Stattin Station

The fan in the mirror

It took the train almost nine hours to cover the hundred and twenty kilometres between Berlin and the port city of Stettin. The breakneck pace of their initial escape from the RAF's attentions soon gave way to slow and desultory progress across the rolling Pomeranian fields, with long, frequent and mostly inexplicable stops in what seemed, through the cracks in the door, to be variations on the middle of nowhere. Sleep would have been welcome, but it was soon evident that the appalling suspension and plummeting temperatures ruled out any such respite. They huddled together and shivered.

It was still dark when the wheels beneath them began rattling through points with increasing frequency, suggesting their arrival in Stettin. Easing the door back a few inches, Russell got a glimpse of what was probably the main station, and a few moments later they were rumbling across the huge swing bridge he remembered from his previous visit.

The river disappeared, replaced by the backs of apartment blocks, and the train began to slow. Another long bridge across water, and the tracks began multiplying, with stationary rakes of carriages and wagons stretching into the distance. Their train wove a path through several crossings before straightening itself out in a siding and finally wheezing to a halt. Russell eased the door ajar and stuck his head out. The yard was lit with amber lights mounted on high poles, yellowing the snow which lay across the tracks and casting the whole scene in a sepia glow. The guard was hurrying towards him.

'Stay where you are,' he whispered on reaching their boxcar, his eyes fixed on the distant head of the train. Looking forward, Russell could see a small figure climbing up into the cab, and after a few seconds several bursts of yellow steam rose into the air as the locomotive pulled away. 'Come,' the guard said. 'Quickly.'

They climbed down, wincing as they gripped the icy handrails. The guard examined them closely, presumably to make sure he had the correct escapees, and couldn't suppress a private smile at recognising the film star behind the half-eroded make-up. 'Follow me,' he said, turning back in the direction of his brake van. At the end of the adjacent train they started zigzagging their way across the fan of tracks, keeping as close as possible to the cover of other rolling stock, and finally reaching the side of a goods warehouse. Following this, they eventually came to a road transshipment area, where a line of darkened lorries was parked.

A man loomed out of the dark, making them jump. 'This way,' he said, leading them to the lorry at the end of the line. 'In the back,' he ordered, offering Effi a hand up and briefly illuminating the inside with a flashlight. Large crates took up most of the space, but a passage had been left between them. Effi and Russell ensconced themselves at the far end, and listened as their helpers shifted crates across the opening. 'It's like being a child again,' Effi murmured, mostly to herself. The sense of being completely dependent on others was almost comforting.

The back doors slammed, and a few moments later the engine sprang to life. They moved off, bumping their way across what felt like tracks before finding the smoothness of a real road. From what Russell remembered of Stettin's geography, he guessed they were somewhere to the south and east of the city's centre, close to the main dock area. Where they were going he had no idea, but the journey seemed to take forever, and when the doors were finally opened the grey light of dawn flooded their hiding place. The crates, Russell saw, each contained a single huge glass bottle of some chemical or other.

They climbed down onto a street of working-class apartment blocks and small industrial premises. Lights were showing in some windows, as the occupants got ready for the day ahead. 'Where are we?' Russell asked the driver, who now had a partner in tow, a younger man with pockmarked cheeks.

'Bredow. You know where that is?'

'To the north of the city?'

'That's right. Kurt will take you in. And good luck,' he added over his shoulder as he headed for his cab.

'This way,' the young man told them, heading for the entrance to the nearest block. 'It's the top floor,' he added, almost apologetically.

They twice met men coming down, but neither paid them much attention, and their companion seemed unworried by the fact that they'd been seen. Was the whole block dependable, Russell wondered. He sincerely hoped so.

On reaching the top floor, the young man led them to the right and knocked softly on the nearest door. A woman opened it, beckoned them in, and introduced herself as Margarete Otting. She was about forty-five, with a tired face and short blonde hair. 'We're both working Sunday shifts, and my husband has already left,' she said. 'And I am late. Please make yourselves at home. We shall be back soon after four.'

'Thank you for...' Effi started to say, but Frau Otting was already halfway through the door. 'I must go too,' Kurt told them. 'Someone will come to see you this evening, after Margarete and Hans return from work. In the meantime, please don't go out, and make as little noise as possible.' The door closed behind him, leaving Russell and Effi to share a look of surprise.

They explored the apartment. It was not much bigger than the one on Prinz-Eugen-Strasse, with a small book-lined sitting room and two bedrooms, one of which clearly belonged to Margarete and Hans. The other had twin beds, and showed traces of adolescent occupation. A photograph in the sitting room showed a happier-looking Margarete sitting beside an impishly-smiling Hans, with two serious-looking young men in army uniform standing behind them. The books that lined the walls were a mixture of detective novels and European history, with one thinned-out shelf of philosophy and political theory. Glancing along the latter, Russell reached the conclusion that all the Marxist tomes had been removed.

Effi was standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. 'I guess we can lie down in the boys' room,' she said.

Hans Otting arrived home first, and seemed almost over-pleased to meet them. He was one of those truly generous people, Russell realised, with all the joy and heartache that implied for his more practical wife. They were, as Effi put it later, like a goyish version of the Blumenthals. He worked in the docks as a stevedore, she on the local trams, and their one surviving son was serving with Rommel in North Africa. The elder boy had been killed in Russia the previous July.

