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“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
Biggles didn’t glance up from his Edgar Wallace; with black coffee and iced water and neat scotch on the low table on which his crossed heels rested, he seemed dug in for the duration. “If you want to frazzle yourself to a crisp hot-footing it along these junior Death Valleys they laughingly call streets, that’s your own lookout. But you needn’t expect me to volunteer.”
“If we’d set down in the middle of some beastly rainforest you’d be the first queuing up for the guided tour,” Algy grumbled.
Hazel eyes flickered up, disinterestedly. “That’s because your average beastly rainforest offers a bit of a change, while your average beastly capital is about the same as every other beastly capital – hot and smelly or cold and dreary, people living on top of each other so you can’t hear yourself think – “
“Don’t you think it’s a bit of a waste of a day loose in a new place just to lurk here drinking coffee?”
If anything, the novel rose a fraction higher in front of Biggles’ eyes. “Not really.”
Algy looked at him for a moment longer, then shrugged. “Suit yourself. Want to meet back here for dinner?”
A hand snaked out, abstracted the coffee, and disappeared with it behind the sheltering cover. “Suit yourself.”
“Next time I’ll bring Smythe along,” Algy muttered, hefting his Baedeker speculatively and wondering whether throwing it at his cousin’s head would provoke any form of reaction. “He’s a better conversationalist.”
The hotel bar had chintz armchairs, flowered curtains, flock wallpaper. It was cramped and English and coy, and Biggles appeared to be burying himself in it. But the sunlight pouring through the netted windows had a more than English heat and hardness; and when Algy stepped out of the door it rolled over him blinding white.
He stood and blinked into it, the sweat beginning to prickle in his scalp already. Berlin should normally be no hotter than London, he knew; but he also knew that his view of the city would always be coloured by this first visit: by the great canyons of the streets throwing the heat back and back, by each window and each golden curlicue on each domed church striking the eye with brightness. That Berlin would always for him have this strange hybrid feeling of Mediterranean heat and northern stone, this sense of the unexpected.
By the time he reached the Museuminsel the sweat was soaking through his shirt at the small of his back, and he was grateful to duck into the shaded colonnade outside the Neues Museum.
There were panels of white marble set into the wall, he noticed, between the tall dark windows; and on the panels shapes moved in the dimness: an arm, a leg, a sweeping fold of drapery, the great coil of a snake. Against the shade they seemed to glow, to ripple, to reach: a writhing mass of bodies.
He pulled the Baedeker from his pocket as he walked along the silent row of them.
On the Acropolis of Pergamon in Asia Minor, he read, King Eumenes II erected about 180BC a huge altar in honour of his victories -
That should be Artemis, he supposed, with the quiver of arrows, and her neat and elegant boot planted firmly on the slim young man who lay sprawled on his back, his face broken away.
The sculptures are characterised by strong dramatic feeling and great boldness in the representation of scenes of excitement -
And that - perhaps Apollo, a perfect torso with head and arm and legs snapped off, his arrows still visible over his shoulder, standing above a youth whose head drooped with desperate weariness.
At the same time they reveal a knowledge of the human form, a richness of fancy, and a mastery of execution, such as are displayed in no other antique remains on a grand scale -
“Captain Lacey? This is an unexpected pleasure.”
Algy couldn’t quite be sure whether it was the feeling of shock or that of helpless inevitability which predominated.
He turned towards the tall, slim figure which had appeared at his side; took in the pale linen suit against which the olive skin appeared yet darker, and the ice blue eyes which made a shock of cold against the tan.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, shortly.
Von Stalhein smiled. “I live here. I believe it would be more pertinent for me to ask you.”
“I meant here here. In this museum.” In front of this sculpture. At his elbow.
“As you have apparently already discovered, the Museuminsel is home to perhaps the only cool places in the city at present.” Von Stalhein’s eyes shifted to the marble, drifting from figure to figure, body to body. “Why is it, Captain Lacey, that you always treat me with such suspicion when we meet?”
“Possibly because the first time we met you’d just been unmasked as a German spy, and the second time you were lying in wait for me under a lamp-post in the pouring rain as if you were trying out for a Sexton Blake novel,” said Algy, evenly. The nape of his neck was prickling, and suddenly he could feel every square inch of the great open courtyard at his back. His shirt clung clammy to his skin.
Had he been followed here?
Had someone already been to their hotel?
“I can hardly be blamed for the vagaries of the English climate,” said von Stalhein, reasonably. “Nor would I have chosen to wait for you in the rain if I had been offered the choice. But in London it seems to me that it rains more often than not.”
“Maybe it just rains on you.”
“While Berlin has elected to shine upon you,” von Stalhein continued, with bland brightness. “Tell me, what was the weather like when you left England?”
“Raining,” answered Algy, grudgingly.
Von Stalhein made a gesture, as if to say that he had proved his point. “At any rate, you can hardly feel that there is anything especially sinister about such a day as this.”
