat at one end of the table, drank tea you could have stood a spoon up in and ate the sandwiches and felt on top of the world.

‘Phone call okay?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ I told him. ‘A relative of mine. If anyone can find out the German side of things as regards Max Kelso, he can.’

‘You seem pretty certain.’

‘Oh, I am. He’s a lot like you, Zec. Seventy-seven, seen it all, has the right connections.’ I poured another cup of tea. ‘He was in the Gestapo during the war.’

He almost fell out of his chair laughing. ‘Dear God.’

I said, ‘You’ve told me everything you can?’

‘Of course not. Let’s see what you come up with, then we’ll look at any missing pieces.’ He got up. ‘Must check the beer kegs. I’ll see you later.’

After breakfast. I went to the end of the jetty, lit a cigarette and stared out into the fog, thinking about it all. Denise turned up about ten minutes later, in a huge sweater and jeans obviously intended for a man. She was holding two mugs of tea.

‘I thought you might like a wet. I’ve been on to Goodwood Aero Club. Bernie Smith’s flying down to pick us up.’

‘That’s good.’ I drank a little and put an arm about her waist. ‘Thanks!’

‘Bad night?’

‘The German connection. Things you never knew about. The border a long, long time ago. Ireland, the Troubles. It all went round and round.’ I hesitated. ‘You mentioned that cousin of mine in Hamburg, the one who’d been in the Gestapo.’

‘So?’

‘I phoned him earlier. He’s still in Hamburg. He has the kind of past that gives him access to things.’

‘Was he willing to help?’

I gave a deep sigh. ‘Absolutely delighted. Turns out he’s got lung cancer. He said the problem would give him a new lease on life, but not for long, I should imagine.’

She held me tight. ‘How rotten for you.’

How rotten for me? I said, ‘Let’s go back to the pub. You could do with some breakfast. Konrad will come up with something. Hot stuff, the Gestapo.’

He did, of course, performed magnificently and also died six months later. Pieced together from what he uncovered, and from what Zec told me, and from some researches of my own, this is what we found out: the true and remarkable story of the brothers Kelso.

THE BEGINNING

1917

3

August 1917. At 10,000 feet over the lines in France, Jack Kelso was as happy as any human being could be. Twenty-two years of age, and the scion of one of Boston’s finest and richest families, he could have been doing his final year at Harvard, but instead, he was working through his second year with the British Royal Flying Corps.

The aircraft he was flying was a Bristol fighter, one of the great combat aircraft of the war, a two-seater with an observer-gunner in the rear. Kelso’s sergeant, who had taken shrapnel the day before in a dogfight, had been hospitalized and Kelso, a hotshot pilot with a Military Cross and fifteen German planes to his credit, had illegally taken off on his own. Well, not quite on his own, for sitting in the bottom of his cockpit was a bear called Tarquin in leather helmet and flying jacket.

Kelso tapped him on the head. ‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘Don’t let me down.’

At that period, the British War Office still banned parachutes on the argument that their use made cowards out of pilots. Jack Kelso, a realist and a rich young man, sat on the very latest model, his private possession.

He was a realist about other things as well: Always watch for attacks out of the sun. Never cross the line under 10,000 feet on your own.

The great von Richthofen once shot down four Bristols in one day and there were reasons. The pilot had a fixed machine-gun up front, a Vickers. The observer carried two free-mounting Lewis guns in the rear, which meant the man in the back did all the shooting. After a series of disasters, it had been pilots like Kelso who’d discovered that the plane was so manoeuvrable that she could be handled like a single-seater.

The weather was bad that morning, wind and rain, thick storm clouds and in the noise and confusion, Kelso wasn’t even aware what kind of plane it was that made his luck run out. There was a roaring, a shadow to port, machine-gunfire ripping the Bristol apart, a bullet tearing into his left leg and then he descended into the safety of heavy cloud.

He turned back towards the British lines, to 7000 then 5000 and was aware of a burning smell. He made 3000, flames flickering around his engine. There was the briefest glimpse of the trenches below, the battlefields of Flanders. Time to go. He unbuckled his seat-belt, picked up Tarquin and stuffed him inside his heavy leather coat then turned the Bristol over and dropped out. He fell for 1000 feet, pulled his ripcord and floated down.

He landed in a shell hole half filled with water, unsure of whether he was on the British or German side of the trenches, but his luck was good. A khaki-clad patrol half plastered in mud reached him in a matter of minutes, clutching rifles.

‘Don’t shoot, I’m Flying Corps,’ Kelso shouted.

There was a burst of machine-gunfire in the vicinity. As two soldiers unbuckled Kelso’s parachute, a sergeant lit a cigarette and put it between his lips.

‘Funny accent you got there, Captain,’ he said in ripest Cockney.

‘American,’ Kelso told him.

‘Well, you’ve taken your time getting here,’ the sergeant told him. ‘We’ve been waiting since 1914.’

The field hospital was in an old French château which stood in glorious parkland. The trip out of the war zone had been hazardous and Jack Kelso had lapsed into unconsciousness thanks to the morphine the infantry patrol had administered. He awakened to a fantasy world: a small room, white sheets, French windows open to a terrace. He tried to sit up and cried out at the pain in his leg, pulled the sheets to one side and saw the heavy bandaging. The door opened and a young nurse in a Red Cross uniform entered. She had blonde hair, a strong face and green eyes and looked to be in her early twenties. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life and Jack Kelso fell instantly in love.

‘No, lie back,’ she said, pushed him down against the pillows and adjusted his sheets.

An Army colonel entered the room wearing Medical Corps insignia. ‘Problems, Baroness?’

‘Not really. He’s just confused.’

‘Can’t have that,’ the colonel said. ‘Taken a rather large bullet out of that leg, old son, so you must behave. A little more morphine, I think.’

He went out and she charged a hypodermic and reached for Kelso’s right arm. ‘Your accent,’ he said. ‘You’re German and he called you Baroness.’

‘So useful when I deal with Luftwaffe pilots.’

She started to go and he reached for her hand. ‘I don’t care what you are as long as you promise to marry only me, Baroness,’ he said drowsily. ‘Where’s Tarquin?’

‘Would that be the bear?’ she asked.

‘No ordinary bear. I’ve shot down fifteen planes and Tarquin was always there. He’s my good luck.’

‘Well, there he is, on the dressing-table.’

And so he was. Jack Kelso got one clear look. ‘Hi there, old buddy,’ he called then drifted into sleep.

Baroness Elsa von Halder had been trapped in Paris with her mother when the war began. At twenty-two, her father an infantry general killed on the Somme, she was from fine old Prussian stock with a decaying mansion and estate, and absolutely no money at all. As the days passed, Kelso filled her with tales of his privileged life back in the States, and they found they had something in common: both had lost their mothers in 1916, in each case to cancer.

Three weeks after he arrived at the hospital, sitting in a deck-chair on the terrace looking out over a lawn with many wounded officers taking the sun, Kelso watched her approach, exchanging a word here and there. She carried a package which she held out to him.

‘Field post.’

‘Open it for me,’ he said, and she did.

There was a leather box and a letter. ‘Why, Jack, it’s from headquarters. You’ve been awarded the Distinguished Service Order.’ She took it out and held it up. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’

‘Sure. But I already have a medal,’ he said. ‘What I don’t have is you.’ He took her hand. ‘Marry me, Elsa. You know I’ll keep asking until you give in.’