Margarete Otting seemed more worried by their presence than her husband, but was careful to show no obvious signs of resentment. She was clearly delighted by the food they had brought from Berlin, and with the large supply of ration tickets which they would probably be leaving behind. The Gestapo might descend on her flat, but she wouldn't starve.

The four of them had just finished eating when the promised visitor arrived. A short, bald, tough-looking character in his fifties, and clearly an old comrade of the Ottings, he asked after their son in Africa before introducing himself to Russell and Effi. 'I am Ernst,' he said, 'and I am in charge of the arrangements for your... I suppose "escape" is the only word that really fits.' He offered them both a smile, which Russell wanted to find more convincing. 'The plan is to get you aboard a ship for Sweden. An iron ore ship. There's one due to dock on Wednesday evening - it will be unloaded during the next day and then leave as soon after dark as possible. Now the authorities watch these boats very carefully in the hours before sailing, but hardly at all before that, so we plan to get you aboard and well hidden on Wednesday evening. Do you understand?'

'Of course,' Russell said, his hopes rising.

'The voyage will take about forty hours,' Ernst said. 'You should reach Oxelosund on Friday morning. Someone from the Stockholm embassy will meet you there, and take charge of the documents you are carrying. '

The next two days seemed replete with more than the usual number of hours. During the day they had the apartment to themselves, and read until their eyes could no longer cope with the inadequate light. There was no radio, but Russell scoured the morning paper, which Hans brought back each evening, for news of themselves and the war's progress. The same pictures of him and Effi were repeated, but the accompanying words had shrunk to a simple demand that any sighting be immediately reported. Hans seemed almost amused by it all, but his wife, staring at the offending photographs, looked almost stunned, and Effi found herself praying that the Ottings would not suffer for their generosity.

After Russell had mentioned in passing how unused he was to staying indoors all day, Hans took him and Effi down the corridor, through an unmarked door, and up a single flight of stairs to the roof, where a host of washing lines were waiting for better weather. The smell of the sea, thirty kilometres to the north, was faint but unmistakable.

An almost full moon was rising in the east, bathing the city and its river in pale light, and after Hans went back down the two of them stayed out in the bitter cold for as long as they could endure it, taking in what might be their last real sight of Germany.

'What are we going to do when we get to Sweden?' Effi asked, snuggling up against him. 'Are we going to England or America?'

'It may take some time to get to either,' Russell told her. 'I suppose Sweden's still trading with the outside world, but I've no idea whether there are any ships to Britain or the States. We may have to stay in Sweden for the duration.'

'I could cope with that. In a way it would be nice - we'd still be close to our family and our friends. Or at least not too far away.'

Wednesday was another long wait. They were unlikely to meet anyone between flat and docks, but Effi applied their make-up with great care, determined that nothing should be left to even the slightest chance. By the time she had finished, their supply was almost gone, but it seemed unlikely they would need any more - once they left the flat, either the ship or the Gestapo would be taking them away, and there would be no need of disguises in either Sweden or a concentration camp.

So went the theory. Margarete and Hans had been home only a few minutes when a tap on the door announced the arrival of Ernst. Bad news was written across his face. 'The ship has been sunk,' he said without preamble.

'By whom?' Effi asked, surprise and indignation in her voice.

'A Soviet submarine,' Ernst told her. 'We should rejoice of course.'

'Of course,' Russell agreed dryly. He supposed they should: there was no reason why his and Effi's war with the Nazis should take precedence over everyone else's.

'I hope the crew got off,' Hans said.

'Oh, of course,' Effi agreed, momentarily ashamed that she'd only been thinking of herself.

'So what happens now?' Russell asked Ernst. As the news sank in, he could feel the stirrings of panic. The Germans had one of their all-engrossing words for it - torschlusspanik, the burst of terror that accompanies a closing door.

'I don't know,' Ernst was saying. 'There will be other ships, of course. For the moment, you must stay here,' he added, looking at Hans and Margarete as he did so.

'Of course,' Hans agreed, and his wife nodded her acceptance of the fact. But she didn't look thrilled at the prospect, and who could blame her?

Later that night, as she tried to fall asleep, Effi imagined herself on a torpedoed ship, the screams of the wounded, the lurching deck, the cold immensity of the dark sea. The sailors from the sunken ship - were they German or Swedish? - were probably out there still, desperately trying to keep warm as their lifeboats bobbed in the chilling Baltic swell. Why, she wondered for the umpteenth time, would anyone sane start a war?

It was only seven-thirty, and still completely dark, when they heard the knock on the door. The softness of the knock boded well - the Gestapo had a propensity to hammer - and Russell allowed himself the absurd hope that their ship had not been sunk after all. He left their room to find Hans admitting Ernst.

Though clearly out of breath from climbing ten flights of the stairs, the comrade's first priority was a cigarette. 'More bad news,' he told them tersely through a cloud of smoke. 'There have been arrests in Berlin. Many comrades. Twenty at least. And one of them -' he looked at Russell and Effi '- is the man who sent you here.'

'What happened?' Hans wanted to know.

