The Young Lions

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHRISTIAN found it hard to keep his mind on the moving picture. It was a fairly good picture, too, about a detachment of troops in Berlin for one day in 1918 en route from the Russian Front to the Western Front. The Lieutenant in the picture was under strict orders to keep his men together at the station, but he understood how much they wanted to see their wives and sweethearts, after the ferocious battles in the East and the fatal battles-to-come in the West. At the risk of court-martial and death, he permitted them to go to their homes. If any one of them failed to get back to the station on time, the Lieutenant's life would be forfeit. The picture followed the various men. Some got drunk, some were tempted by Jews and defeatists to remain in Berlin, some were nearly persuaded by their wives, and for a while it was touch-and-go whether the Lieutenant would survive the gamble. But finally, in the nick of time, the last soldier made the station just as the train was pulling out, and it was a solid band of comrades who started towards France, having vindicated their Lieutenant's faith in them. The picture was very well done. It cleverly demonstrated that the war had not been lost by the Army, but by the faint-hearts and the traitors at home, and it was full of touches of humour and pathos.

Even the soldiers who were sitting in the troop theatre all around Christian were moved by the actors playing soldiers in another war. The Lieutenant was a little too good to be true, of course, and Christian had never come across one quite like him. Lieutenant Hardenburg, Christian thought dryly, could profit by seeing this picture a few times. Since the one day of relaxation in the brothel in Paris, Hardenburg had grown more and more rigid with the lengthening of the war. Their regiment had had their armour taken from them and had been moved to Rennes. They had been stationed there, as policemen, more than anything else, while the war with Russia had started and all of Hardenburg's contemporaries were winning honours in the East.

One morning Hardenburg had read that a boy with whom he had been at the officers' school – they all called him Ox because he was so backward – had been made a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Ukraine, and Hardenburg had nearly exploded with fury. He was still a Lieutenant, and even though he was living well, in a two-room apartment in one of the best hotels in the town, and he had an arrangement with two women who lived on the same floor, and was making considerable money blackmailing illegal operators in meat and dairy products, Hardenburg was inconsolable. And an inconsolable Lieutenant, Christian thought grimly, made for an unhappy Sergeant.

It was a good thing Christian's leave was beginning tomorrow. Another unrelieved week of Hardenburg's snapping sarcasm might have driven Christian to some dangerous act of insubordination. Even now, Christian thought resentfully, when he knows I'm leaving on the seven o'clock train for Germany in the morning, he's put me on duty. There was a patrol scheduled for midnight to round up some French boys who were dodging labour service in Germany, and Hardenburg hadn't picked Himmler or Stein or any of the others for it. That nasty, thin grin, and, "I know you won't mind, Diestl. Keep you from being bored your last night in Rennes. You don't have to report till midnight."

The picture faded out on a close-up of the handsome young Lieutenant smiling tenderly and thoughtfully at his collected men as the train sped west, and there was real applause from the soldiers in the hall.

The newsreel came on. There were pictures of Hitler talking and the Luftwaffe dropping bombs on London and Goering pinning a medal on a pilot who had downed a hundred planes, and infantry advancing against a burning farm building on the road to Leningrad.

One of the men on the screen fell. It was hard to tell whether he was taking cover or had been hit, but he didn't get up, and the camera passed over him. Christian felt his eyes growing wet. He was a little ashamed of himself for it, but every time he saw these films of Germans fighting, while he sat safe and comfortable so far away, he had to curb a tendency to cry. And he always felt guilty and uneasy and was sharp-tempered with his men for days afterwards. It wasn't his fault that he was alive while others were dying. The Army performed its intricate functions in its own way, but he couldn't fight off the sense of guilt. And even the thought of going home for two weeks was flavoured by it. Young Frederick Langerman had lost a leg in Latvia and both sons of the Kochs had been killed and it would be impossible to avoid the measuring, contemptuous stares of his neighbours when he came back, well-fed and whole, with one half-hour of semi-comic combat outside Paris behind him.

The war, he thought, had to end soon. Suddenly his civilian life, the easy-going, thoughtless days on the snowy slopes, the days without Lieutenant Hardenburg, seemed unbearably sweet and desirable. Well, the Russians were about to cash in, and then the British would finally see the light, and he would forget those boring, silly days in France. Two months after it was over people would stop talking about the war, and a clerk who added figures in the quartermaster's office in Berlin for three years would get as much respect as a man who had stormed pillboxes in Poland, Belgium and Russia. Then, Hardenburg might show up some day, still a Lieutenant… or even better, discharged as unnecessary. And Christian could go off alone in the hills and… He smiled sourly as he recognized the recurrent, childish dream. How long, he wondered, would they be likely to keep him in after the armistice was signed? Those would be the really difficult months, when the war was over and you were just waiting for the slow, enormous machinery of the Army's bureaucracy to release you.

The lights went up and Christian moved slowly out among the crowd of soldiers. They all looked middle-aged, Christian thought bitterly, and like men who suffered from frailty and disease. Garrison troops, contemptuously left in a peaceful country while the better specimens of German manhood were out fighting the nation's battles thousands of miles away. And he was one of them. He shook his head irritably. He'd better stop this or he'd get as bad as Hardenburg.

There were still some French men and women on the dark streets and they hastily stepped down into the gutter as he approached. He was annoyed at them, too. Timidity was one of the most irritating qualities in the human character. And it was a more or less needless and unfounded timidity, which was worse. He wasn't going to hurt them and the entire Army was under the strictest orders to behave correctly and with the utmost politeness to the French. Germans, he thought, as a man stumbled a little stepping down from the kerb, Germans would never behave like that if there were a foreign army in Germany. Any foreign army.

He looked at his watch. He still had twenty minutes before having to report to the orderly room. There was a cafe open across the street and he suddenly needed a drink.

He opened the door. There were four soldiers drinking champagne at a table. They were red-faced and they had obviously been drinking a long time. They had their tunics unbuttoned and two of them needed a shave. Champagne, too. Certainly not on a private's pay. Probably they were selling stolen German Army weapons to the French. The French weren't using them, of course, but there was no telling what might happen finally. Even the French might regain their courage. An army of blackmarket merchants, Christian thought bitterly, dealers in leather and ammunition and Normandy cheese and wine and veal. Leave them in France another two years and you wouldn't be able to distinguish them from the French except by their uniforms. The subtle, shabby victory of the Gallic spirit.

"A vermouth," Christian said to the proprietor, who was standing nervously behind the bar. "No, a brandy."