She did, and this time she heard herself asking, ‘What about your father? Shouldn’t you speak to him first?’

‘Oh, it’ll take too long to get a letter to the States and back. Besides, amongst his many other qualities, my father is a snob. He’ll love you, and so will Boston society, so let’s get on with it. There’s a resident chaplain here. He can tie the knot any time we want.’

‘Oh, Jack, you’re a nice man – such a nice man.’

‘Germany is going to lose the war, Elsa. All you have to go back to is a decaying estate and no money. I’ll take care of you, I promise.’ He took her hand. ‘Come on, it’ll be good. Trust me.’

So, she did, and they were married two days later. After all, he was right: she did have nothing to go back to.

The honeymoon in Paris was fine, not the greatest romance in the world, but then he was always aware that she hadn’t married him for love. His wound had left him with a pronounced limp, which needed therapy, and she transferred to a Red Cross hospital in Paris. She became pregnant very quickly and Kelso insisted that she go to the States.

‘Any child we have must be born at home, I won’t hear any argument.’

‘You could come, too, Jack. Your leg still isn’t good, and I asked Colonel Carstairs. He said they’d give you a discharge if you asked for it.’

‘You did what? Elsa, you must never do anything like that ever again.’ For a moment, he looked a different man, the warrior who’d shot down fifteen German fighters … and then he smiled and was dashing Jack Kelso again. ‘There’s still a war to win, my love, and now that America’s joined in, it won’t take long. You’ll be fine. And my old man will be ecstatic.’

So, she did as she was told and sailed for America, where Abe Kelso did indeed receive her with considerable enthusiasm. She was a big success on the social scene, and nothing was too good for her, especially when she went into labour and produced twin boys. The eldest she named Max after her father; the other Harry, after Abe’s.

On the Western Front, Jack Kelso received the news by telegraph. Still in the Royal Flying Corps, where he had decided to stay instead of joining the Americans, he was by now a lieutenant-colonel, one of the few old hands still around, for losses on both sides had been appalling in what proved to be the last year of the war. And then suddenly, it was all over.

Gaunt, careworn, old before his time, Jack Kelso, still in his uniform, stood in the boys’ bedroom shortly after his arrival in Boston, and looked at them sleeping. Elsa stood at the door, a little afraid, gazing at a stranger.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘They look fine. Let’s go down.’

Abe Kelso stood by the fire in the magnificent drawing room. He was taller than Jack, with darker hair, but had the same features.

‘By God, Jack.’ He picked up two glasses of champagne and handed one to each of them. ‘I’ve never seen so many medals.’

‘Loads of tin.’ His son drank the champagne down in a single swallow.

‘It was bad this past year?’ Abe inquired, as he gave him a refill.

‘Bad enough, though I never managed to get killed. Everyone but me.’ Jack Kelso smiled terribly.

‘That’s an awful thing to say,’ his wife told him.

‘True, though.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘I see the boys have fair hair. Almost white.’ He blew out smoke.

‘They are half German.’

‘Not their fault,’ he said. ‘By the way, my personal score there at the end? It was forty-eight.’

She saw then, of course, just how damaged he was, but it was Abe who spoke with forced cheerfulness. ‘Now then, Jack, what are you going to do with yourself? Back to Harvard to finish that law degree? You can join the firm then.’

‘You must be joking. I’m twenty-three years old, and if you include my time machine-gunning the trenches, I’ve killed hundreds of men. Harvard is out, the firm is out. I’ve got the trust fund my mother left me. I’m going to enjoy myself.’ He emptied the glass. ‘Excuse me, I need the bathroom.’

He limped out. Abe Kelso poured a little champagne into her glass. ‘Look, my dear, he’s been through a lot. We must make allowances.’

‘Don’t apologize for him.’ She put down her glass. ‘That isn’t the man I married. He’s back there in those Godforsaken trenches. He never got out.’

Which wasn’t far from the truth, for in the years that followed, Jack Kelso acted as if he didn’t care if he lived or died. His exploits on automobile-racing circuits were notorious. He still flew, and crash-landed on three occasions. He even used his motor yacht to run booze during Prohibition, and his capacity for drink was enormous.

One thing that could be said for him, however, was that he treated his wife with grave courtesy. For her part, Elsa played the good wife, the elegant hostess, the affectionate mother. She was always Mutti to Max and Harry, taught them French and German, and they loved her greatly, and yet their affection for their drunken war-hero father was even greater.

He’d managed to buy a Bristol fighter and kept it at a small flying club outside of Boston that was owned by another old air ace from RFC days, named Rocky Farson. The boys were ten the day Jack strapped them into the rear cockpit and took them for a flight. Their birthday treat, he called it. The boys loved it and Elsa threatened to leave him if he ever did such a thing again.

Abe, as usual, was the man in the middle, trying to keep the peace, on her side because Jack had been drunk, but since Jack was rich in his own right, there was no controlling him.

Nineteen twenty-eight and 1929 came. Disillusioned not only with her marriage but with America, Elsa had only her sincere friendship with Abe and her love of the boys to sustain her. They were, of course, totally alike: their straw-blond hair and green eyes, their high German cheekbones, their voices, their mannerisms. No individual blemishes or birthmarks set them apart. Most times, even she couldn’t tell them apart, and neither could Abe. It was a constant sport for them to change roles and make fools of everyone. Totally bonded, the only thing they ever argued about was who owned Tarquin. The fact that Max, as the eldest by ten minutes, was legally Baron von Halder never bothered them.

It was the summer of 1930 when the tragedy happened. Jack Kelso was killed when his Bentley spun off a mountain road in Colorado and fireballed. What was left of him was brought back to Boston, where Abe, now a Congressman, presided over the funeral. The great and the good were there, even the President, the twins in black suits on either side of their mother. They seemed strangely still, frozen almost, and older than their twelve years.

Afterwards, at the big house when everyone had left, Elsa sat by the open French window in the drawing room, elegant in black, and sipped a brandy. Abe stood by the fire.

‘Now what?’ he asked. ‘It’s a bleak prospect.’

‘Not for me,’ she replied. ‘I’ve done my bit. I was a good wife for years, Abe, and put up with a hell of a lot. I want to go back to Germany.’

‘And live on what? Most of the fortune his mother left is gone. Sad to say, there’s not much coming to you in his will, Elsa, you know that.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘But you’ve got millions. More than you know what to do with. You could help me, Abe.’

‘I see.’

‘Abe, we’ve always been good friends. Let me go home. I’ll restore the estate, I’ll restore the family name.’

‘And take my grandsons with you?’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t bear that.’

‘But they’re my sons, too, they belong with their mother. And Max – Max is the Baron von Halder. You can’t make him give that up, Abe, it wouldn’t be right, it wouldn’t be just. Please, Abe, I’m begging you.’

Abe Kelso sat for several long moments, the air thick with regret and loss. Finally, he spoke.

‘I’ve often worried about it, you know – what would happen when Max was old enough to appreciate the title. Would he move away to claim it, leave us all here? I always thought I’d have at least a few more years before it came to that, but –’ He stopped and sighed. ‘But with Jack dead, and you wanting to leave, there’s not much of us left, is there?’ He smiled sadly. ‘You’re right, Elsa. Max does deserve that chance. And so do you. But on one condition.’ Here his voice became firm and strong. ‘Harry stays here. I won’t give up both my grandsons, I couldn’t possibly agree to that. I’ll give you what you need to restore the von Halder estate – but Harry stays with me. Are we agreed?’

