Potsdam Station (22 page)

They probably could, but only because they were too young to know any better. Most of his new comrades seemed to be fifteen or sixteen, and Paul doubted whether their life expectancy warranted shaving kits. Scanning the smoke-blackened child faces lining the road he felt a further lurch towards total despair. Some seemed utterly blank, others close to feral. Some were on the verge of tears, and probably had been for weeks. Understandable reactions, each and every one.

The good news, from Paul’s point of view, was that the
Hitlerjugend
’s suicidal devotion to the Führer had earned them transport – their unit, unlike others, had been allotted trucks and fuel enough to reach Erkner. He climbed aboard his vehicle with relief, and tried not to notice the age of the other passengers. Get to Erkner, he told himself, and a chance would occur to seek out his old battalion, most of whose members still considered personal survival a more than worthwhile goal.

The lorry moved off, and he closed his eyes for some much-needed sleep.

‘I’m Werner Redlich,’ a small voice interrupted him. ‘I heard you tell the MP you’re a gunner.’

‘Yes,’ Paul said without opening his eyes.

‘I wanted to be a gunner,’ the boy persisted.

Paul looked at him. He had noticed him at the crossroads – a sad and far too thoughtful face for one so young. Like most of the others, he was wearing a brown shirt, short trousers and an oversize helmet. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘Fifteen,’ Werner replied, as if were the most natural age for a soldier to be. ‘Nearly fifteen,’ he corrected himself. ‘Are your family in Berlin?’

‘No,’ Paul said, shutting his eyes again, ‘they’re all dead. And I need some sleep.’

‘Okay,’ Werner said. ‘We can talk later.’

Paul smiled to himself, something he hadn’t done for a while. He spent the next couple of hours drifting in and out of sleep, the lorry jerking him half-awake each time it accelerated away from road blockages caused by refugees, retreating soldiers or the earlier depredations of the Red Air Force. When he fully came to, the back of the lorry was empty, and Werner was offering him a can of food and a mug of coffee. ‘Where are we?’ he asked, looking out over Werner’s head. ‘And where is everyone?’

‘Stretching their legs. We’re in Herzfelde.’

The sky above the houses was purest blue, and the war seemed, at that instant, a long way away. He levered the tin open, and began spooning its contents into his mouth. ‘Why have we stopped here?’ he asked between mouthfuls.

Werner was looking down the road. ‘We’re wanted,’ he told Paul.

‘Who by?’

‘SS.’

‘Then we’d better go.’ Paul took one last mouthful of soup, and lowered himself down to the road. Fifty metres away, the unit was coalescing around a couple of black uniforms. A Führer Order, he guessed, as they walked forward to join the throng.

He was right. The SS Sturmbannführer leaning on the windshield of his APC had paper in hand, and after gesturing successfully for everyone’s attention, began reading the latest bulletin: ‘Hold on another twenty-four hours, and the great change in the war will come! Reinforcements are rolling forward. Wonder weapons are coming. Guns and tanks are being unloaded in their thousands.’

Paul looked around, expecting at least the odd smirk, but every young face seemed enraptured. They wanted so hard to believe.

‘The guns are silent on the West Front,’ the Sturmbannführer continued. ‘The Western Army is marching to the support of you brave East Front warriors. Thousands of British and Americans are volunteering to join our ranks to drive out the Bolsheviks. Hold on another twenty-four hours, comrades. Churchill,’ the Sturmbannführer concluded with the air of a magician saving his biggest rabbit for last, ‘is in Berlin negotiating with me.’

Now there were smiles on the young faces. They were going to win after all.

Paul reminded himself that it wasn’t so long since he had taken official pronouncements seriously. Even now, a small part of his brain was wondering whether the British leader might really be in Berlin.

‘Do you believe it?’ Werner asked quietly, as they walked back towards their vehicle.

‘Of course,’ Paul said in a tone that implied the opposite.

‘Neither do I,’ the boy said, removing his helmet to run a finger along a still-healing gash in his forehead.