He leaned against the bar and stared at the four soldiers. The champagne was probably awful. Brandt had told him the French put any kind of label on any kind of miserable wine. The Germans didn't know better, and it was the French way of fighting back, patriotism mixed, of course, with profit. The four soldiers noticed Christian watching them. They became a little self-conscious and lowered their voices as they drank. Christian saw one of the men rub his hand guiltily across his unshaven cheek. The proprietor put the brandy down in front of Christian and he sipped at it, staring stonily at the four soldiers. One of the men took out his wallet to pay for a new bottle of champagne and Christian saw that it was bulging carelessly with francs. God, was it for these soft, conniving gangsters that Germans were hurling themselves against the Russian lines? Was it for these flabby shopkeepers that the Luftwaffe was burning over London?

"You," Christian said, to the man with the wallet. "Come over here!"

The man with the wallet looked at his comrades thoughtfully. They were very quiet and they stared down into their glasses. The man with the wallet stood up slowly and stuffed his money away in a pocket.

"Move!" Christian said fiercely. "Get over here."

The soldier shuffled over to Christian, his face growing pale under his stubble.

"Stand up!" Christian said. "Stand at attention!" The man stiffened, looking more frightened than ever.

"What's your name?" Christian snapped.

"Private Hans Reuter, Sergeant," the man said, in a low, nervous voice.

Christian took out a pencil and a slip of paper and wrote the name down. "Unit?" he asked.

The soldier swallowed unhappily. "147th Battalion of Pioneers," he said.

Christian wrote that down. "The next time you go out to drink, Private Reuter," he said, "you will shave and keep your tunic buttoned. You will also stand at attention when addressing your superiors. I'm submitting your name for disciplinary action."

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Dismissed."

Reuter sighed and turned back to his table.

"All of you," Christian called bitingly, "dress like soldiers!" The men buttoned their tunics. They sat in silence. Christian turned his back on them and stared at the proprietor.

"Another brandy, Sergeant?"

"No."

Christian put some money on the bar for the drink, finished the brandy. He stalked out without looking at the four soldiers sitting in the corner.

Lieutenant Hardenburg was sitting in the orderly room with his cap and gloves on. He sat erect, as though he was on a horse, staring across the room at the Propaganda Ministry's map of Russia, with the battle lines, as of last Tuesday, drawn on it in victorious black and red strokes. The orderly room was in an old French police building, and there was a smell of ancient small crimes and unwashed French policemen that all the brisk cleanliness of the German Army had failed to eradicate. A single small bulb burned overhead and it was hot because the windows and blinds were closed for the blackout and the ghosts of all the petty criminals who had been in the room seemed to be hovering in the stale air.

When Christian came into the room, a little, greasy man in the uniform of the French Milice was standing uneasily near the window, occasionally glancing at Hardenburg. Christian stood at attention and saluted, thinking: This cannot go on for ever, this will end some day.

Hardenburg paid no attention to him and it was only because Christian knew him so well that he was sure Hardenburg was aware he was in the room, and waiting. Christian stood rigidly at the doorway, examining the Lieutenant's face.

As Christian watched Hardenburg, he knew that he hated that face worse than the faces of any of his enemies. Worse than Churchill, worse than Stalin, worse than any tank captain or mortar gunner in the British or Russian Armies.

Hardenburg looked at his watch. "Ah," he said, without looking round, "the Sergeant's on time."

"Yes, Sir," said Christian.

Hardenburg strode over to the paper-littered desk and sat down behind it. He picked up one of the papers and said, "Here are the names and photographs of three men we have been looking for. They were called for Labour Service last month and have evaded us so far. This gentleman…" with a slight, cold gesture towards the Frenchman in the Milice uniform… "this gentleman pretends to know where all three can be found."

"Yes, Lieutenant," the Frenchman said eagerly. "Absolutely, Lieutenant."

"You will take a detail of five," Hardenburg said, going on as though the Frenchman were not in the room, "and pick up these three men. There is a truck and a driver in the courtyard and the detail is already in it."

"Yes, Sir," said Christian.

"You," said Hardenburg to the Frenchman. "Get out of here."

"Yes, Sir." The Frenchman gasped a little as he spoke, and went quickly out of the door.

Hardenburg stared at the map on the wall. Christian felt himself begin to sweat in the warm room. All the lieutenants in the German Army, he thought, and I had to get Hardenburg.

"At ease, Diestl." Hardenburg did not stop looking at the map.

Christian moved his feet slightly.

"Everything in order?" Hardenburg asked in a conversational tone. "You have all the proper papers for your leave?"

"Yes, Sir," said Christian. Now, he thought, this is going to happen. It's going to be cancelled. Unbearable.

"You're going to Berlin first, before going home?"

"Yes, Sir."

Hardenburg nodded, without taking his eyes from the map.

"Lucky man," he said. "Two weeks among Germans, instead of these swine." He made an abrupt gesture of his head, indicating the spot where the Frenchman had been standing. "I've been trying to get leave for four months. Can't be spared," he said bitterly. "Too important here." He almost laughed. "I wonder if you could do me a favour?"

"Of course, Sir," said Christian, and then was angry with himself for the alacrity with which he spoke.

Hardenburg took out a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked one of the desk drawers. He lifted a small, carefully wrapped package out of the drawer and locked it methodically again. "My wife," he said, "lives in Berlin. I've written the address down here." He gave Christian a slip of paper. "I've er… secured… a beautiful piece of lace here." He tapped the package gravely. "Very beautiful. Black. From Brussels. My wife is very fond of lace. I had hoped to be able to give it to her in person, but the prospect of leave… And the mail system." He shook his head. "They must have every thief in Germany in the post offices. After the war," he said angrily, "there should be a thorough investigation. However… I was thinking, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, my wife lives quite near the station…"

"I'd be delighted," Christian said stiffly.

"Thank you." Hardenburg handed Christian the package.

"Give her my most tender regards," Hardenburg said. He smiled frostily. "You might even say I think of her constantly."

"Yes, Sir," said Christian.

"Very good. Now, about these three men." He tapped the sheet in front of him. "I know I can depend upon you."

"Yes, Sir."

"I have been instructed that it might be advisable to be a little rough in these matters from now on," Hardenburg said. "As an example to the others. Nothing serious, you understand, but a little shouting, a blow with the back of the hand, a show of guns…"

"Yes, Sir," said Christian, holding gently on to the package of lace, feeling it soft under the paper.

"That will be all, Sergeant." Hardenburg turned back to the map. "Enjoy yourself in Berlin."

"Thank you, Sir." Christian saluted. "Heil Hitler."

