Raid 42

by Graham Hurley

  She wasn’t looking at Dieter. Her eyes were on her husband and there was an edge of envy in her voice.

  Dieter didn’t know what to say. He had no words of comfort to offer. He came from a world that Beata had never understood, the world of dawn take-offs, of strafing missions against enemy positions, of combat patrols, of the seemingly effortless extension of the Reich by eager young men who’d never tasted defeat. Now, as a simple civilian, she was suddenly living with the knowledge that the enemy, too, could play this game. And that there might be consequences. Every night, because of the RAF, Berlin put the lights out. And the inky darkness could kill people.

  They sat in silence for the best part of an hour. From time to time there was movement in the ward as nurses came and went, attending to some of the other patients. A handful were conscious and could manage a murmured conversation. Others babbled in their sleep. One in particular, an older figure in the next bed, balding, troubled, was moaning softly to himself. But Georg never moved, not once, a recumbent figure, an object of passing curiosity, as if already preparing himself for the afterlife.

  After a while, Beata reached for Dieter’s hand. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Dieter asked her whether she wanted to go. She shook her head.

  ‘Lottie?’

  ‘She’s with my father. He’s moved in with us. He does the cooking, too. Leave if you want. He’ll be glad to see you.’

  ‘You want me to stay? In the house?’

  ‘Of course. You will, won’t you? Please say yes.’ She was staring at him, and Dieter saw something close to panic in her eyes.

  ‘Of course.’ He gave her hand a squeeze.

  Minutes passed. Beata’s attention, single-minded, had returned to the face on the pillow. Dieter, too, was gazing fiercely at the man who’d meant so much to him, as if some inner force could conjure just a flicker of movement, but after a while his mind began to play tricks with him.

  He and Georg were back in the bullring at Sevilla, down in Andalucía, the night the young matador despatched three bulls before the fourth nearly killed him. They were up north, months later, flying wingtip to wingtip over some helpless Gallego township, trailing their own capes in a bid to tempt the Ivans into combat. They were in a bar in Vitoria, a dog asleep under the battered wooden table, rain lashing at the tiny windows, the wind howling under the door. That particular night, after a repeat expedition to Guernica, they’d matched the Spanish at the bar, raising glass after glass to Franco and pledging the ugliest of deaths to the hated Republicans. A game, Dieter thought. A roll of the dice, a wrong call, a moment’s inattention, and here you were, beyond reach, barely alive, feeling nothing.

  The lightness of the hand on his shoulder made him jump. He looked up. Hans Baur.

  Baur was Hitler’s personal pilot, the legendary flyer who’d brought Georg back from Spain to help fly the Führer to the far corners of the ever-expanding Reich and had later found a brief perch in the squadron for Dieter Merz. He offered Beata a formal nod of greeting before gesturing Dieter to his feet.

  ‘A word, please.’

  They returned to the corridor outside the ward. Baur, it turned out, was a regular visitor. Georg had been in the hospital since the raid at the weekend and Baur had checked up on him every night.

  ‘You’ve noticed any difference?’

  ‘None.’ He tapped his own head. ‘He’s dead in there. It’s gone.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I don’t. But sometimes it pays to assume the worst. That way life can only surprise you. You find that?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. That was always der Kleine’s charm.’

  Hans Baur had a habit of sometimes talking in the third person. Der Kleine. The Little One. Merz’s squadron nickname.

  ‘The Kanalkampf? I’m hearing you did well against the British.’

  ‘They never saw me coming. Never fails.’

  ‘Twenty-one kills?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘And Beata? The good lady?’ He nodded towards the ward. ‘You’re going to play the gentleman? Look after her?’

  ‘As best I can.’

  Baur held Dieter’s gaze for a long moment, then asked him about his current posting.

  ‘You’re on some kind of grand tour? Jagdstaffel by Jagdstaffel? Have I got that right?’

  ‘You have. How do you know?’

  ‘Your name came up this morning. Goering, no less. I flew him down to Augsburg and told him about Messner. He thinks as I do. He thinks we owe Beata a little care and attention.’

  ‘You mean me?’

