The Conduct of Major Maxim

Chapter18

Maxim woke with a slightly tender head – those blasted lieutenants and their silly jokes – and the sombre feeling that he must be getting truly old if he could no longer sleep through a normal wakey-wakey in barracks. He lay for some minutes listening to the clatter of boots, slamming of doors and distant shouts before the snorts and squeals of armoured personnel carriers below his window made him realise this was far from normal and was, in fact, an Agile Blade.

He was just wrapping himself in a garish Hong Kong dressing-gown when the door burst open and a hulking first lieutenant in combat dress, his helmet stuffed with leaves and his face already smeared with camouflage cream, stood staring at him. Maxim was about to explain when the lieutenant obviously came to a snap judgment on his military value and slammed out again. So he stood for ten minutes at the window watching soldiers tossing bundles of equipment into the gurgling FV 4325 parked around the parade ground and feeling the deep contentment of seeing other people working very hard very early in the day. Then he dressed and went down for what would now be a vulture's breakfast.

At nine o'clock he and the transient education officer were still sitting in the ante-room reading old copies of Country Life when the mess sergeant came in to say Mr Sims was on the phone.

He was all business. "I think you have all the papers? -good. Can you meet me at the parking place outside the cathedral in half an hour? I will come past in a dark blue Audi 100. Is that all right?"

"Make it a quarter to ten. I don't know how quickly I can get into town."

"Okay then, 0945."

Maxim got the film and certificates from his room, then stood for a moment at the top of the front steps, looking across the parade ground. It was another hot windless day, and they were living in a bowl of milky haze and smog, so that the blue only began perhaps twenty degrees above the horizon. It would be murder out in the field, digging in, and the soldiers knew it. They were all slumped in the shade of the vehicles, blurred by patches of cigarette smoke.

Then whistles started blowing and the scene shattered into movement. The mess sergeant appeared at Maxim's elbow, offering a key. "I don't know how long we'll be out, sir, but this is for the drinks cupboard. Write out a chit for whatever you use, as usual. And there'll be a sort of lunch in the cookhouse, nothing here. "

"Thank you, Sergeant."

The sergeant saluted and then, because Maxim wasn't wearing uniform, couldn't resist asking: "Are you really from Command, sir?"

Slightly surprised at a mess sergeant who didn't know all about every officer, Maxim was about to deny it when he realised that, by chance, he had found a great cover story. So he just smiled as enigmatically as he knew how, and pocketed the drinks key. The first personnel carriers rumbled out of the main gate, blocking the workday traffic, and he watched them now with envy because they were off to play soldiers and he hadn't been invited.

Sims stopped the car on a wooded readjust across the A64Autobahn, lit one of his menthol cigarettes and opened the envelope. "Is this everything?"

"Everything I got. It's what Blagg said. "

"Please tell me how you got it. "

Maxim ran through a brief version of the Blumenthalstrasse meeting while Sims counted the death certificates.

"You are sure the man Bruno gave you everything? He could perhaps have changed something." Sims took out a jeweller's eyeglass and peered at the tiny negatives.

"He could have. But he only had about a couple of hours to do it in – after I'd rung from Hannover. Until then he'd beenexpecting Blagg, and he might know exactly what he'd left." Maxim had decided to play this bland and straight – well, fairly straight. Captain Apgood and the prints he had made weren't even going to get a mention-in-despatches.

"I understand. But perhaps you think he would have changed something if he could?"

"Out of pure habit, yes."

Sims smiled at him. "Yes. Now, you have seen the certificates of death?" He had gone back to those.

"I had a look through. "

"And it seems that something happened at Dornhausen at 11.30 hours on April 15 1945. A bomb, do you think?"

"Probably. The place had been occupied by the Americans for ten days or more, but 9th Air Force was flying missions down to the south and Czechoslovakia until the end of the month. And not every bomb falls in the right place."

"That is very true, Major. But you have looked up some history for me? I am very grateful. "

Maxim shrugged. "The rest of the news doesn't look too good. I mean, there's a death certificate for her and I don't see how it could be faked. You'd have a problem trying to fit it into the sequence, wouldn't you? There'd be a number in a ledger – or something…"

"You are quite right, Major. You know something about these matters."

"Not really."

"Oh yes." He brooded for a moment. "You know I have a problem being in Germany. If I am recognised… I must be careful. Please, will you come to Bad Schwärzendemto help me?"

"I can tell you want to go, " George said. "And in the end I had to say you could. Co-operation, that's the word. Show willing – but not too much. I just wish The Firm would find somebody else to delegate to… and Harry, for God'ssake remember Number 10when it comes to the crunch. And don't let itcome to the crunch, either. "

He rang off and stared gloomily at the phone. He should have been saying No, Never, Not Again. Yet while he didn'tmuch care about the outcome of Plainsong, except in a generally patriotic sense, he cared very much that it shouldn't fail in any way that would leave a vindictive Foreign Office with a load of blame to distribute. Anything to keep Plainsong alive and Scott-Scobie andco. quiet until the news from Scotland got better. Or perhaps much worse. Well, by tomorrow we should know…

But of course we won't, he told himself. We go through life saying Well, tomorrow we shall know, one way or the other. Whether we've passed the exam, got thejob, if she's pregnant or not. And tomorrowcornesand we don't know. Oh, it brings plenty of its own unique disappointment and despair, but nothing to solve the dilemma of today.

He picked up the phone again and asked for Agnes at the Mount Row number. She was out.