Gerald Seymour - The Contract

And he hadn't stressed the vagaries of 'local conditions'. He had not highlighted the shadow areas of uncertainty.

'It can't be watertight, sir. There has to be an area of the imponderable.. '

'Of course, Charles… I understand, I've done it myself. I stood once at Helmstedt waiting for a car to come through. Hideous experience, in '49 or '50, damned cold and middle of winter. Three days I was there, and the car never came. Seemed important at the time.'

' I think we're fine with this one.'

' I'm sure you are, and when you've a few more under your belt you'll wonder why you ever worried.'

'The concept is straightforward. That's been the planning strategy from the start. No frills and no histrionics. I'm relying a lot on that.'

' I don't think you do yourself justice, Charles. You'll ring me when you have the old man over…'

'You'll know immediately.'

The pleasant smile slipped from the Deputy-Under- Secretary's face, exchanged for a keenness that beckoned attention from Mawby. 'There can't be a slip, not with this one. Downing Street have a senior East German minister in tow when you're tripping down the autobahn. I don't want any embarrassments, no messes on the floor. You're with me…? '

'At Downing Street, do we have approval or ignorance?' Mawby asked, the junior man intruding into the uplands of policy, the nervous question.

'Just ring me when you're all wrapped up, Charles, I'll be waiting for the call.'

From his room in the Prime Minister's Glasgow hotel, the PPS telephoned the House of Commons office of Sir Charles Spottiswoode.

'Good evening, Sir Charles, I've spoken to the Prime Minister about your request for a meeting. He's a very heavy schedule when he gets back to London, but he'll see you on

Thursday in his room at the House. He wants to hear the start of the debate, and then he'll have to make the revisions for his own speech, so I've written you in for 6.30… It's been nothing, Sir Charles, the PM is always anxious to be available to the back benches

… It's kind of you to say that… Good night…'

Pompous old beggar. Sweetness and light when he'd won his petty victory. He dived for the shower, and his dress suit was laid out on the bed and he was late for dinner and the Prime Minister hated tardiness.

It was close to midnight when the transport dropped Ulf Becker at Company in Weferlingen.

His last duty of service with the unit on the frontier and they had seemed none too happy to let him go from Walbeck. The epidemic of measles was spreading and the two sections were staying on in their reinforcement role. At least he was spared Heini Schalke's company on the road back, just himself and a morose Feldwebel who drove the Trabant jeep in silence. It had to be a senior NCO to justify the paperwork required to set aside the strictures of the ten o'clock curfew inside the Restricted Zone. There had been a few goodbyes at Walbeck, some of the seconded Weferlingen boys had wished him well and spoken without enthusiasm of a reunion; Schalke hadn't joined them, had stayed with his book.

They had taken their last pint of blood from soldier Ulf Becker, had him out all day from dawn with sandwiches for lunch and soup from a flask in the early evening. Not that he cared. Not that hunger and tiredness would worry the boy, and the damp from the rain that had caught them without their capes. Ulf Becker had tramped and driven for more than ten hours behind the Hinterland fence, he had patrolled both sides of the Schwanefeld to Eschenrode road, with his eyes wide and his hopes soaring. A good briefing they had given him… trip wires on this track, acoustic alarms on that path, dogs running on fixed wires on this sector, the road block round that curve and hidden by that bank… a good, sweet, kind and conscientious officer had been with them and had been at pains to make certain that the new boys from Weferlingen knew the scene at Walbeck in the most minute detail.

The Feldwebel set him down at the gates of the barracks, didn't acknowledge his thanks and sped away into the night. He'd have a woman or a beer waiting for him, otherwise there would have been no lift. Becker went in search of an officer to report his return and then roved through the kitchens that were darkened and cold; nothing to eat.

He went into the communal room. There was another boy there, a lonely one that he barely knew beyond that he was short of friends and likely to pester anyone within his range for company and gossip. Becker slumped into a chair. Too excited for bed, too exhilarated for sleep. His mind was alive with the memories of woodland tracks, alert with the width of the cleared ground straddling the Hinterland fence, brimming with the fall and rise of the land, the density of the woodland.

'Hello.'

'Hello,' said Becker. He must have smiled, his face must have thrown some warmth.

'I'm on leave tomorrow.'

'Wonderful.'

'I'm going home, the first time that I've been home since I've been here.'

'Good.'

'Back to Berlin, that's where my home is.'

'That's good.'

'Don't misunderstand me… it's not that I'm not enjoying the work here. I mean, it's a privilege to be posted to the Border Guard.. it's an elite force, it's an honour to be entrusted with such work

… I don't complain about it, we're in the force to work, but I think that I've earned my leave.'

That's right lad, trust nobody, not in this pit of snakes.

Perhaps you hate it, perhaps you cry yourself to sleep each night, perhaps the homesickness chokes you. But don't tell. Trust no bastard.. Make out it's a holiday camp.

'You are going to Berlin tomorrow?'

'My home is in Berlin. My father is a building worker. He is an old Berliner, from the Tiergarten district. I will have a fine welcome when I get home, they will all want to know of the work that I am doing…'

'How long are you going for?'

' I have three days there. There will be a party at home. It is only a 72 hour pass and then I am back here. I am looking forward to being here for the summer.'

'Would you take a letter for me?' There was a hoarseness in Becker's voice.

The boy recognised the change, was cautioned by it. 'A letter?'

Becker raced his explanation. 'It's Monday, right? I'm going to Berlin on Friday. I have a girl in Berlin. I want her to know that I am coming back for the weekend. You know how it is, you know, — don't you?'

'You want me to deliver a letter tomorrow to your girl?'

'She lives on Karl-Marx Allee. Near to the cinema and the Moskva Restaurant. If you are taking the train from Schone- weide you must go through Alexander Platz, it's 5 minutes' walk from there.'

' I suppose that I could

'I'd really be most grateful.' As if Ulf Becker's gratitude mattered. Gone in the morning for Seggerde and demobilisation. On the way out of Weferlingen and uniform. The gratitude would never be recompensed, and the idiot hadn't the brain to see it.

' I will do that for you.'

' Give me 5 minutes to write something.'

He loped down the corridor to the Operations Room, was given two sheets of scrap paper and an envelope, came back to the communal room and settled at a table.

'Just give me a few minutes, right?'

'Fine,' the boy said. He would tell his father that he had many friends in the company.

Ulf Becker wrote fast in his spider crawl. 'Darling Jutte,

I have found someone who mill deliver this. I am coming to Berlin on Friday night or early on Saturday morning.

You must make some excuse to be away on Saturday night, perhaps an FDJ camp. You must bring waterproof clothing and something warm. Buy two rail tickets — returns — for Suplingen which is a camping place west of Haldensleben.

We should meet on Saturday morning at 10. 30 in front of the Stadt Berlin, Alexander Platz.