The Pathfinder (2 page)

‘No idea.' They hadn't told him because they'd had no idea themselves. He'd been summoned by the CO and told that he was being posted forthwith to RAF Gatow in the British sector of Berlin as an operations officer, responsible to the wing commander in charge of flying. Apparently the Russians were making life increasingly difficult. Their Yak fighters were buzzing RAF aircraft, doing aerobatics in British air space and generally playing silly buggers and, on the ground, garrison supplies passing through Russian hands were being deliberately held up with some flimsy excuse. Nothing particularly new about that so far as he could see; the Russians were a tricky bunch and had been all along. The Red Army had stolen a march on the western Allies and been the ones to take Berlin, and they'd acted like a dog with a juicy bone ever since. He distrusted them as much as he distrusted the Germans and that was saying something.

He watched several miles of uninteresting countryside go by. Flat fields with some kind of root crop growing, pine woods, the odd, dilapidated farm here and there. A depressing scene under dull, grey skies. An old woman and an old man, dressed in shapeless black peasant garments, were toiling away in a mucky yard. The man wore a beret, the woman a headscarf knotted under her chin and both turned to watch the convoy pass. He half expected them to scowl and shake a fist but their faces were blank – wiped of all emotion.

The corporal had noticed the old couple too. ‘Still in shock, some of 'em. Can't believe they didn't win the war, like 'itler promised them they would. It's given them somethin' to think about all right.'

The pre-war autobahn stretched ahead, pitted with bomb craters; the convoy snaked its way slowly past them. Three years since the war had ended, he thought, and the country was still on its knees; still in ruins. He felt no sympathy whatever for her people but the stark fact was that if Germany wasn't helped back on her feet she would be easy prey for the Russians, and Communism would spread even further west across Europe.

‘How far to Helmstedt, Corporal?'

‘Another forty miles, I reckon, sir. There'll be a nice little Ruskie reception committee waitin' for us. Last trip I did they went through everythin' with a toothcomb an' kept us ‘anging about for hours. They've been givin' us the real runaround lately.'

‘So I've heard.'

His CO in England had been quite specific. ‘The Russians want us out, Michael. That's it in a nutshell. They'd like the Allies to pack up and get out of Berlin so they could take over the whole damn city, as well as their part of it. And they're up to all kinds of games to try and squeeze us out. We only have one road, one railway and the canals to get supplies across their zone of Germany to our sectors in the city, so they're having a lot of fun slowing up our freight consignments, impounding barges, stopping trains, turning back our vehicles at the border with any old trumped-up pretext . . . And we
have
to cross their zone. Berlin's slap bang in the middle of it. There's no other way.'

‘Surely there was a signed pact with them about access at the end of the war?'

‘Believe it or not, there wasn't – not for overland. Apparently we trusted them. A gentlemen's agreement. Staggering, isn't it? There was some kind of cobbled-together arrangement about the waterways – not that the Russians are taking much notice of it. The only firm guarantee was for three air corridors twenty miles wide and they're not safe either. That Russian Yak that collided with our Viking coming into Gatow had been buzzing it, though the Russians flatly denied it, of course. Even tried to make out it was our fault.'

They had both stared at the map of Europe on the wall of the CO's office. The four zones carved out of a defeated Germany by the victorious Allies at the end of the war had been dotted in heavily with black ink: the British zone in the north, the French in the south-west, the American to the south and the Soviet to the east. The capital city of Berlin – itself divided into four Allied sectors – lay one hundred and ten miles inside the Russian zone, a tiny island in a large Red sea.

‘They'll only let seventeen trains through each day and the railway's jammed up with stuff, so we'll be taking this lot of RAF chaps in by road, together with garrison supplies. Boat from Harwich to The Hook, train to Hanover then a convoy along the autobahn from Hanover to Berlin.' The CO had tapped a forefinger on the map. ‘This is where there's likely to be trouble: Helmstedt. That's where the road crosses over into the Soviet zone. They'll try anything: papers not in order, road blocked, some daft new permit needed. We're sending in some pretty useful bods on this trip – controllers, radar operators, electricians, mechanics. That's why I'm asking you to go along with them, Michael, and to take charge. Make sure there's no monkey business along the way. Don't put up with any nonsense from the Russians. Get our people and the supplies there asap.'

The Russians at the border would be armed – to the teeth, he'd been warned. He carried his old service revolver and the last man at the back of each lorry had been given a rifle to brandish with menace, if necessary. Only one Russian officer and one soldier were supposed to go on board to inspect papers. Any more and they were to be thrown off, but no shots were to be fired.

‘So, you're expecting trouble, Corporal?'

‘Yes, sir. I've been doin' this trip backwards and forwards for months and every time they've got somethin' up their sleeve. Crafty lot, they are. They make out the autobahn's bein' mended, or it's got blocked, or somebody's papers aren't in order or we haven't got some stupid licence . . . You wait an' see. Still, there's a NAAFI on our side so we could stop an' get a cup of tea first, sir, if you like. Cheer us up a bit.'

‘No, we'll press on straight through.'

‘Like I said, sir, I don't think we'll be doin' that exactly.'

He could tell that the corporal was grinning to himself.

At Helmstedt the convoy left the British zone and crossed the few hundred yards to join a long queue of other vehicles – Allied and German – waiting at the barriers at Marienborn which marked the start of the Soviet zone. The Russian foot guards had closed faces and sub-machine guns slung across their chests. The corporal whistled through his teeth. ‘Not what you might call charmers, are they, sir? Never a smile, let alone a joke.'

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 balconies 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.