Munich

4

The Lockheed Electra was bucketing through the low cloud that covered the English Channel. Beyond the windows there was nothing to be seen except an infinity of grey.

Legat sat in the same rear seat he had occupied on the flight to Munich, his chin in his hand, staring out at nothing. The Prime Minister was at the front with Wilson. Strang and Malkin were in the middle. Only Ashton-Gwatkin was missing: he was still in Prague, selling the agreement to the Czechs. The atmosphere on board was exhausted, melancholy. Malkin and Dunglass were asleep. There was a hamper of food in the locker behind Legat’s seat, provided by the Regina Palast Hotel, but when Chamberlain had been told it was a present from the Germans he had given orders it was not to be touched. It didn’t matter. Nobody was hungry.

Once again Legat could tell by the pressure in his ears when they were starting to descend. He took out his watch. It was just after five. Wilson leaned out of his seat. ‘Hugh!’ He gestured to him to come forward. ‘Gentlemen, could we talk?’

Legat walked unsteadily to the front of the plane. Strang and Malkin shifted into the seats behind the Prime Minister. He and Dunglass had to stand with their backs to the cockpit. The plane lurched and they knocked into one another. Wilson said, ‘I’ve been speaking to Commander Robinson. We should be on the ground in about half an hour. Apparently, there’s quite a crowd waiting for us, as you might imagine. The King has sent the Lord Chamberlain to conduct the PM directly to Buckingham Palace so that Their Majesties can convey their thanks in person. There will be a meeting of the Cabinet as soon as we get back to Downing Street.’

The Prime Minister said, ‘Obviously, I shall have to make a statement to the cameras.’

Strang cleared his throat. ‘May I say, Prime Minister, that I would urge you to treat any undertaking given by Hitler with the utmost caution? The actual agreement over the Sudetenland is one thing – most people will understand the reasons for that. But this other document …’ His voice trailed off.

He was seated directly behind Chamberlain. His long face was anguished. The Prime Minister had to turn his head slightly to reply to him, and Legat registered again how stubborn he was in profile. ‘I understand the Foreign Office point of view, William. I know Cadogan, for example, believes we should treat appeasement simply as a regrettable necessity – make it clear we have no practical alternative as things stand, use it purely as an opportunity to buy time, and announce a massive programme of rearmament. Well, we are rearming massively – next year alone we shall devote more than half of all government expenditure to arms.’ And now he spoke to them all – perhaps particularly to Legat, although he could never afterwards be sure. ‘I am not a pacifist. The main lesson I have learned in my dealings with Hitler is that one simply can’t play poker with a gangster if one has no cards in one’s hand. But if I speak in such terms when we land that will simply give him the excuse to continue his belligerence. Whereas if he keeps his word – and I happen to believe he will – we will avoid war.’

Strang persisted. ‘But what if he breaks his word?’

‘If he breaks it – well, then the world will see him for what he is. No one then can be in any doubt. It will unite the country and rally the Dominions in a way they simply are not at present. Who knows?’ He permitted himself a slight smile. ‘Perhaps it will even bring the Americans in on our side.’ He patted his pocket. ‘Therefore, I intend to give this joint declaration the maximum publicity as soon as we land in London.’

It was 5.38 p.m. when the Prime Minister’s plane finally broke through the clouds and appeared above Heston Aerodrome. As the ground flickered into view, Legat could see the traffic along the Great West Road. Cars were halted for more than a mile in either direction. It had been raining heavily. Headlights reflected off the wet tarmac. A vast swarm of people, thousands upon thousands of them, was clustered at the airport gates. The Lockheed roared low over the terminal building, dropping fast. He gripped the armrests. The wheels bounced on the grass runway a couple of times, then settled, and they lurched over the airfield at a hundred miles an hour, sending up a spray of water on either side, then braking sharply, before turning on to the concrete apron.

The scene beyond the window in the autumn gloom was chaotic – cameramen and newspaper reporters, airport workers, policemen, scores of Eton schoolboys bizarre in their formal dress, Cabinet ministers, MPs, diplomats, members of the public and the House of Lords, the Lord Mayor of London in his ceremonial chain. Even at a distance Legat could make out the immensely tall figure of Lord Halifax in his bowler hat standing like Don Quixote beside the diminutive Sancho Panza of Sir Alexander Cadogan. Syers was with them. Their umbrellas were furled. It must have stopped raining. There was only one car, a big old-fashioned Rolls-Royce, flying the Royal standard. A man in overalls guided them on to their stand and signalled that the pilot should cut the engines. The propellers stuttered to a stop.