She didn’t even argue. ‘Agreed, Abe.’

‘Okay. We can sort out the details later about visitation, schooling and the rest. The only thing that worries me is how the boys will feel about this.’

‘I’ll talk to them.’

‘No, let me first. Ask them to come to my study, would you?’

Later that evening before dinner, when she went back to the drawing room, Max and Harry were surprisingly calm, but then they’d always been like that: alone, cool, detached, on the outside looking in. Although they loved their mother, they were aware of her inner selfishness, so the latest turn of events came as no real surprise. She kissed them in turn.

‘Your grandfather has told you?’

‘Of course. They understand,’ Abe said. ‘Took it surprisingly well. The only problem, it seems, was who was to take possession of Tarquin, but he stays here. That bear sat in the bottom of the cockpit on every flight Jack made.’ For a moment, he seemed lost in thought then he straightened up. ‘Champagne,’ he said. ‘Half a glass each. You’re old enough. Let’s drink to each other. We’ll always be together one way or another.’

The boys said nothing, simply drank their champagne, old beyond their years, as usual, as enigmatic as Tarquin the bear.

The Germany to which Elsa von Halder returned was very different from what she remembered – unemployment, street riots, the Nazi party beginning to rear its head – but she had Abe’s money, so she put Max into school and set about regenerating the von Halder estate. There was Berlin society, of course. One of her father’s oldest friends, the fighter ace from the war, Hermann Goering, was a coming man in the Nazi party, a friend of Hitler’s. As an aristocrat, all doors, were open to him and Elsa, beautiful and rich and an undeniable aristocrat herself, was an absolute asset to the party. She met them all – Hitler, Goebbels, Ribbentrop – and was the toast of café society.

Hitler assumed power in 1933, and Elsa allowed Max to go to America for six months in 1934 to stay with his grandfather and brother, who was a day student at prep school. Abe was overjoyed to see him. As for the brothers, it was as if they’d never been apart, and on their birthday Abe gave them a special present. He took them out to the airfield their father used to fly from, and there was Rocky Farson, older, a little heavier, but still the old fighter ace from the Western Front.

‘Rocky’s going to give you a few lessons,’ Abe said. ‘I know you’re only sixteen, but what the hell. Just don’t tell your mother.’

Rocky Farson taught them in an old Gresham biplane. Someone had enlarged the rear cockpit to take mail sacks, which meant there was room to squeeze them both in. Of course, he also flew with them individually, and discovered that they were natural-born pilots, just like their father. And, just like their father, whoever was flying always had Tarquin in the cockpit.

Rocky took them way beyond normal private pilot skills. He gave them classroom lessons on dogfighting. Always look for the Hun in the sun, was a favourite. Never fly below 10,000 feet on your own. Never fly straight and level for more than thirty seconds.

Abe, watching one day, said to Rocky after they’d landed, ‘Hell, Rocky, it’s as if you’re preparing them for war.’

‘Who knows, Senator?’ Rocky said, for indeed that was what Abe Kelso was now. ‘Who knows?’

So brilliant were they that Rocky used the Senator’s money to purchase two Curtis training biplanes, and flew with each of them in turn to take them to new heights of experience.

During the First World War, the great German ace Max Immelmann had come up with a brilliant ploy that had given him two shots at an enemy in a dogfight for the price of one. It was the famous Immelmann turn, once practically biblical knowledge on the Western Front, now already virtually forgotten by both the US Air Corps and the RAF.

You dived in on the opponent, pulled up in a half-loop, rolled out on top and came back over his head at fifty feet. By the time he’d finished with them, the boys were experts at it.

‘They’re amazing – truly amazing,’ Abe said to Rocky in the canteen at the airfield.

‘In the old days, they would have been aces. A young man’s game, Senator. I knew guys in the Flying Corps who’d been decorated four times and were majors at twenty-one. It’s like being a great sportsman. You either have it or you don’t, that touch of genius, and the twins have it, believe me.’

The boys stood at the bar talking quietly, drinking orange juice. Abe, watching them, said, ‘I think you’re right, but to what purpose? I know there are rumbles, but there won’t be another war. We’ll see to that.’

‘I hope so, Senator,’ Rocky said, but in the end, it wasn’t to matter to him. He had the old Bristol refurbished, took it up for a proving flight one day, and lost the engine at 500 feet.

At the funeral, Abe, standing to one side, looked at the boys and was reminded, with a chill, that they looked as they had at their father’s funeral: enigmatic, remote, their thoughts tightly contained. It filled him with a strange foreboding. But there was nothing to be done about it and the following week, he and Harry took Max down to New York and saw him off on the Queen Mary, bound for Southampton in England, the first stage of his return to the Third Reich.

EUROPE

1934–1941

4

Max sat on the terrace of their country house with his mother, and told her all about it – the flying, everything – and produced photos of himself and Harry in flying clothes, the aircraft standing behind.

‘I’m going to fly, Mutti, it’s what I do well.’

Looking into his face, she saw her husband, yet, sick at heart, did the only thing she could. ‘Sixteen, Max, that’s young.’

‘I could join the Berlin Aero Club. You know Goering. He could swing it.’

Which was true. Max appeared by appointment with Goering and the Baroness in attendance, and in spite of the commandant’s doubts, a Heinkel biplane was provided. A twenty-three-year-old Luftwaffe lieutenant who would one day become a Luftwaffe general was there, named Adolf Galland.

‘Can you handle this, boy?’ he asked.

‘Well, my father knocked down at least forty-eight of ours with the Flying Corps. I think I can manage.’

Galland laughed out loud and stuck a small cigar between his teeth. ‘I’ll follow you up. Let’s see.’

The display that followed had even Goering breathless. Galland could not shake Max for a moment, and it was the Immelmann turn which finished him off. He turned in to land, and Max followed.

Standing beside the Mercedes, Goering nodded to a valet, who provided caviar and champagne. ‘Took me back to my youth, Baroness, the boy is a genius.’

This wasn’t false modesty, for Goering was a great pilot in his own right, and had no need to make excuses to anybody.

Galland and Max approached, Galland obviously tremendously excited. ‘Fantastic. Where did you learn all that, boy?’

Max told him and Galland could only shake his head.

That night, he joined Goering, von Ribbentrop, Elsa and Max at dinner at the Adlon Hotel. The champagne flowed. Goering said to Galland, ‘So what do we do with this one?’

‘He isn’t seventeen until next year,’ Galland said. ‘May I make a suggestion?’

‘Of course.’

‘Put him in an infantry cadet school here in Berlin, just to make it official. Arrange for him to fly at the Aero Club. Next year, at seventeen, grant him a lieutenant’s commission in the Luftwaffe.’

‘I like that.’ Goering nodded and turned to Max. ‘And do you, Baron?’

‘My pleasure,’ Max Kelso said, in English, his American half rising to the surface easily.

‘There is no problem with the fact that my son had an American father?’ Elsa asked.

‘None at all. Haven’t you seen the Führer’s new ruling?’ Goering said. ‘The Baron can’t be anything else but a citizen of the Third Reich.’

‘There’s only one problem,’ Galland put in.

‘And what’s that?’ Goering asked.

