Ted Butters did not turn round, but began to walk more quickly towards the kennel. As he approached it, Peter Woodhouse stirred, and then sat up. He sniffed at the air, and fixed his gaze on the angry farmer.
Ted Butters was now a few paces away. He called out to the dog, who rose to his feet, and began to growl. Butters looked about and spotted a stone on the ground. He bent down to pick this up, and made a gesture as if throwing it at the dog. “Don’t you growl at me, my lad,” he muttered.
The action of picking up the stone was enough. Deep in his memory, Peter Woodhouse recognised the smell of the man who had tormented and beaten him. Now, with almost no hesitation, he lurched forward, baring his teeth. Ted Butters stopped in his tracks, and then threw the stone, the missile hitting the dog on the top of his head with a dull thud. For a moment, Peter Woodhouse seemed to topple, but he soon righted himself and his eyes flashed with hatred. Hurling himself forward with something midway between a yelp and a growl, he charged at Ted Butters, sinking his teeth into the man’s leg and then momentarily disengaging before latching onto his flailing arm.
Willy rushed forward and seized Peter Woodhouse by the collar, wrenching him bodily off his victim. Ted Butters, freed of the dog, aimed a kick at Peter’s flank but missed, losing his balance as a result, and falling heavily to the ground. Archie, now at the fallen farmer’s side, bent down to help him to his feet.
Once upright, Ted Butters brushed away Archie’s hand. “That dog’s dead,” he spat out. “He’ll be shot. I’m going straight to Bill Edwards.”
“You asked for it,” said Willy, his voice high with indignation. ‘You threw a stone at him. What do you expect a dog to do?”
“He’ll be shot,” replied Ted Butters, wincing with pain. “The police shoot dogs that attack people. You know that as well as I do.”
“Not if they’re just defending themselves,” countered Archie. “There’s a difference.”
“I’ll shoot him myself,” said Ted.
Archie stepped forward. “If you come on my land with a shotgun you’ll get more than you bargained for.”
Ted Butters gave him a murderous look. “The police will be here,” he said. “You’ll see.” He stormed off towards his van, and they noticed, as he went, that there was blood on his trouser leg where Peter Woodhouse had bitten him. Archie looked anxious; Ted Butters was right about dogs being shot if they attacked people. There had been a case the previous year where that was exactly what had happened; a dog had savaged a ten-year-old girl and had been shot the same afternoon by Bill Edwards. Bill had disliked doing it, but had been given instructions by the station sergeant in the nearby town, who had not been prepared to listen to any of the owners’ pleas for mercy.
Willy suddenly started to run towards the retreating farmer. Archie moved to intercept him, but was too slow. Willy grabbed at Ted and jerked him back off his feet. Then he appeared to shake him, as a dog might shake a rabbit, before dropping him on the ground.
“Willy!” Archie shouted. “Let him be.”
Willy stood over Ted, his face flushed with rage. “You beat that dog,” he yelled. “You deserve everything you get.”
Reaching Willy’s side, Archie pushed him roughly away and bent down to help Ted to his feet.
“You’ve added assault to the charges,” Ted spluttered. “Grievous bodily harm, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Archie glanced at Willy over his shoulder, warning him off. A small trickle of blood was emerging from Ted’s right nostril, his nose having felt some of the impact of his fall.
“You brought all this on yourself, Ted,” Archie muttered. “You always were like that, you know. Caused trouble wherever you went.”
“You stole my dog,” said Ted.
Archie shook his head. “We’ve been through that, Ted.” He paused. A solution was dawning on him. “How much to settle?” he asked.
Ted Butters rubbed at his nose, his hand coming away bloodied. He was a farmer after all, and his farmer’s instinct was coming into play. Money could sort out most issues, judiciously applied, and this might be one of them. “Fifteen quid,” he said, glaring over Archie’s shoulder at Willy in the background.