Ernst shrugged. 'We don't know. A traitor, I expect. It usually is. But these two will have to be moved. Tonight, after dark. They should be all right until then.'

Which meant, Russell thought, that the arrests had probably happened the previous evening, and that those arrested were expected to hold out until the same time today, to endure a minimum of twenty-four hours' suffering before coughing up the first name. The guard on the train, he thought. The next link in the chain. He remembered the collapsing wooden bridge in an adventure movie he had seen with Paul, the hero racing to cross the chasm as the trestles collapsed behind him.

Margarete was looking deathly pale.

'If we see their cars in the street,' Russell told her, 'we'll get out of the apartment. Onto the roof. They won't know where we came from.'

She gave him a look of disbelief, as if unable to comprehend such naivety.

'You'll get plenty of warning,' Ernst confirmed. 'They only ever come up here in force. But I don't think it'll be today.'

'Where are we going this evening?' Effi asked him.

'I don't know yet. All I know is Moscow wants you out, and I'll do my best to oblige them. Someone will be here after dark.'

After indicating to Hans that he wanted a private word with Ernst, Russell followed the Party man out into the stairwell. 'Can you get me a gun?' he asked. He wasn't at all sure he would use one, but it would be nice to have the option. 'I don't want them to take us alive,' he said in response to the other man's hesitation. He found it hard to imagine sharing a suicide pact with Effi, but he knew that Ernst would like the idea - dead people stayed silent for a lot longer than twenty-four hours. 'I'll see what I can do,' Ernst told him.

The sitting room window faced south, overlooking the street below and offering a panoramic view of central Stettin. They shared the watch, dreading the sound of approaching motors yet perversely eager for any relief from the tension and boredom. When he told Effi about his request for a gun, she looked blank for a moment and then simply nodded, as if accepting that some point of no return had finally been passed.

'But could you hit anything with it?' she asked after a while.

'I'm actually a pretty good shot,' he retorted. 'Or at least I was in 1918.'

The sky was overcast, but they could tell from the fast-vanishing snow that the temperature was rising, and when the clouds opened later that afternoon it was rain mixed with sleet that obscured their distant view of the city. As the hours went by, Russell found it hard not to dwell on unwelcome outcomes, both for them and their hosts. He hated the idea of the Ottings paying with their lives for a few days' hospitality, but there was nothing he could do about it. If he and Effi disappeared at that moment there would still be the men who had brought them from the goods yard to the flat. They were the last link in the chain from Berlin, and the Ottings' only real chance was for those two men to either escape the clutches of the Gestapo or die in the attempt.

Darkness finally began to fall, and soon after five Margarete returned home. She was clearly upset to find them still there, and suddenly burst into tears when Effi offered to help with the cooking. 'I'm sorry,' she said eventually. 'It's not your fault. I keep thinking of my son in Africa, and him coming home to find he has no family.'

Effi encased her in a hug. 'We're sorry,' she said. 'We...'

'You are just trying to survive,' Margarete interrupted her. 'I know that. And I hope you get out. I really do.'

A few minutes later Hans returned, took one look at his wife's tearstained face, and reached out to embrace her. Effi and Russell left them on their own for a few minutes, and when Russell returned to the sitting room he found Hans staring at his books with the air of someone who doubted he'd ever see them again. 'We might as well eat,' Margarete said from the kitchen doorway with a rueful smile.

They were just about finished when a loud and confident knock sounded on the outer door. Hans went to answer it, and returned with a tall, smiling young man. 'Are you ready?' he asked Russell and Effi. 'I'm Andreas,' he added, offering a large and calloused hand to each of them in turn. 'I know who you are,' he told Effi with a big grin.

He insisted that they hurry, and their goodbyes had to be brief. Clattering down the stairs ahead of them, he announced almost casually that the Gestapo were 'all over the town'. Two older men sharing a chat on the next landing down clearly heard the remark, and watched them go by with expressions that mingled sympathy and alarm. In the dimly-lit ground-floor lobby, a young couple embracing in a corner showed considerably less interest in their plight.

Outside, an icy rain was falling. The ground was slippery underfoot and the darkness almost complete.

'My van is two streets away,' Andreas told them, as they made their way across the open courtyard. 'I didn't want to park right outside.'

They reached the street just as two pinpoints of lights swung towards them a few hundred metres away. Another two followed, and another two, as the sound of motors rose above the usual hum of the city.

Andreas broke into a run, yelling 'This way!' over his shoulder. The car headlights were muted by the rain, but just bright enough to show them where they were going, straight across the street and onto the gravel path between workshops that Russell had noticed from the Ottings' window. Once off the street it was hard to see more than a few feet ahead, but Andreas obviously knew where he was going, and the path was less slippery than the street had been. Behind them car doors were slamming, a voice shouting orders. 'Just in time,' they heard Andreas murmur. But not for the Ottings, they both thought.

The sounds faded as they moved on, crossing another street and entering another path. The large factory to their right was still working, the sound of machinery drowning out any noise of pursuit, the glow of fires within rising from chimneys like illuminated gold dust in the falling rain. In her mind, Effi could see the men in leather coats hammering on the door, the last hurried farewells as the Ottings' world caved in.

