Legat stared at him. ‘I’m utterly astonished.’
‘It’s not without risk,’ warned Cadogan. ‘Technically, at least, it will be an act of espionage on foreign soil. We wouldn’t want to mislead you about that.’
The colonel said, ‘Yes, but on the other hand, it’s hard to believe the Germans would seek to embarrass His Majesty’s Government with a spying scandal in the middle of an international conference.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Cadogan shook his head. ‘With Hitler, anything is possible. The last thing he wants to do tomorrow is sit down with the PM and Daladier. I suspect he’s perfectly capable of seizing on exactly such an incident as an excuse to break off negotiations.’ He turned to Legat. ‘So you need to consider it carefully. The stakes are high. And there’s another point. We think it best if the Prime Minister knows nothing about this.’
‘Do you mind if I ask why?’
The colonel said, ‘Often in these delicate matters it’s better for politicians not to know the full details.’
‘You mean in case something goes wrong?’
‘No,’ said Cadogan. ‘Rather because the PM is already under the most immense strain, and it’s our duty, as public servants, to do everything we can not to add to it.’
Legat made one last feeble attempt at escape. ‘You do know that Oscar Cleverly has already told Cecil Syers that he will be travelling to Munich?’
‘That’s not an issue that need concern you. Leave Cleverly to us.’
‘Absolutely,’ said the colonel. ‘I know Oscar.’
Both men fell silent, watching him, and Legat had a peculiar sense of – what was it, he wondered afterwards? – not of déjà vu exactly, but of inevitability: that he had always known Munich was not done with him; that however far he might travel from that place and time he was forever caught in its gravitational pull and would be dragged back towards it eventually.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course I’ll do it.’
By the time he got back to Number 10, Syers had gone for the night. Cleverly was still working – he could see the light under his door and could hear his voice talking on the telephone. He crept past, anxious to avoid the possibility of an encounter, collected his overnight case from the corner of his office and set off to walk home.
Images he had consciously suppressed for half a decade stalked him at every step, memories not so much of Germany but of Oxford. As he walked past the Abbey he sensed again the impossibly tall figure loping at his side through a damp evening along the Turl (‘night is the best time for friendship, my dear Hugh’), his profile in the lamplight as he stopped to light a cigarette – beautiful, fanatical, almost cruel – and that astonishing smile after he had exhaled; the swirling skirts of his full coat brushing the cobbles; the curious combination of his manliness – he had seemed so much older and more experienced than the rest of them in the boy-world of Oxford – and yet a self-dramatising defeatism (‘my passionate melancholy’) that was entirely adolescent, indeed verging on the comic: he had once clambered up on to Magdalen Bridge and threatened to throw himself into the river in despair at what he said was their mad generation until Legat had pointed out that he would only succeed in getting himself wet and possibly catching a chill. He used to complain that he lacked ‘the one great characteristic of the English, and that is distance – not only from one another but from all experience: I believe it is the secret of the English art of living’. Legat could remember every word.
He reached the end of North Street, found his key and let himself into the house. Now that the immediate crisis seemed to be over he had half-expected to find Pamela at home with the children. But when he turned on the light he saw that the place was empty, exactly as he had left it. He set down his suitcase at the bottom of the stairs. Still wearing his coat, he went into the drawing room, picked up the telephone and dialled the operator. It was after ten, an unsociable hour for a call, especially in the English shires, but he thought the circumstances justified it. His father-in-law answered, pedantically reciting his number. Pamela always said he had done something ‘unspeakably boring’ in the City before retiring at fifty and Legat could believe it, although he had been careful never to enquire precisely what it was; he avoided speaking to his in-laws as much as possible. Somehow the conversation always turned to money and his lack of it.
‘Hello, sir. It’s Hugh. Sorry to ring so late.’
‘Hugh!’ For once the old boy actually sounded glad to hear him. ‘I must say we’ve been thinking about you rather a lot today. What a business it’s been! Were you very much involved?’
‘Oh, only on the margins, you know.’
‘Well, having been all the way through the last show, I can’t tell you the relief at avoiding another.’ He put his hand over the receiver and Legat heard him call out, ‘Darling, it’s Hugh!’ He came back on the line immediately. ‘You must tell me all about it. Were you in the House when the Prime Minister received the news?’
Legat sat in an armchair and patiently described the events of the day for a couple of minutes, until he felt he had done all that filial politeness required of him. ‘Anyway, sir, I can give you the full blow-by-blow the next time I see you. I just wanted a quick word with Pamela, if I might.’
‘Pamela?’ The voice on the other end sounded suddenly confused. ‘Isn’t she with you? She left the children with us and drove back to London about four hours ago.’
After he had hung up – ‘Actually, sir, don’t worry, I think I can hear her at the door now’ – he sat and stared at the telephone for a long while. Occasionally his eyes flickered to the diary that lay beside it – a Smythson featherweight diary, bound in red Morocco, gilt-edged, of the sort he bought her every Christmas. Why did she leave it lying around, except for him to pick it up, to leaf through it with his usual clumsy nervous fingers, to find the date, to read the number, and for once – just this once: the only time he had ever done so – to call it?
