Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse. Len Deighton

one of your chaps write to the Daily Mirror about it? No, I wouldn’t advise that. As you know, it’s unserviceable tonight. Do nothing until the Group Captain mentions it to you directly. Then you will have a problem.’

      ‘I’ll think of a way to deal with it, sir.’ Sweet smiled.

      ‘I’m sure you will,’ said Munro coldly. Who could say that youth was rebellious. Why, chaps like Sweet would do anything to avoid a harsh word. Munro sighed. After the war, he felt, the world might be full of Sweets, selling their vacuum cleaners, parrying political questions and entertaining millions on television. Eventually everyone in the world would become expert at the modest words, kind smiles and bland assurance that gloved the iron hand of ambition.

      Man, frightened that machines might dominate him and overawed by mechanical performance, was becoming mechanical in his emotions and reactions, thought Munro. His gestures, jokes and obedience were robot-like. Lambert’s foolish and provocative question, much as Munro deplored such behaviour, was at least human by the very nature of its error. That smiling little Flight Lieutenant Sweet would never do such a thing.

      Sweet wasn’t the only person to be buttonholed. All over the room men were giving last-minute warnings, greetings, advice and information to friends and strangers.

      The chaplain was a member of the Socialist Party and secretly regarded himself as a rather dangerous reformer. In his opinion this was why his bishop had been so keen to get rid of him into the Air Force. Compulsory church parades, some articulate atheists in the Officers’ Mess and an inherited stutter had made his task harder than he’d expected. Still, it was his duty to seek out the troubled and he found the man with the lined eyes who’d almost spoiled the whole briefing by disquieting his comrades.

      ‘Are you troubled, Flight Sergeant?’ he asked Lambert.

      ‘Why doesn’t the Church stop the war, Padre?’

      The young chaplain had listened carefully to his archbishop, so, like the Intelligence Officer, he had the answer ready. ‘The war is due to the sin of mankind, including our own. And so we have got to do it and be penitent while we do it.’

      ‘So I’m the right hand of God, am I, Padre? I wonder if the Germans have padres telling them they are.’

      For one moment the padre’s resentment and anxiety almost betrayed him into praying that he would not stutter. He did stutter: ‘I … I … I … hold the King’s commission, Sergeant, and I’ll ask you to treat me with the respect my u … u … u … uniform deserves.’

      ‘Come on, Skip,’ called Digby loudly. ‘We’ve got some killing to do.’ The padre glared at them both. Why should these men insult me, he thought; they know I can’t stop the war?

      ‘Pay no attention to them, Padre,’ said Longfellow. ‘They couldn’t care less about decent people’s feelings.’ He wondered whether it was either of those two who had laughed at him when he made that slip of the tongue at the start of the briefing. Once Longfellow had hero-worshipped the young aircrew, but that was long ago during the Battle of Britain. That was before he encountered the arrogance that constant danger granted the young. ‘Intrepid birdmen,’ he said scornfully after all the birdmen were out of earshot.

       Chapter Fifteen

      Walter Ryessman often recalled the day when his name had been put forward for the job of Burgomaster. It was a job for life, but he anticipated that two hours a day would be more than sufficient to supervise the civic activities of such a small town. That was before the war, of course, when the world went at a slower pace. Decisions about slum clearance and extensions to the gasworks were referred to subcommittees and the answers were seldom in dispute. Walter Ryessman had been made Burgomaster because of his long and faithful membership of the Party. Now that the nation was at war his primary job was to ensure that Altgarten played its part in winning it, and that took him eight hours a day of paperwork and meetings, with frequent visits to anywhere and everywhere to be sure that the air-raid precautions were provided as the law demanded. At first the hospital authorities and the TENO engineers’ commander had resented his sudden unannounced arrivals. Soon they realized that Ryessman had influence in the Party far greater than his post as Burgomaster of Altgarten would suggest. He also had an honorary rank in the SS. So they learned how to put on a show of welcome when the tall white-haired man appeared like a ghost in the middle of the night. It was part of the briefing of any new sentry, night-watchman or caretaker to be on the alert for the Burgomaster.

      The Rathaus was a red-brick building that faced Altgarten railway station across the grassy, tree-lined Bismarckplatz. From his office the Burgomaster looked down upon the war memorial. The fountain splashed brightly in the afternoon sunlight. On the face of it were the names of forty Altgarten men who had died in the First World War. Already the side panels were almost full with Second World War casualties and the Burgomaster wondered whether the base of the fountain would be suitable for carving more names. He decided it would have to be.

      The Burgomaster had seen many changes in the Rathaus since he had taken office. The basement which had once housed the birth, marriage and death records had been turned into an air-raid control room. There was a gas curtain at the door, emergency lighting with its own generator, a large-scale map of the town and a smaller-scale one to show its position in the district. Phones connected the room to the police, fire, gas, electricity and water officials in various parts of the town and there were special lines to the rescue and repair service and to the senior air-raid precautions officials in Dortmund. Official visitors to Altgarten were always taken to see the Control Room and Herr Ryessman was very proud of it, although some of the ruder clerks called it ‘the eagle’s burrow’.

      His office had been moved up to the top floor along with the marriages, births and deaths registry and the housing department. Artfully they had put benches in the corridor outside the marriage registry so they had been able to convert the waiting room into the office of the Burgomaster’s clerk – Andi Niels, a solemn young man with a gastric ulcer which, together with a certain amount of string-pulling by the Burgomaster, had released him from Army service. Downstairs there were the tax, street-cleaning and ration-card offices, and the east wing of the building was given over to the police, although the Oberwachtmeister had his office on the same floor as the Burgomaster so that he was available for conference.

      The Burgomaster went next door to his assistant’s office, noting with satisfaction that in the corridor sandbags and a rope, axe and stirrup pump had been placed according to his most recent order.

      His clerk’s office was smaller than the Burgomaster’s and was crammed full with filing cabinets, but he envied his clerk the view he commanded. From this window he could see the tall spire of the Liebefrau rising from the medieval roofs of the town centre. Beyond, where the open country began, there was the Wald Hotel tucked into a patch of dark woodland, and to the north, catching the sun, were four long glasshouses that were a part of Ryessman’s own property.

      He was still enjoying the view when his assistant came into the room. He was startled and to Ryessman’s surprise he flushed.

      ‘Herr Ryessman,’ said the clerk politely. ‘Is there something you require?’

      ‘No,’ said the Burgomaster, watching with amusement as the clerk hurriedly pushed the files he was holding into the nearest filing cabinet. By the time he turned back to the desk he was more collected.

      ‘Today is my birthday, as you well know since you have been sending the invitations. I wanted to ask you to join our party this evening at Frenzel’s.’

      ‘The Herr Bürgermeister is very kind,’ said Andi Niels. ‘I shall be honoured.’

      ‘It’s a small affair,’ said the Burgomaster. ‘This is no time for ostentatious display, but there will be smoked eel to start and Frenzel’s special roast duckling to follow.’

      The Burgomaster was puzzled by the young man’s behaviour. Usually a relaxed and self-composed