‘I insist that he be kind enough to teach me a few tricks, especially that Immelmann turn.’

‘Well, I could teach you that,’ Goering told him. ‘But I’m sure the Baron wouldn’t mind.’ He turned. ‘Max?’ addressing him that way for the first time.

Max Kelso said, ‘A pity my twin brother, Harry, isn’t here, Lieutenant Galland. We’d give you hell.’

‘No,’ Galland said. ‘Information is experience. You are special, Baron, believe me. And please call me Dolfo.’

It was to be the beginning of a unique friendship.

In America, Harry went to Groton for a while, and had problems with the discipline, for flying was his obsession and he refused to sacrifice his weekends in the air. Abe Kelso’s influence helped, of course, so Harry survived school and went to Harvard at the same time his brother was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe.

The Third Reich continued its remorseless rise and the entire balance of power in Europe changed. No one in Britain wanted conflict, the incredible casualties of the Great War were too close to home. Harry ground through university, Europe ground onwards into Fascism, the world stood by.

And then came the Spanish Civil War and they all went, Galland and Max, taking HE51 biplanes over the front, Max flying 280 combat missions. He returned home in 1938 with the Iron Cross Second Class and was promoted to Oberleutnant.

For some time he worked on the staff in Berlin, and was much sought after on the social circuit in Berlin, where he was frequently seen as his mother’s escort, and was a favourite of Goering, now become all-powerful. And then came Poland.

During the twenty-seven-day Blitzkrieg that destroyed that country, Max Kelso consolidated his legend, shot down twenty planes, received the Iron Cross First Class and was promoted to captain. During the phoney war with Britain and France that followed, he found himself once again on the staff in Berlin.

In those euphoric days, with Europe in its grasp, everything seemed possible to Germany. Max’s mother was at the very peak of society and Max had his own image. No white dress jackets, nothing fancy. He would always appear in combat dress: baggy pants, flying blouse, a side cap, called a Schiff, and all those medals. Goebbels, the tiny, crippled Nazi propaganda minister, loved it. Max appeared at top functions with Goering, even with Hitler and his glamorous mother. They christened him the Black Baron. There was the occasional woman in his life, no more than that. He seemed to stand apart, with that saturnine face and the pale straw hair, and he didn’t take sides, was no Nazi. He was a fighter pilot, that was it.

As for Harry, just finishing at Harvard, life was a bore. Abe had tried to steer him towards interesting relationships with the daughters of the right families, but, like his brother, he seemed to stand apart. The war in Europe had started in September. It was November 1939 when Harry went into the drawing room and found Abe sitting by the fire with a couple of magazines.

‘Get yourself a drink,’ Abe said. ‘You’re going to need it.’

Harry, at that time twenty-one, poured a Scotch and water and joined his grandfather. ‘What’s the fuss?’

Abe passed him the first magazine, a close-up of a dark taciturn face under a Luftwaffe Schiff, then the other, a copy of Signal, the German forces magazine. ‘The Black Baron,’ Abe said.

Max stood beside an ME 109 in flying gear, a cigarette in one hand, talking to a Luftwaffe mechanic in black overalls.

‘Medals already,’ Harry said. ‘Isn’t that great? Just like Dad.’

‘That’s Spain and Poland,’ Abe said. ‘Jesus, Harry, thank God they call him Baron von Halder instead of Max Kelso. Can you imagine how this would look on the front page of Life magazine? My grandson the Nazi?’

‘He’s no Nazi,’ Harry said. ‘He’s a pilot. He’s there and we’re here.’ He put the magazine down. Abe wondered what he was thinking, but as usual, Harry kept his thoughts to himself – though there was something going on behind those eyes, Abe could tell that. ‘We haven’t heard from Mutti lately,’ Harry said.

‘And we won’t. I speak to people in the State Department all the time. The Third Reich is closed up tight.’

‘I expect it would be. You want another drink?’

‘Sure, why not?’ Abe reached for a cigar. ‘What a goddamn mess, Harry. They’ll run all over France and Britain. What’s the solution?’

‘Oh, there always is one,’ Harry Kelso said and poured the whisky.

Abe said, ‘Harry, it’s time we talked seriously. You graduated magna cum laude last spring, and since then all you do is fly and race cars, just like your father. What are you going to do? What about law school?’

Harry smiled and shook his head. ‘Law school? Did you hear Russia invaded Finland this morning?’ He took a long drink. ‘The Finns need pilots badly, and they’re asking for foreign volunteers. I’ve already booked a flight to Sweden.’

Abe was horrified. ‘But you can’t. Dammit, Harry, it’s not your war.’

‘It is now,’ Harry Kelso told him and finished his whisky.

The war between the Finns and the Russians was hopeless from the start. The weather was atrocious and the entire country snowbound. The Army, particularly the ski troops, fought valiantly against overwhelming enemy forces but were pushed back relentlessly.

On both sides, the fighters were outdated. The most modern planes the Russians could come up with were a few FW190s Hitler had presented to Stalin as a gesture of friendship between Germany and Russia.

Harry Kelso soon made a name for himself flying the British Gloucester Gladiator, a biplane with open cockpit just like in the First World War. A poor match for what he was up against, but his superior flying skills always brought him through and as always, just like his father in the First World War, Tarquin sat in the bottom of the cockpit in a waterproof zip bag Harry had purchased in Stockholm.

His luck changed dramatically when the Finnish Air Force managed to get hold of half a dozen Hurricane fighters from Britain, a considerable coup in view of the demand for the aircraft by the Royal Air Force. Already an ace, Harry was assigned to one of the two Hurricanes his squadron was given. A week later, they received a couple of ME109s from a Swedish source.

He alternated between the two types of aircraft, flying in atrocious conditions of snowstorms and high winds, was promoted to captain and decorated, his score mounting rapidly.

A photo journalist for Life magazine turned up to cover the air war, and was astonished to discover Senator Abe Kelso’s grandson and hear of his exploits. This was news indeed, for Abe was now very much a coming man, a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s kitchen cabinet.

So, Abe once again found a grandson on the cover of a magazine, Harry in a padded flying suit standing beside one of the ME109s in the snow, looking ten years older than when Abe had last seen him and holding Tarquin.

Abe read the account of Harry’s exploits with pride, but also sadness. ‘I told you, Harry, not your war,’ he said softly. ‘I mean, where is it all going to end?’ And yet, in his heart of hearts, he knew. America was going to go to war. Not today, not tomorrow, but that day would come.

Elsa von Halder was having coffee in the small drawing room at her country mansion, when Max arrived. He strode in, wearing his flying uniform as usual, in one hand a holdall, which he dropped on the floor.

‘Mutti, you look wonderful.’

She stood up and embraced him. ‘What a lovely surprise. How long?’

‘Three days.’

‘And then?’

‘We’ll see.’

She went to a drinks table and poured dry sherry. ‘Do you think the British and French will really fight if we invade?’

‘You mean when we invade?’ He toasted her. ‘Of course, I have infinite faith in the inspired leadership of our glorious Führer.’

‘For God’s sake, Max, watch your tongue. It could be the death of you. You aren’t even a member of the Nazi party.’

‘Why, Mutti, I always thought you were a true believer.’

‘Of course I’m not. They’re all bastards. The Führer, that horrible little creep Himmler. Oh, Goering’s all right and most of the generals, but – Anyway, what about you?’

