Peter Davies - The Welsh Girl

“‘In which we serve,’ dear boy,” the CO told him with a shrug. “You’re going up the wall, so I’m giving you something.” He smiled, then craned forward again. “You want a role in the trials? You want to play a part in that? Well, this is the beginning. Do this right and you might do yourself some good.”

IT HAD BEEN DAMP and overcast in London — Rotheram needed to let out the choke to get the car started — but by Cheltenham it was warm enough to roll his windows down, and motoring through the Marches into Wales, he found himself lifted by the rippling emerald country, the bright broad skies, so different from the narrow greyness of London.

Still, climbing into the Black Mountains felt like crossing into autumn. Fat drops of rain splattered the windscreen, and by the time he arrived, the metal of the film canisters was cold enough to sting his fingers as he carried them in from the car. He walked up the gravel drive to the manor house, remembering something Hawkins had once told him, that the gentry had put in gravel to announce their visitors. He had a moment to take in the ivy-bearded brick, the leaded windows crosshatched a second time with safety tape, and then he heard the bolt draw back on the heavy oak door.

“Ah,” the pinch-faced lieutenant who met him declared, “I see you’ve brought our feature presentation.”

The lieutenant, a doctor in the RAMC who introduced himself only as Mills, showed him into the parlor, where a projector had been set up. “You’ve eaten already?” he asked brusquely, but Rotheram shook his head. There’d been only a meager ploughman’s at a sullen pub outside Cirencester. The doctor looked disconcerted. “Well, look, not to be inhospitable, but could you possibly wait? Unless you’re ravenous, I mean. Only, he’s an early riser, so if you want to show it this evening, best start soon.” He smiled apologetically. “Can’t promise he won’t nod off, otherwise.”

“It’s fine.” Rotheram began loading the film. His fingers were so chilled they trembled, and it took him long minutes to thread the first reel through the sprockets.

“Nervous?” Mills asked.

“Cold,” Rotheram said, rubbing his fingers. “Those will have to be turned,” he added, indicating the neat row of chairs and making a circling gesture, “so we can watch him.”

“Right you are,” the other replied agreeably enough, although Rotheram noticed he didn’t offer to light the fire in the grate.

Finally the film was ready, and Rotheram ran it forward for a few seconds, watching the test numbers flicker and count down, and then the opening shots from a plane descending over the city, the image ghostly in the still-bright room.

“Action,” Mills called jauntily.

Rotheram snapped the machine into reverse and the camera lifted back through the wispy clouds, the medieval rooftops dwindling, the soundtrack discordant and garbled. He’d tracked down the print at the censor’s office — they’d impounded half a dozen copies at the start of the war — and he’d run it for himself the night before in his office, to make sure it was whole and to refamiliarize himself. He’d waited until everyone had left for the evening, afraid of being caught, as if it were pornography.

“All right,” he said, and Mills opened the door.

Someone must have been waiting for the signal, for less than a minute later there were footsteps in the passage outside.

Rotheram expected a guard to come first, but it was Hess himself, stepping into the drawing room as if it were his home. He was greying and more drawn than Rotheram recalled from his pictures, his nose as sharp as a beak and his cheekbones swept up like wings under his skin, as if his face were about to take flight. Out of uniform, in a navy blue cardigan, darned at one elbow, he seemed stooped, retired, more a shy uncle than the fiery deputy führer. His shirt was pressed and buttoned to the throat, but he wore no tie, and Rotheram recalled he’d made two suicide attempts, according to the file: once opening his veins with a butter knife he had stolen and sharpened on an iron bedstead; a second time hurdling a third-story banister. He was limping from that fall still, as he approached and held out his hand. Rotheram stared at it, slowly held out his own, but to one side, gesturing to the armchair. Hess ignored the insult, taking his place with only a wry “ Vielen Dank, ” to which Rotheram found himself automatically mumbling, “ Bitte. ”

Two burly MP corporals followed Hess into the room, one taking a seat flanking him, the other carrying a salver with decanter and glasses, which he set on the sideboard. Last through the door was a delicate-featured officer whom Mills ushered over and introduced as Major Redgrave.

“Captain. I gather we have you to thank for the evening’s entertainment.”

“I hope it’ll be more than that, sir.”

“You’ve seen it already?”

Rotheram nodded, though he didn’t say where.

The corporal appeared at his elbow, proffering glasses.

“Scotch, sirs?”

“And how do you propose to manage this?” Redgrave asked softly when they all had drinks.

“I’ll run the film, observe his reactions, debrief him afterwards.”

“You think you’ll know if he’s lying?”

Rotheram watched the corporal bend down beside Hess and offer him the last glass on the salver.

“I hope so. There are signs to look for.”

Redgrave exchanged a glance with Mills. “You know we’ve tried pretty much everything. Over the years.” He said it gently and without impatience, and it occurred to Rotheram that it was meant to comfort him, that they expected him to fail.

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well, then. Can’t hurt to try. Whenever you’re ready.”

Redgrave took a seat halfway between the screen and Hess, lowering himself stiffly, tugging up his trouser legs by the creases. Hess smiled at him questioningly, but the major just shrugged. Rotheram motioned Mills to draw the blackout curtain against the sunset, then threw the switch and took a seat across from the lieutenant and the major, studying the man in the armchair.

Back in London, the CO had offered Rotheram this job as if it were a plum, but until this moment he had felt like little more than a glorified delivery boy. Now here was Hess, one of the leading men of the party, right in front of him. And it occurred to Rotheram, stealing a glance at the screen, that the last time Hess had been in prison was after the Munich Putsch. He’d been Hitler’s cellmate. He’d taken dictation of Mein Kampf.

Initially, Hess seemed entertained, watching the stately procession of staff cars, the pageantry. It was a captivating film, Rotheram knew, queasily fascinating in the way it made the ugly beautiful. He could see the two corporals were rapt, one of them moving his mouth to read the subtitles, and Mills and Redgrave kept swiveling their heads back and forth between the screen and Hess as if at a tennis match. But it was no effort for Rotheram to keep his eyes on the prisoner. The whole scene, since Hess had entered the room, seemed unreal. He couldn’t quite believe he was in the man’s presence, like the night he thought he glimpsed Marlene Dietrich getting into a taxi in Leicester Square but afterwards could never be absolutely sure. If he took his eyes off Hess, he thought the man would disappear.

Hess himself watched with interest, but without comment, sipping his whisky, his foot occasionally keeping time with the music. Only once did Rotheram notice the man’s gaze drifting towards him, then flicking away almost coyly. At the first reel change, he seemed inclined to talk, started to lean forward, but Rotheram, wanting to keep the film moving, busied himself with the projector. Hess accepted a cigarette from Mills, and the major asked him if he knew what he was watching, and he said yes, yes, of course. He recognized Herr Hitler; he understood that this was Germany before the war. He said he admired the marching. But when Redgrave asked if he remembered being there, Hess looked puzzled and shook his head.