Algy turned to him. “Look, I hope you’ll forgive me for being blunt, but I think I made it quite clear when we last met that I had nothing to say to you. Or nothing polite, at any rate. Frankly, I don’t care if you’re here because it’s the coolest place in Berlin, or because you’re escorting your maiden aunt, or attending a lecture on fifteenth-century Italian masters, or for that matter if it’s because you’re following me for reasons I don’t care to speculate about. Now that you’ve made your point, just leave me in peace.”
Von Stalhein shook his head sadly. “This holding of irrational grudges is not at all in keeping with the spirit of the times, you know.”
Algy turned his back, and walked away.
He stopped before another sculpture group at the other end of the colonnade. That should be Athena, to judge by the shield and aegis, with her fingers twisted into the hair of a young man. His hair curled, thick and springing as a lion’s mane; his eyes were cast upwards, beseechingly, to where the fingers held him, so easily, so lightly. His body was twisted in an agony of pain, his hand clawing at the arm that held him, head drawn back, throat bared.
“Forgive my flippancy,” said von Stalhein, the clipped voice soft at his shoulder. “It is the tone of the city, I fear. Hear me out. I do not believe that your evident distaste for my company arises from mere nationalistic chauvinism. You hold a grudge against me for certain actions which I took against your friend Bigglesworth in the field of war, though I am sure he himself does not. Still, such is the prerogative of friends and family. You also hold me at least partially responsible for certain...repercussions, on your friend’s state of mind. Whether you are right or wrong in that, I cannot say. I had no thought of those repercussions at the time, though such knowledge would not have changed my actions. However, those days are long past. The war is over.”
“Last time we met you didn’t seem quite so sure about that,” Algy said. He still looked up at the sculpture; he wondered who the young man was. There were wings sprouting from his shoulders.
Von Stalhein hesitated. “The last time we met, I was – over hasty. It was a time of great unhappiness for my country. War does not perhaps seem such a necessary good when prosperity appears again to be within our reach.”
“That’s very carefully phrased.”
He could see the pale shade of the linen suit in the corner of his eye: pale as the marble. “I assure you, I had no sinister intent in approaching you today. I wished only to – what’s the phrase? To bury the hatchet?”
Algy turned his head. He saw a man rather taller than himself and rather older; handsome, in a rather over-fastidious sort of way, with a deep tan and startling eyes and a habitually ironic set to his lips. A man that one would hardly look twice at, if it weren’t for the over-elegance of his dress, and the graceful precision of his movements.
He wondered why this man should fill him with such anger.
“Very touching,” he said.
Von Stalhein’s lip curled slightly in a one-sided smile. “I am afraid I can’t offer myself as tour-guide today – I have my own work to return to shortly. But perhaps you would allow me to buy you lunch, at least? In the hope of improving international relations?”
The curious thing, Algy thought, was that he really didn't have any great bitterness towards the German people in general. Somehow the whole war for him had the feeling of a dogfight, where you’d shoot down your opponent without a second thought, but if he survived you’d take him to the mess and ply him with the best armagnac until he couldn’t see straight. It was just this man, who had never shot at him, never killed one of his friends, had only followed orders; even followed them honourably, after his own lights. Just this man, with his ironic smile; just Biggles’ very occasional references.
It had been nearly ten years.
“Another time,” he said.
* * *
“...and it’ll wipe out half the profit at a stroke – “
“Yes, but the half we’ll have left will still prove bloody useful in keeping you in steak and cigarettes, so put a sock in it.”
Algy put his shoulder to the packing case, and shoved it back against the bulkhead with a dull thud.
“Watch it!” Biggles growled. “We don’t get paid at all if they’re in pieces by the time we get them home.”
“Orchids don’t fall to pieces,” Algy grumbled.
“They do the way you treat them.”
Algy sat back on his haunches, and rubbed a bare forearm across his damp forehead, trying to push back the lank hair without smearing the dust and soil and engine grease from his hands all over his face. “Of all the confounded nuisance times to have engine trouble – “
“Could have been worse,” said Biggles, propping himself against another of the cases and trying to shake the fatigued tremble from his hands. “Could have cut out while we were halfway across the channel. The little beasts would certainly have had enough to drink then, and they wouldn’t have been the only ones.”
“Don’t talk to me about drink,” Algy moaned.
Biggles’ lips twitched, an approach to a smile. “I’m not sure what you’ve got to complain about. I’ll be the one chauffeuring a hundredweight of panting plants back to London, without even the dubious pleasure of your scintillating conversation to help wile the time away, while you’ll be loafing around Berlin, drinking the place dry – “
“- breaking my back in sweltering hangars, talking myself hoarse trying to chivvy mechanics - German mechanics, at that – “ He sighed, and ran a furred tongue over his cracking lips. “And I told you not to talk about drink.”