It rang a long time before it was answered. A man’s voice, vaguely familiar, came on the line – confident, relaxed. ‘Yep? Hello?’
Legat pressed the receiver very hard against his ear and listened intently. He heard the sound of the sea.
‘Hello?’ the voice repeated. ‘Who is this?’
And then in the background, distinctly enough that he suspected she might have intended it to be overheard, the voice of his wife: ‘Whoever it is, tell them to go away.’
DAY THREE
1
The Führer’s special train was unusually heavy, entirely made of welded steel. It steamed steadily southwards through the night at an average speed of 55 kilometres per hour. It did not stop. It did not even slow down. It passed through big cities, such as Leipzig, and smaller country towns and villages, and between them it traversed great stretches of nothingness broken only by the occasional light of an isolated farmhouse.
Sleepless, Hartmann lay in his underclothes on the top bunk, his fingers parting the blind so that he could stare into the darkness. He had the sensation of voyaging in a liner across an ocean of unmeasurable extent. This immensity was what he had never been able to convey to his Oxford friends, whose concept of their own nationality was so nicely bounded by a coast – this hard wide vast landscape, fertile in its genius, limitless in its possibilities, which demanded a constant effort of will and imagination to order into a modern state. It was hard to talk about such feelings without sounding mystical. Even Hugh had not understood. To the English ear one invariably came across as a German nationalist – although what was wrong with that? The corruption of honest patriotism was one of the many things for which Hartmann would never forgive the Austrian corporal.
The sound of Sauer’s rhythmic heavy breathing rose through the thin mattress. Before they had even left Berlin’s city limits, the Sturmbannführer had pulled rank to insist on having the bottom bunk. Not that Hartmann had objected. It meant he was able to put his belongings into the luggage rack immediately above his head.
The wide string mesh bulged under the weight of his suitcase. He had not let it out of his sight.
Soon after 5 a.m. he noticed the sky at its edges beginning to turn an oyster grey. Gradually the dark crests of the wooded pine hills emerged, serrated like saw’s teeth against the spreading light, while in the valleys the white mist seemed as solid as a glacier. For the next half-hour he watched as the countryside took on colour – green and yellow meadows, red-roofed villages, white-painted wooden church spires, a turreted castle with blue shutters beside a wide slow river he assumed must be the Danube. When he was sure that sunrise could only be a few minutes away he sat up and cautiously took down his suitcase.
He muffled the noise of the catches one at a time with his hand and opened the lid. He extracted the document and stuffed it under his vest, then he put on a clean white shirt and buttoned it. He took the gun from his jacket and folded his trousers around it. Holding that in one hand, and with his shaving kit tucked under the other arm, he carefully descended the ladder. As Hartmann’s bare feet touched the floor of the compartment, Sauer muttered and turned over. His uniform was on a hanger at the end of his bed; he had spent a long time before he went to sleep brushing it and straightening the creases. His boots were perfectly aligned beneath it. Hartmann waited until his breathing had resumed its regular pattern, then slowly lifted the catch and slid open the door.
The corridor was empty. He swayed along it towards the toilet at the back of the carriage. Once inside, he drew the bolt and turned on the light. Like the sleeper compartment it was lined in polished light-coloured wood with modernist fittings made of stainless steel; there were tiny swastikas on the taps. (There was no escaping the Führer’s aesthetic, thought Hartmann, not even when one took a shit.) He inspected his face in the mirror above the tiny washbasin. Disgusting. He removed his shirt and lathered his chin. He had to shave with his feet braced wide apart to steady himself against the movement of the train. When he had finished he dried his face, then crouched on his haunches and inspected the wooden panel beneath the sink. He ran his fingers around the back until he found a gap. He pulled and it came away easily, exposing the plumbing. He unwrapped the gun from his trousers, wedged it behind the waste pipe and pushed the panel back into place. Five minutes later he was making his way along the corridor. Beyond the windows an empty autobahn ran beside the railway track, gleaming in the early-morning sunshine.
He slid open the door of his compartment to discover Sauer in his underwear bent over the lower bunk. He had tipped out Hartmann’s suitcase and was rummaging through the contents. Hartmann’s jacket lay next to it: it looked as though he had checked through that already. He didn’t even bother to turn round.
‘I’m sorry, Hartmann. It’s nothing personal. I’m sure you’re a decent fellow. But when a man is this close to the Führer I’m not prepared to take any chances.’ He stood and gestured to the mess on the mattress. ‘There you are. You can put it all back now.’
‘Don’t you want to give me a full body search while you’re at it?’ Hartmann raised his hands.
‘That won’t be necessary.’ He clapped Hartmann on the shoulder. ‘Come on, man – don’t look so offended! I’ve apologised. You know as well as I do the Foreign Ministry is rotten with reaction. What is it that Göring says about you diplomats? That you sharpen your pencils all morning and take tea all afternoon?’
Hartmann pretended to be offended, then nodded curtly. ‘You’re right. I admire your vigilance.’
‘Excellent. Wait for me while I shave and then we’ll go for breakfast.’
He picked up his uniform and boots and went out into the corridor.