‘Politics bore me, Mutti. I’m a fighter pilot, just like this fellow.’ He unzipped his holdall, produced a copy of Life magazine and passed it to her. ‘I saw Goering in Berlin yesterday. He gave that to me.’

Elsa sat down and examined the cover. ‘He looks old. What have they done to him?’

‘Read the article, Mutti. It was a hell of a war, however short. A miracle he came through. Mind you, Tarquin looks good on it. Goering heard from our Intelligence people that Harry got out to Sweden in a Hurricane. The word is he turned up in London and joined the RAF.’

She looked up from the article, her words unconsciously echoing Abe Kelso’s. ‘How will it all end?’

‘Badly, I expect. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have a bath before dinner.’ He picked up his bag and went to the door and turned. ‘Twenty-eight Russkies he shot down over Finland, Mutti. The dog. I only got twenty in Poland. Can’t have that, can we?’

There were at least thirteen American volunteers flying in the Battle of Britain in the spring and summer of 1940, possibly more. Some were accepted as Canadians – Red Tobin, Andy Mamedoff, Vernon Keogh, for example, who joined the RAF in July 1940. The great Billy Fiske was one, son of a millionaire and probably the first American killed in combat in the Second World War, later to be commemorated by a tablet in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. And others bound for glory like Pete Peterson, a DSO and DFC with the RAF, and a lieutenant-colonel at twenty-two when he transferred to his own people.

Finland surrendered on 12 March 1940. Harry flew out illegally in a Hurricane, as Max had told his mother, landed at an aero club outside Stockholm, went into the city and was in possession of a ticket on a plane to England before the authorities knew he was there.

When he reported to the Air Ministry in London, an ageing squadron leader examined his credentials. ‘Very impressive, old boy. There’s just one problem. You are an American and that means you’ll have to go to Canada and join the RCAF.’

‘I shot down twenty-eight Russians, twelve of them while flying a Hurricane. I know my stuff. You need people like me.’

‘A Hurricane?’ The squadron leader examined Harry’s credentials again. ‘I see they gave you the Finnish Gold Cross of Valour.’

Harry took a small leather box from his pocket and opened it. The squadron leader, who had a Military Cross from the First War, said, ‘Nice piece of tin.’

‘Aren’t they all?’ Harry told him.

The other man pushed a form across. ‘All right. Fill this in. Country of origin, America. I suppose you must have returned to Finland to defend your ancestral home against the Russians?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Ah, well, that makes you a Finn and that’s what we’ll put on your records.’ The squadron leader smiled. ‘Damn clerks. Always making mistakes.’

Operational Training Unit was a damp and miserable place on the edge of an Essex marsh. The CO was a wing commander called West with a wooden leg from 1918. He examined Pilot Officer Kelso’s documents and looked up, noticing the medal ribbon under the wings.

‘And what would that be?’

Harry told him.

‘How many did you get over there?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘It says here you’ve had considerable experience with Hurricanes?’

‘Yes, the Finns got hold of a few during the last couple of months of the war.’

‘All right, let’s see what you can do.’

West pressed a bell and the station warrant officer entered. ‘I’m going for a spin with this pilot officer, Mr Quigley. Set up my plane and one of the other Hurricanes. Twenty minutes.’

The warrant officer, without a flicker of emotion, said, ‘Right away, sir.’

West got up and reached for his walking stick. ‘Don’t let my leg put you out. I know a man called Douglas Bader who lost both in a crash and still flies.’ He paused, opening the door. ‘I got twenty-two myself in the old flying Corps before the final crash so don’t mess about. Let’s see if you can take me.’

Those in the curious crowd which assembled to stare up through the rain were never to forget it. At 5000 feet, West chased Harry Kelso. They climbed, banked, so close that some in the crowd gasped in horror but Harry evaded West, looped and settled on his tail.

‘Very nice,’ West called over the radio, then banked to port and rolled and Harry, overshooting and finding him once again on his tail, dropped his flaps and slowed with shuddering force.

‘Christ Almighty,’ West cried, heaved back on the control column and narrowly missed him.

Harry, on his tail again, called, ‘Bang, you’re dead.’ Then, as West tried to get away, Harry pulled up in a half-loop, rolled out on top of the Immelmann turn and roared back over West’s head at fifty feet. ‘And bang, you’re dead again, sir.’

The ground crews actually applauded as the two of them walked back. Quigley took West’s parachute and gave him his walking stick, then gestured towards Kelso.

‘Who in the hell is he, sir?’

‘Oh, a lot of men I knew in the Flying Corps all rolled into one,’ West said.

In his office, West sat down, reached for a form and quickly filled it in. ‘I’m posting you immediately to 607 Squadron in France. They’ve been converted from Gladiators to Hurricanes. They should be able to use you.’

‘I flew Gladiators in Finland, sir. Damn cold, those open cockpits in the snow.’

West took a bottle of brandy from a drawer and two glasses. As he poured, he said, ‘Kelso – an unusual name, and you’re no Finn. I knew a Yank in the Flying Corps called Kelso.’

‘My father, sir.’

‘Good God. How is he?’

‘Dead. Killed in a motor accident years ago.’

‘That fits. Didn’t he use to fly with a bear?’

‘That’s right, sir. Tarquin.’ Harry picked up the bag that he’d carried out to his plane and back, took Tarquin out and sat him on the desk.

West’s face softened. ‘Well, hello, old lad. Nice to see you again.’ He raised his glass. ‘To your father and you and brave pilots everywhere.’

‘And my twin brother, sir.’

West frowned. ‘He’s a pilot?’

‘Oberleutnant in the Luftwaffe, sir.’

‘Is he now? Then all I can say is that you’re in for a very interesting war, Pilot Officer,’ and West drank his brandy.

607 Squadron was only half-way through its conversion programme when the Blitzkrieg broke on the Western Front on 10 May. In the savage and confused air war that followed, it was badly mauled and took many casualties, the old Gladiator biplanes being particularly vulnerable.

Harry, flying a Hurricane, put down two ME109s above Abbeville at 15,000 feet and although neither of them was aware of it, his brother shot down a Hurricane and a Spitfire on the same day.

The squadron was pulled back, what was left of it, to England and Dunkirk followed. Harry, awarded a DFC and promoted to Flying Officer, was posted to a special pursuit squadron code-named Hawk, near Chichester in West Sussex, only there was nothing to pursue. The sun shone, the sky was incredibly blue and everyone was bored to death.

On the other side of the English Channel, Max and his comrades sat in similar airfields on the same deck-chairs and were just as bored.

And then, starting in July, came attacks on British convoys in the Channel: dive-bombing by Stukas, heavier stuff from the Dorniers and Junkers, protected by the finest fighter planes the Luftwaffe could supply. The object of the exercise was to close down the English Channel and the RAF went up to meet it.

So Harry Kelso and his brother, the Black Baron, went to war.

The air battles over the Channel lasted through July and then came the true Battle of Britain, starting on Eagle Day, 12 August.

Hawk Squadron was based at a pre-war flying club called Farley Field in West Sussex – grass runways, Nissen huts, only four hangars – and it was hot, very hot as Harry and the other pilots lounged in deck-chairs, smoking, chatting or reading books and magazines. Two weeks of boredom, no action, had introduced a certain apathy and even the ground crews working on the dispersed Hurricanes seemed jaded.