The cockpit door opened. As before, when they landed in Munich, Commander Robinson stopped to exchange a few words with the Prime Minister, then came down the sloping aisle and opened the rear door. This time the gust of air that blew into the cabin was English, cold and wet. Legat stayed in his seat as the Prime Minister went past. His jaw was clenched with tension. How odd that a man so fundamentally shy should thrust himself into public life and fight his way to the top! The breeze caught the door, flapping it shut, and Chamberlain had to fend it off with his elbow. He bent out his head and descended into a terrific din of clapping and cheering and shouting that seemed almost hysterical. Wilson stood in the aisle and held back the others until the Prime Minister had cleared the bottom of the steps: the moment of glory must be the chief’s alone. Only after Chamberlain had started moving along the receiving line, shaking hands, did Wilson venture out after him, followed by Strang, Malkin and Dunglass.

Legat was the last to leave. The steps were slippery. The pilot caught his arm to steady him. In the damp blue twilight, the lights of the newsreel cameras were a brilliant white, like frozen lighting. Chamberlain finished greeting the dignitaries and turned to stand in front of a bank of a dozen microphones, crested with the names of their respective organisations: BBC, Movietone, CBS, Pathé. Legat could not see his face, only his narrow back and sloping shoulders silhouetted against the glare. He waited for the cheering to subside. His voice carried thin and clear in the wind.

‘There are only two things I want to say. First of all, I received a tremendous number of letters during all these anxious days – and so has my wife – letters of support and approval and gratitude; and I cannot tell you what an encouragement that has been to me. I want to thank the British people for what they have done.’

The crowd cheered again. Someone shouted, ‘What you have done!’ Another called out, ‘Good old Chamberlain!’

‘Next I want to say that the settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine …’ He held it aloft, flapping in the breeze. ‘Some of you perhaps have already heard what it contains, but I would just like to read it to you …’

He was too vain to put on his spectacles. He had to hold it at arm’s length to make it out. And that was Legat’s lasting image of the famous moment – carried burned into the retina of his memory until the day of his death, many years later, as an honoured public servant – the jagged black figure at the centre of a great bright light, his arm stretched out, like a man who had thrown himself on to an electrified fence.

The second Lockheed came in to land just as the Prime Minister was being driven away in the King’s Rolls-Royce. As Chamberlain reached the airport gates the distant applause of the well-wishers merged with the roar of aircraft engines. Syers said, ‘My goodness, would you listen to that! The roads are blocked all the way into central London.’

‘You’d think we’d just won a war rather than avoided one.’

‘There were thousands gathering in the Mall when we left. Apparently, the King and Queen intend to take him out on to the balcony. Here, let me carry that.’ He lifted one of the red boxes out of the aircraft hold. ‘So, how was it?’

‘Pretty ghastly, to be honest.’

They walked together across the apron towards the British Airways terminal. When they had gone about halfway, the newsreel lights were abruptly extinguished. In the sudden murk the crowd gave a good-humoured collective groan. They began to drift towards the exit. Syers said, ‘There’s a bus to ferry us all back to Downing Street. God knows how long it will take.’

Inside the packed terminal, the Italian and French Ambassadors were talking to the Lord Chancellor and the Minister of War. Syers went off to see about the bus. Legat stayed behind to guard the red boxes. Exhausted, he sat down on a bench beneath a poster advertising flights to Stockholm. There was a telephone box by the customs desk. He wondered if he should call Pamela to let her know he had landed, but the thought of her voice and her inevitable questions depressed him. Through the large plate-glass window, he could see the straggle of passengers from the second Lockheed coming into the terminal. Sir Joseph Horner was between the two detectives. Joan was walking with Miss Anderson. She was carrying a suitcase in one hand and a portable typewriter in the other. She headed in his direction the moment she saw him.

‘Mr Legat!’

‘Really, Joan, do call me Hugh, for goodness’ sake.’

‘Hugh, then.’ She sat down next to him and lit a cigarette. ‘Well, that was thrilling.’

‘Was it?’

‘Yes, I’d say it was.’ She turned to face him and looked him up and down. Her gaze was frank. ‘I wanted to catch you before we left Munich but you’d already taken off. I have a tiny confession to make.’

‘And what is that?’ She was very pretty. But he wasn’t in the mood for a flirtation.

She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Between you and me, Hugh, I am not altogether what I seem.’

‘No?’

‘No. In fact, I am something of a guardian angel.’

Now she was starting to get on his nerves. He looked around the terminal. The Ambassadors were still talking to the Ministers. Syers was in the telephone box, presumably trying to track down their bus. He said wearily, ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

She hauled her suitcase up on to her lap. ‘Colonel Menzies is my uncle – well, the father of a second cousin, to be more precise about it – and he likes to give me the odd errand to run. The truth is, the reason I was sent to Munich, apart from my typing skills, which are exemplary, was to watch over you.’ She snapped the catches, opened the lid, and from beneath her neatly folded underwear extracted the memorandum. It was still in its original envelope. ‘I took it from your room last night, for safekeeping, after you went off with your friend. And really, Hugh – I like your name, by the way: it suits you – really, Hugh, thank God I did.’