  ‘I do. Goering has a proposition. Nothing to keep you too busy. Just as long as you keep an eye on Frau Messner.’ He smiled. ‘And Georg, of course.’

  Dieter nodded. He hadn’t a clue what Baur was talking about.

  ‘Proposition?’

  ‘He’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m flying down to Augsburg to pick him up. Eight o’clock at Tempelhof. Come with me.’

  *

  Tam Moncrieff’s sister lived in an elegant three-storey Regency house overlooking Eaton Place. One of the reasons their relationship had never been easy was Vanessa’s lifelong determination to turn her back on life in the Scottish uplands and find herself somewhere more fitting to call home. A six-bedroom mansion in the heart of Belgravia, with the cream of the capital’s diplomatic representation as neighbours, had probably outstripped even her own expectations, but marriage to Alec Nairn had won her a perch at the very top of London society. Which was why Moncrieff had been so surprised to find a furniture van at her door.

  ‘You’re on the move?’

  ‘We are. Alec likes a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘Anywhere nice?’

  ‘North Yorkshire.’ She named an estate Moncrieff had never heard of. ‘The owners are moving to Canada. Alec’s sister passed the word and the rest, as they say these days, is history.’

  ‘You’re selling this place?’

  ‘Closing it up for the winter. Or maybe winters. The bloody Germans write the script these days. Don’t you find that?’

  Tam followed her into the house. Wooden crates lined the big hall, ready for collection, and through an open door into the dining room Tam caught a glimpse of two elderly women on their knees wrapping glassware in sheets of newspaper. The kitchen was in a similar state of chaos: tottering piles of crockery, boxes of tinned food, three old blankets for the dog and a sweetness in the air from the remains of the overnight fire.

  ‘The last of the cherry tree,’ Vanessa was staring at the ashes in the grate. ‘Where we’re going we’re spoiled for wood and Alec saw no point in leaving it all. Scorched earth… isn’t that the term?’

  ‘You’re denying the enemy?’

  ‘We are. Does that amuse you?’

  ‘Only if you’re expecting the Germans. I don’t think it’s quite that bad. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘You don’t? You really don’t? Alec thinks there’s a peace to be had. So do most of his chums. Sometimes we think someone should spare us all and put that maniac out of his misery.’

  ‘You mean Hitler?’

  ‘Churchill, Tam. Don’t be so bloody obtuse. What’s the point of fighting on alone when it simply prolongs the agony? I imagine you must have been in London the other night. Are you deaf or something? Blind? Isn’t all this suffering, all this bother, a little…’ she frowned, hunting for the right word, ‘…indulgent? At this rate there won’t be anything worth saving, not if you really care about the country. One man. One bad apple. That’s all it takes. Life could be so much simpler.’

  ‘If we all spoke German?’

  ‘If we all looked the situation in the face. Alec says that even Hitler is bewildered. Apparently he’s prepared to offer the PM perfectly good peace terms. Why can’t the bloody man listen for a change? There’s no question of us all speaking German. That’s cheap, if I may say so. Unless there’s something you know and we don’t.’

  Moncri
eff shrugged, said nothing. He’d always been tight-lipped about the exact role the war had assigned to him, though he suspected that his precious sister had guessed most of it. Hence her recent phone call to Andrew Ballentyne.

  ‘Tell me about Gordon Hesketh,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll leave you in peace.’

  ‘Hateful little man. Came calling last week. Uninvited, unannounced, and – on first acquaintance – deeply implausible.’

  Hesketh, it turned out, had knocked on her door with some wild story about having grown up in the property as a child. Vanessa’s first instinct had been to send him on his way but then he’d mentioned the big old radiator in the attic with the antique guard and the way the sun slanted into the nursery in the early mornings and after that her curiosity had got the better of her.

  ‘Not so implausible after all?’

  ‘Quite the reverse. Alec had been going through the deeds only the other night, a complete record of previous owners, and what the little man said may well have been true. Back at the turn of the century, the house belonged to a man called Hesketh. It’s there in black and white. Ronald Hesketh and his wife Violet. Hesketh, it seems, was in the oil business. Worked most of his life in Persia. Got himself some kind of emissary role with the Shah afterwards. Ended up living here.’

