She shook her head. ‘No, it’s all right. He just needs to rest for a bit. He wants to show you his latest scrapbook later, if you don’t mind. He’s been working on it very hard.’
‘I don’t mind a bit.’
‘Thank you. This time we have something to offer you, Squadron Leader. Real coffee. Would you like some? Dirk has stolen it from the Americans, I am sorry to say.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Because it is stolen?’
‘No, because you need it.’
‘No, we don’t. It is a luxury. We don’t need it at all. I will make some.’
He agreed because it bought him time. Time to sit at the table and watch her at the stove in the kitchen corner, boiling the water, fetching cups, making the coffee, bringing it to him. The cups had no saucers and hers had no handle. ‘As a guest, you must have the best one,’ she said when he tried to change them round. She sat down opposite him. He offered her a Player’s and lit it for her, and then his own. The simple, companionable act gave him infinite pleasure. He put away the lighter in his tunic pocket. ‘How are things? Are you still managing?’
‘Oh, yes.’
She wouldn’t tell him if she wasn’t, he thought. ‘And your work?’
‘The same as always.’ Her hands, he saw, were in a worse state than ever, the nails broken and split, the skin callused and dotted with small cuts and bruises. Even so, they were beautiful hands with very slender fingers. Hands never made for scraping away at bricks and shovelling rubble.
‘I’m sorry that you have to do such a terrible job.’
‘It’s not so terrible. And it’s useful. Berlin will be built again from our bricks.’
He said encouragingly, ‘One day, though, when things are better, you will be able to get a different job.’
‘One day, perhaps.’
‘The economy will recover. Eventually. Some factories in Berlin are still making things, in spite of everything. Telephones, valves, light bulbs . . . As a matter of fact, we’re carrying as much of the stuff out for export as we can. As soon as we’ve unloaded the supply planes we fill them up with goods.’
‘I have heard this. It’s very generous of the Royal Air Force.’
‘Well, we thought there wasn’t much point sending back empty planes. And it helps the outside world to know that Berlin is still alive and kicking.’
‘Dirk tells me that at Tempelhof the Americans don’t generally do this.’
‘They have a different theory. They believe that backloading slows the turnaround time of aircraft. They think the object of the airlift is to bring supplies into Berlin, not waste time taking stuff out. It’s a valid point. That’s about the only thing we don’t agree on, though. They’re terrific chaps.’
‘And instead they have been dropping chocolate and candy to the children . . . That’s very nice. Very kind. Dirk has seen the little parachutes made of handkerchiefs and scarves coming down. Of course, it’s wonderful for the children. They have never known anything like it.’
He glanced round at Rudi in the far corner; he was holding the model Skymaster to his chest and seemed to be half asleep. The old man had nodded off. Harrison lowered his voice. ‘It isn’t only goods we take out, as a matter of fact. We’ve been carrying people too. We took a lot of civilians out at the start of the blockade – mostly west Germans who’d got trapped in Berlin. Since then we’ve been taking others – whenever we can – business people and politicians, people who need special medical treatment, all that sort of thing . . . And lately, we’ve been carrying elderly people and children. The ones who are sick or undernourished.’
‘Where do they go?’
‘To hospitals, or relatives, or special homes in the British zone. The thing is, it’s really easier for us if those sort of people can be safely out of the way . . . before the winter comes.’
‘Yes, of course. The winter is going to be a big problem. Last year it was not so bad but the year before it was so cold that people literally froze to death.’
‘I know. I’ve heard about it.’ He paused. ‘And this one could be the same. It might be a good thing if Rudi could go – perhaps your grandfather, too. Do you have any relatives in the British zone?’
She shook her head. ‘None. None anywhere that I know of.’
‘No aunts or uncles?’
‘My parents had no brothers and sisters.’
He felt desperately sorry for her. To have had some sort of family could have helped her. ‘Well, something could probably be arranged.’
‘But we live in the Russian sector. Surely you would take out only those from the British side.’
‘Even so, it might be possible to manage it . . . would you like me to find out, at least?’ She fingered the handleless cup and was silent. ‘There’s no charge,’ he went on. ‘It’s completely free.’
‘It isn’t that. Whatever it cost, somehow we would find it. But I do not know what would be best. Rudi belongs with us – we are all that he has – and Grandfather is so confused and gets very sad sometimes. It might be worse for both of them.’
Behind them, on the couch in the corner, Rudi started coughing. Coughing and coughing.
Harrison said quietly, ‘He’d be given treatment. Proper food. Lots of care. Your grandfather too.’
‘They might be unhappy.’
He said bluntly, ‘Do you think they’ll be able to get through another winter here – if it’s a very bad one? I think that’s what you should consider.’
‘I must talk to Rudi.’
‘Do you want me to find out about it, meanwhile?’
‘Yes . . . if you would. Thank you.’ She still seemed uncertain. ‘But why should you bother?’
It’s for you, he wanted to tell her. For Rudi, too, and the old man, but mostly for you. I want to do something for you. Instead he said, ‘It’s no bother. Squadron Leader Hill – that chap you met when we went to the play – is involved in that department, actually. I can ask him. See what he could do. I can’t promise anything. It might not be possible at all.’
