The Pathfinder Read online

  It was nearly an hour before they reached the front of the queue and a Russian officer came round to the corporal’s window: a stocky, flint-eyed man with hair cropped short as stubble.

  ‘Identity papers.’

  The corporal handed over his paybook and pass and went on whistling while the officer examined them slowly, like a child with a difficult reader. Harrison said sharply, ‘Stop making that noise, Corporal.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  The papers were handed back; the officer jerked his head at him. ‘Yours.’

  He took them out of his tunic pocket and offered them; they were snatched rudely from his hand. ‘You are Squadron Leader Michael Harrison?’ His name, easy enough to pronounce, was mangled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why you are here?’

  None of your damn business, he wanted to say. ‘I’m in charge of this convoy. We’re travelling to RAF Gatow in the British sector of Berlin.’

  ‘What people you have in lorries?’

  ‘RAF servicemen. And supplies for the British garrison.’

  ‘You have a list?’

  ‘I have a list of the men on this convoy.’

  ‘And of supplies?’

  ‘There is a list, yes.’

  ‘I see this list, please. We must know all items.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. You have no authority over consignments to the British sector in Berlin. None whatever.’ He stared at the Russian, who glared back.

  ‘We inspect. Each vehicle. Each man. Come.’

  He climbed down and followed the officer. It took another hour for the Russians to work their way slowly through the convoy. He waited beside the lorries while they pored over IDs and military passes and prodded at crates and boxes. The officer came up to him waving an RAF paybook.

  ‘Is not in order.’

  ‘What do you mean, not in order?’

  ‘Name is not good. We cannot see. You look.’

  He took it. ‘The ink’s smudged, that’s all. It says Sergeant Simmons.’

  ‘We cannot read this. We cannot let convoy pass. Regulations are not complied with.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. The paybook is perfectly correct.’

  ‘Is not. You must go back. All vehicles. Come again when papers are put in order.’

  Harrison strode over to the back of the lorry. ‘Sergeant Simmons?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Get down here, please.’

  The sergeant scrambled down and saluted. ‘Sir?’

  ‘This is your paybook?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you realize that the ink’s badly smudged where your name’s written?’

  ‘No, sir. It wasn’t before, sir. Definitely not. Must’ve just happened.’

  ‘Do you have your Movement Order?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve already shown it.’

  ‘Give it to me, please.’ He turned back to the Russian officer. ‘This man is Sergeant W.S. Simmons, radar operator with RAF Transport Command. This is his paybook with his photograph, stamped by the Royal Air Force authorities. And this is his Movement Order, in both English and Russian.’

  ‘I have seen this.’

  ‘Then you will have seen that his name is clearly typed and that all the details are correct.’

  ‘How we know this is same person?’

  ‘The identity numbers on both the paybook and the Military Order tally.’

  ‘Is not enough. Photograph in book is not good. Is not like this man.’

  The chap was playing silly buggers all right. ‘Hand me your dog tags, Sergeant.’ The sergeant pulled out the two ID tags hanging round his neck under his uniform. ‘As you see, these are also in the name of Sergeant W.S. Simmons.’

  ‘Is still not proof. Photograph is looking different.’

  ‘I vouch for this man. You have my word that this is Sergeant Simmons.’

  ‘Not proof.’

  He said coldly, ‘Is it your custom to doubt the word of another officer? I thought the Soviet Army understood the meaning of honour. Perhaps I was mistaken. I should point out that this Movement Order has been issued by order of the Commander-in-Chief, British Military Administration of Occupied Germany and signed on his behalf. It certifies that the holder of this order belongs to an agency of the British Occupation Forces. It says so very clearly in your language as well as in English. Are you also doubting the word of our Commander-in-Chief?’

  The Russian hesitated and then turned away. ‘You all wait. Perhaps you can go. Perhaps not.’ It was another twenty minutes before he returned. ‘OK, you can go. But next time if all things are not in good order you do not pass.’

  The corporal grinned as Harrison climbed back into the lorry. ‘Couldn’t think of nothin’ else, could he, sir? Lucky you was there.’

