The Bridge

by Robert Radcliffe

  ‘I didn’t expect it to,’ Grant murmured thickly.

  ‘You guessed?’

  ‘I have known you a long time, Theo.’

  ‘Yes. And I’ve given my word. Made… promises.’

  ‘How convenient.’ He lowered his gaze. ‘How did you get out, by the way?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Out. You were in the custody of the Gestapo, which can’t have been much fun. Then you weren’t; you were living on a farm in Campania. So how did you escape?’

  Rommel. It all made sense now. A place at his grandfather’s prison as Andreas Ladurner. Or a stranger’s identity in an overcoat pocket. Make your decision, Junge. Then a brief message to the Gestapo saying he was dead, and that was that.

  Grant’s cigarette packet was empty. He began plundering desk drawers until he found another, shook one on to the desk and lit up again. ‘Do you remember the first time we met?’

  ‘Yes. It was after I got back from France. In June nineteen forty. The day I got sacked from the East Surreys.’

  ‘Indeed. You told me something very interesting that day, you know. You said he’d told you it was vital each of us knows which side we’re on.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Come on, Theo! We both know who we’re talking about.’

  ‘Rommel.’

  ‘Yes, Rommel. Did you make a deal with him in Salo?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He held Theo’s gaze. ‘That’s another pity.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there have been… developments, in that regard.’

  ‘What developments?’

  Grant shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter any more, does it?’ He picked up his telephone. ‘Could you ask Section Officer Atkins to come in now please, Mrs Simpson. And to bring the file.’

  Theo stirred uneasily. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘There is more than one way to fight a war, you know, Theo.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, look at me!’ He brushed ash from his lapel. ‘I wear a uniform. I even have a gun, somewhere… I’ve never fired it though. Not in anger, not once. Yet I bet any money that I put in more hours fighting Jerry in a week than a whole platoon of infantrymen. From right here, in this room.’

  A knock came, and a woman in her thirties entered wearing the uniform of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

  ‘Ah, Vera, thank you for joining us. This is the young man I told you about. Theo Trickey, may I introduce Section Officer Vera Atkins.’

  Theo stood, self-consciously straightening his borrowed clothes. ‘Hello.’

  Dark eyes bored into his. ‘How do you do,’ Atkins replied, without smiling.

  ‘Vera virtually runs SOE-F. The F standing for France, of course. We thought, before you leave us, that it was only fair and proper we update you on the situation regarding a, er, friend of yours.’

  Theo felt a chill on his neck. ‘What friend?’

  ‘Sit down, Lieutenant,’ Atkins said quietly. ‘It’s about Clare Taylor.’

  *

  The wedding reception was the very next day, in a community hall five minutes from Burton Street. He’d found the invitation among a bundle of abandoned mail Eleni had thrown in a drawer. ‘Dear Theodorable, we do hope you can make it, love Susanna and Albert. PS bring a bottle!’ He’d stared blankly at the invitation then remembered her letter in Cairo. ‘Next spring probably April or May,’ she’d written. ‘I hope theres no hard feelings and your happy for us.’

  He was deeply reluctant, but Eleni said he must go, as sitting around fretting was no way to entertain his eight-year-old half sister. The preparations took all day. First he visited the gentleman’s outfitters in Station Road and bought new clothes, including shirts, jacket and tie. Next Eleni led him to another shop where, after much agonizing, he chose a girl’s dress with matching cardigan. Thence to the shoe shop where he bought pairs for them both, trusting to Eleni’s judgement that the size was right, and to the electrical shop where he bought a new electric kettle in a box. ‘Top-notch present!’ Eleni declared. Then he had to trek across London to collect his ward. And though the arrangements had been agreed by telephone, her mother Vi seemed put out at being excluded, and he wondered if she might yet refuse permission. But the new clothes – and the biscuits and flowers he brought her – garnered her grudging consent. ‘Just make sure she’s back in good time.’ After that they had to trek back to Kingston, stopping halfway at Nancy’s insistence for lemonade and a bun at a café in Victoria. So by the time they arrived at the reception they were late and the party already in full swing. He had a sudden attack of nerves, and for minutes he hesitated, pacing the street outside, listening to the laughter and singing, confused and fearful of what lay within. Finally, before he could delay further, a small hand grasped his and led him firmly through the door.