Andreas was waiting at the exit to the next street. A line of lorries was parked on either side of the road outside the main factory entrance, a small van just beyond them, as if it was part of the same fleet.

'I'm right in thinking you have no false papers?' Andreas asked.

'You are.'

'Then you'll have to get in the back.' He opened the rear doors, and showed them the inside with a well-masked flashlight. The pencil-thin beam revealed various metal trays, a large number of paint tins, a bucket full of brushes and a large expanse of crumpled cloth. 'If we're stopped, you'd better get under the dust-sheet,' he advised. 'Just cover yourselves and pray.'

'Where are we going?' Russell asked.

'The docks. And I have something for you,' he added, heading for the front of the van. He returned a few moments later with a gun wrapped in oilcloth. 'It's only an M1910, but it's the best we could do at short notice.'

Russell unwrapped and grasped it, the metal cold in his hand. He had handled one of these guns before, one he had bought from a German officer after the November armistice, on the ridiculous assumption that any self-respecting class warrior needed his own personal firearm. He was later told that Gavrilo Princip had set the whole bloody mess in motion with an M1910, when he used it to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914.

'We should go,' Andreas told him.

Effi and Russell crawled into the back of the van, ending up with their backs to the driving compartment and the dust-sheet roughly draped across their legs, ready for pulling up over their heads. It wasn't nearly voluminous enough, Russell realised. It would take someone half-blind and wholly stupid to fall for such a ruse.

The van's engine started, and they moved off down the street. They could see nothing in the back, but Andreas kept up a running commentary on their progress, as much for his own reassurance, Russell thought, as for theirs. The first name he recognised was the Konigsplatz, which he had walked round during a visit some years before the war. He also remembered Breitestrasse, and could picture their journey down it, passing the Nikolaikirche and taking the bridge across the Oder to Lastadie. 'Almost there,' he whispered to Effi, as the rain hammered a little harder on the van's roof.

He had spoken too soon.

'Someone's shining a red light at me,' Andreas told them, suddenly sounding much younger. 'There's a barrier across the road,' he added a few moments later. 'And at least two men. They look like Gestapo.' As the van began slowing they tried to burrow beneath the dust-sheet, but it was too dark to see how well they had succeeded in covering themselves. The fact that they were tugging it in opposite directions didn't bode well.

Andreas pulled the van to a halt and wound down his window. 'A miserable night,' they heard him say cheerfully. 'So what's this about?'

The man he was addressing seemed uninterested in friendly banter. 'Gestapo,' he said curtly, and asked for Andreas's papers. A long silence followed as he checked them.

Let that be enough, Russell silently pleaded.

The Gestapo officer asked what Andreas was doing out so late.

Andreas explained with a laugh that one of the local Party bigwigs was desperate to have his offices redecorated in time for Labour Minister Robert Ley's imminent visit.

It was the wrong tone, Russell thought. The man asking the questions didn't sound like a lover of the common people. But how many colleagues did he have with him? Russell had heard no other voices.

'What's in the back?' the Gestapo man asked.

'Just my gear.'

'Turn off the engine and get out.'

The van gently rocked as Andreas climbed out. They heard footsteps, and a sliver of light appeared through the crack between the rear doors. 'Open them up,' the Gestapo officer ordered, his voice now coming from behind the van.

Russell took what seemed, in that instant, their only chance of survival. Throwing off the dust sheet, he took aim at the doors, hoping and praying that Andreas, knowing he had the gun, would have the sense to keep out of the line of fire.

He heard the door handle turn, waited for the light to shine in, and blindly pulled the trigger.

The light spun downwards as the boom of the gun echoed in the van, drowning out the sound of the falling body. He heard Effi gasp as he scrambled feet first towards the open doorway, and half-ordered, half-begged her to stay where she was.

The Gestapo man's torch was still on, illuminating a puddle in the road and throwing a faint reflective glow. As Russell kicked it away, his standing foot slipped on the icy cobbles, throwing him onto his back and quite possibly saving him from the shot which rang out at the same instant. A few feet away, scarcely visible in the darkness, two grunting shadows were locked together.

So there were there at least three of them.

As Russell inched towards the two men struggling on the ground, he scanned the darkness for sight or sound of the man who had fired the last shot. There was nothing - the knowable world had shrunk to a lightless bubble, leaving him blind, deaf and prey to any lucky bullet. He told himself that his opponents were in the same position, but fear still rose in his throat, tightening his finger on the pistol's trigger.

A flashlight suddenly flared into life, illuminating the rain and the road, the two men struggling by the stationary van. As the beam whirled to pick out Russell himself, he raised the gun and fired, bracing his body for the bullet that was surely on its way. But none came. A second torch fell to the ground, and there was a muffled splash as something heavy hit the ground.

There was another shot, this time much closer, an accompanying grunt of surprise, and then only the sound of the falling rain.

Russell raised his gun as a silhouette struggled to its feet. 'Andreas?' he asked.

'I'm here,' the shape said.

'Were there only three of them?' Russell asked. His hand was shaking, he realised.

'That's all I saw.'

'John?' Effi enquired anxiously from the back of the van.