  ‘And the little man at the door?’

  ‘Adopted. That made perfect sense, of course. There was something about him, very hard to pin down. No style. No breeding. Talked too much. Assumed too much.’

  ‘Didn’t know his place?’

  ‘Exactly. It’s no sin to be quite so pushy, quite so charmless, but the social advantages, says little me, are limited. That was Alec’s view, too. The wretched man was still here, in the kitchen, when he came home. All day in the Upper House is enough for anyone. An extra hour or so with our new friend was beyond the call of duty. For once I almost felt sorry for my poor lamb.’

  Moncrieff ducked his head to hide a smile. After the death of his father, Alec Nairn had inherited the family title. On the day of her marriage, much to her satisfaction, Vanessa had therefore become Lady Nairn.

  ‘You telephoned Andrew Ballentyne,’ Moncrieff pointed out. ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Because the little man kept telling me about his life out in Lisbon. How he loved the place. How he was writing this book of his. How many people he knew out there, interesting people, well-placed people, people with a story to tell. He was bragging, of course, and to tell you the truth I couldn’t shut him up, even after Alec came home. In fact it was his idea, Alec’s.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To pass the little man on to you. Alec thinks Lisbon’s the root of all mischief. He tells me it’s thick with spies.’ For the first time, a smile. ‘Might he be right?’

  Moncrieff didn’t reply. Instead, he asked whether – in his sister’s opinion – Hesketh had really grown up in Eaton Place. By now, Vanessa was looking for a note she’d made of a telephone number. She looked up.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she nodded down at the remains of the fire. ‘He knew exactly where the cherry tree had been.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I asked him.’ She’d found the number. ‘Here. Give him a ring. But for God’s sake don’t breathe a word about North Yorkshire.’

  4

  Next morning, Dieter Merz flew south from Berlin to Augsburg. Hans Baur was at the controls of the big Ju-52 and invited Merz to share the cockpit with him. As a display pilot before returning to front-line combat duties after the invasion of Poland, Merz had frequently hitched a lift with the Führer Squadron but he recognised none of the Berlin functionaries in the cabin behind him. No wonder, Baur had grunted. The regime eats these people for breakfast. If you want to survive, stick to being a fighter pilot.

  They landed at the Messerschmitt factory at Augsburg in a flurry of snow a few minutes short of noon. Baur waited for the passengers to clamber down the metal ladder before checking the cabin and ordering more fuel from the ground crew. Waiting in the warmth of an office in a building next to one of the big assembly hangars was a familiar face.

  ‘Herr. Messerschmitt.’ Dieter offered the Hitler salute. He’d met Willi Messerschmitt on a number of occasions, most of them dedicated to post-combat analysis of ways in which the great designer might improve his fabled Bf-109. For someone whose name was on the lips of millions of Germans, he was remarkably down to earth.

  ‘Der Kleine,’ he ignored the Hitler salute and pumped Dieter’s hand. ‘A pleasure, as always.’

  Baur accompanied them up two flights of stairs. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering was waiting in a spacious office on the top floor. So far, the war had been kind to the Luftwaffe’s founding father. Hitler seemed to have forgiven him for not destroying the RAF in the Kanalkampf, it was whispered, because he’d never intended to invade Britain in the first place. Whatever the truth, Goering was fatter and more expansive than ever.

  ‘Merz,’ he nodded at the chair in front of the desk. ‘Sit.’

  Merz did as he was told. Baur and Willi Messerschmitt had disappeared.

  ‘Messner?’

  ‘Not good, Herr Reichsmarschall.’ Merz described his visit to the Charité hospital and the hours he’d spent sitting up with Beata afterwards at the family home beside the Wannsee. ‘I’m afraid she’s starting to fear the worst.’

  ‘She thinks he’ll die?’

  ‘She thinks he may be like this forever.’

  ‘Unconscious?’

  ‘Different. Even if he recovers, that’s what alarms her. She says she can see it in his face. She says he’s changing in front of her eyes. Becoming someone else.’

