David John - Flight from Berlin

She plucked a cigarette from the packet on the coffee table and broke the match as she struck it.

‘Jakob Liebermann gave us that key, and it’s his family that’s suffering now.’

After the second attempt she lit her cigarette and blew a jet of smoke at the ceiling. The firelight made a golden crown of her hair, in which Denham’s gaze was lost.

‘Think it over,’ she said, getting up. ‘But if we can’t use this to rescue our friends, there must be something wrong with us.’

13 NOVEMBER ’18

What rest I have is disturbed by a nightmare as lurid as any of Singer’s. I am awake before dawn, and it is icy cold in my room; I warm my hands under the electric lamp and try to recall the dream.

I am surrounded by men’s faces in a muddy trench, wanting to assure them that their emotions are no cause for shame; that they can shed tears and still be men-the things I tell hardened troops on the wards, to their surprise. Then I realise they are all dead, and in different stages of decomposition. The trench walls are made of corpses, heaps of them. I look over the top and see a soldier coming. I can’t make him out at first because he is veiled in a green mist-mustard gas. He scrambles down over the bodies towards me, pointing his rifle with bayonet fixed. He speaks to me. His words are ‘Voca me cum benedictus.’ I pick up a bayonet from the hands of a corpse, lunge forwards, and plunge it into the soldier’s eye with all my strength. With that, I wake.

To analyse it: the first part is simple. Its source is the conflict in my own role: between my duty to heal the men and send them back to the Front, in most cases to their deaths. For that, duty does not absolve me.

The figure emerging from the mustard gas is more complex, but it was that which brought the feelings of dread and fear, not the corpses. Of course it was Patient H. Those Latin words, from the requiem mass for the dead- ‘ Call me among the blessed.’

The animus driving H’s cure was his belief that he was chosen in some way, that Providence was calling him to a purpose. And I was the medium of his awakening. But it is more than that.

‘Call me among the blessed…’

Whom have I called?

It occurs to me that of all my cases, Patient H is my only complete success. And I gave him more than sight. For surely, a man who believes that through his own will he has cured himself of blindness will believe he can achieve anything on the face of this earth.

And in the dream I had to kill him. Because he is one who should not have survived.

David Wyn Evans watched the track as the next race was prepared, his brow set against some doubtful thought. The conversation was not going the way Denham had planned.

An electric buzz as the hare flashed by, and seven muzzled greyhounds shot after it to roars of encouragement from the crowd.

‘Slippy Boy’s in the lead,’ Tom shouted, turning to look up at them.

Evans leaned in to Denham’s ear. ‘If I’m understanding you right, you’re attaching conditions to handing it over-’

‘Of course I’m not.’ Denham gave an abashed smile. ‘King and country come first. But you can surely give me a guarantee-that you’ll use it to procure the release of the Liebermanns? Once you’ve got it you can start demanding whatever you want from Berlin-’

‘Dad, which dog did you bet on?’

‘Slippy Boy.’

He rested his hands on Tom’s shoulders. Evans was silent again, tall and sombre in black like a lay preacher, oblivious to the cheering tiers of flat-capped men around him.

Eventually he said, ‘It may not be that simple, Mr Denham.’

He continued to watch the track, but his eyes were distant, reflecting some complex tableau of thoughts, and Denham understood. The SIS had politics of its own, and those prepared to play so ruthless and un-British a game as blackmail were probably few. He would have to trust that Evans, Rex, and whoever else was on their side would not be stopped.

The shouting rose as the dogs sped into the second lap.

‘In that case photograph everything in the dossier,’ Denham said. ‘I will use the original to exchange for the Liebermanns.’

The tall man considered this new tack, tapping the tip of his black umbrella on the ground and slowly shook his head. ‘The power of that dossier is its uniqueness and authenticity-and in the fact that we will have the original proof and no one else. Sorry. I can ask, but they’ll say no copies.’

Denham felt his spirits sliding. There goes plan B.

Evans glanced sideways at Denham. ‘Our colleague, Mr Palmer-Ward, is getting most eager to take possession of it.’

‘Soon,’ Denham said, distracted. He had to think.

There was a great commotion as the hounds tore past in a blur, leaving behind one dog trampled, yelping in the dust, its hind legs broken. A great ‘oh’ from the crowd. Denham put his hands over Tom’s eyes as two men ran onto the track to put Slippy Boy out of his suffering.

T he meeting around the kitchen table at Chamberlain Street that evening felt like a war cabinet. Denham explained that they were on their own in the matter of the Liebermanns; there would be no help from the British government. Eleanor began to cuss, but Denham cut right to it: the only idea he had left.

‘Tell me, Friedl, who actually knows what’s in the List Dossier-I mean not just that it exists, but what it contains.’

‘Everything in it? Only Jakob and Kurt. But most of the officers in the network read a copy of the Mend Protocol.’

‘And the Sicherheitsdienst, the SD. They’ve never seen it?’

‘No.’

‘So how much would they really know about it?’

‘Depends what they learned from interrogating that officer. That it concerns Hitler’s war record and missing years. Probably no more than that. They would have been wary of learning the details until they’d informed Hitler…’

‘That fits. I certainly got the impression that Rausch, who interrogated me, did not know.’

‘I suppose only Hitler himself would be able to fill in the whole picture,’ Friedl said.

‘Yes, but he would have to confide in someone, wouldn’t he? If he were to impress upon them the seriousness of the matter? Even tell them some of the truth.’

‘Who knows? Maybe one or two very senior SD.’

‘Such as Heydrich?’

‘It’s possible…’

‘But the SD men tracking it down will know from him how urgent and serious this is-even if they don’t know why.’

‘Without a doubt.’

‘They will know it is imperative that they recover it. For him.’

‘You know that very well yourself.’

‘So if, again for argument’s sake, we arrange to give a dossier to, say, Rausch…’

Friedl closed his eyes. ‘Richard… where is this going?’

‘Rausch is not going to know for certain if it’s not the dossier.’

‘No, I suppose not…’

Denham clasped his hands together and turned to Eleanor. ‘I think we’ll call on our Nazi friends.’

The German embassy on Carlton House Terrace was being redecorated. Denham dodged the ladders and paint buckets en route to the visitors’ desk and handed over a manila envelope.

‘This needs to go in your diplomatic pouch on this evening’s flight,’ he said.

The young male official grimaced, looked at the name and address, and took the envelope by the corner, as if it might contain rat poison.

‘We will need to know what’s in this.’

‘You could open it and take a look if you like, but Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich will have you killed.’

The man looked sharply up.