  The room was packed, and noisy, and dimly lit, and thick with cigarette smoke. Bunting hung from the ceiling; a painted banner read: ‘Congratulations Bert & Susi’. Trestles laden with crates of beer and plates of food lined one wall; in a corner somebody thumped out tunes on a piano, while in another a pile of presents lay on a table. Children darted in and out; somewhere a baby cried lustily.

  ‘Theodorable!’ Susanna rushed up, pink-cheeked and perspiring, and embraced him warmly. ‘My God, it’s good to see you. Have you lost weight? Is that a present? Oh, and who’s this adorable little girl?’

  ‘Hello, Susanna. Congratulations. On getting married. This is for you. It’s a kettle; you plug it in. This is my younger sister, Nancy.’

  ‘My God, yes! Hello, Nancy, you came round to my house. Remember, Theo?’

  ‘I… Yes, I do.’

  ‘What a gorgeous dress, Nancy! I say, would you like some cake? And there’s a children’s table over here with games and jelly.’

  Before he knew it Nancy had left him with a cheery wave and he was alone in a room full of faces he hadn’t seen in five years. Some came up and spoke, shouting at him beerily above the din; Albert Fitch clapped him on the shoulder; older men shook him firmly by the hand; one girl he couldn’t recall sidled up, kissed him warmly on the lips, then turned away without a word.

  But it was all just babble, and meaningless, and irrelevant. For Clare Taylor was missing and that eclipsed everything. And the sickening realization of it, the implications and the shock were like a fist to the stomach, driving the air from his chest and making him giddy with panic. It might signify nothing, the woman Atkins had said. Two weeks late calling in wasn’t unusual. It could simply be equipment failure, or difficulties finding somewhere safe to radio. Or she might deliberately be keeping a low profile, or even gone to ground, which was standard procedure if things got too ‘hot’.

  ‘Anything’s possible,’ Atkins had conceded. ‘Several girls have been compromised of late. But it’s too soon to panic.’

  ‘But what can we do?’ he had pleaded.

  ‘Get to her, ideally, and get her out. Before the enemy do.’

  An older woman swam into view, a little drunkenly, and told him Kenny was fine and living in a POW camp near Bremen.

  ‘Oh, well, that is good news, Mrs Rollings.’

  ‘I’ll give you his address if you like.’

  ‘Yes, please, and also pass him my best wishes.’

  Then Nancy appeared, her cheeks smeared with jelly.

  ‘Hello, Nancy, are you having a nice time?’

  ‘Ooh yes, they got streamers!’ she said excitedly. ‘And Vimto. Come and see!’

  ‘I will, in just a moment.’

  ‘Hello, Theo.’

  A man, mid thirties, moustache, vaguely familiar, tall, wearing a coat and trilby, had slid unnoticed through the entrance. ‘Your landlady said I’d find you here.’ He surveyed the room with a half-smile. ‘Looks like quite a party.’

  ‘Colonel? Colonel Frost?’

  ‘I was passing, thought I’d drop in and see you
.’

  ‘Passing?’ It was the first time, Theo realized, he’d ever seen Frost in civilian clothes. He looked completely different.

  ‘Well, no, not passing exactly. I heard from Digby you wanted to see me.’

  ‘Oh. I… Yes. I wanted to tell you. In person, that is…’

  ‘That you’re packing it in. Yes, I know.’

  ‘You do? And you’re not angry?’

  ‘Good heavens, no! I’m going to miss you, of course. We all are. But I completely understand, especially after everything you’ve been through.’

  They paused, watching in bemusement as a conga lurched noisily by.

  ‘Remember Sedjenane? That day on the hill?’

  Theo nodded. ‘With the ammunition mules. Yes, I do.’

  ‘Your best work, if you don’t mind me saying. And I’m not talking about the mules. And Depienne of course. Oh, and that blasted bridge at Primosole, with what’s-his-name, that artillery-spotter chap?’

  ‘Vere Hodge.’