'Stay there a moment,' he told her, and walked across to where the body was lying beside the still-lit torch, the face half-buried in an icy puddle. He picked up the torch and examined the man, who seemed far too youthful for his ordnungspolizei uniform. Russell's bullet had passed straight through the throat, as lucky a shot as he could have wished for. The young man's fatal mistake had been to switch on his torch, but Russell, remembering his own moment of terror in the darkness, understood what had caused him to make it.

Behind the body, parked up against a wall, was the Gestapo car.

He walked back to the van, and pointed the torch beam at the other two bodies. Both were wearing leather coats, and Russell's victim had lost most of his face. 'Is yours dead?' he asked Andreas.

'Yes.'

Russell took a deep breath. He had just killed as many men in thirty seconds as he had managed in ten months of the Great War, but at least he wouldn't have to finish anyone off.

'Oh God,' Effi said quietly, as she stepped out past the first victim.

'We should be getting out of here,' Andreas urged.

'No, wait,' Russell said, turning off the flashlight and staring out into the darkness. There were no lights heading their way, no distant voices, and he doubted whether the sounds of gunfire had travelled far in the rain. The buildings that surrounded them were obviously not houses. 'Are we at the entrance to the docks?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'And we were going into them?'

'There's a disused warehouse the Party uses for storage. It was the best we could come up with at short notice.'

'Of course,' Russell muttered. 'But after they find these men I should think they'll scour every inch of the dockyards.'

'Yes, but...'

'We could have been leaving,' Effi interjected. 'How would they know?'

By the position of the bodies, Russell thought. Create a mirror image of the current configuration on the other side of the barrier, and maybe, just maybe, the wrong assumption would be made. He explained the idea to Andreas, and the two of them dragged a body each under the barrier, leaving them lying in the equivalent position on the other side. Both had shed flesh and blood where they fell, and Russell did his best to scatter the solids, trusting the rain to wash everything away. The young man by the barrier was left where he was.

It was the best they could do. Once Effi had clambered into the back, Russell lifted the barrier for Andreas to drive the van through, lowered it once more and climbed into the front seat, gun at the ready. Every bridge behind them was broken now.

They drove on into the docks, bumping across inlaid rails, moving slowly for fear of driving off one of the quaysides. They met only one other vehicle, a lorry moving at a similar speed, which gave them a friendly toot of its horn as it passed. It was probably heading south, Andreas told Russell, and would not be using the Lastadie entrance. Hardly anything did at this time of night. 'Which is why I thought it would be safe to use,' he added wryly.

As they ventured further in, visibility seemed to improve, and an angular pattern of cranes loomed out of the darkness. Soon the sky seemed infused with pale light, and as they passed the end of a warehouse they found the source - a well-lit ship and quay on the far side of a basin. 'Ball bearings from Sweden,' Andreas guessed. 'They're allowed to relax the blackout for those.'

That view was soon cut off by more low buildings, and Andreas finally pulled up alongside a warehouse on the opposite side of the road. He led them to a corrugated iron door, and only turned on his flashlight once they were all inside. His thin beam darted round the interior, a wide space between windowless walls, empty save for a few broken crates, some broken glass and the odd length of frayed rope. The scurrying sound had to be rats.

Russell could almost hear Effi shudder.

'This way,' Andreas said, heading towards the rats. About fifty metres further in, a series of offices had been mounted on stilts against one wall, with long windows overlooking the warehouse floor. Access was by a metal staircase, which led up to a door marked 'Quaymaster'. The rooms were lined with what looked like postal sorting shelves, but devoid of furniture.

'This is it,' Andreas said apologetically.

'It'll have to do,' was all Russell could think to say.

'I should be on my way,' Andreas told them. 'I'll be back in the morning. Or whenever I can.'

They watched until his torch flickered out, then held each other tight for several moments.

'Oh John,' was all Effi could say.

'Anyone would think we were going down in the world,' Russell said, plunking down their bag and turning on the torch he had taken from the dead ordnungspolizei. He shone it around the office. Despair was like a physical weight pressing down on his shoulder blades. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I can't tell you how sorry.'

'I'm sorry too,' Effi said. 'Sorry that it looks like the bastards have beaten us.'

'We're not beaten yet,' he said mechanically. He had failed her, he thought.

'No,' she said, 'but John, I'm frightened. I don't want to die, but if we're caught... we'll be executed, won't we?'

'I will be. Both of us, probably,' he added, thinking that this was hardly the moment for a white lie.

'I'd rather die with you,' she said emphatically. 'Can we do that together? If the Gestapo surround this place or come bursting in can we just end it here?'

'We can if you want.' Paul would be better off without him, he thought.

'We've had a good life,' she said, as if that made ending it more palatable.

It was a long night. They had a little food, but no water, and after a few hours both were so thirsty that Russell went outside to collect what he could in the bottom of a broken bottle. They found a ragged rug in one of the offices, but even folded in four it did little to soften the floor, and when morning light started seeping into the warehouse neither of them had enjoyed more than a few minutes' sleep.

