Hammond Innes - Air Bridge

‘Ja.’ He nodded. ‘ Ja, I think that is best.’

‘Would you please find something for us to carry him on?’ I asked Frau Kleffmann.

She nodded, rising slowly to her feet, a little dazed by what had happened.

‘You stay here, Else,’ I said and followed Kleffmann up the stairs to the attic again. We covered Tubby with a blanket and got his body down the steep, narrow stairs. Back in the kitchen Else and Frau Kleffmann had fixed a blanket over two broom handles. The improvised stretcher lay on the table and we put Tubby’s body on it. Frau Kleffmann began weeping gently at the sight of his shrouded figure. I think she was remembering her son out there in a Soviet labour camp.

Else stood quite still, staring down at the shape huddled under the blanket.

‘Will you help us to carry him down to the truck?’ I asked Kleffmann.

‘Ja. It is better that you take him away from here.’ His voice trembled slightly and the sweat shone on his forehead. He had known as soon as he’d seen Tubby that the poor devil hadn’t died naturally and he wanted to get the body out of his house, to be shot of the whole business. He hadn’t said anything, but he knew who had done it and he was scared.

We picked the stretcher up, he at one end, I at the other. ‘Come on, Else,’ I said.

She didn’t move and as I lifted the latch of the door she said, ‘Wait!’ Her voice was pitched high on a hysterical note. ‘Do you think Saeton will let you go back to Berlin with — with that?’ She came across the room, seizing hold of my arm and shaking it in the extremity of her fear. ‘He cannot let either of us go back.’

I stood still, staring at her, the truth of what she was saying gradually sinking in.

‘He is waiting for us — out there.’ She jerked her arm towards the window.

I could see in her eyes that she was still remembering the sight of Tubby’s face as he lay propped up in that bed. I lifted the stretcher back to the table and went towards the window. My hand was on the curtains to pull them back when Else seized my arm. ‘Keep away from the window. Please, Neil.’ I could feel the trembling of her body.

I turned irresolutely back into the room. Was he really waiting for us out there? The palms of my hands were damp with sweat. Saeton had never turned back from anything he had started. He wouldn’t turn back now. Else and I were as fatal to him as a hangman’s rope. A desperate feeling of weariness took hold of me so that my limbs felt heavy and my movements were slow. ‘What do we do then?’

Nobody answered my question. They were all staring at me, waiting for me to make the first move. ‘Have you got a gun here?’ I asked Kleffmann.

He nodded slowly, ‘ Ja . I have a shotgun.’

‘That will do,’ I said. ‘Can I have it, please?’

He went out of the room and returned a moment later with the gun. It looked about the equivalent of an English 16 bore. He gave it to me together with a handful of cartridges. ‘I’ll go out by a window on the other side of the house,’ I said. ‘When I’ve gone, keep the doors bolted:’ I turned to Else. ‘I’ll circle the house and then go down to the road and persuade Kurt to bring the truck up here.’

She nodded, her lips compressed into a tight line.

‘If I find it’s all clear, I’ll whistle a bit of the Meistersingers. Don’t open up until you hear that.’ I turned to Kleffmann. ‘Have you got another gun?’

He nodded. ‘I have one I use for the rooks.’

‘Good. Keep it by you.’ I broke the gun I held in my hands and slipped a cartridge into each of the barrels. I felt like a man going out to finish off an animal that has run amok.

As I snapped the breech Else caught hold of my hand. ‘Be careful, Neil. Please. I–I do not know what I shall do if I lose you now.’

I stared at her, surprised at the intensity of feeling in her voice. ‘I’ll be all right,’ I said. And then I turned to Kleffmann and asked him to show me to the other side of the house.

I dropped out near some bushes and slid into their shadow. Overhead the stars still shone, bright and cold, but to the west the sky was black with cloud. The wind seemed warmer now. I pulled my coat round me and slid along the wall of the house, ran past the gate to the farmyard and crouched in the shadow of the barn. I stood there, quite still, the barrel of the gun cold on the palm of my left hand, listening to the sounds of the night. One by one I identified them — the wind tapping the branch of a tree against the wooden side of the barn, a cow moving in its stall, the grunt of a pig, the tinkle of ice knocked from some guttering by the flutter of an owl. And over all these sounds the solid thumping of my heart.

I tried to tell myself that I was a fool to be standing out there, scared of every shadow that seemed to move, waiting with a gun in my hand. But every time I nearly convinced myself that I was being a fool, the memory of Tubby’s face came to remind me that Saeton was now a killer. For a long time I stood quite still with my back against the wood of the barn, hoping that somewhere in the darkness round me I should hear a sound, see a movement that would prove he was really there. I longed to know, to end the suspense of waiting. But nothing stirred.

It was out of the question for me to stand there doing nothing till dawn. Kurt was waiting down on the road and he would not wait much longer. The thing to do was to go down there and get the truck up. If he left without us … The memory of that other journey into Berlin spurred me to action.

Moving warily I slid along the wall of the barn, past a piled-up heap of manure, through a litter of decaying farm machinery. A twig snapped under my feet. I stepped in a rut where the water was all frozen and the ice crunched under my weight. They were only little noises, but they sounded loud, and once away to the left, I thought I heard an answering movement. But when I stopped there was nothing but the sounds I had already identified.

I circled the farm without seeing any sign of Saeton. Then I started down the track to the road. I kept well clear of the ruts, moving slowly along the grass verge, brambles tearing at my trousers.

And then suddenly, out of the darkness ahead, the beam of a torch stabbed the night. As the dazzle of it touched my eyes I flung myself sideways. But I wasn’t quick enough. There was a spurt of flame and the bullet thudded into my body, knocking me off my feet and sending me sprawling into the brambles that bor dered the track. Boots crunched in the frozen ruts as the beam of the torch probed my shelter. I lifted the shotgun and fired at the torch. The kick of the gun wrenched me with pain, but the torch went out and above the sound of the shot I heard a cry. I fought my way through the thicket, the thorns tearing at my face and hands, all the right side of my body racked with pain. Behind the screen of brambles I crouched down and very gently ejected the spent shell and reloaded. My right hand had no strength in it. The fingers were stiff and clumsy and the cartridges sticky with blood. The click of the catch as I closed the breech seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness that had descended on the lane.

My eyes had been momentarily dazzled by the torch, but as they became accustomed to the darkness again I saw the line of the brambles bordering the track, and on either side of me and behind me the slope of the ground was visible against the stars. I was in a slight hollow. If he tried to circle me I should see him against the stars. The danger lay to my immediate front. The strange thing was that now I knew he was there and was at grips with him I was no longer afraid.

Away to my left on the main road the engine of a truck broke the silence, headlights cut a swathe through the night and began to move. Frightened by the shots Kurt was pulling out, leaving us to find our own way back to Berlin. I cursed under my breath as I listened to the sound of the engine dying away. Soon all that remained was a faint glow in the darkness to the south. Then that, too, was gone. The wind rustled in the brambles. A night bird cried its call. There was no other sound.