But Hardenburg was already lost among the armour on the rolling plains on the road to Smolensk, and he barely lifted his hand as Christian went out of the door, stuffing the lace into his tunic and buttoning it to make sure the package would not fall out.

The first two men on the list were hiding out together in an unused garage. They grinned a little worriedly at the sight of the guns and soldiers, but they made no trouble.

The next address the Milice Frenchman directed them to was in a slum neighbourhood. The house itself smelled of bad plumbing and garlic. The boy they dragged out of bed clung to his mother and they both screamed hysterically. The mother bit one of the soldiers and he hit her in the belly and knocked her down. There was an old man who sat at a table weeping, with his head in his hands. All in all, it was as unpleasant as could be. There was another man in the apartment, too, hiding in one of the cupboards. Christian suspected from the look of him that he was a Jew. His papers were out of date and he was so frightened he couldn't answer any questions at all. For a moment Christian was tempted to leave him alone. After all, he had only been sent out for the three boys, not to pick up random suspects, and if it turned out the man was a Jew it would mean concentration camp and eventual death. But the man from the Milice kept watching him and whispering, "Juif, Juif." He'd be sure to tell Hardenburg and it would be just like Hardenburg to have Christian recalled from his leave to face charges of neglect of duty.

"You'd better come along," he said, as kindly as possible, to the Jew. The man was fully dressed. He had been sleeping with all his clothes on, even his shoes, as though he had been ready to flee at a second's notice. He looked blankly around the room, at the middle-aged woman lying on the floor moaning and holding her belly, at the old man bowed over and weeping at the table, at the crucifix over the bureau, as though it was his last home and death was waiting for him the moment he stepped outside the door. He tried to say something, but his mouth merely hung open and went through the motions of speech without any sound coming from the pale lips.

Christian was glad to get back to the police barracks and deliver his prisoners over to the Duty Officer. He made out his report, sitting at Hardenburg's desk. It hadn't been so bad. Altogether, the whole business had only taken a little over three hours. He heard a scream from the back of the building as he was writing, and he frowned a little. Barbarians, he thought. As soon as you make a man a policeman you make him a sadist. He thought of going back there and stopping them, and even got up from the desk to do it, then thought better of it. There might be an officer back there and he'd get into trouble interfering.

He left a copy of the report on Hardenburg's desk, where he could see it in the morning, and left the building. It was a fine autumn night, and the stars were sharp in the sky above the buildings. The city looked better in the dark, too, and the square in front of the city hall was quite beautiful, spacious, well-proportioned, and empty under the moon. Things could be worse, Christian thought as he walked slowly across the pavement, I could be in worse places.

He turned off near the river and rang the bell of Corinne's house. The concierge came out grumbling, but kept respectfully silent when she saw who it was.

Christian went up the creaking old steps and knocked on Corinne's door. The door opened quickly, as though Corinne had been awake, waiting for him. She kissed him warmly. She was in a nightgown, almost transparent, and her heavy, firm breasts were warm from bed as Christian held her to him.

Corinne was the wife of a French corporal who had been taken prisoner outside Metz in 1940 and was in a labour camp now near Konigsberg. She was a large woman with thick ropes of dyed hair. When Christian had first met her in a cafe seven months ago he had thought she was striking and voluptuous-looking. But she was an affectionate, easy-going woman with a mild, placid style of making love, and from time to time as he lay beside her in the big double bed of the absent corporal, Christian had the feeling that he had no need of travelling for wares like this. There must be five million peasant girls in Bavaria and the Tyrol, he felt, exactly as fat, exactly as firm, exactly as bovine. The fabled women of France, the quickwitted, mercurial, exciting girls who made a man's heart quicken when he thought of the flashing streets of Paris and the South, all seemed to have escaped Christian. Ah, he thought, as he sat on the heavy carved walnut chair in Corinne's bedroom, taking off his shoes, ah, I suppose you have to be an officer for that kind. He thought heavily of his application for officers' school, lost in the traps of Army communications, and he had to hide the expression of distaste on his face as he watched Corinne climb domestically into bed, her large buttocks shining in the lamplight.

Corinne got up and prepared breakfast for him. There was white bread he had brought her from the shop that did the baking for the officers' mess. The coffee, of course, was ersatz, thin and black. He felt his mouth draw sourly as he drank it in the still-dark kitchen. Corinne looked sleepy and messy, with her heavy hair in disorder, but she moved around the kitchen deftly enough.

"Cheri," she said, sipping her coffee noisily, "you will not forget me in Germany?"

"No," said Christian.

"You will be back in three weeks?"

"Yes."

"Definitely?"

"Definitely."

"You will bring me something from Berlin?" She coquetted heavily.

"Yes," said Christian, "I'll bring you something."

She smiled widely at him. The truth was, she was always asking for something, new dresses, black-market meat, stockings, perfume, a little cash because the sofa needed recovering… When the corporal-husband comes back from Germany, Christian thought unpleasantly, he'll find his wife well fitted out. There'll be a question or two he'll want to ask when he looks through the cupboards.

"Cheri" Corinne said, munching strongly and evenly on her bread, which she had soaked in the coffee, "I have arranged for my brother-in-law to meet you when you return."

"What's that?" Christian looked at her, puzzled.

"I told you about him," Corinne said. "My husband's brother. The one with the produce business. Milk and eggs and cheese. You know. He has a very nice offer from a broker in town here. He can make a fortune if the war lasts long enough."

"Good," said Christian. "I'm delighted to hear your family is doing well."

"Cheri…" Corinne looked at him reproachfully. "Cheri, don't be mean. It isn't as simple as that."

"What does he want from me?" Christian asked.

"The problem is, getting it into the city." Corinne spoke defensively. "You know the patrols on the roads, at the entrances. Checking up to see whether it is requisitioned material or not. You know."

"Yes?"

"My brother-in-law asked if I knew a German officer…"

"I am not an officer."

"Sergeant, my brother-in-law said, was good enough. Somebody who could get some kind of pass from the authorities. Somebody who three times a week could meet his truck outside the city and drive in with it at night…" Corinne stood up and came around the table and played with his hair. Christian wriggled a little, certain she had neglected to wipe the butter off her fingers. "He is willing to share fifty-fifty in the profits," Corinne said, in a wheedling tone, "and later on, if you find it possible to secure some petrol, and he can use two more trucks, you could make yourself a rich man. Everybody is doing it, you know, your own Lieutenant…"

"I know about my own Lieutenant," Christian said. God, he thought, her husband's brother, and the husband rotting in prison, and the brother anxious to go into business with the wife's German lover. The amenities of French family life.

