Distantly, Studley could hear the sound of artillery.
He was taken to one of the BMPs and ordered to climb inside. The guard closed down the hatch above him. It was gloomy, the only light filtering through one of the gun ports. The interior fittings were spartan, the seats thinly padded. It would be an uncomfortable vehicle for the infantry who used it.
Studley felt for his watch; it was missing. From the low angle of the sun when he had left the tent he thought it must be late afternoon. He held the paper he had been given towards the gun port. ‘Questions,’ the captain had said. ‘Simple ones. Relatively unimportant.’ There were no questions on the sheet of paper, simply NATO code names. Studley recognized them. Code names for the map references of the division’s positions, rendezvous points, laagerings, field headquarters of all the units, the H hour time code. Relatively unimportant? With the code broken the Russians would be able to anticipate every movement the division made. All the Soviet artillery would need to do would be to wait until a few minutes after the time given in the division’s orders, then plaster the area.
But the information was only good for the next seven hours or so. At midnight, the codes would be changed. Studley felt relieved. if he could hold out until then he would be of no further use to Russian intelligence. He screwed the paper into a ball and tossed it into the corner of the vehicle.
His body felt as though it had been crushed and squashed. Every muscle was bruised and aching, his joints felt as though they were arthritic. The wound in his leg had stiffened and the blood had seeped through the dressing and hardened. He hadn’t seen the wound, but didn’t think it could be very serious… unless it became infected.
He stretched himself out and lifted his legs on to the neighbouring seat. He was exhausted, but knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Their intelligence on military personnel had startled him. It was better than just good. He had heard that over one hundred and eighty thousand people worked, in one way or another, for the American CIA. The Soviet agencies probably employed even more, collecting a mass of information and passing it back to their directorates for storage in their computers. Feed in a name and three minutes later, by radio, you had a full dossier; damn them, they were too efficient. Where did they start and end with the NATO army? Not at lieutenant… major, perhaps… everyone from the rank of major upwards, filed away in a Russian computer… every scrap of information they could lay their hands on; information from countless sources, civil and military, classified and non-classified clerks in NATO offices who were working for the Russians… in military offices… civilian mess staff… bar staff…
It was incredible they knew about Jane. The Russian GRU captain had been right, maybe they couldn’t make use of it but nevertheless they knew. War was a dirty game, and intelligence its darkest corner! Would they have ever made use of their knowledge if there hadn’t been a war? Perhaps. They might have tried to blackmail him… threatened to ruin his career… expose him. God, thought Studley, expose what? Tell Max I’m having an affair with his wife? I wasn’t some businessman on a week’s jaunt in Moscow, or Leipzig. They didn’t photograph me with a whore in some third-rate hotel… or produce pornographic tape-recordings. Jane and I are in love; we’ve been in love for years and we’ve kept quiet, bottled it up; kept it from Max and young Paul.
It hadn’t been easy when they had all been together. It had been unpleasant at times, watching Max with his arm around Jane, knowing it was Max who would be taking her to bed, caressing her, sleeping beside her. Now poor old Max was dead, and thankfully he had never known. He couldn’t be hurt. The thought of his death made Studley fed guilty; he had never wished it. He would have done almost anything to prevent it.
What a balls-up! He had expected casualties in the fighting, but somehow hadn’t thought he would be amongst them. How many of the men had been lost? Who had survived? Maybe it wasn’t too bad after all! If they’d put up a stiff fight and taken out plenty of the enemy, it was worthwhile. Had what they’d all done been enough? Had he somehow let his men down? Christ, he didn’t know!
And what now? Would the GRU officer just question him again, and then pass him back through the lines until he ended up in some POW camp? There were bound to be other prisoners, he couldn’t be the only one! There would be other officers, taken in similar situations along the front… the Russians would get them all together somewhere. God, he felt miserable! It would be bad for Jane, too. Her husband dead, and her lover a prisoner… and Paul, her son… trapped in West Berlin with very little hope of escaping. Damn Berlin. Damn the little red train that was its military artery. And damn Tempelhof, a vulnerable airport which a dozen rockets could put out of action. Christ, it would be bad in Berlin now; surrounded, impossible to defend against missile attacks, and too isolated to break out from. A Stalingrad, perhaps.
Escape. Perhaps that was what should be done? It was wrong to sit around waiting for the worst to happen… escape… it might be possible. But what about his leg wound? He could walk, even though his calf muscle was stiff and aching. Plenty of men had done it before. He remembered talking to someone who had escaped after Dunkirk. ‘Take the very first opportunity you get,’ the man had advised. ‘If you wait for the second, then it’s too late… the second chance may never come.’ Studley could remember the man clearly. He limped badly, broke his thigh when he jumped from a train, crawled several miles at night hiding in daytime in ditches full of water and mud. He had spent weeks in some French farmhouse before returning to England on a fishing boat. But he’d made it. He hadn’t fought again, but he’d done a useful training job for the remainder of the war. He had survived
Survival. That was what Studley was going to do… survive. One way and another… any way, he’d survive. Jane would need him; they’d need each other.
