Bomber. Len Deighton

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       Chapter Five

      There were many inhabitants of Altgarten who could remember it a half-century ago. By that time the cramped little houses built for the men who made the railway had become slums and although each doorstep had gleamed white and the curtains in each window were clean and pressed, few people then would have wished to walk through the town after dark. There was not enough work at the gasworks to help Altgarten’s poor and the unemployed stood on street corners and waited for their wives to return from scrubbing and washing and cooking in other person’s homes. Nor did the land provide for the desperate. In those days a wet spring would inevitably mean a hungry winter.

      Now in 1943 the Burgomaster could look across a thriving town where never a hand was idle, although many of its menfolk were in far parts of the world. He saw them in the corridors of the Rathaus, for the Servicemen came here to have their leave documents endorsed and signed. Young Tornow had just come home on leave. He was now a Kapitänleutnant. He looked elegant in his dark-blue naval uniform with gold braid rings on his cuff and the snappy white-topped summer cap that U-boat captains favoured. Tornow’s father owned the Altgarten printing works and had servants, a fine house and a fast Mercedes car.

      ‘Hello, Tornow,’ said the Burgomaster, passing him on his way to lunch at Frenzel’s. ‘This is fine weather for you sailors, eh?’

      Hans Tornow had grown used to such remarks. He had long since given up explaining that he was an accountant in the Paymaster’s department at Hamburg, a grim old building with tiny windows and inadequate lights. As for the ocean, he hated those occasions when he had to take cash to ships anchored in the Elbe, for even the slightest swell made him a little queasy. ‘Yes, Herr Bürgermeister, it’s sailors’ weather,’ said Tornow.

      All Altgarten envied those citizens who had chosen that weekend to begin their holiday, for the weather promised to be superb. In spite of the thunder the black clouds had passed and it was sunny. No rain had fallen upon the town for over three weeks. The air was crisp and dry. For the last week the humidity readings had not risen above forty-five per cent and had gone as low as thirty. The old centre of Altgarten was principally of wooden construction and its timber was dry and contracted.

      Winds up to fifteen miles an hour fan the flames of a large fire but a faster-moving wind can make even a small fire into a disaster. This day the wind came in gusts from the potato fields and orchards and the strongest gusts measured eighteen miles an hour. As a fire hazard the town of Altgarten had few equals.

      The buildings in Dorfstrasse were parched and dusty and the once-red swastika flags that rippled in the wind had faded to a light pink in the sunlight. Many of the vehicles moving along the busy roads were horse-drawn and the horses hurried as they neared the end of the journey. From Frenzel’s a considerate drayman brought water for the two grey cart-horses that had delivered the beer and watched them as they drank greedily.

      Fire fascinates men and fire services never run short of recruits. Johannes Ilfa had always wanted to be a fireman. It was an ambition interrupted at the age of twelve by a short-lived desire to enter the priesthood. In 1935, aged eighteen, Johannes had entered the Altgarten fire service as a trainee. A hard-working and intelligent son of a Bierkeller owner, he had risen in rank until in 1942 he had been selected for attachment to the Cologne brigade and had been on duty there during the night of May 30th, 1942, when the town was attacked by almost one thousand RAF bombers. In this and other attacks Johannes had seen terrible sights. In fact he had offered comfort and last rites to more people than had any priest in Altgarten. In one raid the previous winter a shell splinter had punctured his lung. For one month he was in hospital and then he was posted back to Altgarten. In smoke it pained him to breathe even now but he never mentioned this.

      For Ilfa, membership of any Nazi organization was out of the question. He could still only see the Nazis as the coarse Bavarian toughs who frequented his father’s bar and staged fights in order to get away without paying their bill. If he must be a part of their war, then the fire service provided him with a way of fighting only the evils of it.

      He was a battle-scarred veteran of twenty-six, a dark-eyed man with short hair which he kept carefully brushed and a large moustache of which he was quite proud. His teeth were even and white and so much water had kept his hands white too and lately his rank had enabled them to become soft like those of a girl. But his body was hard and his physical condition was excellent except for his lung. Over short distances his energy was exceptional and he had won many a bet to race younger firemen to the top of the practice tower with the hook-ladders.

      He was a Gruppenführer, the senior man on the finest and newest engine in Altgarten. He sat beside the driver and directed his seven-man crew as they extricated pedestrians from under buses, pulled the electrocuted off live cables, sawed free young children trapped in railings and dealt with chimney fires and hayrick blazes.

      Today the fire station was cool and quiet and the sun glinted on the polished brass hose fittings and on the engines. Respirators, gloves and steel helmets were lined up neatly. Under each hung the metal discs with the letters that enable messengers, hosemen, attack troopers and water troopers to be recognized in the smoke and heat of a fire.

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