The squadron leader, a man called Hornby, dropped down beside Harry. ‘Personally, I think the buggers aren’t coming.’

‘They’ll come,’ Harry said and offered him a cigarette.

Some of the pilots wore flying overalls, others ordinary uniform; it was too hot for anything else. On his right shoulder, Harry wore an embroidered insignia that said Finland. Beneath it was a shoulder flash of an American eagle with British and American flags clutched in its claws.

‘Very pretty,’ Hornby said.

‘Got a tailor in Savile Row to run them up for me.’

‘What it is to be rich, my Yankee friend.’ Hornby tapped the jump bag at Harry’s feet. ‘Tarquin in good fettle?’

‘Always. He’s seen it all,’ Harry told him.

‘Wish you’d lend him to me,’ Hornby said, just as they heard a loud roaring noise nearby. ‘Bloody tractor.’

‘That’s no tractor.’ Harry Kelso was on his feet, bag in hand and running for his plane as the Stukas, high in the sky above, banked and dived.

His flight sergeant tossed in his parachute. Kelso climbed into the cockpit, dropped the bag into the bottom, gunned his engine and, roaring away, lifted off as the first bombs hit the runway. A Hurricane exploded to one side, smoke billowing, and he broke through it, banking to port, carnage below, four Hurricanes on fire.

Harry banked again, found a Stuka in his sights and blew it out of the sky. There were four more, but they turned away, obviously considering their work done, and he went after them. One by one he shot them down over the sea – no anger, no rage, just using all his skill, everything calculated.

He returned to Farley Field, a scene of devastation, and managed to land on the one intact runway. He found Hornby lying on a stretcher, his left arm and his face bandaged.

‘Did you get anything?’

Harry gave him a cigarette as an ambulance drew up. ‘Five.’

‘Five?’ Hornby was astonished.

‘Stukas.’ Harry shrugged. ‘Slow and cumbersome. Like shooting fish in a barrel. They won’t last long over here. It’s ME109s we need to watch for.’

There were several bodies on stretchers, covered with blankets. Hornby said, ‘Six pilots dead. Didn’t get off the ground. You were the only one who did. Was it this bad in Finland?’

‘Just the same, only in Finland it snowed.’

The stretcher bearers picked Hornby up. ‘I’ll notify Group and suggest they promote you to flight lieutenant. They’ll get replacements down here fast. Let’s have a look at Tarquin.’

Harry opened the bag and took Tarquin out. Hornby managed to undo a small gilt badge from his bloody shirt and handed it over. ‘Nineteen Squadron. That’s where I started. Let Tarquin wear it.’

‘I sure will.’

Hornby smiled weakly. ‘Those Stukas? Were they over land or the Channel?’

‘One over land.’

‘What a pity. The bastards will never credit you.’

‘Who cares? It’s going to be a long war,’ Harry Kelso told him and closed the ambulance doors.

On the same day, Max and his squadron, flying ME109s, provided cover for Stukas attacking radar stations near Bognor Regis. Attacked by Spitfires, he found himself in an impressive dogfight, during which he downed one and damaged another, but nearly all the Stukas were shot down and three 109s. It was hurried work, with no drop tanks, so that their time over the English mainland was limited, and they had to scramble to get back across the Channel before running out of fuel. He made it in one piece, and was back over Kent again an hour and a half later, part of the sustained attacks on RAF airfields in the coastal areas.

That was the pattern, day after day, a war of attrition, the Luftwaffe strategy to destroy the RAF by making its airfields unusable. Max and his comrades flew in, providing cover to Dornier bombers and Harry and his friends rising to meet them. On both sides, young men died but there was one problem: the Luftwaffe had more pilots. As Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, commander-in-chief of Fighter Command once observed, it would be necessary for the RAF’s young men to shoot the Luftwaffe’s young men at the ratio of four to one to keep any kind of balance and that wasn’t likely.

So it ground on until 30 August, when Biggin Hill, the pride of Fighter Command, was attacked by a large force of Dorniers with great success and Max was one of the escorts. On the return, many Spitfires rose to intercept them and since the 109s needed to protect the bombers, too much time and too much precious fuel were used up over England. By the time Max finally turned out to the Channel, his low fuel warning light was already on.

At that same moment over the sea near Folkestone Harry Kelso shot down two Dornier bombers, but a lucky burst from one of the rear gunners hit him in the engine. He sent out a Mayday and dropped his flaps, aware of a burning smell and calmly wrestled with the canopy. He’d lost an engine over the Isle of Wight the previous week and parachuted in from 2000 feet, landing in the garden of a vicarage where he’d been regaled with tea and biscuits and dry sherry by the vicar’s two sisters.

This was different. That was the Channel down there, already the grave of hundreds of airmen, the English coast ten miles away. He reached for Tarquin in the jump bag. He’d arranged a strap with a special clip that snapped on to his belt against just such an eventuality, stood up and went out head first.

He fell to a thousand feet before opening his chute, then, the sea reasonably calm, he went under, inflated his Mae West and got rid of his parachute. Tarquin floated by him in his waterproof bag. Harry looked up into a cloudless sky. There was no dinghy to inflate – that had gone down with the Hurricane. He wasn’t even sure if his Mayday had got through.

He floated there, thinking about it, remembering comrades who’d gone missing in the past week alone. Is this it? he thought calmly and then a klaxon sounded and he turned to see an RAF crash boat coming up fast. The crew were dressed like sailors, in heavy sweaters, denims and boots. They slowed and dropped a ladder.

The warrant officer in charge looked down. ‘Flight Lieutenant Kelso, is it, sir?’

‘That’s me.’

‘Your luck is good, sir. We were only a mile away when we got your message.’

Two crew members reached down and hauled him up. Harry crouched, oozing sea water. ‘I never thought a deck could feel so good.’

‘You American, sir?’ the warrant officer asked.

‘I surely am.’

‘Well, that’s bloody marvellous. Our first Yank.’

‘No, two actually.’

‘Two, sir?’ The warrant officer was puzzled.

Harry indicated his bag. ‘Take me below, find me a drink and I’ll show you.’

Max, down to 500 feet, raced towards the French coast. On his left knee was a linen bag containing a dye. If you went into the sea, it spread in a huge yellow patch. He’d seen several such patches on his way across and then he saw the coast east of Boulogne. No need to do a crash landing. The tide was out, a huge expanse of sand spread before him. As his engine died, he turned into the wind and dropped down.

He called in his position on the radio, with a brief explanation, pulled back the canopy and got out, lit a cigarette and started to walk towards the sand dunes. When he got there, he sat down, looked out to sea and lit another cigarette.

An hour later, a Luftwaffe recovery crew arrived in two trucks, followed by a yellow Peugeot sports car driven by Adolf Galland. He got out and hurried forward.

‘I thought we’d lost you.’

‘No such luck.’ Galland slapped him on the shoulder and Max added, ‘The plane looks fine. Only needs fuel.’

‘Good. I brought a sergeant pilot. He can fly her back. You and I will drive. Stop off for dinner.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

Galland called to the burly Feldwebel in charge. ‘Get on with it. You know what to do.’

Later, driving towards Le Touquet, he said, ‘Biggin Hill worked out fine. We really plastered them.’

Max said, ‘Oh, sure, but how many fighters did we lose, Dolfo – not bombers, fighters?’

‘All right, it isn’t good, but what’s your point?’