"In matters of money, Cheri," Corinne held him closely around the neck, "it is necessary to be practical."

"Tell your miserable brother-in-law," Christian said loudly, "that I am a soldier, not a black-market merchant."

Corinne took her arms away. "Cheri," she said coldly, "there is no need to be insulting. All the others are soldiers too and they are making fortunes."

"I am not all the others," Christian shouted.

"I think," Corinne said, beginning to cry, "that you are tired of me."

"Oh, God," Christian said. He put on his tunic and picked up his cap. He wrenched the door open and went out.

Outside, in the dawn, smelling the cool, thin air, he felt less angry. After all, it had been a pleasant convenience, and a man could do much worse. Ah, he thought, it will wait till I get back from Germany.

He strode down the street, sleepy, but each moment more happily excited with the thought that at seven o'clock he would be in the train and leaving for home.

Berlin was glorious in the autumn sunlight. Christian had never liked the city much, but today, as he walked out of the station, carrying his bag, there seemed to be an air of solidity and purpose, a dash and smartness to the uniforms and even the clothing of the civilians, a general sense of energy and wellbeing that was in refreshing contrast to the drabness and boredom of the French towns in which he had spent the last twelve months.

He got out the paper that had Mrs Hardenburg's address on it. As he took it out of his pocket he remembered that he had neglected to report the Pioneer private who had needed a shave. Well, he would have to remember that when he got back.

He debated with himself whether he should find a hotel first or deliver the package to Hardenburg's wife. He decided in favour of delivering the package. He would get that over, and then, for two weeks, his time would be completely his own, with no hangovers or duties from the world he had left behind him at Rennes. As he walked through the sunny streets, he idly mapped out a programme for himself for the next two weeks. Concerts and the theatre. There were agencies where soldiers could get tickets for nothing, and he would have to be careful of his money. It was too bad it was too early for skiing. That would have been the best thing. But he hadn't dared delay his leave. In the Army, he had learned, he who waits is lost, and a leave delayed is more often than not a leave vanished.

The Hardenburg apartment was in a new, impressive-looking building. A uniformed attendant stood at the door and there were heavy carpets in the foyer. As he waited for the lift, Christian wondered how the Lieutenant's wife managed to live so well.

He rang the bell on the fourth floor and waited. The door opened and a blonde woman with loose dishevelled hair, which made her look as though she had just risen from bed, was standing there. "Yes?" she asked, her voice brusque and annoyed.

"What do you want?"

"I'm Sergeant Diestl," Christian said, thinking: Not a bad life, just getting up at eleven in the morning. "I'm in Lieutenant Hardenburg's company."

"Yes?" The woman's voice was wary, and she did not open the door fully. She was dressed in a quilted silk dressing-gown of deep crimson and she kept pushing her hair back out of her eyes with a graceful, impatient gesture. Christian couldn't help thinking: Not bad for the Lieutenant, not bad at all.

"I've just arrived in Berlin on leave," Christian said, speaking slowly so that he could get a good look at her. She was a tall woman, with a long, slender waist, and a full bosom that the dressing-gown did not quite hide. "The Lieutenant has a gift for you. He asked me if I would deliver it."

The woman looked thoughtfully at Christian for a moment. She had large, cold, grey eyes, well set in her head, but too deliberate, Christian thought, too full of calculation and judgment. Then she decided to smile.

"Ah," she said, and her voice was very warm. "I know who you are. The serious one on the steps of the Opera."

"What?" Christian asked, puzzled.

"The photograph," the woman said. "The day Paris fell."

"Oh, yes." Christian remembered. He smiled at her.

"Come in, come in…" She took his arm and pulled at it.

"Bring your bag. It's so nice of you to come. Come in, come in…"

The living-room was large. A huge plate-glass window looked out over the surrounding roofs. The room was in a profound state of clutter at the moment, bottles, glasses, cigar and cigarette butts on the floor, a broken wine-glass on a table, items of women's clothing strewn around on the chairs. Mrs Hardenburg looked at it and shook her head.

"God," she said, "isn't it awful? You just can't keep a maid these days." She moved a bottle from one table to another and emptied an ash-tray into the fireplace. Then she surveyed the room once more in despair. "I can't," she said, "I just can't." She sank into a deep chair, her long legs bare as they stuck out in front of her, her feet encased in high-heeled red fur mules.

"Sit down, Sergeant," she said, "and forgive the way this room looks. It's the war, I tell myself." She laughed. "After the war, I will remake my entire life. I will become a tremendous housekeeper. Every pin in place. But for the present…" She waved at the disorder. "We must try to survive. Tell me about the Lieutenant."

"Well," said Christian, trying to remember some noble or amusing fact about Hardenburg, and trying to remember not to tell his wife that he had two girls in Rennes or that he was one of the leading black-market profiteers in Brittany, "Well, he is very dissatisfied, as you know, with…"

"Oh." She sat up and leaned over towards him, her face excited and lively. "The gift. The gift. Where is it?"

Christian laughed self-consciously. He bent over to his bag and got out the package. While he was bending over his bag he was aware of Mrs Hardenburg's measuring stare. When he turned back to her she did not drop her eyes, but kept them fixed on him, directly and embarrassingly. He walked over to her and handed her the package. She didn't look at it but stared coolly into his eyes, a slight, equivocal smile on her lips. She looks like an Indian, Christian thought, a wild American Indian.

"Thank you," she said, finally. She turned then and ripped open the paper of the package. Her movements were nervous and sharp, her long, red-tipped fingers tearing in flickering movements over the wrinkled brown paper. "Ah," she said flatly.

"Lace. What widow did he steal this from?"

"What?"

Mrs Hardenburg laughed. She touched Christian's shoulder in a gesture of apology. "Nothing," she said. "I don't want to disillusion my husband's troops." She put the lace over her hair. It fell in soft black lines over the straight pale hair. "How does it look?" she asked. She tilted her head, close to Christian, and there was an expression on her face that Christian was too old not to recognize. He took a step towards her. She lifted her arms and he kissed her.

She pulled away. She turned without looking at him again and walked before him into the bedroom, the lace trailing down her back to her swinging waist. There's no doubt about it, Christian thought as he slowly followed her, this is better than Corinne.

She lifted a bottle. "Vodka," she said. "A friend of mine brought me three bottles from Poland."

