Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse. Len Deighton
forests, long summer evenings, buxom country girls, balalaikas, caviar, medals arriving with the mail.’
‘That’s what it says in the recruiting pamphlets. All I remember is endless snow, my eyelashes iced over and on Christmas morning one of the sentries frozen alive so that we had to hack his rifle out of his hand with an axe.’
‘So that’s how you all got Eisbeinorden?’ said Max.
‘That’s how we all got aufs Eis geführt,’ said August. It meant ‘led up the garden’. Max looked anxiously at his driver but he seemed not to have heard.
‘Were you ever stationed with your son?’
‘For a month. Near Lake Ilmen in March of last year. His battalion was pulled out of the line after their casualties had reached sixty per cent during the winter offensive. For a month they were on communication assignment not two miles from the airfield where I had my radar installation.’
‘That was good.’
‘He is not commissioned yet, so I couldn’t take him to our Mess. It was in any case only a grain store with a stove and some old chairs.’
‘You must have had plenty to talk about.’
‘Staying warm. That’s all anyone talks about in a Russian winter. My Luftwaffe unit was still wearing its summer uniforms. Peter’s infantry regiment had some overcoats they had taken off Russian backs and some odds and ends of furs and lined boots that Goebbels had persuaded German civilians to part with. Peter bribed his quartermaster to let me have some coats and hats. In return I showed him how three skilled men, under cover of darkness, could steal two dozen loaves from a mobile bakery unit. It makes a man very proud to exchange such knowledge with his son.’
‘For a month you were together?’
‘It was the first day of the spring thaw when they left: March 15th. There was a watery sun that noon and for an hour there was the slightest of breaks in the intense cold. I went down to the railhead to say goodbye. His unit had found a piano factory almost intact. When they fired bullets into the lines of pianos there were strange resonant trills and jangling overtones. Hand grenades made a demented musical scream. Peter said it was the best fun he’d had since the attack on Vyasma the previous October.’
‘Are you frightened for the boy, August?’
‘My God, Max, I am.’
‘Could you not arrange a posting? After all, he has served on the Russian Front for … what, eighteen months?’
‘Twenty-one months. He’d never forgive me, Max. How would he feel? How would any of us feel?’
‘Not doing our duty, you mean? I’d feel damn good, August. What would you do if you were posted back there? Would you do your utmost to avoid it?’
‘Who knows, Max?’
‘Seriously, August.’
‘For God’s sake, Max! Do you think I’ve never thought about it? Do you know what it’s like to find yourself wishing your own son would have his leg shot off, just so he will survive?’
‘I’m sorry, August.’
‘Forget it, Max. It’s not good to think of these things in advance. In war all things are possible and nothing inevitable.’
‘Who said that?’
‘I said it,’ said August. ‘There is but a second of time, a stroke of a pen, a misinterpreted look, a fingered trigger … between us and a Knight’s Cross, a court-martial, sainthood or eternal damnation.’
‘Do you hear from your son?’
‘Every few weeks.’
‘And he hates the war as you hate it?’
‘Max, my friend, I have to tell you he likes it. We have given our world to our children. Can we be surprised that these children are destructive? Every fit, aggressive youngster who tries hard can get himself a bomber or a U-boat or an artillery battery and wreak havoc upon the world that it’s taken us old men so long to put together. Nineteen-year-old children creep up on a 20,000-ton merchant ship, press a button, and watch it die, writhing like a wingless fly. They set fire to great cities and turn our society upside down in return for bits of coloured ribbon. Where have we failed, Max? What manner of children will they breed, and what manner of world will they shape? We ask them to count their victims like head-hunters, marking each death with a notch, a painted tally or a new promotion. What will they unleash upon us, Max?’
‘Dare I say you are a hypocrite, August, my friend? You pronounce judgement upon the men who fight, you call our heroes murderers, but you do not disdain the respect and admiration due to a fighter-pilot expert. And at your throat you wear your trinket, your tally is well known and gains for you respect from soldier and civilian alike. Oh no, August, you want to eat your cake and throw it into the faces of lesser men like me.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘Then explain.’
‘You are confusing heroism with morality. A man can be brave and yet do dishonourable things. His individual act might be honourable and yet the result dishonourable.’
‘Give me an example, August.’
‘The RAF bomber crews. They are brave men, the risks they run are high and yet they kill women and children.’
‘You go too far, August. They are cowardly monsters. They drop their bombs and take to their heels in the darkness leaving people to burn.’
‘So do our U-boat crews who torpedo a merchant ship and steal away in the night leaving people to drown. Yet both are brave.’
‘Talk, talk, talk, August. You know as well as I do that we are all victims of circumstance. When the order comes we shall press the trigger, merely because the individual cannot challenge a system. Why try? As you said earlier, whether a man is commanding a U-boat, allocating civilian fuel supplies or even flying an RAF bomber is largely a matter of chance.’
‘Perhaps you are right, Max. Perhaps I have too much time to think.’
He watched the people on the crowded pavements of The Hague. For every happy bemedalled young officer there were a hundred men and women who looked tired and dejected.
‘Ah, August, my friend. Why so sad? This was but a friendly fight, such as two old friends might have over a cigar.’ The car turned into the Plein and the Luftwaffe sentry saluted the car without caring if it was empty or full.
‘Go carefully with me, Max. A man in love is fragile.’
Max smiled. ‘But it’s a good cigar, eh, August?’
‘Magnificent.’
‘Then take the box. A man in love never knows when he might need a box of cigars.’ August tried to refuse them but Max closed his hands around August’s and pressed the big box of cigars on to him. ‘Major Georg Tuchel will be doing this run for the time being. Phone him here any weekday morning if you want a ride. I have already spoken with him, there’ll be no difficulty.’ Max turned to the driver. ‘Take the Oberleutnant to radar station Ermine. I’ll log you for another two hours and see you in the morning at the usual time.’
The driver closed the car door and saluted Oberst Max Sepp. Max stayed on the steps and waved to August as the car departed.
For nearly an hour the driver drove silently, but as they entered the prohibited zone August sensed that he had something to say. He offered him a cigar but he preferred a cigarette. Here near the coast he was driving more slowly. It was a strange, deserted place. Occasionally they passed a farm cart with its heavy-footed Zeeland horses, or a bicycle with homemade wooden tyres slapping the cobbles.
When the last village had vanished behind them the narrow concrete road became a sandy track and suddenly the North Sea appeared through the mist. The scrubby grass-topped dunes are twenty or