  From Marienborn the autobahn continued dead straight for more than a hundred miles across the Russian zone of Germany to Berlin. A deep ditch ran along each side and the surface had been badly damaged by bombs and artillery fire. The convoy passed through wooded hills and then across a long stretch of more flat land. There were occasional clumps of birch trees but few settlements and few signs of life except for sporadic straggling groups of weary-looking German civilians on foot, laden down with bundles and bags and suitcases and walking the opposite way, westwards.

  ‘Gettin’ out,’ the corporal remarked. ‘They’ll sneak through into the British zone. Don’t blame ’em, do you, sir?’ Towards Magdeburg they passed mile upon mile of cabbage fields. ‘For the sauerkraut, see, sir. Live on it, they do. Cabbage an’ potatoes an’ pigs’ feet. ’Orrible.’

  They crossed the Elbe at Magdeburg, grinding slowly over the one-track bridge still not properly restored since the war’s end. It had started to rain, heavy drops blurring the windscreen. The corporal switched on the wipers which hummed slowly to and fro. Sixty miles or so further on the land became a swampy network of lakes and inland waterways and so they came, at last, into the ruined city of Berlin.

  Two

  Lili Leicht finished work in the early evening. She had spent the past eight hours with a gang of other women clearing rubble from Litten Strasse in the Soviet sector, shovelling it into wheelbarrows, carting it to the trolleys that ran on rails along the streets and loading it up onto them to be taken away to dumps. Undamaged bricks had to be extracted by hand, scraped clean with trowels and stacked into orderly piles. For her toil she was paid some near-worthless Reichsmarks and given a ladle of soup and a hunk of black bread to eat on the spot, but at least it was employment where there was almost none. And from those piles of bricks it was hoped that a new Berlin would eventually be built. One fine day.

  She walked the two kilometres back through the ruins to her home, crossing the River Spree at the bridge by the Friedrich Strasse Bahnhof and passing under the railway arch. As she turned into Albrecht Strasse a soldier was approaching from the far end of the deserted street, heavy boots ringing against the cobblestones. She drew back into the shadow of a wall, trying to conceal herself, her heart pounding in fear. Frau komm! Woman come! It was still known to happen, even now, three years after the Russians had taken the city and, with it, their revenge. But when the soldier drew nearer she saw that he was not Russian, after all. He was British. A young man in khaki uniform and a forage cap, strayed out of his sector and whistling a little to himself as though he were equally nervous. She walked on, averting her eyes and stepping into the gutter as they passed each other. He said something to her in English but she didn’t look at him or answer. No fraternization: those were Allied military orders to their troops. No handshakes or acknowledgements. No speaking to German civilians who must make way respectfully to the victors. But there was no order compelling the vanquished to reply. She walked on fast down the street, past the blackened shells and the heaps of rubble, until she reached a doorway set in a surviving fragment of wall and opening onto an inner courtyard. Once upon a time a fine old nineteenth-century brick apartment house, five storeys high with ironwork balcon
ies and stone-embrasured windows, had stood round three sides of the courtyard but now only a small corner section of it remained; the rest was burned out, roofless and floorless. A double door, panelled and with a snarling wolf’s head of carved wood decorating each side, led to the only habitable part of the building: three rooms on the ground floor.

  Grandfather was asleep in the armchair, head sunk on his chest, and Rudi was lying on the couch, reading a book. He was always reading – any book he could lay his hands on, whether he could understand it or not. He had gone through all the ones that had survived the bombing raids and the Russian soldiers – novels, essays, poetry, plays, Father’s heavy philosophy tomes, travel books, the English novels of Charles Dickens that Father had so admired, dictionaries, even Mother’s fashion magazines. It had helped to make up for all the schooling that he had missed. Today, it was an old atlas. He looked up.

  ‘Sumatra and Java have an annual rainfall of three thousand millimetres, did you know that, Lili?’

  ‘No. I’d no idea.’

  ‘So does Borneo. It’s because of the monsoon, you see.’

