Christopher Priest - The Separation

‘JL, at least tell me this. Was it you who made Birgit pregnant?’

A gust of wind made the engines seem louder. The cigarette I had taken from Jack had been in its packet too long, or it had been crushed while it was carried around. It was flattened and loose-packed. When I sucked on it, tiny fragments of glowing tobacco flared up from the end. How long had Jack been smoking? It was the longest conversation I had had with my brother in years. We were standing still again, a few feet away from each other, side by side on the grassy verge of the country road. We kept drawing on our cigarettes, using them like punctuation, for emphasis. We weren’t exactly looking each other in the eye but we were as close as we had ever been since we had grown up. I was angrily trying to take his measure, whether he was lying to me or telling me a simple truth.

‘Come on, JL! Was it you?’

‘You don’t know what the hell Birgit wants or needs, do you?’ he said, in an almost despairing voice.

We both turned in surprise as a black-painted Wellington bomber lifted away from the runway behind us, climbing heavily into the air, deafening us with the ferocious noise of its engines. I waved my fist in frustration, knowing what was about to happen.

As the darkness of the night fell around me a plane was passing low over the roof of the pub, flying across the centre of the sleeping town, out there in the night. The reverberations from the engine noise shook the window glass.

I was not in bed. I had left the bed. I was standing next to it, wearing my pyjamas, in the narrow gap that ran alongside, halfway between the bed and the window, one of my hands resting on the wall for support. I felt stray tobacco strands sticking to my lips. I picked them away with my fingertips, licking my lips to clear them.

I sagged with depression. I did not try to go back to sleep again but crouched uncomfortably on the floor of the room beneath that small and inadequate window, watching the dawn light slowly spreading across the low grey clouds.

In the morning, as soon as I heard the landlord moving around downstairs and before there was any risk of the telephone in the bar ringing, I paid my bill at the inn and began the long journey home, following the interminable and indirect train-route across England. It took me another day and a half of tedious travelling and waiting for connections. We were in the first week of May, the month our baby was due to arrive.

Mrs Gratton and Harry were both in the house when I walked in and they made me a cup of tea. They told me Birgit was asleep upstairs. Everything was going well, Mrs Gratton said, no cause for concern, the baby was due to arrive on time, but they were waiting for a visit from the doctor. Birgit had spent an uncomfortable night.

I went upstairs as soon as she woke and we spent an hour or more together until the doctor came to visit her. I heard Birgit tell him she was suffering worse back pains than before and that her legs were swollen and were losing sensation. The doctor reassured her it would not be long before her troubles were at an end.

When everyone had left the house, Birgit gave me the small pile of letters that had arrived for me while I was away. Prominent among them was a letter in a typewritten envelope, posted in London two days earlier. It was from Dr Carl Burckhardt and it requested me to meet him in London in two days’ time.

Extract from Chapter 6 of The Last Day of War by Stuart Gratton, published by Faber & Faber, London, 1981:

. . . some theatres of Luftwaffe operations were quieter than others. All the occupied territories required air cover, although once Operation Barbarossa was confirmed for June 22 and aircraft were needed on the Eastern Front, cover was progressively reduced in certain areas to the minimum operational level.

One such was Luftflotte 5, which was responsible for the whole north-western German coast from Emden in the west to the northern tip of occupied Denmark. Although bomber Geschwaders of Luftflotte 5 were deployed against British shipping in the North Sea and had attacked British targets such as Hull, Grimsby and Newcastle, the Luftwaffe presence in Denmark was mainly as a defence against RAF minelaying operations in the Kattegat Strait.

On May 10, 1941, the process of partial withdrawal to Germany had already begun, leaving the night-fighter Gruppen seriously reduced in manpower and machines. That day, Oberleutnant Manfred Losen was a pilot of IV./NJG 35, flying the Messerschmitt Me-109E fighter from Grove airfield on the west coast of Denmark. In the afternoon he and the other members of his Stqffel had flown over the sea for a short gunnery calibration and test. They returned to the airfield before 6 p.m. local time for a meal and a rest, before the duties of the night began. He tells the rest of his story:

‘I was called in to the battle room by my superior, Major Limmer. His first question was to ask me how long I thought it would take me to get into the air if an Alarmstart was called. I said that I thought the aircraft were already refuelled and the weapons reloaded, so that we could scramble in a matter of minutes. He said that was good and asked me to stay on the alert.

‘About half an hour later he called me in again, this time looking frantic. He said, “Something urgent has come up. It’s an unusual job and you must start straight away. There will be no radio ground control, so take all the aircraft you can and report back to me in person when you land.” He went on to explain what we should do. He said that the British had apparently repaired a Messerschmitt Me-110 that had been shot down over England and were flying it in German markings on a special spy mission in our sector. It was due to pass within our range at low altitude in the next thirty minutes. Our orders were to shoot it down. No warnings were to be given.

‘I asked how we could be sure that if we saw a Me-110 it would be the one we were looking for. Major Limmer told me not to ask questions and ordered me to leave at once. We scrambled straight away and took off into the sunset, heading due west across the sea. I had managed to find only three other aircraft ready to leave, so that was the greatest strength we could muster for the flight. The pilots who scrambled with me were naturally curious and as soon as we were away from the base they came on the radio. I told them that their orders were to stay with me at all times and to follow my lead. I also told them that strict radio silence must be observed until we after we landed.

‘We carried enough fuel to patrol for about one hour at low altitude. After about half that time one of my Staffel overhauled my aircraft and flew close beside me. I recognized the pilot as a good friend of mine, Unteroffizier Helmut Koberich. He pointed upwards with his hand. When I looked up I could see that at about two or three thousand metres above us there were scores of British two-engined bombers heading on a south-easterly bearing towards Germany. It was a beautiful evening, still with much pale light in the sky. It wouldn’t last long and the conditions were almost perfect for an attack. Helmut obviously wanted to go after the bombers, since that was what we were trained to do. I managed to restrain him.

‘Not long after that I saw a tiny shape in the distance, flying on a northerly bearing, at about the same altitude as us. I immediately turned in that direction, with the rest of the Staffel following. At this time we had only a few minutes’ fuel left before we would have to return to base, otherwise we would be forced to ditch before we reached land. In five minutes we overhauled the plane and easily identified it as an Me-110D, bearing what looked like normal Luftwaffe markings. According to my orders from Major Limmer I manoeuvred my plane into a suitable position and launched a diving attack. The other planes followed me. I attacked at once, letting off a long burst of cannon fire. Because I was using tracer I’m certain that at least some of my shells struck the other aircraft. The pilot of the Me-110 was alert and took immediate evasive action, diving into the cloud layer below him. The rest of my Staffel followed him, firing their machine-guns, while I circled round, gaining a little altitude, ready for a second pass.