Jane… God, dear Jane. For twelve years they’d loved each other. It was hard to know exactly when it had all begun, or even how it had started. There wasn’t a particular hour or even day when he’d suddenly thought he loved her, wanted her. There had been mess dinners, mess balls; the three of them always seemed to to together. Sometimes he took a lady guest with him, but it wasn’t too easy to meet single women as you got older. Sometime during the evening he would find himself dancing with Jane; Max preferred to remain near a bar. The number of dances seemed to grow… the number of times she was in his arms. Even then, neither of them had said anything nor made a positive move. It was just that somehow over the years it changed; the way they held each other while they danced… the way their arms had linked as they walked from the floor.
One night they had stood together on the mess terrace; it had become too hot inside, after midnight. It had been the summer ball, and quite a grand affair… three bars, a disco for the younger officers, the regimental band in the main hall. He and Jane were close enough for their bodies to be touching and he had automatically put his arm around her waist. He felt at the time it had been a protective movement, not suggestive. She moved even closer and he had felt the firmness of her hip against his thigh, and known at that second they both wanted each other desperately. Jane had felt the same, he knew, for instinctively their eyes had met and he had seen her quickly hide the emotion.
‘Let’s go and have a drink. I’m very thirsty… something long and cool.’ Her voice was over-flippant, sounding very young, uncertain. He noticed she avoided his eyes now and shook her dark hair back over her shoulders, nervously. She and Max had married young. Paul had been born before she was twenty, he was seven only a few weeks before the ball.
‘I don’t know if I can face the crowd for a few minutes.’ He intended it as an excuse to delay her, but she had misunderstood him.
‘I can’t either.’ Her voice had been flat, weary. ‘Sometimes I think they’re watching us… their eyes following us everywhere. Sometimes I think they can read my mind.’ She became angry. ‘I hate these evenings. I hate the dressing up, all the gold braid, the artificial camaraderie and the inane conve
rsations… I hate anaesthetizing myself with gin and tonics so I’ve got the guts to dance with you all night in front of them, and the courage to let you leave me at the end.’ She had turned away from him and stared across the dark lawns and rose beds. She was gripping his hand tightly.
‘What can we do?’ Her outburst had startled him, forcing him to acknowledge his own feelings.
‘Nothing! If I’d once loved Max and now I hated him, it would be easy; I’d be strong enough to leave him. But I never loved him, so my feelings haven’t changed. I’ve always liked him, and I still do. And you can’t hurt someone you like so much.’
They avoided each other during the following weeks, until it became obvious to Max. ‘You and Jane had a fight?’
‘Jane? Good heavens, no!’
‘We haven’t seen much of you.’
Studley had lied. ‘It’s not been deliberate, Max. I just don’t seem to have got around to socializing lately.’
‘Dinner, Saturday evening then? Drinks about eight. Bozy and Felicity will be along. Jane and I thought we should invite Challace, introduce his wife to some of the other ladies of the regiment. It’s never easy for a new officer’s missus.’
Max, always friendly, concerned and dependable. He wasn’t even built like a soldier, stocky, rounded. Gieves and Hawkes found it difficult to get a military cut to his suits. In civvies he always managed to look like a contented country vicar; perhaps he should have been, it would have suited his easy-going temperament. ‘Thanks, I’ll be along.’
There was another evening, later, in the mess. He and Max were alone. ‘Ever think of getting married, James?’
‘Thought, once or twice.’ He had attempted to change the subject, but Max persisted; he had downed several drinks.
‘You should look around.’
‘It’s hardly possible here in Germany.’
‘When we’re in Ireland then. Daughter of a wealthy Irish landowner.’
‘For God’s sake, Max… what opportunity do we get for socializing in Ireland?’
‘The Queen Alexander’s Nursing Corps; there are some smashers amongst the nurses. Point one out to me and I’ll get Jane to invite her to dinner. Being a batchelor is no life for you, James.’
‘It suits me.’
‘It’ll make you sour. You need a wife and a couple of kids.’
‘Something I wanted to mention; the MT, sheds… there’s a hold-up with…’
‘Have you ever met Charlesworth’s daughter? I know she’s quite young, but…’
‘Max!’
It had been a full year after the incident at the ball before he and Jane had become lovers. It hadn’t been planned. Again, it was summer… long and dry, the grass scorching brown and the leaves becoming dusted on the trees near the roadsides. Max had suggested the trip into the mountains south of Hildesheim; it was an easy run down the autobahn. ‘Find ourselves an inn and stay overnight. Get some good food and a breath of fresh mountain air. Take a rod, James, there may be a decent trout stream.’
It had been too tempting to refuse; not the thought of being with Jane, but the chance to get away from the barracks and the countryside around Bergen.
Saturday morning came and with it the unexpected arrival of a friend of Max’s from the Royal Tank Regiment at Herford, passing through on his way to a NATO posting in Denmark.
Max’s apologies. ‘Go on ahead. I’ll have lunch with him here in the mess, and we can meet this evening at Salzdetfurth. Take rooms at the gasthof, and I’ll be there in time for drinks.’
‘It doesn’t matter, we’ll wait… well travel together later. Or we can put the whole thing off until another weekend.’