  She took off her jacket and untied the cotton scarf from around her head. Her back and arms were aching, her hands bleeding, her fingernails broken and filthy. It seemed a very long time since she had sat in a classroom and learned about such things. ‘Yes, I suppose it would be. What else have you found out?’

  He turned some pages. ‘This is interesting too. Siberia has lots of forests with all kinds of trees. Fir trees, spruce, larch, oak, elm, maple, walnut, wild apple, stone pines, pitch pines, Manchu pines . . . I never knew that, did you?’

  ‘If I did, I’ve forgotten.’ She went over to the couch. It was a huge old thing with plush upholstery and scrolled mahogany ends that had once stood in her mother’s shop and had somehow survived with only a few bayonet swipes and slashes. She looked down at her brother. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Yes, much.’

  He didn’t look it. He was still very pale with dark rings under his eyes. They were all thin, but Rudi’s arms and legs were like sticks. She felt his forehead, which was quite cool.

  ‘See, Lili? I’m fine now. I’ll go to school tomorrow.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ She drew the blanket up to cover his bare legs. ‘You must keep warm.’

  ‘I am warm. It’s not winter. It’s April.’

  ‘The air is still cold. Has Grandfather been asleep for long?’

  ‘All the afternoon, I think.’

  ‘I’ll wake him soon, when I’ve started the supper.’

  ‘What is there?’

  ‘We have some potatoes and carrots and a little sausage. We’ll have soup and bread. You must eat all you can.’

  The room had once been the formal salon, now it was simply the room where they lived. One part was the kitchen, another the part where they ate and sat; the couch in the corner where Rudi was lying was also her bed at night, with a tattered screen dragged round it. Her grandfather and brothers all slept in the second room; the third was a bathroom. For a long time after the bombing there had been no running water, but now there was cold water at least. And electricity where there had been only candles, if they could find them.

  She tied an apron round her waist and began peeling and dicing the potatoes and carrots. When they were cooking in the saucepan on the stove, she went over to her grandfather and shook his shoulder gently. He stirred and looked up at her in his confused way. ‘Irma?’

  ‘It’s Lili, Grandfather. Time for you to wake up. Supper will be ready soon.’

  His eyes were sad. ‘I thought you were your mother – just for a moment.’ He had grown more and more muddled in his mind over the past year – sleeping long hours and retreating into a world of his own. At other times, though, he was still clear-headed and like his old self. ‘What time is it, Lili?’

  ‘Past seven o’clock.’

  ‘In the evening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He began to struggle up from the armchair. ‘We must listen to the wireless . . . the news . . .’

  The black and red volksempfanger – one of Goebbels’s thousands of people’s receivers manufactured to spread the Nazi propaganda into every home – stood on a high shelf. He reached up to switch it on and fumbled clumsily with the tuning wheel. After a moment, when it had warmed up, a blast of American swing music filled the room, then loud squawks and more crackles, and then a flood of Russian from Radio Berlin. ‘But where is the BBC? We must know what is really happening. Find it for me, Lili. It is very important.’

  She leaned across and switched off the set. ‘The war is over, Grandfather, don’t you remember? Three years ago. That’s only the Russians talking their stupid nonsense. Come and sit down at the table.’

  He looked bewildered and then nodded. ‘Ah yes, of course. It’s all over. Finished. I forget these things when I have been sleeping. So many dreams, you see, so many . . . and so real.’

  She led him to the table and he sat down, staring vacantly into space, still wrapped up in his dreams. She served the soup and the bread, urging both him and Rudi to eat. The vegetables had been old and had a musty taste and the bread was stale but they were well used to that, and the sausage helped. Dirk’s share of the soup had been left in the pan and they had almost finished theirs when he came in. By the look on her brother’s face, she could tell at once he had been up to no good.

  ‘Where have you been, Dirk?’

  As usual, he was airily evasive. ‘Here and there.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘This and that.’

  ‘I thought you were going to try and get some work.’

  He shrugged. ‘There is only labouring. They pay nothing, you know that. Look at the pittance you get. I can do better. Make much more money other ways.’