  ‘And is she right?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But she’s an intelligent woman, and strong, too. She thinks the way Georg thinks. She makes it her business to try and understand what might be going on and draws the logical conclusion. That can’t be easy, Herr Reichsmarschall. Not in a situation like this.’

  It was true. Last night, crouched over the log fire, Dieter had listened to her worst fears. Before the arrival of little Lottie, Beata had been a physicist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, the Reich’s leading centre for scientific research, and she was no stranger to the unforgiving logic of cause and effect. Her husband, at the very least, was brain damaged. If he survived at all, then it would be at some cost.

  The Reichsmarschall was playing with one of the rings on his fingers. He said he was sorry. Messner had been a fine addition to the Reichsregierung, and his flying had won even the Führer’s approval. Merz nodded. Despite everything Beata had said, he’d yet to write his friend off as a pilot and Goering’s choice of tense made him feel deeply uncomfortable.

  ‘You’ll pass on my sympathies to Frau Messner?’

  ‘Of course, Herr Reichsmarschall.’

  ‘And you’ll tell her how much we’ll miss him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excellent. She’ll need support. She has friends? Family?’

  ‘She has a father. Her mother’s dead. No brothers, no sisters. Friends, of course, but they’re all at the KWI. Some of them used to drive out in the evening after work but this time of year that isn’t an option.’

  ‘Because of the English?’

  ‘Because of the blackout.’

  ‘Same thing, isn’t it?’

  Merz held Goering’s gaze. It was a direct challenge. Merz had heard the rumours in squadron messes across the Reich that der Eiserne, as some called him, was extremely touchy about the growing threat from RAF bombers. Der Eiserne meant ‘The Iron Man’. In Goering’s view, German airspace was sacrosanct. The English had no business appearing over Berlin night after night.

  ‘We’re fighting a war,’ Merz pointed out. ‘We should expect to bleed from time to time.’

  Goering frowned, gave the proposition some thought. Then the flat of his huge hand slammed down on the desk and he roared with laughter.

  ‘Blood,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what I told the Führer. We spill the en
emy’s blood. They take a little of ours. You know what kind of aircraft they’re using now? Blenheims. Hampdens. We wouldn’t deliver the post in machines like that. And in any case, the war’s as good as won. Messner is unfortunate. Look after that wife of his. I have your word she won’t suffer?’

  ‘Of course, Herr Reichsmarschall.’

  ‘Excellent. Now then. Rudolf Hess. How well do you know him?’

  Dieter blinked. Sudden conversational swerves were Goering’s stock in trade. He loved to wrongfoot people, to take them by surprise exactly the way you might jump the enemy in a dogfight. Maybe that was the key to his success. Over the trenches in the last war he’d amassed a decent tally of kills.

  ‘I’ve met him a couple of times when I was flying with Messner on the Führer Squadron. Once we had a conversation.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He was friendly. He told me how much he loved flying and how jealous he was.’

  ‘Of what? Who?’

  ‘Of me. We were coming back from Stuttgart. He’d been at Nuremberg that last year, ’38, when I flew on the final Sunday in the 109. All his life he’d wanted to be a fighter pilot. We talked for a while. He had a list of questions, really technical questions. He wanted to know everything.’

  ‘So what did you make of him?’

  Dieter hesitated. Rudolf Hess was Hitler’s Deputy in the Party hierarchy, a man with his fingers in countless pies. He knew all the top bankers. He was on first-name terms with industrialists like Fritz Thyssen and Gustav Krupp. He ran the Auslands-Organisation. He could interfere in court rulings. He had a voice on the War Council. And most important of all, he had a unique relationship with the Führer himself, a kinship that went back to the earliest days, something that was immediately evident when you saw the two men together. Hitler seemed to listen to Hess. He even treated him with something close to respect. That made Hess someone to be reckoned with, a man of immense power and influence, and yet – when it came to his private life – he seemed to be an exception to the Party rule.

  ‘He’s a modest man,’ Merz said carefully. ‘And he struck me as shy, as well.’