Biggles straightened as far as was possible in the cramped cargo compartment, and hauled Algy to his feet. “If you think you’re thirsty, spare a thought for the poor orchids,” he said, as he jumped down out of the baking dimness of the hired ‘plane onto the baking brilliance of the aerodrome. “The sooner we get the last of them stowed and I can get airborne, the less likely we are to be delivering a selection of highly prized and valuable dead twigs to Professor Wolfe.”
“Why couldn’t he have been an expert on cacti?” Algy complained, creeping into the hold of their own machine and starting to push the last crate out towards the air. The cases, straw-packed and largely full of orchid and air, were not quite as heavy as they looked; but they were unwieldy, rough-edged things, with a malicious tendency to plant long splinters in the palms of one’s hands: an altogether admirable complement to the discomfort of the heat. “They’d probably have enjoyed a bit of a holiday at Staaken.”
He shoved the case forward to the edge of the hold doorway, sending it sliding heavily into Biggles’ chest as he stood upon the tarmac to receive it, and startling a grunt of displeasure from him. “Algy – do shut up,” he said through gritted teeth, getting his hands underneath the crate. “Things are bad enough without you whinging like a kid.”
Algy’s eyes narrowed. “How you’ve the nerve to call me a kid when you’ve been sulking like a schoolboy for the last – “
“I didn’t call you a kid, I said you were acting like one,” Biggles said, taking the weight as they walked the packing-case the few yards to the hired machine. “Now stop wasting your breath on arguing.”
“You only ever say that,” Algy managed, a touch breathlessly, “when you think you’ve managed to have the last word.”
Together they pushed the case into place in the hold of the rented machine, securing it with webbing and straps. Algy went to wipe his sticky palms against his trousers, but caught himself at the last moment, and grimaced. “Don’t suppose your uncle needs flying out to the back of beyond after Inca gold again, does he?”
“You may remember that as a pleasure jaunt, but I’d take a nice quiet hold full of orchids over armies of ants and dive-bombing condors any day of the week.”
“At least that was exciting as well as uncomfortable,” said Algy, gloomily. “When do we get to stop flying cargo?”
Biggles pulled a large and grubby handkerchief from his pocket, and scrubbed it over his hands, forehead, the back of his neck. His normally pale face was flushed scarlet, and wisps of hair clung to his temples; he looked, Algy thought, as if he were about three complaints short of punching him. “When someone sees fit to pay us to do something else,” he said shortly. “If you feel like single-handedly rebuilding the German air force and then assassinating the Reichschancellor while you’re in Berlin at a loose end, that should about do it.”
He stayed to wave Biggles off, lurking in the shred of shade before the hangars in the noon sun, and watching the plane shimmer and blur with distance and heat into the pitilessly blue sky.
“Captain Lacey. A not wholly unexpected pleasure.”
For a moment, he had to fight the urge just to cover his eyes with his hand and wait for the other man to go away. Instead he turned, and smiled a dazzling smile.
“And I suppose I’m right in assuming that you’ll continue to claim you’re not following me?”
Von Stalhein inclined his head slightly. “You are.”
“You just missed Biggles.”
“So I gather.”
“You should have come to say goodbye. I’m sure he’d have been delighted to see you.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said von Stalhein, politely. “I feared that perhaps seeing me alive again might have come as something of a shock. I was rather under the impression that you had not told him I survived the war.”
Algy ignored the twist of discomfort. “As we’ve established that you’re certainly not following me, may I ask what brings you to Staaken at this hour of such a beautiful day? This certainly isn’t one of the coolest places in the city.”
Von Stalhein spread his hands in a gesture of utter innocence. “I am pursuing my legitimate business.”
“Which is?”
“Aviation.” He smiled, small and off-centre, that smile which made Algy want to reach for a gun or check that his pocket hadn’t been picked. “I have always had a keen interest in the subject, as you know. Since the war I have become part-owner of a charter firm, specialising in cargoes which require greater than usual security. We are...moderately successful.”
Algy nodded, slowly. “Of course, yes. I don’t suppose either you or your team have been hanging about our machine since we flew in yesterday, have you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Since your men are so used to dealing with questions of security after all, I thought they might have spotted whoever put our kite out of action.”
“You believe your machine has been sabotaged? That seems unlikely. Who would wish to do such a thing?”
Algy grinned, amiable and sharp. “Who indeed.”
For the first time, something seemed to flicker across von Stalhein’s impassive countenance: something in the way the skin about his lips paled to marble stillness. “Frankly, Captain Lacey, my men were entirely too busy with their own work to have much time to keep an eye on your machine. And as it is entirely too hot a day to stand out here exchanging pleasantries a moment longer than necessary, I suggest that you either leave, or lend a hand.”
Algy frowned. “With what?”
“My legitimate business,” von Stalhein repeated, with slightly exaggerated patience. “I expect a consignment to arrive at any moment, and your help would certainly be appreciated in transferring it from the aeroplane. In return, I would be only too willing to have one of my mechanics look at yours. It would at least save you from the necessity of spending your day here, testing your German technical vocabulary.”
“Isn’t this one of your special secure cargoes then?”