Max wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Jane can’t stand the fellow. Hates him! Didn’t even like him when we were at college together. No, you two go ahead.’
They had driven down the long highway, busy with weekend traffic. The holiday season had not yet ended, and there were families heading south with camping trailers, their cars heavy with luggage. Repair works slowed the journey, funnelling the traffic across the central barriers, reducing the cruising speed. They had stopped for lunch at an autobahn restaurant south of the Hannover intersection, and been happier once they had left the main highway after Hildesheim and taken the narrower mountain roads.
They stopped near a wooded stream, a tributary of the Leine near Bockenhem, and sat beneath the rowans and beeches. There was a kingfisher hunting the shallow pools, and the cool sounds of water bubbling amongst the rocks. They were both cautious, shy, avoiding any physical contact, aware of the dangers of such a trigger. They talked a little. Jane dozed, while Studley rested with his back against the bole of an old beech and let the problems of the week slip away.
It was five by the time they reached the gasthof and booked rooms; almost seven when Max telephoned from the mess at Bergen.
‘Damn him, Max. We’re booked in here.’ Studley could hear Jane’s voice, peeved with the knowledge Max was probably only delayed because he couldn’t deny his hospitality. ‘James and I will have dinner, then drive back… pretty crowded but they’ll have cleared… no, of course not… well, I’m not exactly delighted… Charles should have given you warning, anyway… well, yes, it would probably be better… about eleven… if we’ve gone out, we’ll leave a message for you. Yes… I’ll see you then…’ She hung up and spoke to Studley. ‘Charles has decided to stop over for the night, and Max is having dinner with him.’
‘I suppose I’d better unbook our rooms.’
‘No need. Max suggests we stay. He’ll be down in the morning, about eleven.’
He knew by her tone of voice she had decided that some time in the next few hours they would make love. He was uncertain for a while if it was because of her annoyance with Max or a decision to relax the tight control she had maintained over her feelings for the past months. There had been occasions when he had considered that some time in the future this kind of situation might arise, and he had wondered how he would deal with it. The simple answer was to avoid it, but now it was happening. He didn’t feel like a gentleman, but neither did he feel guilty.
‘I noticed a prettier restaurant further down the road, shall we give it a try?’
‘I’d like that, James.’
She had hooked her arm in his, affectionately, once they had left the gasthof to stroll through the town. The restaurant had been small, intimate, Bavarian in its conception. He couldn’t remember what they had eaten, only her face; her eyes watching him across the candlelit table.
Sometime after midnight they had returned to the gasthof, its stone-flagged hallway smelling of cigar smoke and beer, echoing their footsteps. It seemed deserted.
Their two rooms were adjoining. He had opened the door to his own, and she had walked inside, there had been no suggestion, no invitations. There was moonlight in the room, and for the first time they kissed. It was gentle, tender. He could taste the perfume on her neck and shoulders as he undressed her, the light summer clothing slipping away until she was naked; there was a moment of awkwardness as he stripped, then she was in his arms, her body small, warm against his own.
She was slender, and be felt her pelvis against his thighs and let his hands trace her soft curves. The bed had been only a step away in the small room, and she had lain in the bright square of moonlight that shone through the uncurtained window.
He remembered how careful the lovemaking had been, unhurried, almost measured at first as though they were both inexperienced, then intensifying, gathering urgency and excitement as he entered her and felt the heat of her body envelop him. She had cried out with her orgasm and her fingers had dug deep into his muscles.
The thoughts of her normally warmed him, but now, trapped in the gloomy interior of the enemy vehicle and filled with an inescapable sense of failure, he felt even more lonely and despondent.
There was no retreat from the present. The metal hatch above his head was pulled open, and a thick-set guard gestured that he should climb out
. The rich orb of the autumn sun had already dropped below the tops of the trees, and the clearing was streaked with lengthening shadows. Studley began to walk towards the tent where he first met the GRU officer, but the guard stopped him and pushed him in the direction of the woods with the barrel of his AKS-74.
Studley’s calf wound made it difficult for him to move quickly, and the guard was impatient. Studley didn’t understand the man’s Russian, but knew he was being cursed. He wondered if he were about to be shot. It was a frightening thought. He wouldn’t make it easy for them. He decided to wait until he was further into the woodland and then tempt the guard to get closer to him. If the man was foolish enough to prod him with his rifle again, there was a chance he might be able to overpower him and with a weapon in his hands his chances of survival were greatly improved. But there was no opportunity for him to begin to put his plan into operation for only a few paces into the woods, hidden beneath carefully draped branches and netting, was an armoured vehicle. Unlike the BMPs this was wheeled, and Studley thought it was probably a version of the BTR, perhaps a modified command post.
The GRU captain was waiting inside, impatiently, the clipboard of Studley’s details beneath his arm. He spoke brusquely, making no attempt to maintain his apparent former respect for Studley’s senior rank. ‘You have had the hour I promised. Where is the paper I gave you?’
Studley met the Russian’s eyes and held his gaze. ‘I threw it away.’ He could feel the muscles of his shoulders and back tightening, a childhood defence against anger which he had not experienced for many years. He straightened himself deliberately into a military posture he knew would make him appear arrogant.
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