‘Too many mistakes. First, the Stukas – useless against Spitfires and Hurricanes. Second, the bombing policy. Fine – so we destroy their airfields if possible, but fighters are meant to fight, Dolfo, not to spend the whole time protecting the Dorniers. That’s like having a racehorse pulling a milk cart. The strategy is flawed.’

‘Then God help you when we turn against London.’

‘London?’ Max was aghast. ‘All right, I know we’ve raided Liverpool and other places, but London? Dolfo, we must destroy the RAF on the South Coast, fighter to fighter. That’s where we win or lose.’ He shrugged. ‘Unless Goering and the Führer have a death wish.’

‘Saying that to me is one thing, Max, but never to anyone else, do you understand?’

‘That we’re all going down the same road to hell?’ Max nodded. ‘I understand that all right,’ and he leaned back and lit another cigarette.

Harry was delivered back to Farley Field by a naval staff driver from Folkestone. Several pilots and a number of ground crew crowded round.

‘Heard you were in the drink, sir. Good to see you back,’ a pilot officer called Hartley said. ‘There’s a group captain waiting to see you.’

Harry opened the door to his small office and found West of the false leg sitting behind his desk. ‘What a surprise, sir. Congratulations on your promotion.’

‘You’ve done well, Kelso. Anxious couple of hours when we heard where you were, but all’s well that ends well. Congratulations to you too. Your promotion to flight lieutenant has been confirmed. Also, another DFC.’

Harry went to the cupboard, found whisky and two glasses. ‘Shall we toast each other, sir?’

‘Excellent idea.’

Harry poured. ‘Are we winning?’

‘Not at the moment.’ West swallowed his drink. ‘We will in the end. America will have to come in, but we must hang on. I need you for a day or so. I see you’ve only got five Hurricanes operational. Flying Officer Kenny can hold the fort. You’ll be back tomorrow night.’

‘May I ask what this is about, sir?’

‘I remembered from your records that you flew an ME109 in Finland. Well, we’ve got one at Downfield north of London. Pilot had a bad oil leak and decided to land instead of jump. Tried to set fire to the thing, but a Home Guard unit was close by.’

‘That’s quite a catch, sir.’

‘Yes, well, be a good chap. Have a quick shower and change and we’ll be on our way.’

Downfield was another installation that had been a flying club before the war. There was only one landing strip, a control tower, two hangars. The place was surrounded by barbed wire, RAF guards on the gate. The 109 was on the apron outside one of the hangars. Two staff cars were parked nearby and three RAF and two Army officers were examining the plane. A Luftwaffe lieutenant, no more than twenty, stood close by, his uniform crumpled. Two RAF guards with rifles watched him.

Harry walked straight up to the lieutenant and held out his hand. ‘Rotten luck,’ he said in German. ‘Lucky you got down in one piece.’

‘Good God, are you German?’

‘My mother is.’ Harry gave him a cigarette and a light and took one himself.

The older army officer was a brigadier with the red tabs of staff. He had an engagingly ugly face, white hair and wore steel-rimmed spectacles. He looked about sixty-five.

‘Dougal Munro. What excellent German, Flight Lieutenant.’

‘Well, it would be,’ Harry told him.

‘My aide, Jack Carter.’

Carter was a captain in the Green Howards and wore a ribbon for the Military Cross. He leaned on a walking stick, for, as Harry discovered a long time later, he’d left a leg at Dunkirk.

The senior of the three Air Force officers was, like West, a group captain. ‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on, Teddy,’ he said to West. ‘Who on earth is this officer? I mean, why the delay? Dowding wants an evaluation of this plane as soon as possible.’

‘He’ll get it. Flight Lieutenant Kelso has flown it in combat.’

‘Good God, where?’

‘He flew for the Finns. Gladiators, Hurricanes and 109s.’ West turned to Harry. ‘Give your opinion to Group Captain Green.’

‘Excellent plane, sir. Marginally better than a Hurricane and certainly as good as a Spitfire.’

‘Show them,’ West said. ‘Five minutes only. We don’t want to get you shot down.’

Kelso went up to 3000 feet, banked, looped, beat up the airfield at 300 feet, turned into the wind and landed. He taxied towards them and got out.

‘As I said, sir,’ he told Green. ‘Excellent plane. Mind you, the Hurricane is the best gun platform in the business and, at the end of the day, it usually comes down to the pilot.’

Green turned and said lamely to West, ‘Very interesting, Teddy. I think I’d like a written evaluation from this officer.’

‘Consider it done.’

Green and his two officers went to their staff car and drove away. Munro held out his hand. ‘You’re a very interesting young man.’ He nodded to West. ‘Many thanks, Group Captain.’

He went to his car, Carter limping after him. As they settled in the back, he said, ‘Everything you can find out about him, everything, Jack.’

‘Leave it to me, sir.’

Harry gave the German pilot a packet of cigarettes. ‘Good luck.’

The guards took the boy away and West said, ‘I know a country pub near here where we can get a great black-market meal and you can write that report for me.’

‘Sounds good to me.’ They got in the car and as the driver drove away, Harry lit a cigarette from his spare pack. ‘I asked you were we winning and you said not at the moment. What do we need?’

‘A miracle.’

‘They’re a bit hard to find these days.’

But then it happened. London was accidentally bombed by a single Dornier, the RAF retaliated against Berlin, and from 7 September, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to turn on London. It was the beginning of the Blitz and gave the RAF time to repair its damaged fighter bases in the South of England.

In a café in Le Touquet, Dolfo Galland was playing jazz on the piano and smoking a cigar when Max came in and sat at the end of the bar.

‘That’s it, Dolfo. The rest is just a matter of time. We had the Tommies beaten and our glorious Führer has just thrown it all away. So what happens now?’

‘We get drunk,’ Dolfo Galland told him. ‘And then we go back to work, play the game to the end.’

5

The Blitz on London, the carnage it caused, was so terrible that the red glow in the sky at night could be seen by Luftwaffe planes taking off in France, and by day, the sky seemed full of bombers, the contrails crisscrossing the horizon of hundreds of RAF and Luftwaffe planes fighting it out.

The Knight’s Cross was awarded to those who shot down more than twenty planes. Galland already had it, plus the Oak Leaves for a second award. Max got the Cross on 10 September, although by then he’d taken care of at least thirty planes.

Harry and Hawk Squadron engaged in all the battles, six or seven sorties a day, flying to the point of exhaustion and taking heavy losses. It finally reached a point where he was the only surviving member of the original squadron. And then came the final huge battles of 15 September: 400 Luftwaffe fighters over the South of England and London against 300 Spitfires and Hurricanes.

In a strange way, nobody won. The Channel was still disputed territory and the Blitz on London and other cities continued, although mainly by night. Hitler’s grandiose scheme for the invasion of England, Operation Sealion, had to be scrapped, but Britain was still left standing alone, and the Führer could now turn his attention to Russia.

In Berlin in early November, it was raining hard as Heinrich Himmler got out of his car and entered Gestapo headquarters in Prinz Albrechtstrasse. A flurry of movement from guards and office staff followed him as he passed through to his office dressed in his black Reichsführer SS dress uniform. He wore his usual silver pince-nez and his face was as enigmatic as ever, as he went up the marble stairs to his suite of offices, where his secretary, a middle-aged woman in the uniform of an SS auxiliary, stood up.

