Роберт Харрис: Munich

The cockpit door opened. As before, when they landed in Munich, Commander Robinson stopped to exchange a few words with the Prime Minister, then came down the sloping aisle and opened the rear door. This time the gust of air that blew into the cabin was English, cold and wet. Legat stayed in his seat as the Prime Minister went past. His jaw was clenched with tension. How odd that a man so fundamentally shy should thrust himself into public life and fight his way to the top! The breeze caught the door, flapping it shut, and Chamberlain had to fend it off with his elbow. He bent out his head and descended into a terrific din of clapping and cheering and shouting that seemed almost hysterical. Wilson stood in the aisle and held back the others until the Prime Minister had cleared the bottom of the steps: the moment of glory must be the chief’s alone. Only after Chamberlain had started moving along the receiving line, shaking hands, did Wilson venture out after him, followed by Strang, Malkin and Dunglass.

Legat was the last to leave. The steps were slippery. The pilot caught his arm to steady him. In the damp blue twilight, the lights of the newsreel cameras were a brilliant white, like frozen lighting. Chamberlain finished greeting the dignitaries and turned to stand in front of a bank of a dozen microphones, crested with the names of their respective organisations: BBC, Movietone, CBS, Pathé. Legat could not see his face, only his narrow back and sloping shoulders silhouetted against the glare. He waited for the cheering to subside. His voice carried thin and clear in the wind.

‘There are only two things I want to say. First of all, I received a tremendous number of letters during all these anxious days — and so has my wife — letters of support and approval and gratitude; and I cannot tell you what an encouragement that has been to me. I want to thank the British people for what they have done.’

The crowd cheered again. Someone shouted, ‘What you have done!’ Another called out, ‘Good old Chamberlain!’

‘Next I want to say that the settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine...’ He held it aloft, flapping in the breeze. ‘Some of you perhaps have already heard what it contains, but I would just like to read it to you...’

He was too vain to put on his spectacles. He had to hold it at arm’s length to make it out. And that was Legat’s lasting image of the famous moment — carried burned into the retina of his memory until the day of his death, many years later, as an honoured public servant — the jagged black figure at the centre of a great bright light, his arm stretched out, like a man who had thrown himself on to an electrified fence.

The second Lockheed came in to land just as the Prime Minister was being driven away in the King’s Rolls-Royce. As Chamberlain reached the airport gates the distant applause of the well-wishers merged with the roar of aircraft engines. Syers said, ‘My goodness, would you listen to that! The roads are blocked all the way into central London.’

‘You’d think we’d just won a war rather than avoided one.’

‘There were thousands gathering in the Mall when we left. Apparently, the King and Queen intend to take him out on to the balcony. Here, let me carry that.’ He lifted one of the red boxes out of the aircraft hold. ‘So, how was it?’

‘Pretty ghastly, to be honest.’

They walked together across the apron towards the British Airways terminal. When they had gone about halfway, the newsreel lights were abruptly extinguished. In the sudden murk the crowd gave a good-humoured collective groan. They began to drift towards the exit. Syers said, ‘There’s a bus to ferry us all back to Downing Street. God knows how long it will take.’

Inside the packed terminal, the Italian and French Ambassadors were talking to the Lord Chancellor and the Minister of War. Syers went off to see about the bus. Legat stayed behind to guard the red boxes. Exhausted, he sat down on a bench beneath a poster advertising flights to Stockholm. There was a telephone box by the customs desk. He wondered if he should call Pamela to let her know he had landed, but the thought of her voice and her inevitable questions depressed him. Through the large plate-glass window, he could see the straggle of passengers from the second Lockheed coming into the terminal. Sir Joseph Horner was between the two detectives. Joan was walking with Miss Anderson. She was carrying a suitcase in one hand and a portable typewriter in the other. She headed in his direction the moment she saw him.

‘Mr Legat!’

‘Really, Joan, do call me Hugh, for goodness’ sake.’

‘Hugh, then.’ She sat down next to him and lit a cigarette. ‘Well, that was thrilling.’

‘Was it?’

‘Yes, I’d say it was.’ She turned to face him and looked him up and down. Her gaze was frank. ‘I wanted to catch you before we left Munich but you’d already taken off. I have a tiny confession to make.’

‘And what is that?’ She was very pretty. But he wasn’t in the mood for a flirtation.

She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Between you and me, Hugh, I am not altogether what I seem.’

‘No?’

‘No. In fact, I am something of a guardian angel.’

Now she was starting to get on his nerves. He looked around the terminal. The Ambassadors were still talking to the Ministers. Syers was in the telephone box, presumably trying to track down their bus. He said wearily, ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

She hauled her suitcase up on to her lap. ‘Colonel Menzies is my uncle — well, the father of a second cousin, to be more precise about it — and he likes to give me the odd errand to run. The truth is, the reason I was sent to Munich, apart from my typing skills, which are exemplary, was to watch over you .’ She snapped the catches, opened the lid, and from beneath her neatly folded underwear extracted the memorandum. It was still in its original envelope. ‘I took it from your room last night, for safekeeping, after you went off with your friend. And really, Hugh — I like your name, by the way: it suits you — really, Hugh, thank God I did .’

The fact of his continuing freedom was miraculous to Hartmann. That afternoon, as he left the Führerbau to be driven to the airport, and later as he sat on board the Junkers passenger plane that had been chartered by the Foreign Ministry to fly them home, and especially that evening when he landed at Tempelhof — at each stage of his journey back to Berlin he expected to be arrested. But there was to be no hand on his arm, no sudden confrontation by men in plain clothes, no ‘Herr Hartmann, will you come with us?’ Instead he walked unmolested through the terminal building to the taxi rank.

The city was full of Friday-night revellers, enjoying the unexpected peace. He no longer felt the same contempt for them he had in Munich. Each raised glass, each smile, each arm around a lover he now saw as a gesture against the regime.

The bell inside her apartment rang unanswered for a long time. He was on the point of giving up. But then he heard the sound of the lock turning and the door opened and there she was.

Later that night, she said, ‘They will hang you one day — you know that, don’t you?’

They were lying at opposite ends of the bath, facing one another. She had lit a candle. Through the open door came the sound of an illegal foreign radio station, playing jazz.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because they told me so, just before they let me go. “Stay away from him, Frau Winter — that is our advice to you. We know his type. He may think he’s got away with it today, but we will catch him out eventually.” They were perfectly polite about it.’