‘Where are your family?’ Paul asked him.

‘In Berlin. In Schöneberg. My father was killed in Italy, but my mother and sister are still there. At least I think they are. I’ve heard nothing since we were sent to the front.’ He raised his eyes to meet Paul’s. ‘I promised my father I’d look after them.’

‘Sometimes there’s no choice and you have to break a promise. Your father would understand that.’

‘I know,’ Werner said, sounding more like fifty than fifteen. ‘But…’ He let the word hang in the air.

‘We’re loading up,’ Paul told him.

Ten minutes later they were on their way, heading off the main road, driving south-west towards Erkner, which until recently had still been functioning as a terminus for Berlin’s suburban trains. There were lots of refugees on the road, many with possessions piled in pushcarts or prams, some with a dog strutting happily alongside, or a cat curled up among salvaged bedding. Did these people imagine safety ahead, or were they simply putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the guns? Paul hoped they were planning to bypass the German capital, because heading into Berlin would, as the English saying had it, exchange the fire for the frying pan. Over the next couple of weeks, with the Nazis desperate and the Soviets hungry for revenge, his hometown seemed like a place to avoid.

They were only about fifteen kilometres from the outskirts now, rolling down the sort of road – sun-dappled forests on one side, gently rippling lakes on the other – that had featured on pre-war Reichsbahn posters. ‘No longer a road leading home,’ he murmured to himself.

Half an hour later they drove into Erkner, eventually stopping in a still-busy street close to the town centre. People emerged from houses and shops to stare at this children’s army, anxiety warring with disapproval in many of the faces. Some ducked back in, only to return with food and cigarettes for the soldiers. One woman in her forties, catching Paul’s eye, and presumably noticing his less than pristine condition, asked him and Werner if they would like a wash.

They were only too pleased – it was a while since either had seen soap of any description, and even the wartime variety, which tended to remove skin along with the dirt, seemed like a rare luxury. Werner was not yet shaving, but Paul took the opportunity to remove four days’ worth of stubble. Some of the wildness in his face came away with the razor, but there was no disguising the sunken cheeks, the dark semi-circles under the eyes, the loss staring back at him. He turned hurriedly away, and went back out to find Werner eating cake in the kitchen.

The woman silently ushered Paul into the front room, and shut the door behind them. ‘He’s only fourteen,’ she said, as if Paul himself might not have noticed. ‘I can hide him here. Burn the uniform and say he’s my nephew. No one will be able to disprove it, and it will all be over soon.’

Paul looked at the woman. Presumably she realised that her suggestion, if reported, would result in her being shot. He wondered where she and all those like her had been for the last twelve years. ‘You can ask him,’ he said.

Back in the kitchen, Werner listened to the woman’s offer, and politely rejected it. ‘I must get back to Berlin,’ he told her. ‘My family are relying on me.’

‘Time to get up,’ Kazankin announced, pulling back the branches that covered them. The sky was still clear, the light fading fast.

Despite being bone tired, Russell had managed only three or four hours of sleep. He had spent most of the day lying on his back, examining the blue sky through the lattice of vegetation which Kazankin and Gusakovsky had created, listening to Varennikov’s snoring and the war’s relentless soundtrack. Hardly ten minutes had passed without a bomb exploding, a flak gun booming or a plane droning overhead. How had Berliners managed to sleep during the last two years?

He struggled out of the dug-out, and reluctantly opened the can of cold mystery rations that Kazankin handed him. He wasn’t hungry, but forced himself to eat whatever it was, envying his companions’ apparent appetite.

‘Time to go,’ Kazankin said.

The canvas bag was left in the refilled dugout, and Russell and Varennikov were given spades to carry, bolstering the impression that they were foreign labourers. The two NKVD men, Russell noticed, were now carrying their machine pistols in the smalls of their backs.