He sat on the edge of the bed holding the glasses while she poured out two large drinks. She placed the bottle down without putting the cork back. The drink tasted searing and rich as it flowed down his throat. The woman downed hers with one swift gulp. "Ah," she said, "now we're alive." She leaned over and brought the bottle up again and silently poured for them both. "You took so long," she said, touching his glass with hers, "getting to Berlin."

"I was a fool," Christian said, grinning. "I didn't know." They drank. The woman dropped her glass to the floor. She reached up and pulled him down on her. "I have an hour," she said, "before I have to go."

Later, still in bed, they finished the bottle and Christian got up and found another in a cupboard stocked with vodka from Poland and Russia, Scotch that had been captured at British Headquarters in 1940, champagnes and brandies and fine Burgundies in straw covers, slivovitz from Hungary, aquavit, chartreuse, sherry, Benedictine and white Bordeaux. He opened the bottle and put it down on the floor, convenient to the woman's hand. He stood over her, wavering a little, looking at the outstretched, savage body, slender but full-breasted. She stared gravely up at him, her eyes half-surrendering, half-hating. That was the most exciting thing about her, he decided suddenly, that look. As he dropped to the bed beside her he thought: At last the war has brought me something good.

"How long," she said, in her deep voice, "how long are you going to stay?"

"In bed?" he asked.

She laughed. "In Berlin, Sergeant."

"I…" he began. He was going to tell her that his plan was to stay a week and then go home to Austria for the second week of his leave. "I," he said, "I'm staying two weeks."

"Good," she said dreamily. "But not good enough." She ran her hand lightly over his belly. "Perhaps I will talk to certain friends of mine in the War Office. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have you stationed in Berlin. What do you think of that?"

"I think," said Christian slowly, "it's a marvellous idea."

"And now," she said, "we have another drink. If it weren't for the war," her voice came softly over the sound of the liquor pouring into the glass, "if it weren't for the war, I'd never have discovered vodka." She laughed and poured out another drink for him.

"Tonight," she said, "after twelve. All right?"

"Yes."

"You haven't got another girl in Berlin?"

"No, I haven't another girl anywhere."

"Poor Sergeant. Poor lying Sergeant. I have a Lieutenant in Leipzig, a Colonel in Libya, a Captain in Abbeville, another Captain in Prague, a Major in Athens, a Brigadier-General in the Ukraine. That is not taking into account my husband, the Lieutenant, in Rennes. He has some queer tastes, my husband."

"Yes."

"A girl's men friends scattered in a war. You're the first Sergeant I've known since the war, though. Aren't you proud?"

"Ridiculous."

The woman giggled. "I'm going out with a full Colonel tonight and he is giving me a sable coat he brought back from Russia. Can you imagine what his face would be like if I told him I was coming home to a little Sergeant?"

"Don't tell him."

"I'll hint. That's all. Just a little hint. After the coat's on my back. Tiny little dirty hint. I think I'll have you made a Lieutenant. Man with your ability." She giggled again. "You laugh. I can do it. Simplest thing in the world. Let's drink to Lieutenant Diestl." They drank to Lieutenant Diestl.

"What're you going to do this afternoon?" the woman asked.

"Nothing much," said Christian. "Walk around, wait for midnight."

"Waste of time. Buy me a little present." She got out of bed and went over to the table where she had dropped the lace. She draped the lace over her head. "A little pin," she said, holding the lace together under her throat, "a little brooch for here would be very nice, don't you think?"

"Yes."

"Marvellous shop," the woman said, "on Tauentzienstrasse corner Kurfurstendamm. They have a little garnet pin that might be very useful. You might go there."

"I'll go there."

"Good." The woman smiled at him and came slowly in her sliding naked walk over to the bed. She dropped down on one knee and kissed his throat. "It was very nice of the Lieutenant," she said whispering into the crease of Christian's throat, "very nice to send that lace. I must write him and tell him it was delivered safely."

Christian went to the shop on Tauentzienstrasse and bought a small garnet brooch. He held it in his hand, thinking of how it would look at Mrs Hardenburg's throat. He grinned as he realized he didn't know her first name. The brooch cost 240 marks, but he could cut down on his other expenses. He found a small boarding-house near the station that was cheap and he left his bag there. It was dirty and full of soldiers. But he wouldn't be spending much time there, anyway.

He sent a telegram to his mother, telling her that it was impossible to get home on his leave, and asking if she could lend him 200 marks. It was the first time since he was sixteen that he had asked her for money, but he knew his family was doing very well this year, and they could spare it.

Christian went back to the boarding-house and tried to sleep, but he kept thinking of the morning and sleep would not come. He shaved and changed his clothes and went out. It was five-thirty in the afternoon, still light, and Christian walked slowly down Friedrichstrasse, smiling as he listened to the bustling snatches of German spoken on all sides. He shook his head gently when he was solicited by girls on the corners. He noticed that they were spectacularly well-dressed, real fur-pieces and smartly designed coats. The conquest of France, he thought, has had a beneficial effect on one profession, at least.

As he walked pleasantly among the crowds, Christian had a stronger feeling than ever before that the war was going to be won. The city, which at other times had appeared so drab and weary, now seemed gay, energetic and invulnerable. The streets of London this afternoon, he thought, and the streets of Moscow are probably very different from this. Every soldier, he thought, should be sent back on leave to Berlin. It would have a tonic effect on the entire Army. Of course, and he grinned inwardly as he thought it, it would be advisable for every soldier to be supplied with a Mrs Hardenburg when he got off the train, and a half-bottle of vodka. A new problem for the quartermaster.

He bought a newspaper and went into a cafe and ordered beer.

He read the newspaper. It was like listening to a brass band. There were triumphant stories about thousands of Russians being taken, stories of companies that had defeated battalions in the North, stories of armoured elements that lived off the land and the foe, and made week-long sorties, without communications of any kind with the main body of the Army, slashing and disrupting the enemy's crumbling rear. There was a careful analysis by a retired Major-General who cautioned against overoptimism. Russia would not capitulate, he said, in less than three months, and the wild talk of imminent collapse was harmful to morale at home and at the front. There was an editorial that warned Turkey and the United States in the same paragraph, and a confident assertion that, despite the frantic activities of the Jews, the people of America would refuse to be drawn into a war that they saw very clearly was none of their business. There was a story from Russia about how German soldiers had been tortured and burned by Soviet troops. Christian hurried through it, reading only the first line in each paragraph. He was on leave now, and he did not want to think about things like that for the next two weeks.