  ‘Hodge, yes. Saved the day pretty much, the two of you. And even back at Bruneval with that boffin Charlie Cox. We’d never have succeeded if you hadn’t been there to hold his hand.’

  Across the room Nancy and Susanna were dancing together. Spotting Theo, Nancy broke off to wave.

  He waved back. ‘It was quite a mission.’

  ‘Bloody right. They all were. And terrific work, as I say.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And do you know, throughout practically all of them…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were as good as unarmed.’

  CHAPTER 3

  A week or so after the Rommel exhumation episode, Erik and I are taking lunch in the Revier bedsit when Corporal Prien suddenly bursts through the door.

  ‘Russkies are across the Oder!’ he gabbles.

  Erik and I exchange glances. Slightly unsure as to the significance of this, we nevertheless don’t want to appear uninformed. Accurate news, as opposed to rumour, speculation or propaganda, is hard to come by, here as anywhere in Germany. But Prien has a radio, and is a serving soldier with military contacts, and has been growing more cooperative of late, compliant even, as the war draws towards its inevitable close. So we have no reason to disbelieve him.

  ‘We are aware of this, of course,’ Erik replies dismissively. ‘Thank you, Corporal, that will be all.’

  Prien stiffens to attention, turns and departs. Which rather sums up the shifting balance of power in Ulm in April 1945. The war is lost, Nazism finished, freedom and democracy in the ascendant. We know it, Prien knows it, the general population knows it, only the deluded or deranged like our commandant Vorst are in denial. But the one unknown – and it’s a big one – is who’ll get here first. The western Allies or the Russians.

  ‘Where’s the Oder?’ I mutter as the door shuts. Conjuring my silk escape map from a pocket we smooth it over the table. Erik soon picks out the river and traces it with a finger. ‘Polish border, here, it runs from Stettin on the Baltic roughly south before heading east into Poland. But God, look, it’s less than a hundred miles from Berlin!’

  ‘Still a long way from here, though.’

  ‘Yes, but if Berlin falls, Russia wins and that’s it. Drapes!’

  ‘I think you mean curtains.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Curtains. It’s theatrical— Oh, never mind.’

  ‘Where did that officer chap Brandt say the Yanks were?’

  ‘Wiesbaden.’ I jab at the map. ‘On the Rhine. He implied they were stuck.’

  ‘Well he would, wouldn’t he!’

  ‘Not necessarily. He has no reason to lie.’

  ‘Of course he has, he’s a Nazi! Anyway they’ll be attacking along a broad front, won’t they? Hundreds of miles wide probably, and advancing all the time. They could be anywhere.’

  ‘Well, they’d better get on with it or we’ll all be learning Russian.’

  We stare at the map. The truth is we don’t know, and conjecture is fruitless no matter how engrossing. At the end of the day Ulm is a minor southern city of little importance, and far down anyone’s list of priorities, so all we can do is sit tight, be as patient as possible and get on with the job.

  Which is changing, subtly, even if we barely notice it. Erik and I bicker our way through the days like an old married couple. We still tend to our in-patients, hold daily sick parades, visit outlying clinics and do what we can for the destitutes at the drop-in. We’re still denied our liberty, locked in at night, fed scraps for rations and abused by Vorst and other die-hards we meet. We are still prisoners. But if the day-to-day practicalities of our imprisonment seem to change little, some things are definitely different. Attitudes. Like Prien snapping to attention, for instance.

  After a lunch of hoarded Spam on bread made from sawdust, I have two clinics to attend: the ball-bearing factory at Böfingen and a textiles mill on the north side of town. Here the prisoners, mostly women, fashion German army blankets and uniforms from fabric shipped in from the east, but upon arrival I find the factory idle, the women lounging in the sunshine and the guards standing about looking perplexed.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask a foreman.

  ‘No fabric.’ He shrugs. ‘Haven’t had a shipment in days.’

  And when I question the women they confirm it.

  ‘Look.’ One of them produces a sample. ‘The quality’s so poor you can poke your finger through it.’

  Another smirks. ‘It’s the same with the uniform fabric. And we only put half-stitches in, so they fall apart in a week!’

  ‘We sow lice eggs into the seams too,’ adds a third. ‘Give the Boche bastards something to scratch about!’