“I think I can trust your probity,” said von Stalhein, blandly.
Algy hesitated. The offer of technical assistance might be invaluable, even if the only reason it was offered was so von Stalhein could undo whatever he’d had done to the plane’s engines without Algy finding out –
But it wasn’t really the purely practical advantage that swayed him. Instead, it was something more akin to that twist of discomfort he had felt before: that knowledge that in some way he hadn’t ever quite intended, he had put himself at fault.
It was that momentary flash of distaste which he had seen pass across von Stalhein's face when he had tossed the accusation his way: that instant of what had looked like unfeigned emotional response. It made Algy feel somehow uneasy, awkward; uncomfortably aware that there was a chance - just a slight chance - that his suspicions were unfair.
So he pushed an errant curl back from his forehead, and sighed. “It doesn’t involve more heavy lifting, does it?”
The plane arrived some ten minutes later, minutes which von Stalhein spent methodically leafing through sheaves of papers and checking his watch, and which Algy spent leaning against the corrugated iron of the shaded hangar wall, watching him idly.
There was no time for idleness when the machine taxied in though: from the moment of von Stalhein’s soft noise of satisfaction at hearing the purr of the approaching engine – precise to the second, Algy assumed – it was a blur of well-ordered activity. The machine landed, the scent of heated rubber joining the pitch and dope and hot earth and cigarette smoke in the heavy air; men with serious expressions and overalls undone to the waist swarmed about it, caught the wings, threw open the hatch, and formed a chain to pass the small containers within through to the armoured vehicle drawn up feet away. Algy took his place in the line, then grunted and sagged as he felt the astonishing weight of the first box. His arms were already complaining from their treatment earlier; but he set his teeth.
When all the boxes had been transferred, the armoured truck was driven away by one of von Stalhein’s serious-looking men, with a comrade to keep him company in front and another to keep the crates company in the back.
“What was in those?” Algy called over the noise of the machine nosing gently forward into the hangar. “Gold bullion?”
Von Stalhein turned to him as if only belatedly recalling his presence. “Rocks, actually,” he replied after a moment; and then, at the look Algy shot him, “Quite large rocks, naturally.”
He lead the way into the hangar, heavy with silence after the pilot switched off, and walked around the machine to the hatch. Algy noted with curiosity that none of the men clustered patiently on the opposite side of the fuselage made any movement to approach as von Stalhein leaned into the gloom of the hold. Algy, still half-blinded from the brightness outside, couldn’t quite make out what he did next; but a minute later something shifted with a metallic clank, and a dark aperture was revealed in the floor. As if this were a known signal, von Stalhein’s men filed over, and with the same stone-faced efficiency began to pull boxes from the concealed compartment – smaller, fewer, certainly heavier than those they had unloaded outside – and load them into two ordinary delivery vans.
“Chatty lot, aren’t they,” Algy remarked some minutes later, as the second of the vans left with the last of von Stalhein’s security men, and the remaining mechanics began the business of checking the machine.
“Unsurprisingly, I do not employ them for their conversation.”
“Bit risky isn’t it though?” Algy wondered. “No armour-plating in the vans, and only one guard apiece? That false trail trick is as old as the hills.”
Von Stalhein shrugged. “There are always risks. I can only hope to minimise them. This is only one of three flights which may contain the cargo, and only I and my employer at the other end know which contains the real gold and which the decoys. Each time the obvious bait of the armoured car is dangled before the would-be thief, and the real cargo divided between two innocuous delivery vans, both of which have entirely legitimate reasons for being present in the aerodrome.”
“And only you know how to access the real cargo-hold, in case any of your pilots or porters feel like having a private poke around,” Algy finished. “You really don’t trust anyone, do you?”
“It is usually the safest way, in matters of security.”
Algy turned to von Stalhein, but whatever needling phrase he had been intending to press home got lost behind the entirely unavoidable grin which threatened to overwhelm him.
“Is something amusing, Captain?”
Algy could only grin more broadly. “You look almost like a human being.”
Von Stalhein had stripped off his light jacket, loosened his tie, unfastened his collar, rolled up his shirt sleeves to help with the lifting: Algy could see the sharp line where the brown wrist met the paler forearm, and the shiver of muscles under the skin as von Stalhein flexed the stiffness from his fingers. There were circles of sweat under his arms, tracks of it at his forehead and temples.
He grimaced. “I do not feel like one. If you will come with me, perhaps we may both repair the damage as best we can.”
The bathroom was somewhat basic; but there was cold running water, which was as much as Algy could ask for at that moment. By turning his head sideways and pressing his cheek to the cold porcelain of the sink, he was able to get most of his head under the tap, and just let the water rush over him. He came up perhaps a minute later, spluttering and coughing and laughing, shaking his head to get the water from his eyes and letting the droplets scatter.
“I have always admired the quiet dignity of the English,” said von Stalhein, drying his hands on a threadbare towel.
“And I’ve always admired the faultless politeness of the Germans,” Algy replied, looking at him in the mirror. “Anyway, I’m Welsh.”
