Philip Kerr - Field Grey

I heard one of the POWs tell someone on the platform that it was only the day before that they'd learned they were to be released.

"These men,' said Vigee. 'They look like they're back from Hell.'

'No,' I told him. 'In Hell they tell you what's happening to you.'

I had my eyes peeled but I knew there was little real chance of seeing de Boudel in the crowds of people at the station. Vigee knew this too. He was expecting us to have better luck when the POWs paraded back at the camp the next morning; it seemed that I was going to have to repeat my Le Vernet experience and inspect the men at close quarters. I was not looking forward to this and was hoping against hope that we might get lucky and spy de Boudel at the station: that I might see him before one of my old comrades saw me. To this improbable end I went into the station and climbed the stairs to lean out of an upper-floor window in order to gain a better view of this mass of jubilant German soldiery. Vigee followed, then Grottsch, Wenger and the detective.

I had not seen so many uniforms since the labour camp at Johannesgeorgenstadt. They swept across the platform like a sea of grey. Wearing his chain of office and dispensing schnapps from a double-sized earthenware bottle, the mayor of Friedland moved among the returnees like some Hamelin burgomaster surrounded by a plague of rats and mice. I could hear him shouting 'Your health' and 'To your freedom' and 'Welcome home' at the top of his voice. Next to him a large Wehrmacht sergeant stood enfolding an old woman in his arms; both were weeping uncontrollably. His wife? His mother? It was hard to tell, the sergeant looked so old himself. They all did. It was hard to believe that these old men had once been the proud storm troopers who had carried Hitler's mad Operation Barbarossa into Russia.

A woman standing next to me was throwing carnations onto the grey heads below. 'Isn't it wonderful?' she said. 'I never thought I'd live to see the day our boys finally came home. Germany's heart beats in Friedland. They're back. Back from the godless world of Bolshevism.'

I nodded politely but kept my eyes on the faces in the crowd below the window.

'This is chaos,' said the detective, whose name was Moeller. 'How the Hell are we supposed to find anyone in this? The next time we have prisoners arriving here they'd do better to bring them on buses from the border station at Herleshausen. That way we might at least establish some kind of order. You'd think this was Italy, not Germany.'

'Let them have their chaos,' I said. 'For fourteen years these men have endured discipline and order. They've had a bellyful of it. So let them enjoy a moment of disorder. It might help to make them feel like human beings again.'

Flowers, fruit, candies, cigarettes, schnapps, hot coffee, hugs and kisses, every sign of affection was showered on these men. I hadn't seen so much joy on the faces of so many Germans since June 1940. And two things were clear to me: that only the Federal Republic could claim to be the legitimate representative of the German nation; and that no one regarded any of these men – whatever crimes and atrocities they might have committed in Russia and the Ukraine – as anything other than heroes.

But equally clear was the reality of the problem now facing me. For among the lined, grinning faces of the men underneath my gaze was one I recognised from Johannesgeorgenstadt. A Berliner named Walter Bingel, whom I had befriended on the train from the MVD prison near Stalingrad. The same Bingel who had seen me leaving the camp in a Zim saloon, accompanied by two German communists from K-5, and who assumed that I'd made a deal with them to save my skin. And if Bingel was on the train then quite probably there were others from Johannesgeorgenstadt, who, thanks to him, would have the same memory of me. It was beginning to look as if Inspector Moeller might be obliged to arrest me, too.

Vigee's keen eyes saw mine lingering nervously on Bingel's face. 'Recognise anyone?' he asked.

'Not so far,' I lied. 'But to be honest these men seem older than their years. I'm not sure I'd recognise my own brother down there. If I had a brother.'

'Well, that's good for us, isn't it?' said the Frenchman. 'A man who has spent the last six or seven years working for the MVD ought to stick out from the rest of these uncles. After all, de Boudel is merely posing as a POW. He hasn't been in a labour camp, like them.'

I nodded. The Frenchman had a point.

'Can we get a copy of that list of names made by the Red Cross?' I asked.

Vigee nodded at Moeller, who went away to fetch one. 'All the same,' he said, 'I don't think he'll be using his real name, do you?'

'No, of course not. But one has to start somewhere. Most police work starts with a list of something or other, even if it's a list of what you don't know. Sometimes that's as important as what you do know. Really, detective work is simple, it's just not very easy.'

'Don't sweat it,' said Vigee. 'We always knew that finding de Boudel at the station would be a long shot. Reveille at the refugee camp tomorrow morning. That's where I'm pinning my hopes.'

'Yes, I think you're right,' I said.

We watched Moeller struggling through the crowd of men to one of the Red Cross officials. He said something and the official nodded back.

'Where did you find him?' I asked.

'Gottingen,' said Vigee. 'Why?' He lit a cigarette and flicked his match onto the heads of the men below, as if he wished to express his contempt for them. 'Do you think he's not up to this?'

'I couldn't say.'

'Maybe he's not the detective you were, Gunther.' Vigee blew out his cheeks and sighed. 'All he has to do is arrest the man you identify. There's not much to being that kind of a cop, n'est ce-pas?' he sneered. 'Perhaps you should give him some tips. Tell him your forensic secrets.'

'They're quite simple, too,' I said. 'I used to get up in the morning and go to bed at night. And in between I'd try to keep myself busy and out of mischief.'

'Really? Is that all you have to offer? After how many years of being a detective?'

'Any fool can solve a crime, Frenchman. It's proving it that wears you out.'

Moeller started back through the crowd to the station door but found himself making little or no progress. He looked up, and seeing Vigee and then me, he threw up his hands and grinned, helplessly.

I grinned back and nodded affably as if recognising his difficulty. But all the time I was looking at him I was trying to gauge what kind of policeman I was going to be dealing with when, the following morning, Walter Bingel identified me as a collaborator and traitor.

We remained behind until all of the POWs had marched off to the camp and most of the local people had left the station. Vigee was, I think, impressed that I had insisted on being there until the last; and of course he was quite without a clue that the real reason had much more to do with my trying to keep out of sight. Before we climbed into the Citroen that would take us back to our pension in Gottingen, Moeller handed me a twenty-page list of names and ranks and serial numbers.

'All of the men who were in that train,' he said, redundantly.

I tucked the list into my coat pocket and glanced around the station ticket hall and beyond, onto the platform where those whose dashed hopes of seeing some long-lost loved one remained, to the bitter end. A few of these people were in tears. Others just sat alone in quiet and stoic grief. I heard someone say, 'Next time Frau Kettenacher. I expect he'll come the next time. They say it might be another year before they're all home. And that the SS will be the last.'

Gently, the owner of the voice – some local pastor, it looked like to me – helped an old woman to her feet, collected her missing persons sign off the ground and guided her towards the platform exit.