  Fighting talk. Lethally dangerous talk, in fact, under normal circumstances. But the circumstances aren’t normal, they’re changing, this further evidenced by a very short line at sick parade, as though getting ill is an irrelevance now. And as I attend to them and listen to their chatter, I realize what’s happening. These women may be sick and starving, they may be bullied, berated and beaten – and worse – but they can sense the winds of change blowing. And they’re preparing to hoist sail.

  The Böfingen plant’s similar, but more menacing. Here the German security presence is marked and aggressive. For the first time in weeks my papers are carefully scrutinized, and my bag and clothes searched before I’m allowed in. And sick parade takes place at gunpoint. Yet the patients, mostly long-serving French POWs, are recklessly defiant, slouching about flicking hateful glances at the guards, ignoring orders and instructions, and muttering murderous oaths under their breaths.

  ‘I hope you’re not planning anything rash,’ I say to one. ‘It would be a tragedy if anyone got hurt. So close to victoire, I mean.’

  ‘The only ones getting hurt will be these connards!’ he replies threateningly.

  And traipsing back to the tram stop, I come across an incredible sight. The Böfingen road bypasses Ulm to the east and I have to cross it. There, walking along, heads hanging, silent, muffled up in threadbare coats and scarves like a column of weary tramps, are German soldiers. Not many, but a steady trickle.

  ‘Woher kommst du?’ I ask one. ‘Where have you come from? And where are you going?’ But he just shakes his head.

  Then I have to queue for the tram back into town. These no longer run as efficiently as they used to, because of staff shortages and damage from bombings. There aren’t the engineers to service the rolling stock any more either. So Trudi tells me. A tram finally clanks into view and we all climb aboard. She’s not on it, and I find I’m both disappointed and relieved at this. I’ve seen her once or twice since the visit to her mother’s, but our rapport seems to have changed too, like the textiles women or the ball-bearing workers and their guards. Something in the dynamic has shifted, upsetting what was already finely balanced. We both feel it, I sense, but neither knows what to do about it. ‘What did you expect?’ Erik scolds when I broach the matter. ‘It was pointless and ill ad
vised from the start!’ I can only nod blankly in reply.

  Back in town it’s my turn at drop-in. Ulm central these days is unrecognizable from the trim little city I arrived in back in January. Apart from the sooty finger of the minster spire still poking stubbornly skyward, virtually nothing stands undamaged. Masonry shards and broken glass crunch underfoot as I pick my way through the maze of cratered streets, smashed buildings and smoke-blackened rubble. Small fires still smoulder here and there, while a burst main gushes water down the road like a stream in spate. Few clear-up parties are in evidence either, and those that are seem half-hearted in their efforts. As though it’s all a waste of time.

  I follow the railway until I arrive at the chapel. As usual there’s a line of people waiting outside. Starving, sick, destitute, their homes bombed to oblivion, their lives shattered and their menfolk gone, these are the true victims of this conflict, the by-product, the pitiful human dregs. Yet still living somehow, these ones at least, while upwards of a million German civilians, rumour has it, are dead.

  Two women helpers are waiting, hefting shopping baskets and cardboard boxes.

  ‘What have we here?’ I ask.

  ‘Blankets, a few tins and more old toys. Someone left them on the step.’

  The Rommel family again, I presume, remembering I have an appointment later. I unlock the door and push inside, sniffing the musty air. Despite some dampness the place looks almost presentable, certainly more like a community hall than an exploded chapel. The roof and windows are now weatherproof, the floor cleared and cleaned; some enterprising soul spliced us into the mains electricity, giving lighting and power to a donated electric urn. And apart from the wood stove, and the rows of pews serving as a waiting area, there’s an assortment of other furniture, scraps of carpet, a wind-up gramophone, toys and games for the children and a plentiful supply of books, magazines and newspapers to read. I can’t help feeling rather proud of the place whenever I come here; it’s ours, Erik’s and mine, we caused it to be, a tiny illicit ark bobbing on an ocean of destruction. In one corner a curtained-off area serves as our office and clinic; I head towards it, dump my bag and coat, fire up Mahler on the gramophone, and the Lucie Rommel Centre for the destitute is open for business.