“And I am Prussian,” said von Stalhein, imperturbably. Then he replaced the towel on its hook, and caught Algy’s eyes in the mirror. “We have never got off to a good start, you and I.”
“For some reason,” Algy murmured.
“I should like to try once again.” He drew himself to his full height, and clicked his heels in a precise military salute. If there was any mockery in it, it was buried very deep. “Erich von Stalhein.”
Then he held out his hand.
Algy looked into those brilliant blue eyes in the mirror. The sun was slanting in through the dirty skylight; the air was thick. Von Stalhein’s hair was slicked back into place, dark with water, and his necktie straightened; but his shirt was still creased and marked.
Algy turned, and took the proffered hand. “Algernon Lacey.”
Von Stalhein nodded, very slightly, as though committing it to memory. “Perhaps I might buy you lunch now?”
* * *
Von Stalhein’s car looked expensive, even dust-coated as it was, a great sleek black creature with a sweep of wheel-arch like a breaking wave. Algy put out a hand to touch it almost without thinking, before drawing it back with a hiss as the heated metal bit his fingers.
“Very pretty,” he conceded. “German-made, of course.”
“Of course.”
“You must be doing well for yourself.”
Von Stalhein shrugged, and courteously opened the passenger side door. “I am doing better, at any rate.”
“I have to admit, I never really pictured you as having to earn a living.”
The door slammed, nearly catching him a crack on the elbow. “Nor should I have to,” said von Stalhein, pleasantly enough. “But most of my lands were lost at Versailles, and I have found it remarkably difficult to secure any form of compensation. On the whole, earning a living seemed preferable to starving.”
Algy looked away as von Stalhein folded himself into the driver’s seat, eyes on the distant flash of what must be the passenger service from Croydon making its descent. “I don’t think my land was ever worth enough to live on in the first place.”
“Then when Wales eventually throws off the shackles of the invader and rids itself of foreign nobility, you will not be greatly disadvantaged.”
The engine started with a roar, and the breeze suddenly leapt joyously up to meet him.
“Seems to handle well enough,” Algy shouted over the slipstream, as they cut a tight half circle on the parched grass and sped towards the gates.
“She handles better the faster she goes.” Von Stalhein’s eyes, which had seemingly been fixed with cold and immobile purpose on the road, suddenly glanced over and met his own. “What do you say?”
“Can’t be worse than trying to pull a Camel out of a flat spin,” Algy yelled, feeling a flush of challenge slider over his skin like the sunlight.
A flash of a smile. “Shall we see?”
Algy caught his breath, and the car surged.
The main road was exhilarating, but it was the sudden dives away down half-unmade trackways that set his heart pounding: the tight bends that were fading into clouds of dust behind them almost before they were seen in front, the swift sweeps around the horse-drawn carts of farmers, left behind as if stationary; and as they rushed from sun into shade and back again beneath the interwoven branches of trees, he found that his eyes were flicking again and again from von Stalhein’s face to the road ahead to his long fingers, which touched the wheel as delicately as they would pluck at a horse’s reins: trying to track the electricity of reaction from road to eyes to hands. And over it all, the physical press of the air as it flung his hair about his face, and the throb of the engine, and the sound, like and unlike enemy ‘planes in the skies over France.
Eventually, they slowed enough for comfortable speech.
“I don’t believe this is the way to Berlin,” Algy called. “Am I being kidnapped?”
“It is far too hot a day to be in town,” von Stalhein replied, eyes on the unfurling white banner of the road. “With your permission, I thought we might motor down to Potsdam.”
“Where the palaces are?”
“Just so.”
Algy tipped his head back against the hot, dark leather of the seat. “As long as there’s a café that’ll sell me beer by the gallon, I’ll go anywhere.”
“Are you sure that’s entirely wise? After all, your cousin is no longer here to carry you home...”
Algy sat abruptly upright. “He has never – I could count the number of times Biggles has so much as helped me home on the fingers of – “ He paused. “Both hands. Nearly.”
“And you have done the same for him...?”
“Never,” Algy admitted, grudgingly. “But he started before I did.”
“Wounded vanity?” wondered von Stalhein. “Careful, Lacey. You sound almost like a human being.”
Algy subsided in his seat. “Touché,” he muttered, letting his head fall backwards again, so the gleams of brightness through the leaves overhead fell on his face like water.
They swept through villages and along farm lanes, the Havel a spreading gleam before them, and beyond it the spires of Potsdam shining and shivering in the heat.
“I take it Bigglesworth will return tomorrow?”
“Probably,” said Algy, propping himself upright once again as they crossed a narrow ribbon of river. “Providing nothing goes wrong at his end. He’ll want to get the hired machine back as quickly as possible.”
“I suppose he will only let you off the leash for a little time.”
“Oh, quite,” said Algy, airily. “Frankly, he can’t do a thing without me.”