He sipped his beer, a little disappointed because it seemed watery, but enjoying himself, with his body weary and satisfied, his eyes occasionally leaving the paper to look across the room at the chatting, bright couples. There was a Luftwaffe pilot in the cafe, with a pretty girl, and two good ribbons on his chest. Christian had a fleeting moment of regret, thinking how much dearer this place and this holiday must seem to a man who had come down from the embattled skies than to himself, who had merely come from the police barracks, the double bed of Corinne's corporal, from the sharp tongue of Lieutenant Hardenburg. I must go and talk to Colonel Meister in the War Office, he thought, without conviction, about the possibilities of being transferred to a unit in Russia. Perhaps later in the week, when things are more settled…

The week passed in a riotous haze for Christian. The city around him, the millions going to and fro, the clang of tramcars and buses, the placards outside the newspaper offices, the Generals and politicians in their gleaming uniforms who sped by him in the long armoured cars, the shifting hordes of soldiers on leave and on duty, the bulletins on the radio of miles gained and men killed in Russia – all seemed to him shadowy and remote. Only the apartment on Tiergartenstrasse, only the wild pale body of Lieutenant Hardenburg's wife seemed substantial and real. He bought her a pair of ear-rings, sent home for more money and bought her a gold chain bracelet, and a sweater from a soldier who had carried it back from Amsterdam.

She had got into the habit of calling him demandingly at any hour of the day or night at the boarding-house where he was living, and he forsook the avenues and the theatres and merely lay on his bed, waiting for the phone to ring downstairs in the grimy hall, waiting to rush through the streets to her.

Her home became for him the one fixed place in a shadowy, reeling world. At times when she left him alone, waiting for her in her apartment, he roamed restlessly through the rooms, opening wardrobes and desk-drawers, peering at letters, looking at photographs hidden between books. He had always been a private man and one who had a deep sense of others' privacy, but it was different with her. He wanted to devour her and all her thoughts, possessions, vices, desires.

The apartment was crammed with loot. A student of economics could have pieced together the story of German conquest in Europe and Africa merely from the things tucked away carelessly in Gretchen's apartment, brought there by the procession of rigid, shining-booted, beribboned officers whom Christian occasionally saw delivering Gretchen in heavy official cars as he peered jealously out of the window to the main door below. Apart from the rich profusion of bottles that he had seen the first day, there were cheeses from Holland, dozens of pairs of French silk stockings, bottles and bottles of perfume, jewelled clasps and ceremonial daggers from all parts of the Balkans, brocaded slippers from Morocco, baskets of grapes and nectarines flown from Algiers, three fur coats from Russia, a small Titian sketch from Rome, two sides of smoked Danish bacon hanging in the pantry behind the kitchen, a whole shelf of Paris hats, although he had never seen Gretchen wear a hat, an exquisite worked-silver coffee urn from Belgrade, a heavy leather-topped desk that an enterprising Lieutenant had somehow shipped from a captured villa in Norway.

The letters, negligently dropped on the floor or slipped under magazines on the tables, were from the farthest reaches of the new German Empire, and although written in the widest variety of literary styles, from delicate and lyric poems from young scholars on duty in Helsinki to stiff, pornographic memorials from ageing professional military men serving under Rommel in the Western Desert, they all bore the same burden of longing and gratitude. Each letter, too, bore promises… a bolt of green silk bought in Orleans, a ring found in a shop in Budapest, a locket with a sapphire stone picked up in Tripoli…

The amazing thing about her was that only three years before she had been a demure young schoolteacher in Baden, instructing ten-year-old children in geography and arithmetic. She had been shy, she told Christian. Hardenburg had been the first man she had ever slept with, and she had refused him until he married her. But when he brought her to Berlin, just before the beginning of the war, a photographer had seen her in a night club and had asked to take her picture for some posters he was doing for the Propaganda Ministry. The photographer had seduced her, in addition to making her face and figure quite famous as a model for a typical German girl, who, in the series of photographs, worked extra hours in munitions factories, attended party meetings regularly, gave to the Winter Fund, cleverly prepared attractive menus in the kitchen with ersatz foods. Since that time she had risen dizzily in the wartime Berlin social world. Hardenburg had been sent off to a regiment early in his wife's career. Now that he had seen the situation at home, Christian understood better why Hardenburg was considered so valuable in Rennes and found it so difficult to get leave to return home.

Hardenburg's letters from Rennes were stiff, almost military documents, empty, windy, cold. Christian couldn't help smiling as he read them, knowing that Hardenburg, if he survived the war, would be a forgotten and carelessly discarded article in Gretchen's swirling past. For the future, Christian had plans that he only half-admitted to himself. Gretchen had told him one night, casually, between one drink and the next, that the war would be over in sixty days and that someone high in the Government, she wouldn't tell Christian his name, had offered her a three-thousand-acre estate in Poland. There was a seventeenth-century stone mansion, untouched by war, on it, and seven hundred acres were under cultivation, even now.

"How would you be," she had asked, half-joking, lying back on the sofa, "at running an estate for a lady?"

"Wonderful," he had said.

"You wouldn't wear yourself out," she had said, smiling, "with your agricultural duties?"

"Agreed." He had sat down beside her and put his hand under her head and caressed the firm, fair skin at the base of her neck.

"We'll see. We'll see…" Gretchen had said. "We might do worse…"

That would be it, Christian thought. A great wild estate, with the money rolling in, and Gretchen mistress of the old house… They wouldn't marry, of course. Marrying Gretchen was an act of supererogation. A kind of private Prince Consort, with hand-made riding boots and twenty horses in the stables and the great and wealthy of the new Empire coming down from the capitals for the shooting…

The luckiest moment of my life, Christian thought, was when Hardenburg unlocked that desk and took the package of black lace out of it in the police barracks in Rennes. Christian hardly thought of Rennes any more. Gretchen had told him she had talked to a Major-General about his transfer and commission and it was in the works. Hardenburg was a miserable phantom of the past now, who might reappear for one delicious moment in the future to be dismissed with a curt murderous phrase. The luckiest day of my life, Christian thought, turning with a smile to the door, which had just been opened. Gretchen stood there in a golden dress, with a wrap of mink thrown easily over her shoulders. She was smiling and holding out her arms, saying, "Now, isn't this a nice thing to find waiting for a girl when she gets home from her day's work?"

Christian went over and kicked the door shut and took her into his arms.

Then, three days before his leave was due to expire, although he wasn't worried, Gretchen had said it was all being fixed, the phone rang in the boarding-house and he rushed down the stairs to answer it. It was her voice. He smiled as he said, "Hello, darling."

"Stop that." Her voice was harsh, although she seemed to be talking in a whisper. "And don't say my name over the phone."