They found a long-disused toilet for their morning ablutions, ate a sparse breakfast, and explored their surroundings. The warehouse was about two hundred metres long, with another set of raised offices towards the far end. Doors on the eastern side led to the street, those on the west to the quayside with its rusted rails and cranes and an apparently abandoned dock basin. Beyond the water and the low roofs of Lastadie, they could see the elegant spires of Stettin against the grey sky, a vision of tranquillity at odds with the fear churning inside them.

Each moment they expected the rising sound of motors on the street outside, and their relief at seeing Andreas come through the corrugated door was profound. He had come on foot, and not alone. Another, older man was with him, whom he introduced as Hartmut.

Hartmut unpacked a camera and collapsible tripod from the canvas bag he was carrying and began setting them up in the brightest available pool of light.

'They know you came to Stettin,' was Andreas's first devastating remark. 'Let me tell you what has been decided. There will be no more ships for at least a week, which, given the situation in the city, is much too long for you...'

'What is the situation?' Russell asked.

'Many arrests. Your friends Hans and Margarete, many others.'

A wave of sadness and guilt washed through Effi's brain.

'And Ernst?' Russell was asking.

'Ernst is safe for the moment.'

'They must have found the men we killed.'

'No,' Andreas said with a hint of a smile. 'The bodies were moved last night. They were put back in their car and the car was pushed into one of the deeper docks before first light. It was a committee decision,' he added, as if that were explanation enough. 'The bodies will never be found, and later this morning one of our people inside the local Kripo will tell the Gestapo about a tip-off he has received, that someone saw two cars in a high speed chase on the Stargard road late yesterday evening. Which should get them looking in the wrong direction altogether.'

'I'm ready,' the other man shouted across. He was unfolding a large sheet of dark red cloth.

'You need new papers,' Andreas said in reply to Russell's questioning look. 'Which means photographs.'

'We need to fix our make-up,' Effi said, tearing her thoughts away from Hans and Margarete. She still wore most of her last application, but the previous night's rain had removed most of Russell's. The moustache, though, showed no sign of loosening its grip on his upper lip.

'As quick as you can,' Andreas urged them.

'We're almost out in any case,' she told Russell, as she worked on the area around his eyes.

'Then save it for yourself,' he said. 'You're the one who'll be recognised.' 'There's enough,' she told him. 'And I can't leave you with one side of your face looking twenty years older than the other.'

Preparations completed, they each had their photographs taken standing in front of the red material that Andreas held up as a backcloth. The photographer grumbled about the light, but thought the resulting pictures would probably do.

'Who'll be looking at them?' Russell asked Andreas. 'Where are we going?'

'Riga.'

'Riga?!'

Andreas sighed. 'You can't stay in Stettin, and Riga's the only other place with regular sailings to Sweden. We have people there who'll look after you, and it's the one direction the Gestapo will not expect. These days no one travels east out of choice.'

'A train?' Russell asked.

Andreas nodded. 'Trains. It'll take about two days. You'll need to change in Danzig and Konigsberg, perhaps in Tilsit as well. Don't worry,' he said, noticing their expressions, 'you will have excellent papers. Your chances are good. Certainly much better than they would be here.'

'Who do we contact when we get there?'

'I'll tell you that this evening. The overnight express for Danzig leaves at eight-thirty, and we will find a way to get you there before then.'

'How?'

'I don't know yet. Your papers will be for a husband and wife, by the way. Herr and Frau Sasowski. Werner and Mathilde.'

'What happened to them?' Russell asked.

'They committed suicide after the Gestapo killed their son.'

More dead people, Effi thought. They were being lifted out of Germany by the arms of the dead.

'Married at last,' Russell said to her, as Andreas and the photographer walked away across the warehouse floor.

She put an arm round his waist and leant her head on his shoulder.

Andreas had brought water with him, enough to last them the day. There was still some food, but neither of them felt hungry, and they spent most of the daylight hours curled up on the folded rug, drifting in and out of uneasy sleeps. Russell had wondered whether one of them should stay awake, and decided there was no point. If the Gestapo roared up outside, there would be enough time to follow through on their pledge of the night before. More than enough.

Strange as it seemed, Effi felt safer by day. The night might hide them, but not from fear or surprise, whereas daylight, which rendered them visible, also seemed redolent of life - the distant sounds of unloading elsewhere in the docks, the ships' horns like mournful animals seeking a place to rest. If this was where her life ended, in a derelict corner of a city she had never seen before, then she wanted her final moments in the light, conscious of every last cobweb that hung from the ceiling, of every piece of rubbish which the breeze blew along the warehouse floor.

Dying in darkness would be so... so completely wrong.

She thought about the Ottings and what they must be going through, and struggled to conceal her own sense of dread.

Andreas returned soon after six. 'All the entrances to the docks are being watched,' he announced with his usual smile. 'The roads and ferries.'

'So how will we get out?' Russell asked calmly, wondering what the young man had up his sleeve this time.

'By boat,' Andreas said triumphantly. 'A small boat will come to the quay outside at seven. It will take us out of the docks, and up the Oder to a small landing stage close to the railway station. You will only have a five-minute walk. That's good, eh?'

Russell admitted it sounded so.

Andreas handed over their new documentation, which looked convincing enough. Had they still been alive, Werner and Mathilde Sasowski would have been fifty-four and fifty-two, roughly the ages which he and Effi looked in the photographer's grainy pictures. There were no obvious signs that the latter had just been added to the frayed and grimy papers.