‘Out of the question, I’d say, Michael. We’re up to here with applications from our own sector.’ Tubby drew an imaginary line under his double chin. ‘We can’t start spiriting out the Ruskies’ lot. Could cause all sorts of ructions. You know what they’re like. Any excuse to make a rumpus.’
‘It’s just one kid of nine and a doddery old man. Both pretty sick. The kid’s got all kinds of problems, TB included, I should say. I don’t think either of them have a chance of surviving the winter if they stay here. On humanitarian grounds, I think they should be given a chance to live.’
‘The Russians are supposed to look after their own civilians – not us.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Tubby, you know bloody well that they don’t. They don’t care if they live or die. And if they die it saves them the trouble of feeding them.’
‘Steady on, dear boy. Steady on. Don’t lose your rag. Whatever possessed you to get involved with these people in the first place? Are they by any chance connected to that charming young lady you introduced me to at the play?’
‘They’re her brother and grandfather, as it happens.’
Tubby raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re sticking your neck out for some little fräulein? You’ve gone crackers, Michael. You’ve got your career to think of, remember? Don’t make any waves, for God’s sake. No blots on the old escutcheon. Everything by the book. Stick to the rules like glue.’
‘I’m not aware that there are any rules about this.’
‘Not precisely. Not in black and white, but obviously we’re only shifting our own people out. That goes without saying.’
‘All I’m saying is see if you can get their names on the list. Only the two of them. Pull a string.’
‘It’s a very long list.’
‘How long?’
‘Weeks long. Months maybe.’
‘Do your best, will you?’
‘I don’t promise a thing.’
‘Fine. Just try.’
Tubby sighed. He took his fountain pen out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap. ‘Give me their names, then.’
‘What do you think of the idea, Rudi?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure if I’d want to go away from you and Dirk.’
‘It’s only an idea and it may not be possible anyway.’
‘How long for?’
‘Just for the winter months. You would be somewhere warmer, with good food and doctors to see that you get well again. That’s what the squadron leader says. He thinks it would be much better for you and Grandfather. He said the RAF are taking a lot of children out.’
Rudi brightened. ‘In planes? I’d go in a plane?’
‘Yes, of course. It’s the only way to leave west Berlin.’
‘What sort of plane?’
‘I’ve no idea. One of the RAF ones. A Dakota, perhaps.’
‘It might be a York.’
‘Yes, I suppose it might.’
‘But where would I live?’
‘I’m not exactly sure. They are taking the children to special homes in the British zone, or to hospitals, if that’s necessary. Perhaps you might go to a hospital for a little while and then to a home. The doctors would do what would be best for you.’
He turned one of the American plane’s propellers slowly with the tip of his forefinger. ‘But I’d come back?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And the squadron leader thinks I should go?’
‘Yes, he does. He’s trying to arrange it.’
‘Then it must be all right, mustn’t it?’
Towards the end of October, Harrison flew to England on leave. The weather in Berlin had already started to deteriorate and before he left there had been several days of thick fog which had caused plenty of headaches in the Ops Room and frustrating delays in the targeted coal deliveries. Ominously, news had come of ice already forming on the Rhine near Wiesbaden. He flew by Dakota to Bückeburg in the British zone and then on to Northolt aerodrome outside London where he took a taxicab to his flat.
The flat was in a Victorian mansion block on the Fulham Road and he had bought it at the end of the war with a legacy from a fond and rich godmother. It was a rather sombre place and somewhat sparsely furnished. His mother had wanted to cheer it up, as she called it, but he had declined the offer firmly. It served as a useful base – somewhere secure to store his clothes and books and records while he was away and to use when he was on leave. There had been minor bomb damage to the building during the war – nothing more serious than cracks in the ceilings and broken windowpanes which had been mended or plastered over. His eyes had grown so accustomed to the devastation of Berlin that London, by contrast, seemed relatively unscathed: a comparison that he would never have made before. There was evidence everywhere of the Luftwaffe’s night-time raids – plenty of bomb sites and gaps and rubble-strewn wasteland – but nothing like Berlin.
He let himself into the mansion block and took the creaking lift up to his flat on the first floor. Here were solid walls and ceilings, radiators, running hot water, tins of food in one kitchen cupboard, a full set of china in another, his clothes in the wardrobe, Irish linen sheets and merino wool blankets on the bed, carpets on the floors, curtains to draw over the windows, a drinks cabinet with, if he remembered correctly, some sherry left in it, and a telephone.
He called his mother. She sounded thrilled to hear his voice.
‘Darling, how simply wonderful! Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?’
‘Sorry, it wasn’t certain till almost the last minute.’
‘How long?’
‘Ten days.’
‘You’ll come down this weekend, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘We’ll have a lovely celebration. I’ll get some people in for drinks after church and wheedle something special out of the butcher for Sunday lunch. I’ve been saving up ration points, hoping you’d get some leave soon.’