“Twelve pounds ten shillings,” countered Archie. “He’s getting on a bit now, that dog.”
“Fourteen,” replied Ted Butters. “And half a dozen hens – good layers.”
Archie looked at Willy, who had started to walk over towards Peter Woodhouse’s kennel. “All right,” he said. “Fourteen quid and four hens.”
❖ 24 ❖
The job that Ubi took on at Templehof involved six ten-hour shifts a week. It was unremittingly hard work, every bit as physically demanding, he thought, as working in a mine, but there were the meals, which were rich and sustaining, and there was the pride of competition, too, which made a difference. Each crew kept a note of the times it took to open the hatches of the incoming aircraft and unload the cargo onto the waiting trucks. With the planes coming down every couple of minutes, the ground operation was as slick and precise as the airlift itself. There was a room in which they could spend a few minutes recovering after each unloading, but the drone of the departing aircraft would soon merge into that of the next descending, a ceaseless background sound, like that of the waves on a shore.
Everything that the city needed was brought in this way – across the invisible air bridge that linked Berlin with the West. The Russians had closed every ground route into the city, ruthlessly strangling the three non-Soviet sectors. It would not be long, they calculated, before the task of keeping hundreds of thousands of people alive would prove just too much, even with the might of the Americans behind it. How could you bring in enough food to feed that many people day after day? You could not. How could you bring in sufficient coal to generate a whole city’s power? You could not.
Many of those who did the unloading were volunteers, working for the free meals alone; some, like Ubi, who was given charge of a crew, were paid. Some of the money he earned went to Stoffi as rent for the floor that was his bed; some of it went to the widow, for Klaus. His own needs were small enough, and he was used now to poverty and paucity.
He wrote every other day to Ilse, even when he was tired at the end of a gruelling shift, his ears ringing with the sound of the aircraft engines. In her replies, she sent him long accounts of the doings of the British officers. There was the story of the junior maid in the hotel, who had taken up with one of the officers, and now had confessed to being pregnant. There was the story of the officer who had taken an interest in the Motodrom. He had managed to get hold of some paint from somewhere and had offered to paint it for her. She had accepted, but was worried that they would take it away from her. They can requisition things they need, she wrote. What if they decide the occupying forces need a Motodrom? She was fond of it, in a curious way, and was even wondering whether it might be rescued as a paying attraction. A local mechanic had been to see her about it. He and a friend were keen to disassemble it and move it to a field on the edge of town. People would pay to come and watch it being ridden. They would charge admission and then would split the proceeds with her. What should she do about that? Should she accept?
He wrote back and told her about his airlift duties. I am black from unloading coal, he said. Then the next plane comes in and it’s carrying sacks of flour. So I become white. Now, your Motodrom: yes, you should let other people use it, but you mustn’t give it away. A Motodrom is an unusual thing, and you’re lucky to have it. I can help you when I come back. I can help you run it and perhaps we can let the mechanic be the rider, if that’s what he wants.
She responded that the officer had finished the painting. She had offered to pay him something, but this had just caused surprise, and even offence. He had looked at her sideways; did she not understand who they were? She was a German civilian, one of the vanquished, and he was one of the conquerors. The offence might have been less had he been one of the men, but he was an officer. She said that he had bitten his lip and decli
ned her offer in a voice that sounded as if he were being strangled. They are very proud men, she wrote. And then added, Not that we should accuse others of being proud. He reread that sentence, and knew that she was right. There was something very deep in the soul of his country that made it want to dominate; that thing, that lurking quality, was wounded now, but it would find a new way to express itself one day. He did not want that to happen; he had hated the strutting and the arrogance, but he knew that it was still there, even if bullied into submission. He had seen it in people’s eyes: the glint that told him those fires were not entirely or everywhere extinguished.