"What?" he asked, dazedly.

"I'm speaking from a phone in a cafe," she said. "Don't try to call me at home. And don't come there."

"But you said eight o'clock tonight."

"I know what I said. Not eight o'clock tonight. Or any night. That's all. Stay away. Goodbye."

He heard the click as she hung up. He stared at the instrument on the wall, then put up the receiver slowly. He went to his room and lay down on the bed. Then he got up and put on his tunic and went out. Any place, he thought, but this room.

He walked hazily through the streets, hopelessly going over in his mind Gretchen's whispered, final conversation, and all the acts and words that might have led up to it. The night before had been, for them, an ordinary night. She had appeared at the apartment at one o'clock, quite drunk, in her controlled, nervous way, and they had drunk some more until about two, and then they had gone to bed. It had been as good as it had ever been, and she had dropped off to sleep, lying beside him, and had kissed him brightly and affectionately at eleven in the morning, when she left for work, and said, "Tonight let's start earlier. Eight o'clock. Be here."

There was no hint in this. He stared at the blank faces of the buildings and the hurried, swarming faces of the people around him. The only thing to do was to wait for her outside her apartment house and ask her, point-blank. At seven o'clock that night he took up his station behind a tree across the street from the entrance to her apartment house. It was a damp night, with a drizzle. In half an hour he was soaked, but he paid little attention to it. A policeman came by for the third time at ten-thirty and looked inquisitively at him.

"Waiting for a girl." Christian managed a sheepish grin.

"She's trying to shake a parachute Major."

The policeman grinned at him. "The war," he said. "It makes everything difficult." He shook his head commiseratingly and moved on.

At two o'clock in the morning one of the familiar official cars drove up and Gretchen and an officer got out. They talked for a moment on the pavement. Then they went in together and the car drove away.

Christian looked up through the drizzle at the blackout-dark side of the building and tried to work out which window was the one that belonged to Gretchen's apartment, but it was impossible to tell in the blackness.

At eight o'clock in the morning the long car drove up again and the officer came out and got into it. Lieutenant-Colonel, Christian noted automatically. It was still raining.

He nearly crossed the street to the apartment house. No, he thought, that would ruin it. She'd be angry and throw me out and that would be the end of it.

He stayed behind the tree, his eyes clammy with sleep, his uniform soaked, staring up at the window which was revealed now in the grey light.

At eleven o'clock she came out. She had on short rubber boots and a belted light raincoat, with a cape attached, like a soldier's camouflage equipment. She looked fresh, as always in the morning, and young and schoolgirlish in her rain outfit. She started to walk briskly down the street.

He caught up with her after she turned the corner.

"Gretchen," he said, touching her elbow.

She wheeled nervously. "Get away from me!" she said. She looked apprehensively around her and spoke in a whisper.

"What's the matter?" he said, pleadingly. "What have I done?"

She began walking again, swiftly. He walked after her, keeping a little behind her.

"Gretchen, darling…"

"Listen," she said. "Get away. Keep away. Isn't that clear?"

"I've got to know," he said. "What is it?"

"I can't be seen talking to you." She stared straight ahead of her as she strode down the street. "That's all. Now get out. You've had a nice leave, and it'll be up in two days anyway; go back to France and forget this."

"I can't," he said. "I can't. I've got to talk to you. Any place you say. Any time."

Two men came out of a shop on the other side of the street and walked swiftly, parallel to them, in the same direction as they were going.

"All right," Gretchen said. "My place. Tonight at eleven. Don't use the front door. You can walk up the back stairs through the basement. The entrance is in the other street. The kitchen door will be unlocked. I'll be there."

"Yes," said Christian. "Thank you. That's wonderful."

"Now leave me alone," she said. He stopped and watched her walk away, without looking back, in her bright, nervous walk, accentuated by the boots and the belted rubber coat. He turned and went slowly back to his boarding-house. He lay down on the bed without taking off his clothes and tried to sleep.

At eleven o'clock that night he climbed the dark back stairs. Gretchen was sitting at a table writing something. Her back was very straight in a green wool dress, and she didn't even look round when Christian came into the room. Oh, God, he thought, it is the Lieutenant all over again. He walked lightly over behind her chair and kissed the top of her head, smelling the scented hair.

Gretchen stopped writing and turned round in the chair. Her face was cool and serious.

"You should have told me," she said.

"What?" he asked.

"You may have got me into a lot of trouble," she said. Christian sat down heavily. "What did I do?"

Gretchen stood up and began to walk up and down the room, the wool skirt swinging at her knees.

"It wasn't fair," she said, "letting me go through all that."

"Go through what?" Christian asked loudly. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't shout!" Gretchen snapped at him. "God knows who's listening."

"I wish," said Christian, keeping his voice low, "that you'd let me know what's happening."

"Yesterday afternoon," Gretchen said, standing in front of him, "the Gestapo sent a man to my office."

"Yes?"

"They had been to see General Ulrich first," Gretchen said significantly.

Christian shook his head wearily. "Who in God's name is General Ulrich?"

"My friend," said Gretchen, "my very good friend, who is probably in very hot water now because of you."

"I never saw General Ulrich in all my life," Christian said.

"Keep your voice low." Gretchen paced over to the sideboard and poured herself four fingers of brandy. She did not offer Christian a drink. "I'm a fool to have let you come here at all."

"What has General Ulrich got to do with me?" Christian demanded.

"General Ulrich," Gretchen said deliberately, after taking a large swallow of the brandy, "is the man who tried to put through your application for a direct commission and a transfer to the General Staff."

"Well?"

"The Gestapo told him yesterday that you were a suspected Communist," Gretchen said, "and they wanted to know what his connection with you was and why he was so interested in you."

"What do you want me to say?" Christian demanded. "I'm not a Communist. I was a member of the Nazi Party in Austria in 1937."

"They knew all that," said Gretchen. "They also knew that you had been a member of the Austrian Communist Party from 1932 to 1936. They also knew that you made trouble for a Regional Commissioner named Schwartz just after the Anschluss. They also knew that you had an affair with an American girl who had been living with a Jewish Socialist in Vienna in 1937."

Christian sank wearily back into the chair. The Gestapo, he thought; how meticulous and inaccurate they could be.

"You're under observation in your Company," Gretchen said.

"They get a report on you every month." She grinned sourly.

"It may please you to know that my husband reports that you are a completely able and loyal soldier and strongly recommends you for officers' school."

"I must remember to thank him," Christian said flatly, "when I see him."