  ‘You mean on the black market? You know how dangerous it is. If the Russians catch you, you could be put in prison.’

  ‘They won’t catch me. I’m very careful. Look what I’ve got for you.’ From the deep pockets of his old raincoat he produced items like a magician and laid them all triumphantly on the table, one after the other. ‘Tinned beans, Spam, cigarettes, chocolate, and something specially to please you, Lili – soap. American soap. There!’

  She stared at the haul. ‘Where did you get all this?’

  ‘Some American soldiers over by the Gate. I traded a couple of my watches – not the very best ones, but they liked them. Just smell the soap.’ He picked it up and thrust it under her nose. ‘Feel it.’ It was very smooth with a silky sheen, not dull and gritty like German soap, and it smelled of spring flowers. ‘Here Rudi, have some chocolate.’ He unwrapped the bar and broke off a big piece for his brother, who crammed it into his mouth eagerly. ‘You too, Grandfather. And you, Lili.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Dirk. I don’t want it. I want you to stop doing this. It’s not worth the risk.’

  ‘It’s no risk, I told you. I take care.’ He met her eyes. ‘Besides, it’s a lot better than some other sorts of trading, isn’t it? And we need these things. The rations are a joke and there is nothing in the shops to buy anyway.’

  ‘But we survive.’

  ‘That’s all we do. Survive. We don’t live. And we don’t enjoy anything. Come on, Lili. Everybody’s doing the black market.’

  ‘In the western sectors, maybe, but not over here with the Russians. I told you, it’s much too dangerous to bring stuff back. You know what they are like.’

  ‘Of course I know. We all do.’ He looked away from her. ‘You, of all people, know it. They’re peasants. The scum of the earth. Animals. We have seen that.’ He opened the pack of American Camels, tapped one out and stuck it at a jaunty angle in his mouth, feeling in his pocket for his prized American Zippo lighter – the one thing she knew he would never trade for anything. It had a dent in one side that someone had told him had been made by a bullet, which, unlike many black market fairy tales, was probably quite true. He held out the pack. ‘Try one. They’
re good. Let’s enjoy them. Enjoy something, for once. Please.’

  He was seventeen years old and at fourteen he had been manning a machine gun at the end of their street when the Russians had entered Berlin. He was right about surviving, not living. She could remember something of the good days of peace, but, like Rudi, Dirk had known little else but war and deprivation. She took the cigarette and bent her head towards the Zippo flame.

  Three

  RAF Gatow lay in the British sector, fifteen miles from the centre of Berlin on the south-westerly edge of the city. The Havel See, a large inland lake that connected to the River Spree and the Berlin canals, was close by and the border with the Russian zone only half a mile away. Harrison, who had pictured a collection of war-battered tin huts in mud, was pleasantly surprised to see an impressive arched entrance to solid pre-war buildings with rendered walls, shuttered windows and tiled roofs, all laid out in a way very similar to peacetime RAF stations in England. There were paved roads, lawns, trees, shrubs, tennis courts, an indoor swimming pool, badminton court, gymnasium, cinema . . . no expense had been spared. He discovered that it had been the Luftwaffe equivalent to the RAF College, Cranwell. Goering had boasted of it and, apparently, the Führer himself had opened it in 1934. The station operational headquarters was sited at a considerable distance from the living and messing area, near a group of hangars, crewrooms, storerooms and workshops. The ops room was on the first floor, a huge map of northern Europe occupying one wall. The control room was one floor higher. Above that, a flat roof gave a panoramic view of the whole airfield.

  Wing Commander Flying put him in the picture. ‘The situation’s gradually getting worse, I’m sorry to say. We’ve got Dakotas flying in three times a day from Bückeburg up in our zone carrying food and mail, but that’s not going to be near enough if the Russians step up their antics and there’s no sign of them backing off at the moment.’ He jabbed his pipe at the big windows looking out to the runway. ‘There’s a Soviet army camp just outside our perimeter, beyond those trees over there where their zone begins, and they’re making a thorough nuisance of themselves.’