Last Flight to Stalingrad by Graham Hurley (simple ebook reader .TXT) 📗

and we can start sending out the prints. Radio is fine. Radio is a godsend. But in the end, it’s pictures that count. You agree?’

‘I’m a writer.’

‘I know. Tact was never part of my job. I speak the truth as I see it. Not a particle more, not a particle less. Pictures, Werner.’ He made an oblong frame with his long fingers. ‘Pictures. Ja? You agree?’

3

SCHÖNWALDE, BERLIN, 22 MAY 1942

Nehmann spent that night with a woman called Maria. He’d met her a couple of weeks ago in a Moabit nightclub where she played the piano. She said she was Austrian, from a village near Villach. Her orphan looks were, to be frank, Jewish – sallow complexion, a fall of jet-black curls, perfect mouth, enormous eyes – but Nehmann had met a lot of Italian girls and when she said that her grandparents had lived in Bolzano before heading north to Austria he was very happy to believe her.

To date, unusually for Nehmann, they’d yet to make love. She’d asked him to be patient, to wait until circumstances were right for both of them. She’d made the suggestion the first time she’d stayed with him in Guram’s apartment and to his own slight surprise, Nehmann had agreed. He was transfixed by her face, most of all by her eyes. They had a depth and a candour that he found close to hypnotic and, in no time at all, she’d become an important presence in his life.

They talked a great deal late into the small hours after her return from Moabit. They were both outsiders in this teeming city. They compared notes, and drank Guram’s wine, and agreed that much of Nazi Germany was an essay in swagger and bad taste. Complicity in this small conversational act of treason was drawing them ever closer, and Nehmann liked that. In truth, though he’d never admit it to Goebbels, his Czech coquette had begun to bore him and, now that she’d taken her favours elsewhere, he felt nothing but relief. Hedvika was too loud, too easy, too coarse, too suggestible. On the keyboard, and in real life, Maria had an altogether lighter touch.

Daylight came early at this time of year. Maria was still asleep and Nehmann got up and dressed without a sound. The rain had cleared at last and when he descended to the street to meet the car despatched from the Promi, the city was bathed in sunshine. At this hour in the morning there was still the faintest chill in the air but, among the secretaries spilling off the trolley buses, Nehmann saw a couple of older folk carrying rolled-up towels. They’re off to the Lido to make friends with summer again, he thought with a pang of jealousy. He swam there himself whenever he got the chance.

The journey out to Schönwalde took no time at all. At the sandbagged airfield checkpoint, Nehmann wound down the window and offered his Promi pass. The officer in charge consulted a list of names on a typed list.

‘You’re here to meet Oberstleutnant Messner?’

‘I am.’

‘Met him before?’

‘Never.’

‘You’re in for a treat. He’s due in about half an hour. He’s blaming headwinds over Poland so I expect God will be paying the bill.’ He stepped back to wave him through. ‘Good luck, Herr Nehmann.’

Nehmann exchanged looks with the driver as the car began to move.

‘God?’ he queried.

‘Messner has a reputation for never being wrong. If there’s no one else available, he gives God a mouthful.’

Nehmann nodded, none the wiser. The airfield lay before them, littered with heavy plant. Between the bulldozers and the trucks was a wilderness of puddles.

‘I thought this belonged to the Luftwaffe?’

‘It does. They’re laying a hard runway for the day the Regierung move in.’

‘So where’s Messner supposed to land?’

‘God only knows. Which is why the bloody man needs to watch his tongue.’

‘You know him?’

‘I’ve met him.’

‘And?’

‘Wait and see.’

They parked beside a barely finished single-storey building that seemed to serve as a rallying point for the army of labourers assigned to the new runway. The driver thought there was a chance of decent coffee inside and left the car to find out. After a while, bored, Nehmann got out to stretch his legs. A frieze of pine trees edged the flatness of the airfield on three sides and he was watching a distant gaggle of tiny stick figures pouring concrete when he heard the faintest mutter of aero engines, throttled back in anticipation of a landing.

Away to the east, below a scatter of fluffy white clouds, he could see the Me-110 dropping a wing and then settling gently on the final descent. From where he was standing it was difficult to be sure but Nehmann had the impression that some of the workmen out there would be wise to get out of the way. Seconds later came the blast of a whistle and the men began to scatter in all directions.

By now, the Me-110 was barely feet from touchdown. Messner lifted the nose, gunned the engines one final time to avoid three men running into his path, and then let the aircraft settle among the puddles. Spray from the main undercarriage sparkled briefly in the brightness of the sunshine, confirming Nehmann’s conviction that he’d just witnessed something remarkable. A big aquatic bird, he thought, totally at home in this sodden stretch of Brandenburg turf.

The Me-110 had come to a halt. Another burst of throttle brought the nose round before the plane began to taxi towards him, weaving its way without hesitation through the thicket of heavy construction vehicles. Cautiously, the workmen were returning to their tasks. One was shaking his fist in Messner’s direction.

‘Here—’

It was the driver. Nehmann took the proffered mug. Coffee with sugar. Better still.

The Me-110 was only metres away, the roar of the engines drowning any longer conversation. Up in the cockpit, Nehmann could see a white disc of face behind a large pair of aviator glasses. Two ground crew in overalls had appeared from nowhere, each pulling a big