Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse

‘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 thirty feet high and beyond them is only a table-flat beach of fine sand and then the sea. From it had come the dense white mist that clings like icy steam and reduces visibility to fifty feet. The sentries were wearing their overcoats and they walked stiffly around the radar station which, like this whole coastline, was a forest of barbed wire and steel stakes.

The bushes and wire-like grass had been bent double by the wind from the sea. In the lee of the dunes the air was still and the white mist scarcely moved, but the bushes were still deformed and bowed. The only creatures happy to be there were the birds which skimmed low over the bunkers and could breed protected by barbed wire. Even the bird-watchers couldn’t get near them now and five hundred square miles of Northern Europe’s coast had become a vast nature reserve guarded by the Wehrmacht.

The Citroen’s tyres slid in the soft sand, but the driver insisted upon driving Oberleutnant Bach right to the very door of his quarters. He always did. He opened the door for August and saluted him formally.

‘Thank you,’ said August. ‘See my Feldwebel and he will fix you up with some eggs.’ The boy nodded. It was all exactly as it always was, except for one thing. ‘It’s about the Herr Oberst,’ said the driver nervously.

‘What about him?’ said August.

‘I think the Oberleutnant would like to know that the Herr Oberst has been ordered to join an infantry regiment on the Russian Front: Orel. Many officers have. They go on Thursday. We shall miss the Herr Oberst.’

‘So shall I,’ said August. ‘Thank you.’

The driver saluted again and walked across to get his eggs.

Chapter Thirteen (#ulink_156db257-0ca6-5ff1-b3e6-a152bc5e73a5)

‘It upset me, Victor, I can tell you that. Couldn’t eat a bite of lunch.’ The Medical Officer shook his head in brief silent anguish. ‘I’ve seen it before, Victor. Exhibitionism.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Löwenherz.

‘That surprises you, does it?’ Hans Furth, Kroondijk’s Medical Officer, pointed to a cupboard which contained his bottle of brandy and glasses but Löwenherz declined. ‘With all you fit young men a doctor doesn’t have much of a chance to show his mettle. My job has become that of a psychiatrist.’

‘Psychiatry? I thought you disdained that Jewish science, Hans.’

Hans smiled. ‘Go back as far as Henry the Navigator and you’ll find that navigation is a Jewish science, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore it.’

‘If you go back far enough, you’ll probably discover that gravity is a Jewish science,’ said Löwenherz.

‘That’s in order. It’s the Luftwaffe’s job to ignore gravity.’ Hans chuckled.

‘Himmel, you said, was an exhibitionist,’ said Löwenherz.

‘Life is a game for me, Victor. If you sat behind this desk you’d watch the whole panorama of human life pass: tragedy, humour, honour, disgrace, death and injury.’

‘And you reported your suspicions to the SIPO?’ persisted Löwenherz.

‘Mustn’t get on the wrong side of the law, Victor.’

‘But only last week you said you’d never voted for the Nazis and wished Austria had never come under Nazi control.’

Hans Furth leaned well back in his swivel chair. A plump man in his middle thirties, he was Austrian by birth, doctor by training and airman by conscription. He affected the smart leather zip-front jacket that the flyers liked and many of their youthful mannerisms. His clothes were clean and well pressed and his thick black hair was freshly washed and combed straight back. His face was ruddy, his eyes blue, and his small, unnaturally red, girlish mouth was always ready to talk and smile. He smoked his cigar carefully without spilling the ash anywhere except into the ashtray and he frequently touched his face, running a fingertip along his lips or round his eyes to be sure that everything was in its rightful place. ‘You’re trying to catch me out, Löwenherz Victor,’ he smiled. It was a Viennese affectation to invert the names like that and today Löwenherz found it an irritating one.

Furth levelled his cigar like a javelin between finger and thumb. ‘I’m a working-class lad, you’re an aristocrat. Our sort gave the Nazis little or no support in the old days, Victor. Their strength came from the middle-class clerks and unemployed ex-officers: fertile ground, Victor.’

‘I’m interested in this business with Himmel,’ said Löwenherz, making one more effort to get the conversation back on his intended lines.

‘Damned interesting case,’ agreed Hans Furth. ‘I’ve been through his medical dossier again this morning and I think I’ve solved the question to some extent.’ He leaned back like a woman with uncomfortable stays and gave a matronly tug to the bottom of his short jacket.

‘How?’ asked Löwenherz.

Furth leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘I can’t prove it, but it’s my guess that he’s not racially pure. I was reading in the paper the other day that more Jews commit thefts than Aryans do, by a considerable margin.’

‘That sounds very unscientific,’ sighed Löwenherz.

The doctor smiled at the window as if he shared a secret with the furnishings. ‘My dear Baron, you are hardly in a position to deny the effects of breeding. It took a thousand years of breeding to make you what you are. The Jews …’

‘Everyone in the world has a thousand years of breeding behind them,’ said Löwenherz irritably. ‘Perhaps these days Jews have more motive for theft than do Aryans.’

‘This is my theory,’ continued Hans Furth. ‘We Germans have been bred as a systematic nation and this fellow Hitler understands us …’

We Germans, thought Löwenherz, as he listened to the doctor’s sing-song Viennese accent, nibbling the German language like Sachertorte and showing his teeth at every bite.

‘… Revolutionize a systematic nation by means of political theory and you have an instrument. Harness the military caste to that instrument and you have a weapon. Allow the politicals to have their own armed forces – the Waffen SS – and create a climate in which they and the military are in constant and dynamic struggle and then your weapon will conquer the world.’

‘There’s still a large piece of the world unconquered,’ said Löwenherz.

‘I know,’ said Furth, smiling and nodding. ‘It’s fascinating to see what will happen.’

‘Like a game of bridge,’ said Löwenherz.

‘Better,’ said Furth. ‘Bridge was never half as exciting. My training as a doctor and as an officer has given me a unique chance to become an expert on the German psychology. Do you know, I can tell what sort of symptoms a man will have according to the rank he holds. For instance, no German NCO would dare to come in here complaining of indigestion, just as few officers come to me with foot ailments. Funny folk, we Germans, eh?’