"Of course," said Gretchen, "you can never become an officer. They won't even send you to fight against the Russians. If your unit is shifted to that front, you will be transferred."

What a winding, hopeless trap, Christian thought, what an impossible, boring catastrophe.

"That's it," Gretchen said. "Naturally, when they found out that a woman who worked for the Propaganda Ministry, who was friendly, officially and otherwise, with many high-ranking military and official personnel…"

"Oh, for God's sake," Christian said irritably, standing up, "stop sounding like a police magistrate!"

"You understand my position…" It was the first time Christian had heard a defensive tone in Gretchen's voice.

"People have been shipped off to concentration camps for less. You must understand my position, darling."

"I understand your position," Christian said loudly, "and I understand the Gestapo's position, and I understand General Ulrich's position, and they all bore me to death!" He strode over to her and towered over her, raging. "Do you think I'm a Communist?"

"That's beside the point, darling," Gretchen said carefully.

"The Gestapo thinks you may be. That's the important thing. Or at least, that you may not be quite… quite reliable. Don't blame me, please…" She came over to him and her voice was soft and pleading. "It would be different if I was an ordinary girl, in an ordinary unimportant job… I could see you whenever I pleased, I could go to any place with you… But this way, it's really dangerous. You don't know. You haven't been back in Germany for so long, you have no idea of the way people suddenly disappear. For nothing. For less than this. Honestly. Please… don't look so angry…"

Christian sighed and sat down. It would take a little time to get accustomed to this. Suddenly he felt he was no longer at home; he was a foreigner treading clumsily in a strange, dangerous country, where every word had a double meaning, every act a dubious consequence. He thought of the three thousand acres in Poland, the stables, the hunting week-ends. He smiled sourly. He'd be lucky if they let him go back to teach skiing.

"Don't look like that," Gretchen said. "So… so despairing."

"Forgive me," he said. "I'll sing a song."

"Don't be harsh with me," she said humbly. "What can I do about it?"

"Can't you go to them? Can't you tell them? You know me, you could prove…"

She shook her head. "I can't prove anything."

"I'll go to them. I'll go to General Ulrich."

"None of that!" Her voice was sharp. "You'll ruin me. They told me not to tell you anything about it. Just to stop seeing you. They'll make it worse for you, and God knows what they'll do to me! Promise me you won't say anything about it to anyone."

She looked so frightened, and, after all, it wasn't her doing.

"I promise," he said slowly. He stood up and looked around the room that had become the real core of his life. "Well," and he tried to grin, "I won't say that it hasn't been a nice leave."

"I'm so terribly sorry," she whispered. She put her arms around him gently. "You don't have to go… just yet…" They smiled at each other.

But an hour later she thought she heard a noise outside the door. She made him get up and dress and go out by the back door, the way he'd come, and she was vague about when he could see her again.

Lieutenant Hardenburg was in the orderly room when Christian reported. He looked thinner and more alert, as though he had been in training. He was striding back and forth with a springy, energetic step, and he smiled with what was for him great amiability, as he returned Christian's salute.

"Did you have a good time?" he asked, his voice friendly and pleasant.

"Very good, Sir," Christian said.

"Mrs Hardenburg wrote to me," the Lieutenant said, "that you delivered the lace."

"Yes, Sir."

"Very good of you."

"It was nothing, Sir."

The Lieutenant peered at Christian, a little shyly, Christian thought. "Did she er… look well?" he asked.

"She looked very fit, Sir," Christian said gravely.

"Ah, good. Good." The Lieutenant wheeled nervously in what was almost a pirouette, in front of the map of Africa that had supplanted the map of Russia on the wall. "Delighted. She has a tendency to work too hard, overdo things. Delighted," he said vaguely and spiritedly. "Lucky thing," he said, "lucky thing you took your leave when you did."

Christian didn't say anything. He was in no mood to engage in a long, social conversation with Lieutenant Hardenburg. He hadn't seen Corinne yet and he was impatient to get to her and tell her to get in touch with her brother-in-law.

"Yes," Lieutenant Hardenburg said, "very lucky." He grinned inexplicably. "Come over here, Sergeant," he said mysteriously. He went to the barred grimy window and stared out. Christian followed him and stood next to him.

"I want you to understand," Hardenburg whispered, "that all this is extremely confidential. Secret. I really shouldn't be telling you this, but we've been together a long time and I feel I can trust you…"

"Yes, Sir," Christian said cautiously.

Hardenburg looked around him carefully, then leaned a little closer to Christian. "At last," he said, the jubilance plain in his voice, "at last, it's happened. We're moving." He turned his head sharply and looked over his shoulder. The clerk, who was the only other person in the room, was thirty feet away. "Africa," Hardenburg whispered, so low that Christian barely heard him.

"The Africa Corps." He grinned widely. "In two weeks. Isn't it marvellous?"

"Yes, Sir," Christian said flatly, after a while.

"I knew you'd be pleased," said Hardenburg.

"Yes, Sir."

"There'll be a lot to do in the next two weeks. You're going to be a busy man. The Captain wanted to cancel your leave, but I felt it would do you good, and you could make up for the time you'd lost…"

"Thank you very much, Sir," said Christian.

"At last," said Hardenburg triumphantly, rubbing his hands.

"At last." He stared unseeingly through the window, his eyes on the dust clouds rising from the armoured tread on the roads of Libya, his ears hearing the noise of gunfire on the Mediterranean coast. "I was beginning to be afraid," Hardenburg said softly, "that I would never see a battle." He shook his head, raising himself from his delicious reverie. "All right, Sergeant," he said, in his usual, clipped voice. "I'll want you back here in an hour."

"Yes, Sir," said Christian. He started to go, then turned.

"Lieutenant," he said.

"Yes?"

"I wish to submit the name of a man in the 147th Pioneers for disciplinary action."

"Give it to the clerk," said the Lieutenant. "I'll send it through the proper channels."

"Yes, Sir," said Christian and went over to the clerk and watched him write down the name of Private Hans Reuter, unsoldierly appearance and conduct, complaint brought by Sergeant Christian Diestl.

"He's in trouble," the clerk said professionally. "He'll get restricted for a month."

"Probably," said Christian and went outside. He stood in front of the barracks door for a moment, then started for Corinne's house. Half-way there, he halted. Ridiculous, he thought. What's the sense in seeing her now?

He walked slowly back along the street. He stopped in front of a jeweller's shop, with a high, small window. In the window there were some small diamond rings and a gold pendant with a large topaz on the end of it. Christian looked at the topaz, thinking: Gretchen would like that. I wonder how much it costs.