The fact of his continuing freedom was miraculous to Hartmann. That afternoon, as he left the Führerbau to be driven to the airport, and later as he sat on board the Junkers passenger plane that had been chartered by the Foreign Ministry to fly them home, and especially that evening when he landed at Tempelhof – at each stage of his journey back to Berlin he expected to be arrested. But there was to be no hand on his arm, no sudden confrontation by men in plain clothes, no ‘Herr Hartmann, will you come with us?’ Instead he walked unmolested through the terminal building to the taxi rank.

The city was full of Friday-night revellers, enjoying the unexpected peace. He no longer felt the same contempt for them he had in Munich. Each raised glass, each smile, each arm around a lover he now saw as a gesture against the regime.

The bell inside her apartment rang unanswered for a long time. He was on the point of giving up. But then he heard the sound of the lock turning and the door opened and there she was.

Later that night, she said, ‘They will hang you one day – you know that, don’t you?’

They were lying at opposite ends of the bath, facing one another. She had lit a candle. Through the open door came the sound of an illegal foreign radio station, playing jazz.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because they told me so, just before they let me go. “Stay away from him, Frau Winter – that is our advice to you. We know his type. He may think he’s got away with it today, but we will catch him out eventually.” They were perfectly polite about it.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I thanked them for the warning.’

He laughed and stretched out his absurdly long legs. Water slopped on to the floor. He could feel her skin smooth against his. She was right. They were right. They would hang him one day – on 20 August 1944, to be exact, in Plötensee Prison, at the end of a length of piano wire: he could sense his destiny even if he could not be exact about it – but there was life to be lived before then, and a battle to fight, and a cause that was worth dying for.

Legat was finally sent home a little after 10 p.m. Cleverly had told him there was no need for him to wait until the end of the Cabinet meeting: Syers would handle the boxes; he should take the weekend off.

He walked from Number 10 through streets that were filled with people celebrating. Fireworks were being set off here and there across the city. The flashes of rockets lit the sky.

The upstairs windows were in darkness. The children must be asleep. He turned his key in the lock and set down his suitcase in the hall. He could see the light on in the sitting room. Pamela put aside her book as soon as he came in. ‘Darling!’ She jumped up and threw her arms around him. For more than a minute they didn’t speak. Finally, she broke away and cupped his face in her hands. Her eyes searched his. She said, ‘I have missed you so much.’

‘How are you? How are the children?’

‘Better for having you home.’

She started to unbutton his coat. He caught her hands. ‘No, don’t. I’m not staying.’

She took a step backwards. ‘You have to go back to work?’ It was not a criticism; it sounded more like a hope.

‘No, it’s not work. I’ll just go up and see the children.’

The house was so small they shared a room. John had a bed. Diana was still in a cot. He never ceased to wonder at the quality of the silence when the children were asleep. By the glow of the landing light they lay, unmoving in the semi-darkness, their mouths slightly open. He touched their hair. He wanted to kiss them but didn’t dare in case he woke them. From the top of the chest of drawers the eyepieces of their gas masks watched him. Gently, he closed the door.

Pamela had her back to him when he went down into the sitting room. She turned, dry-eyed. Emotional scenes were never her style. He was thankful for that. She said calmly, ‘How long will you be gone?’

‘I’ll just stay at the club. I’ll come back in the morning. We can talk then.’

‘I can change, you know. If you want me to.’

‘Everything has to change, Pamela. You, me, everything. I’ve been thinking I might resign from the Service.’

‘And do what?’

‘You won’t laugh?’

‘Try me.’

‘I thought on the flight back that I might join the RAF.’

‘But I just heard Chamberlain on the wireless telling the crowd in Downing Street it was peace for our time.’

‘He shouldn’t have done that. He regretted it the moment he said it.’ According to Dunglass, Mrs Chamberlain had talked him into it: she was the one person he never could refuse.

‘So you still think there’ll be a war?’

‘I’m sure of it.’

‘Then what has this all been about – all this hope, this celebration?’

‘It’s simply relief. And I don’t blame people for it. When I look at the children, I feel it myself. But all that’s happened really is that a tripwire has been laid down for the future. And Hitler will cross it, sooner or later.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

She didn’t reply. He picked up his suitcase and went out into the night. Someone in Smith Square was letting off rockets. In the gardens he could hear cries of delight. The old buildings gleamed fitfully in the cascades of falling sparks and then returned to darkness.