Her letters were the high point of his day. When one failed to arrive, as sometimes happened during the blockade, he went back to the last one he had received, and often found that it contained new things to think about. His time now was largely filled with work, punctuated by visits to the widow and Klaus. The boy was getting used to him, and looked forward to the chocolate passed on from the American fliers. On one occasion Ubi received half a carton of cigarettes from an airman who had just been told that he was to be posted home at last, and was feeling generous. He was able to exchange that for a new pair of boy’s shoes and a barely worn child’s overcoat. The widow said, “I’m rationing his chocolate,” but he suspected that she ate much of it herself, and had once seen traces of it about her lips. But everyone had become like that, he realised; these were still times of bare survival. The coat went missing after a few weeks and he did not believe her protestations that it had been left on a tram. He did not accuse her of trading it on the black market, but he was certain that this was what had happened.
They were unloading medical supplies. The cartons were light – bandages and pills did not weigh a great deal – and they completed their task in not much more than ten minutes. There was mail to be loaded for the return journey, but, unusually, there was no urgency. The plane required a repair, and that would take over twelve hours. The crew would be stood down for at least eight of those and could go off into the city if they wished. They went ahead with the loading, though, so that the plane would be ready for take-off the moment the repairs were finished. Every lost hour meant less cargo, and that could be translated into hunger or cold for somebody in the beleaguered city. It was while Ubi was bringing in the last of the mail sacks that the pilot emerged from the flight deck. Ubi moved to the side to let him pass, and for a moment the two men were side by side. The pilot glanced at him briefly and then stopped. He reached out to put a hand on Ubi’s shoulder, and the two men looked into each other’s face.
There was no doubt in the mind of either, but for a few moments nothing was said. There had been so many painful moments of recognition that people were wary. Recognition could mean denunciation and arrest; there were full dress trials that had resulted from a passing glance in the street.
“It is you, isn’t it?” Mike said. “Holland?”
Ubi was silent.
“It is, isn’t it?”
Mike’s smile gave him the reassurance he needed. “Yes, it’s me.”
Mike moved forward and flung his arms round Ubi. “You protected us.”
Ubi made a gesture of helplessness. “The war was over.”
“It wasn’t. You took a big risk. And our dog too. You saved his life.” Mike released him from the hug. “And here you are,” he said.
“You’re speaking German,” said Ubi.
Mike laughed. “I’ve learned. Classes at the base. I have an ear, I’m told. I picked up a bit of Dutch too . . . back then.”
“So did I.”
Mike gestured to the loaded mail bags. “And this is what you’re doing?”
“For the time being. I want to get back to the West. I have a fiancée back there, but there’s a small boy here – my sister’s son. She died.”
Mike lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s difficult,” said Ubi. “Papers and so on. And now the blockade.”
“Ah, papers. Papers control our lives, don’t they?” Mike hesitated. “I reckon I owe you.”
Ubi said nothing.
Mike looked at his watch. Night and day made little difference to the working of the air bridge, but he could see that it was coming up for dinner time. “When do you finish your shift?” he asked.
“Now,” said Ubi. “You were the last plane – for us, at least.”
“I don’t really know Berlin,” said Mike. “Are there any restaurants left standing?”
Ubi nodded. “There’s Der Kleine Friedrich not far from here. They say it’s good. I’ve never been.”
“And they have food?”
“Some.”
Mike smiled as he placed a friendly hand on Ubi’s shoulder. “Will you let me buy you dinner? As a thank you.”
Ubi protested that Mike did not need to thank him for anything.
“I know that,” said Mike. “But I want to.”
“In that case, yes.”
Der Kleine Friedrich was in the basement of a building that had miraculously survived the destruction round about it. The blockade had dimmed the electric light bulbs that festooned the entrance to the bar, but inside, strategically placed candles gave a nightclub air of complicity and decadence. A small band, consisting of a pianist, a violinist and a clarinettist – all emaciated and well into their sixties – made a brave attempt at cheerfulness, mixing Dixie and Weimar in a curious mish-mash of time and place.