'And here are your tickets,' Andreas added, handing them across.

'How much do we owe you?' Russell asked, reaching for his wallet. It seemed like weeks since he'd spent any money.

Andreas made a gesture of refusal. 'We didn't pay for them,' he said. 'Now, once you reach Riga, you must go to 16 Satekles Street - it's near the station - and ask for Felix. You must tell him that you have a message from Stettin. Have you got all that?'

Russell repeated it.

'Good. Now all we all have to do is wait.' He looked at his watch. 'Forty-two minutes.'

Effi asked Andreas about himself. How long had he been a painter? Was he married?

He wasn't married and he wasn't a painter - the van was his father's. He had worked in the docks since he was sixteen, and been a Party member almost as long - since 1932, in fact. Both his uncles had been killed the following year, one in a street fight and one in a concentration camp. So had many others. But the Party was still strong in Stettin, and particularly in the docks. Seven iron carriers had been sabotaged over the last two years, all sent to the bottom of the Baltic with explosives which the Gestapo and their sniffer dogs had failed to find. Things were certainly bad at the moment, but the cells had all shut down - 'like the compartments of a U-boat'. A few would be prised open, but most would survive. And after the war... well, Effi would return to a communist Germany, and make a movie about her own escape and the comrades who helped her. 'We will all play ourselves,' Andreas decided.

At five minutes to seven they walked out onto the darkened quay, Andreas guiding them to a ladder of iron rungs which led down to the water. The faintest of lights was already visible in the mouth of the basin; as it grew steadily nearer, the low purr of an engine became audible. With Andreas carrying their bag they all climbed down towards the water, waiting in a vertical queue for the boat to draw up alongside. It was a simple skiff with a one-man crew - a wizened old man who nodded a greeting from his seat by the tiller.

He gently opened the throttle and turned the craft back towards the dock entrance, running parallel with the barely visible quayside wall. He had extinguished his faint light, Russell noticed. Now that he was carrying illicit cargo, hitting something probably seemed a much better bet than being noticed. Russell asked Andreas whether the Gestapo had patrol boats.

'They borrow the Navy's,' he whispered back. 'But only one after dark. Usually. It's better that we don't talk,' he added. 'It carries further than you think.'

The wall to the right disappeared as their basin merged with the next, the one where they'd seen the ship being unloaded on the previous evening. Peering through the gloom Russell thought he could make out two large ships, but no lights were showing, either aboard or on the adjoining quay.

The channel narrowed again as they neared the junction with the Oder, and the water grew choppier, rocking the small boat from side to side. As they turned into the river, the opposing current seemed strong enough to stop them, and Russell had a nightmare vision of being stuck in the same spot until morning. But suddenly, for no reason that he could see, the pressure eased and the skiff resumed its steady progress, albeit more slowly.

He knew from previous visits that the Oder was about a hundred and fifty metres wide, but only the near bank was visible, a long quayside at which several small ships were berthed. There were lights in some of them, and on the quay behind them, but Russell hoped and guessed that their boat would be impossible to see against the darkness of the opposite bank.

A lighted shape appeared ahead, running across his line of vision. It was a tram, he realised, crossing the river. The bridge took form as another smaller light glided across, and as they neared the central piers a match flared above them. It was a man lighting a cigarette, and he was looking down at them.

Gestapo, was Russell's first thought.

'It's downstream,' the man said, loud enough for them to hear.

'The patrol boat,' Andreas explained as they passed under the bridge. Russell breathed a sigh of relief, and asked himself why the comrades hadn't been this well organised when the government of Germany was still up for grabs. The boatman kept to the centre of the stream, out of sight from either bank. There was a surprising amount of traffic along the western side - trams, lorries, even the occasional private car - but no silhouetted pedestrians. The Nikolai Kirche rose out of the gloom, and soon they were passing under the other bridge connecting central Stettin with its Lastadie suburb. Even though he felt wracked with tension, Russell could see something magical in this journey, as they moved unseen through the heart of a living city.

The railway bridge loomed ahead, and beyond that the dark shapes of islands in the river, another bridge, and the long roof of the station rising above the western bank. The boatman steered them into a narrow channel, cut the motor, and drifted the skiff up to a small landing stage. 'This is it,' Andreas said unnecessarily, using one hand to hold the boat against the wooden staging. 'The station is over there, and there are steps up to the bridge at the other end of the path.'

'Thank you,' Russell said, shaking his hand. He offered the boatman a nod of gratitude.

Effi reached over and gave Andreas a quick hug. 'We'll make that film,' she said.

'Good luck,' he told them.

'And you.'

Andreas pushed them off, and the boat put-putted off into the darkness.

The steps were easy to find, and the bridge devoid of traffic. As they walked across to the Stettin side, Russell could feel his muscles tightening. The station was bound to be watched. Were their papers and disguises good enough?

'We must act like ordinary travellers,' he said, as much to himself as to her. 'Look confident. Do what ordinary travellers do. No skulking in the shadows.'

'Yes, husband,' Effi said.

They walked across the Schwedter Ufer and into the station. The small concourse was quite crowded, mostly with soldiers and sailors in uniform, which was probably fortunate. Their train, according to the departure board, was on time.