‘Good morning, Reichsführer.’

‘Find Sturmbannführer Hartmann for me.’

‘Certainly, Reichsführer.’

Himmler went into his palatial office, put his briefcase on the desk, opened it, then extracted some papers, sat down and looked them over. There was a knock at the door and it opened.

‘Ah. Hartmann.’

‘Reichsführer.’

Hartmann wore an unusual uniform, consisting of flying blouse and baggy pants Luftwaffe-style, but in field grey. His collar tabs were those of a major in the SS, although he wore the Luftwaffe’s pilot’s badge and sported an Iron Cross First and Second Class. He also wore the German Cross in gold. The silver cuff title on his sleeve said RFSS: Reichsführer SS. This was the cuff title of Himmler’s personal staff. Above it was the SD badge indicating that he was also a member of Sicherheitsdienst, SS Intelligence, a formidable combination.

‘In what way can I be of service, Reichsführer?’

At that time, Hartmann was thirty, almost six feet with a handsome, craggy face, his broken nose – the relic of an air crash – giving him a definite attraction. He wore his hair, more red than brown, in close-cropped Prussian style. A Luftwaffe fighter pilot who had been badly injured in a crash in France before the Battle of Britain, he’d been posted to the Air Courier Service, to transport high-ranking officers in Fieseler Storch spotter planes, when a strange incident had occurred.

Himmler’s visit to Abbeville had been curtailed and, due to bad weather, the Junkers which had been due to pick him up had been unable to get in. As it happened, Hartmann was at the airfield with his Storch, having dropped off a general, and Himmler had commandeered him.

What had happened then was like a bad dream. Rising above low cloud and rain, Hartmann had been bounced by a Spitfire. Bullets shredding his wings, he’d had the courage to go back to the mess below, with the Spitfire in on his tail. A further salvo had shattered his windscreen and rocked the aircraft.

Himmler, incredibly calm, had said, ‘Have we had it?’

‘Not if you like a gamble, Reichsführer.’

‘By all means,’ Himmler told him.

Hartmann had gone down into the mist and rain, 2000, 1000, broken into open country at 500 feet, and hauled back on the control column. Behind him, the Spitfire pilot, losing his nerve, had backed away.

Himmler, a notoriously superstitious man, had always asserted that he believed in God and was immediately convinced that Hartmann was an instrument of divine intervention. Having him thoroughly investigated, he was enchanted to discover that the young man had a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna, and the upshot was that Hartmann was transferred to the SS on Himmler’s personal staff to be his pilot and goodluck charm, but, in view of his legal background, he was also to serve with SS intelligence as the Reichsführer’s personal aide.

Himmler said, ‘The Blitz on London continues. I’ve been with the Führer. We will overcome in the end, of course. Panzers will yet roll up to Buckingham Palace.’

With personal reservations, Hartmann said, ‘Undeniably, Reichsführer.’

‘Yes, well, we let the English stew for the time being and turn to Russia. The Führer has an almost divine inspir-ation here. At most, six weeks should see the Red Menace overcome once and for all.’

Hartmann, in spite of serious doubts, agreed. ‘Of course.’

‘However,’ Himmler said, ‘I’ve spoken to Admiral Canaris about the intelligence situation in England and frankly, it’s not good.’ Canaris headed the Abwehr, German Military Intelligence. ‘As far as I can judge, all our Abwehr agents in Britain have been taken.’

‘So it would appear.’

‘And we can do nothing.’ Himmler was angry. ‘It’s disgraceful!’

‘Not quite, Reichsführer,’ Hartmann said. ‘As you know, I’ve taken over Department 13, after Major Klein died of cancer last year. And I’ve discovered that he recruited a few deep cover agents before the war.’

‘Really? Who would these people be?’

‘Irish mostly, disaffected with the British establishment. Even the Abwehr has had dealings with the Irish Republican Army.’

‘Ach, those people are totally unreliable,’ Himmler told him.

‘With respect, not all, Reichsführer. And Klein also recruited to his payrolls various neutrals – some Spanish and Portuguese diplomats.’

Himmler got up and went to the window. He stood, hands behind his back, then turned. ‘You are telling me we have, in the files, deep cover agents the Abwehr doesn’t know about?’

‘Exactly.’

Himmler nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, this is good. I want you to pursue this matter, Hartmann, in addition to your usual duties, of course. Make sure they are still in place and ready when needed. Do you understand me?’

‘At your command, Reichsführer.’

‘You may go.’

Hartmann returned to his own office, where his secretary, Trudi Braun, forty and already a war widow, looked up from her desk. She was devoted to Hartmann – such a hero, and a tragic figure besides, his wife killed in the first RAF raid on Berlin. She was unaware that Hartmann had almost heaved a sigh of relief when it happened; his wife had chased everything in trousers from the start of their marriage.

‘Trouble, Major?’ she asked.

‘You could say that, Trudi. Come in and bring coffee.’

He sat behind his desk and lit a cigarette, and she joined him two minutes later, a cup for her and a cup for him. She sat in the spare chair.

‘So?’

Hartmann took a bottle of brandy from a drawer and poured some in his coffee, mainly because his left leg hurt, another legacy of that plane crash.

‘Trudi, I know our esteemed Reichsführer believes God is on our side, but he now also believes Operation Sealion will still take place.’

‘Really, sir?’ Trudi had no opinion on such matters.

‘So, that list of Klein’s you told me about. You worked for him – give me a full rundown on it, particularly the Spanish or Portuguese that were on his payroll.’

‘They still are, Major.’

‘Well, now it’s pay-up time. Come on, Trudi.’

She said, ‘Well, one of the contacts, a Portuguese man in London named Fernando Rodrigues, has actually passed on low-grade information from time to time. He works at their London embassy.’

‘Really,’ Hartmann said. ‘And who else?’

‘Some woman called Dixon – Sarah Dixon. She’s a clerk at the War Office in London.’

Hartmann sat up straight. ‘Are you serious? We have a clerk in the War Office and she’s still in place?’

‘Well, she was never Abwehr. You see, if I may talk about how things were before your arrival, Major, only the Abwehr were supposed to run agents abroad. Major Klein’s operation for SD was really illegal. So, when the Brits penetrated the Abwehr and lifted all their agents in England, ours were left intact. They were never compromised.’

‘I see.’ Hartmann was excited. ‘Get me the files.’

Fernando Rodrigues was a commercial attaché at the Portuguese London embassy and his brother, Joel, was a commercial attaché at the Berlin embassy. Very convenient. Hartmann read the files and recognized the two of them for what they were: greedy men with their hands out. So be it. At least you knew where you were with people like that and you could always cut the hand off.

Sarah Dixon was different. She was forty-five, the widow of George Dixon, a bank clerk who’d died of war wounds from 1917. Originally Sarah Brown, she’d been born in London of an English father and Irish mother. Her grandfather, an IRA activist in the Easter Rising in Dublin against the British, had been shot.

She lived alone in Bayswater in London, had worked as a clerk at the War Office since 1938. She had originally been recruited as an IRA sympathizer by an IRA activist named Patrick Murphy in 1938 during the bombing campaign in London and Birmingham and Murphy had worked for Klein and the SD. She’d agreed to co-operate and then Murphy had been shot dead in a gun fight with Special Branch policemen.

Hartmann looked up. ‘So, she’s still waiting?’

‘So it would appear, Major.’

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