After he had gone, Hartmann tugged the document out from under his vest. His hands were shaking. He placed it in the suitcase. Surely Sauer wouldn’t search it again? Or perhaps he would? He imagined him at that very moment on his knees inspecting behind the washbasin. Hartmann folded his clothes back into the case, closed the catches and heaved it up into the luggage rack. By the time he had finished dressing and had regained his composure there was a clump of boots in the corridor. The door opened and Sauer was back, once more clad in his SS uniform, looking as if he had just stepped off the parade ground. He threw his sponge bag on to his bed. ‘Let’s go.’
They had to pass through another sleeper carriage to reach the dining car. The train was all awake by now. Men half-dressed or still in underpants were squeezing past one another in the narrow corridor and queuing outside the toilets. There was a smell of sweat and cigarettes, a changing-room atmosphere, laughter as the train jolted and they were thrown together. Sauer exchanged ‘Heil’s with a couple of SS comrades. He opened the connecting door and Hartmann followed, stepping over the metal platform that made a junction into the restaurant car. Here it was all much quieter: white linen tablecloths, the smell of coffee, the chink of cutlery on china, a waiter wheeling a trolley laden with food. At the far end of the carriage, an army general in a field-grey uniform with red collar tabs was talking to a trio of officers. Sauer noticed Hartmann staring at him. ‘That’s General Keitel,’ he said. ‘Chief of the Wehrmacht Supreme Command. He’s breakfasting with the Führer’s military adjutants.’
‘What’s a general doing at a peace conference?’
‘Perhaps it may not turn out to be a peace conference.’ Sauer winked.
They took a nearby table for two. Hartmann sat with his back to the engine. The carriage darkened as they passed beneath a station canopy. On the platform a line of waiting passengers waved. He guessed an announcement must have been made over the loudspeaker that the through train was Hitler’s. Enthusiastic faces whirled past the window in a mist of steam.
‘If nothing else,’ continued Sauer, unfolding his napkin, ‘the presence of General Keitel will remind those elderly gentlemen from London and Paris that a single word from the Führer is all it will require for the Army to cross the Czech frontier.’
‘I thought Mussolini had put a stop to mobilisation?’
‘The Duce will be joining the train for the final part of the journey to Munich. Who knows what will happen when the leaders of fascism confer? Perhaps the Führer will persuade him to change his mind.’ He beckoned to the waiter to bring them coffee. When he turned back to the table his eyes were shining. ‘Admit it, Hartmann, whatever happens – isn’t there something intensely satisfying, after all those years of national humiliation, in finally making the British and the French dance to our tune?’
‘It is certainly an amazing achievement.’ The man was intoxicated, thought Hartmann: drunk on a little man’s dreams of revenge. The waiter arrived with a tray of food and they both filled their plates. He took a bread roll and broke it in half. He found he had no appetite, even though he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. ‘May I ask, Sauer, what you did before you joined the Foreign Minister’s staff?’ He didn’t really care; he was just making conversation.
‘I worked in the office of the Reichsführer-SS.’
‘And before that?’
‘Before the Party came to power, you mean? I sold automobiles in Essen.’ He was eating a hard-boiled egg. A piece of yolk was stuck to his chin. Suddenly his face twisted into a sneer. ‘Oh, I can see what you’re thinking, Hartmann. “What a vulgar fellow! A car salesman! And now he fancies himself as a second Bismarck!” But we have done something your kind never managed. We have made Germany great again.’
‘Actually,’ said Hartmann mildly, ‘I was thinking you have egg on your chin.’
Sauer put down his knife and fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin. His face had turned red. It was a mistake to have teased him, thought Hartmann. Sauer would never forgive him. And at some point in the future – maybe later that day, or next month, or next year – revenge would be exacted.
The meal resumed in silence.
‘Herr von Hartmann?’
Hartmann looked round. A large man, portly in a double-breasted suit, was looming over him. His domed head was bald, his thin dark hai
r combed back and plastered into place behind his ears with oil. He was sweating.
‘Dr Schmidt.’ Hartmann put down his napkin and stood.
‘Forgive me for disturbing your meal. Sturmbannführer.’ The Foreign Ministry’s chief interpreter bowed towards Sauer. ‘We have received the overnight English-language press summary and I wondered if I could trouble you, Hartmann?’
‘Of course. Excuse me, Sauer.’
Hartmann followed Schmidt the length of the dining car, past General Keitel’s table and into the next carriage. Along the left-hand side were desks, typewriters, filing cabinets. On the right, the windows were blacked out; Wehrmacht signals officers wearing headphones faced one another across tables stacked with short-wave radio equipment. It wasn’t so much a train as a mobile command post. It struck Hartmann that the original plan must have been for Hitler to travel in it to the Czech frontier.
Schmidt said, ‘The Führer expects to see a press summary as soon as he gets up. Two pages will be sufficient. Concentrate on the headlines and the editorial view. Get one of the men to type it for you.’
He deposited a sheaf of handwritten English transcripts on a desk and hurried away. Hartmann sat. It was a relief to have something to do. He shuffled through the dozens of quotations, pulling out the most interesting, sorting them according to the influence of the publication. He found a pencil and began to write.