Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse. Len Deighton
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Название: Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse
Автор: Len Deighton
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780007546503
isbn:
‘Of course I am,’ said Himmel, ‘but that doesn’t mean I was right then, nor that I am wrong now.’
‘It means that you should consider matters at greater length and not rush headlong into danger.’
‘No, with respect, Herr Oberleutnant, no. We have all delayed too long. While the victories arrived on schedule we all put our conscience in pawn to success. It’s only now, when the future looks less rosy, that we are beginning to wonder if the “new order” has been built upon sand.’
‘But the documents, Himmel. What do you want with them?’
‘I made twenty-three photographic copies of the documents. Each copy was sent by normal mail to a Luftwaffe officer. I considered the list for a long time, Herr Oberleutnant. You are number twenty-three; that is your copy. The original has been posted to the Medical Inspectorate of the Luftwaffe in Berlin.’
There was silence. A tuft of cloud was decapitated by the black wing. Other larger tufts raced after it. Then Löwenherz said, ‘It doesn’t make it legal because you sent it only to Luftwaffe officers. It was a highly secret document.’
‘It’s hardly less secret now that twenty-three Luftwaffe officers have a copy. But from now on they can’t pretend they don’t know of these things. They must protest. They must raise their voices. From now on they can never say they have not heard of concentration camps …’
‘What do you know of concentration camps, Christian?’
‘I know, sir, that at least three airmen at Kroonsdijk have spent time in such places for small political offences. Even if we have three times the average, that still leaves one man on every Luftwaffe airfield who has been in such a place. How much longer can the whole nation pretend that they don’t know what we are doing in Europe, from Bordeaux to Leningrad: prisoners tortured, civilians killed, hostages executed? Now this is something that puts the honour of the Luftwaffe in jeopardy. Reichsmarschall Göring will have received one of these copies. He will understand what must be done.’ A large cloud-fragment swallowed the aeroplane and disgorged it.
‘They will arrest you, Christian,’ said Löwenherz. ‘Perhaps as soon as tomorrow.’
‘Yes,’ said Himmel. ‘Tomorrow I shall be arrested. But tomorrow I shall not be agonizing with my conscience, nor shall I be making excuses for the Nazis, nor shall I be fighting so that even more foreign prisoners can be experimented upon in concentration camps by insane doctors wearing the same uniform that I am wearing.’
‘Stop talking, Himmel. I must have time to think.’ The cloud-top was higher inland and suddenly the Junkers was totally enveloped in it. Now that it was pressing against the window it was no longer soft, dry, white, sun-tipped and inviting. It was grey, wet, cold and threatening. They could see nothing. The cloud gave a curious unnatural constant light to the cabin, and the two men sat very still, brightly lit and shadowless, like specimens on a microscope slide.
When August Bach emerged from the gloomy chill of the air-conditioned Divisional Fighter Control bunker it was 17.15 hrs CET. The day had ripened into one of those mellow summer afternoons when the air is warm and sweet like soft toffee and anyone with an ounce of sense is reclining in the grass smelling the honeysuckle and wild strawberries, half listening to the insects, and watching blues and brimstones fluttering fast enough to avoid the swallows above them that glide and wheel and wait and wait.
Both Max and August dozed contentedly, hypnotized by the sunlit countryside that moved past like a swinging watch. The dark-blue Luftwaffe Citroen made good speed down the main road from Arnhem past Utrecht all the way to the small town of Tempel, where it turned off north through Leiden, heading towards The Hague where General Christiansen, First World War ace fighter pilot, was now Military Governor of the Netherlands.
They were beyond Leiden before Max awoke from his reverie. He stirred and lit cigars for both of them.
‘You were on the East Front last year, August. Perhaps now that the sun shines on the great grasslands of the Ukraine you wish you were back there: birch 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, СКАЧАТЬ