They lunched at a café almost opposite the Town Palace, a place of dark wood and mirrors and great windows flung wide to catch the faint hints of breeze. Potsdam’s streets were narrower than the great shining canyons of Berlin, and seemed to funnel more of the breeze. Algy sat in the dimness, taking great gulps of water and beer by turns, and felt the sweat begin to dry on his skin; he stretched his legs under the table, languid in the warmth, and pointedly ignored von Stalhein’s expression of faintest amusement.
“Of course, you are more than welcome to stay here for the afternoon,” he said, his words coming as though at the culmination of a lengthy discussion instead of after the guarded truce of an oddly peaceable meal. “But I had rather thought you might wish to take in some of the sights of the town.”
“I’d have thought you had better things to do than to act as my tour-guide,” said Algy.
Von Stalhein sipped his coffee. “At present, I find myself at a loose end. As I’m sure you find with your own work, it comes when it will.”
“If at all.”
“I am fortunate in that respect.” He replaced his cup in its saucer, and just touched a snowy linen napkin to his lips; and Algy thought of him sweat-stained and rumpled from shifting heavy crates, and allowed himself a small smile. “I still have sufficient contacts within...certain areas of government that my firm seldom finds itself without custom.”
“Hence the car, I suppose.” Algy finished his beer, then cupped his fingers around the perspiring glass to gather the last of the cool. “So much for retirement.”
“Oh, it was never that,” said von Stalhein pleasantly. “Perhaps rather ‘compulsory redundancy’.” He gestured to the waiter for the bill, and paid it before Algy could see the total. “Now, perhaps you would care to see the tomb of Frederick the Great?”
They ducked into a church, out of the sunshine and into the Baroque cool, and von Stalhein duly pointed out the vault where the great Prussian ruler was buried; then he told the story of how the king had wished to be buried with his beloved greyhounds in the palace gardens, but this was held not to be regal enough for the conqueror of Silesia and divider of Poland. Algy felt duly patronised.
As they left, von Stalhein pointed out one of the many military standards which graced the walls like great dusty butterflies, coloured wings dragging and dulled with age. “Those are the colours of my old regiment,” he said. “It was disbanded after Versailles.”
“Do you expect me to apologise?” Algy remarked. “Try not invading Belgium next time.”
Von Stalhein nodded. “Naturally, it was entirely our fault. The Treaty said so, after all, and we signed it, did we not?”
“Look, I’m hardly the most enthusiastic supporter of the Treaty,” said Algy, as they passed down the flight of echoing stone steps and out into the sun-quiet street again. “I can’t even put my hand on my heart and say I’ve read it all through. But when every other country in the world is set on demilitarising, you have to admit it makes sense to stop the only country which won’t see reason from over-turning the applecart. Even if that means disbanding their military by force. As soon as you show signs of turning over a new leaf, you’ll be allowed full autonomy again.”
“As always, generous to a fault,” von Stalhein murmured, as he stopped in the shadow of the town’s Brandenburg gate, and pulled from his pocket the inevitable gold cigarette case. He offered it, open, to Algy.
After a moment’s hesitation, Algy accepted.
And he accepted, too, as von Stalhein lit a match and held it out to him, the flame almost invisible against the brightness of the day: another moment of hesitation, before he leaned forward and held the tip of the cigarette to the fire.
Von Stalhein lit his own from the same match, and inhaled deeply, releasing a cloud of blue-grey smoke before speaking again. “Do you really imagine that a day will come when the world will decide that Germany has proven herself sufficiently? When she will say to us ‘Yes, you may have again your air force, your machine guns, your fleet, because you have proven you can be trusted to play nicely with them like good little children’?”
Algy exhaled. “Yes.”
Von Stalhein’s smile was sharp, swift, cold. “I do not believe you. You aren’t so naive. We are not children, and Britain, France and the rest are not benevolent parents, there to ensure we do not hurt ourselves or others with our little wooden foils. There will never come a time when it will be safe and convenient for us to have our aeroplanes and our ships and our regiments returned.” He gestured with one hand, the grace of the movement emphasised by the slender cigarette-holder and the vapour-trail of smoke that wreathed it about. “And how could we prove our trustworthiness? How could the world know that we will not misuse our military power unless we have that power again and choose to refrain from its use?”
“So what’s the answer?” said Algy, shortly. “Give you your armies back and hope for the best, ten years after – after that?”
“You mistake me,” said von Stalhein. “We do not wish to be given anything.”
Algy rested his shoulders back against the cool stone of the gateway, watching his cigarette burn. “I shouldn’t have come. This is pointless. Nothing’s changed.”
There was a sudden, sharp silence; then the soft gritty sound of a cigarette-butt being ground underfoot, before von Stalhein leaned against the great masonry blocks beside him, dark head tipped forward.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly. Algy turned his head to look at him. “I become too heated on this matter, I know it. It is...not in keeping with the times.”
There was another awkward pause, as von Stalhein’s gaze rested on the paving stones at his feet; and Algy studied him, and thought that all his straight and upright lines were somehow crooked out of shape.