They all took to the dinghy, and paddled their way across the short stretch of water that separated Lindwerder from the mainland. Once ashore, Gusakovsky dug a shallow hole while Kazankin deflated their craft, the hiss of escaping air sounding preternaturally loud in the silent forest. Boat buried, they set off through the trees, Kazankin in the lead, Russell wondering who might they run into. In pre-war summers they might have stumbled over any number of trysting couples, and if London’s blacked-out streets were any guide, a life of constant danger seemed to heighten the desire for outdoor sex. But surely it was still too cold for assignations in the woods. There were always a few eccentrics who liked a walk at night, but he could see no reason for the police to patrol the Grunewald. With luck, they might manage the whole five kilometres without meeting a single soul.

Kazankin strode on ahead, his body radiating bullish confidence. They crossed a couple of paths and one clearing dotted with picnic tables which Russell thought he recognised from years before. At one point Kazankin halted and gestured for quiet, and a moment or so later Russell saw the reason – a cyclist was crossing their line of travel, the beam from his handlebar lamp jerking up and down on the uneven path. Where on earth could he be going?

After half an hour’s walking they reached the Avus Speedway, which had served as the world’s narrowest motor racing circuit until 1938, its eight kilometres of two-way track topped and tailed by hairpin bends at either end of the Grunewald. The two lanes had been part of the autobahn since then, but that evening’s traffic was decidedly sparse, an official-looking car heading towards Potsdam, two military lorries rumbling north-west towards the city. Once they had vanished, the road lay eerily empty, two ribbons of concrete stretching away between the trees. As they walked across, Russell remembered driving Paul down the Speedway in his new car, early in 1939. His son had been only eleven years old, still young enough to be thrilled by a 1928 Hanomag doing a hundred kilometres an hour.

He wondered if the car was still where he’d left it in 1941, gathering rust in Hunder Zembski’s yard. If the authorities had known it was there, they would surely have confiscated it. But who would have told them? The Hanomag had probably fallen victim to Allied bombs – only a brick wall separated Hunder’s yard from the locomotive depot serving Lehrter Station, an obvious target.

They crossed the railway tracks on the eastern side of the Speedway and plunged back into forest. Russell knew this part of the Grunewald reasonably well – his son Paul, his ex-brother-in-law Thomas and Effi’s sister Zarah had all lived fairly close by – and the paths seemed increasingly familiar. Another twenty minutes and they would reach Clay Allee, the wide road that separated the Grunewald from the suburbs of Dahlem and Schmargendorf.

Which was far from comforting. He felt safe in the forest, he realised. Streets would be dangerous.

As if to confirm that thought, a siren began to wail. Others soon joined in, like a pack of howling dogs.

This could be construed as good news – the streets would be emptied, making it less likely that they would encounter the authorities. The familiar drone of bombers grew louder behind them, and the searchlight beams sprang up to greet them. Tonight though, there were no clouds to turn back the light, and the overall effect was to deepen the darkness below.

The first bombs exploded several kilometres to the east, and through the remaining screen of trees Russell saw rooftops silhouetted against the distant flashes. Closer still, a car with thin blue headlights drove towards them, and then turned off down an invisible road.

Kazankin halted. He had brought them out of the forest at exactly the right place, not much more than a kilometre from the Institute. Russell was impressed, but wasn’t about to say so. ‘That’s Clay Allee,’ he told the Russian. ‘The Oskar Helene Heim U-Bahn station is down to the right, about two hundred metres.’

They had discussed this last lap earlier in the day. They could approach the Institute through Thiel Park, a long, twisting ribbon of greenery which stretched from Clay Allee almost to their destination, but Russell, looking at the Soviet map, had argued for the shorter, simpler route. Two minutes on Clay Allee, ten on Gary Strasse, and they would be there. There would be nothing furtive about their progress, nothing to raise suspicion.

Rather to his surprise, Kazankin had agreed. Now, eyeing the prospect, Russell began to wonder. The street looked far too empty, and not nearly dark enough. And who in their right mind would be promenading down a suburban street in the middle of a bombing raid? So far the bombs seemed to be falling on other parts of the city, but would Berliners be that blasé? Would anyone?