Bomber. Len Deighton

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СКАЧАТЬ are friends of little Hansl’s,’ she explained. ‘Last week they took him for a ride on the heavy crane. He loved it. Everyone likes your little son, August.’

      They had walked only a few paces along the street when they heard a voice calling August’s name. Across the road there was a grey van with the name ‘Gerhard Böll’ painted on its side. Gerd himself was driving. He got out and came across the road.

      Gerd Böll had been a widower for four years. He was a cheerful little man, with long arms and large powerful hands which combined to make him look like a laughing bald gorilla. This resemblance Gerd did nothing to disguise, and after a few glasses of the schnapps which he distilled in the garage behind his grocer’s shop he would swing around lamp posts and frighten people picking their way carefully through the blackout. At least, he used to frighten passers-by in this way but by now too many local inhabitants had grown used to it. Gerd Böll’s practical jokes were often of a more complex nature that befitted a man who had once been a doctor of engineering at Leipzig University. Gerd Böil had two grocer’s shops in Altgarten and a relative managed another one in Krefeld. Each evening he reported with his van to the air-raid defence office at the Rathaus. For putting his van at the disposal of the Luftschütz he was eligible for sixty litres of petrol per month. After particularly heavy air raids upon the Ruhr cities Gerd took his van to the bombed areas to help. Sometimes at the bar he would tell hair-raising stories of the death and damage he had seen and the TENO engineers would add tales of their own.

      ‘August,’ he called. ‘I’ve been looking for you. I stopped by at the house hoping for some of that real coffee.’

      ‘What is it? We were shopping this morning.’

      ‘It can wait,’ said Gerd. ‘I didn’t know you were with Anna-Luisa.’

      ‘We are going to be married, Herr Böll,’ she said.

      August’s cousin looked so surprised that both Anna-Luisa and August laughed. ‘Is it so awful?’ Anna-Luisa asked him.

      ‘It’s wonderful news,’ said Gerd Böll.

      ‘It looks like it,’ August said.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ said Gerd.

      ‘Herr Oberleutnant,’ called a rough voice from the roadway. Parked against the kerb there was a Kübelwagen, the military version of the Volkswagen. Its camouflage was hidden under ancient mud and its equally dirty windscreen was folded flat upon the bonnet. There were dents in its side and four rusting bullet holes ran in a line above the rear wheel. The car bore SS registration plates and the rear seat was piled high with kit. In the front sat an unmistakably Russian driver and alongside him a Waffen SS officer in a very battered leather coat and dust goggles. The officer threw Bach a perfunctory military salute. ‘There is an SS unit here?’ He looked at Anna-Luisa appreciatively.

      ‘The Wald Hotel,’ said August.

      ‘Which way?’

      Gerd said, ‘Go to the end of this road and then turn right following the old walls. The Wald Hotel is where the trees begin. You’ll see the black-and-white sentry boxes.’

      ‘Thank you,’ said the officer.

      ‘It’s no trouble,’ said Gerd.

      ‘Heil Hitler,’ said the officer. He glanced at Anna-Luisa again and without waiting for Gerd to return his salute he gave the driver his instruction in a language unknown to the others. They watched the car pull away with a roar. It steered round the horses and carts that moved slowly past the Liebefrau church, their metal wheels rattling on the cobblestones like drum-rolls. They stared after it for a few minutes.

      ‘What was it you wanted?’ August asked Gerd.

      ‘It can wait until your next leave.’

      ‘I’ll be back here in two weeks,’ said August.

      ‘That’s fine,’ said Gerd. All three looked at each other in silence, wishing to break away and yet not knowing how.

      ‘I go back to my unit in an hour,’ said August. ‘But first we must buy a ring, and then I will write to Anna-Luisa’s parents.’

      ‘I mustn’t delay you,’ said Gerd, but he didn’t take his leave.

      ‘There’s something wrong, Gerd.’

      Gerd took August’s hand and gripped it warmly. ‘Enjoy yourself, August, and you too, Anna-Luisa. There is little happiness in the war for anyone.’

      They walked slowly across Liebefrauplatz. ‘He’s usually such a cheerful man,’ said August. Gerd drove past them and waved again.

      ‘He’s a funny man,’ agreed Anna-Luisa. ‘Everyone says that he’s the jolliest man in Altgarten.’

      ‘He’s not jolly today,’ said August Bach. ‘He’s in a very strange mood.’

      ‘Anyway it didn’t rain,’ said Anna-Luisa, anxious to make him smile again.

      ‘That’s true,’ said August, smiling down upon her and hugging her arm secretly. ‘Although they say the farms need some rain. The countryside is very dry.’

       Chapter Eight

      The River Ouse bisects pathfinder country. To the north of the river, acres of the ancient forestlands darken the road with shadow, but suddenly through a gap in the trees the far horizon is glimpsed across the dead-flat peaty land that slopes down towards the south-west. Rain draining off the airfields could make the sleepy, almost motionless, Ouse into a torrent that overflooded its banks and filled the shady lanes with deep mud even in high summer. For there were many airfields, or, put another way, just one airfield, and over it the winged monsters slid, as once went the pterodactyls that are still found fossilized in the nearby chalk quarries.

      The day was half gone. The machines were ready and the Daily Inspection Forms initialled. The drone of circuiting bombers had not ceased since early morning. Creaking Door got the green light from control and Lambert’s right hand pushed the throttles gently forward as he had a thousand times. He kept the port ones slightly ahead to correct the swing. Behind his shoulder he felt young Battersby leaning against him to let him know he was there. He brought the tail up quickly. There was that exhilarating feeling of the back of the seat pushing hard against the spine as five thousand horsepower gripped the air and fifty thousand pounds of aeroplane teetered on tiptoe before relinquishing the last touch of spinning tyres on runway. Battersby took the throttles, sliding his hand under the pilot’s as before him Micky Murphy had done for fifteen NFTs and the fifteen operations that followed them. Now Lambert needed both hands to haul back upon the control column and force the dark nose up through the horizon. Lambert gave the rudder bar an extra touch, for Battersby hadn’t kept the port throttles quite far enough ahead.

      Cohen was calling out the air-speeds from his indicator beside the navigation desk: 95, 100, 105, and then suddenly Creaking Door was airborne. Battersby had seen the rudderbar movement and corrected the throttles precisely.

      ‘Climbing power,’ chanted Lambert.

      ‘Climbing power,’ Battersby answered.

      ‘Wheels СКАЧАТЬ