Algy coughed, and ground out his cigarette against the stone beneath his hand. “Do you fancy a jaunt around the palaces, or not?”
Von Stalhein looked up. “A fine notion.”
“Doesn’t it seem a bit...odd, somehow?” asked Algy, as they entered the great park. “Traipsing through your royal family’s houses? It’s like going for a work’s outing to Buckingham Palace.”
“But we have no royal family now,” said von Stalhein. “In any case, my emperor lived more in Berlin than out here. He was...sentimental, about feeling himself in the midst of his people.”
“You sound almost fond.”
Von Stalhein shrugged. “He was a fool. He exerted all his strength to gather all power to himself, unable to see that he was not strong enough to bear it. A ruler who cannot rule his own advisors is not fit to rule a country.” They strolled along the shaded avenue, kicking up white puffs of dust that settled silky against toe-caps and trouser-cuffs. “But he had a great love for the army, and a great respect for it, and that counted for much. I saw him often, when he chose to drill the Guards regiments. His face shone with the joy of it.”
Before them, the trees opened into a great wheel of paths, with at the hub a broad pool, still and shallow at the summer’s height. To the right, rising above tier after tier of terraces, was the low golden face of the palace of Sanssouci.
Algy pulled his guidebook from his jacket pocket. “Since I’m sure you won’t fancy spending the next couple of hours fielding my inane questions, I hope you won’t mind if I make use of a guide.”
Von Stalhein shrugged. “Why should I? I shall be pleased to learn from you.”
“Biggles always teases me for having my nose in the guide-book,” Algy explained, a little diffidently. “He thinks you can learn all you need to know about a city by sitting in a café, sampling the local cigarettes and studying the street-maps.”
“That must make him of limited use when seeking information on the German high-baroque or the wonders of classical antiquity,” von Stalhein said gravely. “Though I must remember it if I ever find myself in his company and in urgent need of a tobacconist in some foreign capital.”
Algy nodded. “Oh, you can definitely rely on him for that.”
It was always easier to work around Biggles than to try to move him, Algy had found. He had grown used to Biggles foregoing meals, and teasing Algy for his own appetite; to feeling embarrassed when he couldn’t match his cousin drink for drink; to feeling awkward and defiant when he wanted to attend a concert, or visit an exhibition.
“I’m not sure I can imagine you wandering about London clutching a Baedeker,” he said, a little out of breath, as they toiled up towards the sun-yellow front of the palace.
“Really? Where else do you think I acquired my knowledge of your fine underground railway system?”
“Did you learn your English in London?” Algy asked, as they paused at the top to catch their breath. He could feel the blown spray from the fountains drifting into his face like the finest of English mists; as he looked across at von Stalhein, he saw the other man close his eyes, turn his face into the shifting curtain of droplets as if into a caress.
“No, long before,” he replied. “I had a Scottish governess. Thanks to the influence of the old Empress at court, there was still a great fashion for the Highlands. I was lucky to avoid having my portrait taken in full Scottish regalia.” He smiled, lazily. “Also to avoid a broad Inverness accent.”
Algy found himself startled into an honest laugh. “That might not have served you in good stead when posing as a British intelligence officer.”
“I could perhaps have claimed membership of a Highland regiment,” von Stalhein mused. “But a kilt would have been even less practical in the desert than British tropical kit.”
It was only when he caught the cold glitter of von Stalhein’s eyes, regarding him from underneath almost-closed lids, that Algy truly noticed the bubble of lightness which had pushed up inside him. Quite suddenly, he saw himself as if from the outside, with his flushed cheeks and tousled hair and his broad, unguarded grin; and the soap bubble burst.
“And how is your German?” asked von Stalhein as they turned from the vista and walked along the gravelled path, between the immaculate and intricate twists of box hedging and the weathered stone balustrade.
“Not so good,” said Algy, dropping into that language, but letting his English accent bleed through, deliberately shaping the phrases into awkward, lumpen things. His German, while not as fluent as Biggles’, was passable enough for everyday; but there was no reason to drop that information into von Stalhein’s lap. “I can order coffee and cake, and ask what is the best way to the railway station, but – that is all.”
“We could speak in German if you would like to improve.”
“Thanks,” said Algy, in English. “But I’m not sure it would be very productive.”
They reached the east end of the terrace, and looked down at the grey lichen-mottled slabs in the grass.
“The famous greyhounds, I suppose,” said Algy.
“I think I am in agreement with the Old Fritz,” said von Stalhein, meditatively. “There are many worse places to be buried than here.”
They made their way through palaces cool with the thickness of stone walls and the icy slickness of marble; through palaces grand and homely, dark and brilliant; and between them were the long winding paths under trees, where the sun filtered through the leaves and caught in hanging clouds of midges and dust. Algy read pages from his guide-book, and tried not to let himself feel at ease.