'The buffet,' Russell said. As they walked across the concourse, he saw no sign of a checkpoint at the tunnel entrance which led to the platforms. There might, of course, be guards waiting at each flight of stairs.

They found a table. The smell of food was inviting, but the queue was long and there was not much more than half an hour until their train's departure. 'Shall we go up now or wait?' he asked her.

'Let's leave it till the last minute,' she said, getting up again. 'I have to spend some time in the ladies.'

'I'll be here.' He watched her walk away, marvelling once again at how well she aged her movement, then leant over to gather an abandoned newspaper from the adjoining table.

After using the toilet, Effi stopped to examine her face in the long mirror behind the washbasins. There hadn't really been enough make-up left to work with, and she seemed to be getting younger again.

A middle-aged woman two basins down was staring at her in the mirror. 'Aren't you Effi Koenen?' the woman asked with barely suppressed excitement.

'No, please,' Effi heard herself say. Looking round, she saw that the cubicles were all open. There was no one else to overhear.

'I'm sorry,' the woman said. 'It must be so difficult having complete strangers come up and talk to you. I won't bother you with questions,' she said, rummaging through her handbag. 'But please, could I have your autograph?' She offered a pleading smile and held out a pencil and some sort of notebook.

It wasn't the look of someone who'd recognised a fugitive. Effi scribbled her name down and handed it back, praying that no one else would come in. 'Please don't tell anyone else that you've seen me,' she said.

'Of course not, and thank you. Thank you so much.' The woman hurried out, no doubt intent on sharing her secret with whatever companions she had.

Effi went back into a cubicle, shut the door and sat down. What was she going to say to John? He was so infuriatingly good at arguing - and this was one argument she had to win.

In the buffet Russell was finding it impossible to concentrate on the newspaper - the events in Russia, Africa and the rest of the wider world had lost their power to engage him. He was like a rat in a maze, he thought: all that mattered was the next turn.

Effi sat down, leaned her head towards him and took one of his hands. 'I'm not coming with you,' she said.

He looked at her blankly. 'What?'

'John, I was just recognised. A fan. A fan who wanted my autograph - she obviously hadn't seen our pictures in the papers. After she was gone I looked in the mirror, and I could recognise myself. The make-up's all gone, and I can't keep a scarf over my face for two days - even if I did there'll be inspections, there are bound to be. We would never get to Riga, but you can and you must.'

Her logic seemed inescapable, but logic had never been something he had associated with her, and it wasn't what he wanted to hear. 'No,' he said desperately. 'We're going together. We'll get there.'

'No, we won't. I'm going back to Berlin. We'll both have a better chance of survival on our own. You must see that.'

'No, I don't. How would you survive in Berlin?'

'As Eva Vollmar. Or Mathilde Sasowski. I don't know, but I'll manage. I know Berlin. In the last resort I have a sister there, and friends. I may go back to being Effi Koenen in a week or so - what can they accuse me of? No one saw us in the docks. I can just say I ran away with you, not knowing what you had done, and when I found out, I abandoned you. You won't mind that, will you? You'll be out of the country by then.'

'Of course not, but they'll never believe you.'

'They may want to. A film star who denounces a foreign spy must be good propaganda.'

Russell wanted to argue with her, but after almost a decade together he knew when her mind was made up. Given a few days he might be able to change it, but his train was leaving in thirteen minutes. He felt paralysed by the suddenness of it all.

'John, you know that I love you? And that I'll wait for you?'

'But how...'

'You must catch the train. Please.'

She was right and he knew it. If someone recognised her on the train they would both be trapped, caught, dragged back to Berlin for trial and execution. And someone probably would. They would both have a better chance if they went their separate ways - he would be more anonymous; she would be able to distance herself from his crimes.

But would she ever forgive him for abandoning her?

'I have never loved anyone the way I love you,' he said truthfully.

'I know that,' she replied, squeezing his hand and releasing it. Now go, she silently pleaded. Before she lost her nerve.

He got to his feet, and she followed suit. They held each other tightly, shared a long and tender kiss.

'The next time we meet, make sure you've shaved,' she chided.

'I will.' He picked up the bag and hesitated as he realised it also contained her stuff.

'Take it,' she said. 'You'll need the papers. I've got all I need in Berlin.' He kissed her again, turned, and automatically wove his way through the tables, only remembering to age his stride when he was halfway across the concourse. There was still no one at the tunnel entrance, but there were checkers at the bottom of the stairs leading to his platform - one bored-looking Gestapo officer in a leather coat and a younger assistant in uniform. Russell moved slowly towards them, trying to 'walk old' in the way she had taught him.

The leather coat barely glanced at him, and let his subordinate check the papers. The young man took one look at the picture, one at his face, and handed them back.

He reached the top of the steps as the train was pulling in. It was long and crowded, but many of the passengers would be Stettin-bound. He waited patiently as they streamed off, and finally climbed aboard. There were vacant seats in the several compartments, but he knew better than to trust himself in company. Placing his bag on an empty rack, he moved back into the corridor and stood staring out at the empty platforms, a sense of utter desolation coalescing in his soul.