‘Don’t go to any trouble.’ It was a waste of breath saying that; he knew she’d go to all kinds of trouble for him. The butcher and the grocer would be charmed into delving under the counter, the greengrocer coaxed for the freshest vegetables, the garden combed for late autumn flowers, Mrs Lewis instructed to give his old room a thorough going-over. And he knew what was coming next.
‘Shall I see if Celia will be home as well? We could ask her over to lunch, if you’d like that.’
‘Yes, by all means.’
A little pause. ‘Will you be seeing her in London before, do you think?’
‘I’ve only just arrived. I haven’t spoken to her yet.’
‘Well, when you do, darling, perhaps you’d ask her if she’d like to come on Sunday? Tell her we’d love to see her.’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘I’ll invite her parents, too. Keep it in the family.’
The conversation turned to other things: his father who had had a letter published in The Times about the lasting benefits of military discipline on young men, the new puppy who chewed anything and everything, the old Humber car that kept refusing to start. He listened to his mother chattering on gaily. During the war, when he had been doing a tour of ops, with death constantly at his shoulder, he had found it all a curious comfort. So long as the daily’s corns were playing up, the cat had had kittens and frost had got at the camellias, everything was pretty much OK.
When he had said goodbye to her, promising faithfully to be down on Friday evening, he poured himself a sherry and lit a cigarette. He stood for a while, looking out of the sitting-room window down on to the Fulham Road below. More than three years had passed since the end of the war but it was still grim, grey austerity England. Chronic shortages, rationing – some of it even worse than during the war – utility goods, half-empty shelves and queues outside the shops. A little way along the road he could see a line of housewives with baskets hooked over their arms waiting patiently in front of a greengrocer’s. Not such a very different picture from the queues in Berlin, except that this queue was much shorter and the women looked a lot more cheerful and somewhat better dressed. He could see them gossiping away to each other.
He was lucky and he knew it. He’d had a fairly tough war but so had thousands of men. And a lot of them had had no homes to return to and not much prospect of a decent job in Civvy Street. In addition to his service pay, he had a small private income set up out of family capital by his father when he was twenty-one. He had a car, kept in a garage round the corner – bought off a less fortunate fellow officer who could no longer afford to run it – and pretty good prospects in the RAF. He was expected to do well. All he had to do was keep running on the required rails. You’re sticking your neck out for some little fräulein? You’ve gone crackers, Michael.
He finished the cigarette and phoned Celia at the flat she shared with another girl in Hans Place. When she answered, he could tell that she was very pleased to hear from him, though she kept it casual.
‘Dinner? That sounds a nice idea, Michael.’
‘I’ll pick you up at seven, if that’s all right.’
‘I’ll be ready.’
He went round to the garage where the Riley was housed. After a few tries and a bit of judicious nursing, the engine fired and he drove it over to Knightsbridge. Celia opened the door. She was wearing a rather elegant woollen frock and a double string of pearls round her neck that he knew had been a coming-of-age present from her parents. Her father was something very successful in the City, her mother a doer of good works, like his own. If the war hadn’t intervened, he assumed that she would have done the London Season and dabbled in some kind of pleasant and undemanding job before getting married. Instead, she had gone into the WRNS as soon as she had been old enough and served throughout the duration until she was demobbed. Her job at the War Office was anything but undemanding, so far as he could gather. He also gathered that she was rather good at it.
He took her to
a French restaurant that usually managed to serve a fairly decent dinner in spite of the five-shilling limit. They ordered onion soup and veal with a mushroom sauce, and while they waited they drank gin and tonics and smoked cigarettes. She was curious about Berlin. What was it like?
‘It’s in ruins,’ he told her. ‘Almost completely destroyed. The people live in cellars and wherever there’s still a roof of some kind over their heads.’
‘And now they have to endure this blockade. One feels very sorry for them.’
‘They’re not particularly sorry for themselves, as a matter of fact. They’re rather like Londoners in that respect. They get on with things. If they didn’t, this airlift wouldn’t stand a chance. It depends on them, as much as on us. They could easily give up and settle for life under the Russians.’
She grimaced. ‘Not much of an option. Not from what I’ve heard.’
‘I certainly wouldn’t choose it.’
‘I can’t imagine what it must be like to have your city carved up into pieces and run by different countries. Imagine if it had happened to London.’
‘Unimaginable. And unthinkable.’
The waiter came with the onion soup, which was very good.
‘What do the poor Berliners get to eat?’ she asked.
‘They seem to survive mainly on soup. But not soup like this. Cabbage soup or soup made with anything they can get hold of. The stuff we bring in by plane is nearly all dried, of course, because of the weight. Powdered eggs, milk, coffee, potatoes, cereals. We fly in flour so they can bake their own bread. We tried carrying biscuits once but they arrived as crumbs.’
‘Do they get any meat?’
‘In tins.’
‘Cheese?’
He shook his head. ‘None. But then they haven’t had any since the war so they don’t miss it.’
She said, ‘You must find it all a bit of an irony, Michael?’
The Pathfinder Page 14