Later, Algy threw himself down on the grass, beside an artificial stream, flopping down flat and boneless, feeling the cool, sharp prickle of grass under his spine and his palms. He turned his head, and watched von Stalhein seat himself elegantly beside him.
“I’m surprised more people aren’t here,” he said to the branches above his head. “You were quite right, this really isn’t the day to be in Berlin.”
“Not everyone has the good fortune to be at ease on a working afternoon,” von Stalhein pointed out. “And those who are, can generally not afford the train fare.”
Algy turned the implied criticism of his lack of cultural sensitivity over in his mind, idly wondering whether it was worth needling von Stalhein further in recompense; then he tossed it aside. “How is your sister?” he asked.
He caught the sharp movement in the corner of his eye, but didn’t turn his head to witness the effect of his words. Let von Stalhein wonder about his motives in asking; let him hover in doubt, wondering whether the question could possibly be as easy and throw-away as it seemed. It was his turn.
“She is well,” he answered, after a short silence.
“She must be – what, fifteen now?”
“Sixteen,” von Stalhein corrected, automatically.
“An even more awkward age than twelve, if my sisters were anything to go by.”
“I envy you your perspective,” von Stalhein murmured. His hands hung loose from the wrists where they rested upon his updrawn knees; languid, relaxed. “She wishes to go and study at the Slade Institute, and will give me no peace until I agree. I feel she is too young to be abroad so long.”
“When I was seventeen, I was at the Western Front,” Algy said, idly pulling up a couple of long blades of grass that lay beneath his hand, and rolling them between his fingers. “I don’t think ‘young’ means quite what it used to.”
“It is different for a girl.”
Algy grinned. “If any of my sisters heard you say that...”
The day was at last beginning to cool. Algy stretched, catlike, feeling the lassitude of the long morning’s work and the afternoon’s walking seeping through his limbs. He felt wrung-out, boneless, oddly content.
“And how is your cousin?”
Algy did not open his eyes; only curved his fingers further into the turf, feeling the scrape of soil under his nails. “Much as ever. You can come and see him at the aerodrome tomorrow, if you like. Find out first-hand.”
“Unfortunately, the pressure of work will deny me that pleasure.”
Algy smiled, very slightly. “I thought it might.”
“I would be grateful if you would give him my regards though.”
Above, swifts were shrilling as they played at dog-fighting in the clear air, scented with dry grass and hot earth and the faint sourness of the low river. Algy felt the breeze flow over him, and imagined the weight of von Stalhein’s eyes on his face moving over him too, and he paid no more heed to it than he did to the breeze.
“Of course.”
* * *
He had von Stalhein drop him outside a hotel three streets from the one at which he was actually staying; it was probably a wasted effort, he conceded, as von Stalhein almost certainly knew his real address down to the room number, but there was no sense in making his life too easy.
“Thanks for the lift,” he said, resting his forearms against the top of the car door so he could lean in close. He was getting dust on his sleeves, but that was far from the worst damage his wardrobe had sustained that day. “And for the company. Much against my better judgement, I’ll admit it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.”
“Your generosity continues to be one of your more endearing qualities,” said von Stalhein. “Myself, I thank you for a most enjoyable afternoon. And I wish you luck with your business.” He reached into an inside breast-pocket, and retrieved a slim silver card-case, from which he extracted a single card in the heaviest of papers and the blackest of embossed letters. He held it out. “I am sure my staff will have been able to repair your machine in time for you to fly out tomorrow, but do not hesitate to contact me if you run into any more difficulties.”
Algy took it. “Oh, I’m sure they’ll have been more than capable of repairing the damage.”
Von Stalhein tucked the case away again. “And please get in touch if your firm ever wishes to come to an arrangement with mine. We are always on the lookout for skilled pilots and intelligent operatives.”
Algy grinned. “I’ll pass that on to the chief.”
Von Stalhein shook his head. “Surely a partner should have some say for himself?”
Algy’s answer was smothered by the sudden deep growl of the engine as von Stalhein put the car into gear. He stepped backwards, away from the road.
Von Stalhein lifted his hat, courteously, and raised his voice over the din. “Look me up if you are in Berlin again,”
“Of course,” Algy called back, and was rewarded with the wry twist of von Stalhein’s lips, the arch of one dark brow. Then the car was gone.
He looked at the card; turned it over, blunting the sharp corners with the damp pads of his fingers. On the front were the printed details of company name, registered address, telephone, telegram, all in sober gothic letters. On the back, however, was another address, inscribed in regular, slanting copperplate, neat and precise.
He was confident that von Stalhein had not written it during the course of the day. So the question was whether he carried a stash of inscribed business cards around with him all the time, or if -
- or if he had written it out before ever they had met that morning.
He pushed it into his pocketbook. Time enough for that sort of useless speculation when he’d had a bath and a drink.
He smiled a little, as he began the walk back to his hotel. It was kind of von Stalhein, he thought, to have driven off before his presence outside would have forced Algy to take refuge in the lobby of the hotel that wasn’t in fact his to wait for him to leave. Extremely thoughtful.