They sat by the bar while a table was prepared for them. Ubi, who had been unable to change out of his working clothes, seemed ill at ease; Mike, in his flying jacket and boots, was insouciant, and largely indifferent to the thinly disguised condescension of the barman.
Mike asked Ubi about his experiences as a prisoner of war. He heard about Ilse and the billeted British officers. He heard about the search for his sister and for Klaus.
“It hasn’t been as bad for me as it has for so many,” said Ubi. “I haven’t really suffered.”
Mike shrugged. “Luck, I guess. We were lucky that you found us back there. It might have been very different. Some of your people . . .” He stopped.
Ubi looked down at the floor. “You can say it. I know it happened.”
Mike looked at him. “They shot their prisoners.”
Ubi looked up at him and met his gaze. “I know.”
Mike reached for his drink. He was not given to anger, but there were moments when he felt it welling up within him. These people – the Germans – needed to have it brought home to them just what they had done. The country was full of people who said it was nothing to do with them – not a swastika in sight, not a party badge; a whole ghost country that had somehow disappeared when the Allies had arrived.
“I didn’t want any of that to happen,” said Ubi. “I don’t expect you’ll believe me, but I didn’t.”
Mike put down his drink. He felt immediately guilty. This was the man who had possibly saved his life. He reached out and placed a hand on Ubi’s arm. “Of course I believe you. And I’m sorry – I’m tired. I’ve been flying too much, and it’s tricky stuff. Coming in over the rooftops, missing the chimneys by inches. It takes it out of you.”
Ubi nodded. “The people are very grateful,” he said. “They can’t quite believe that you’re doing what you’re doing, all for us. We were your enemies, and now you’re doing this for us.”
“War isn’t the only thing,” said Mike. “You get over it.”
They raised their glasses to one another, repeating their first, tentative toast.
“So what now?” asked Mike.
Ubi explained about getting back to Ilse. “I’ll wait. When it’s possible again, I’ll take my nephew back there.”
Mike hesitated. “It might be possible,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you hear about that man who did an involuntary trip? One of the loaders was shut in by mistake and had to take a cold ride back to Cologne.”
Ubi said they had been warned to be caref
ul. That man could have frozen to death.
“So if you and the boy,” Mike continued, “were to stow away, we might not notice you until we had taken off and were well on our way. Do you see what I mean?”
Ubi looked about him. The habit of the last few years had become ingrained: circumspection, caution, silence.
Mike noticed, and smiled. “Look,” he said. “You’re free now. Nobody can harm you. That’s all over.”
Ubi looked at him with gratitude. It was so different for these Americans; they’d never had a government founded on hate. “When?” he asked.
Mike scratched his head. “Those repairs will be done by morning. We’ll probably be off duty tomorrow, but we’ll be flying in the next morning. Could you and your nephew be there?”
Ubi thought. Security at the gates was tight, but mostly for those going out. Theft had been a problem and the authorities were getting tougher.
“I could try,” he said. “It could be hard to get Klaus in, but I’m friendly with one of the security men. He’s German – we were at school together. He might be persuaded.”
Mike reached into the bag he had with him – halfway between a briefcase and a rucksack. He took out a carton of cigarettes. “Would this help to smooth the way?”
“I think my friend smokes,” said Ubi, smiling.
Klaus was wrapped in as many layers of clothing as they could manage, which made him look like the cocoon of some flying insect. The widow smothered him with kisses and urged Ubi to be careful. He thanked her and promised that he would send her money when he was able to do so. “I’m very grateful to you,” he said. “I shan’t forget.”
He had reported in sick for the day. Arriving at the airport an hour or so before the time that Mike had given him, he saw that his friend was on duty, as they had planned it. Ubi had the papers to get in, and the friend explained to his superior that the child had an appointment to be seen by a doctor who was coming in on one of the flights. “I’ve seen the documents,” he said. “And everything’s in order.”
The superior was busy with something else, and nodded his approval. They were in.