The Separation

1

I was a serving officer with RAF Bomber Command from the beginning of the Second World War. My entry into the service was by way of the University Air Squadron at Oxford, where I was a rowing blue at Brasenose College. In those early years I had two passions: one was rowing, the other was flying. I had no interest in war, no premonition that I might ever become involved in one. The events of the world went on beyond my restricted area of awareness, as they had done for most of my life. I know I was naive and therefore badly prepared for the immense war in which we were all eventually caught up.

I should have known better. My father was a registered conscientious objector during the Great War, as the First World War was still called in the 1930s. A reserved and private man, my father would never have tried to force his own convictions on his children. Nevertheless, my brother Joe and I were brought up to believe that war was evil, something to be avoided at all costs. During the Second World War and the years after it, the pre-war British policy of appeasing the Nazis became discredited and despicable, but my father would never have that. He maintained that the beginnings of appeasement lay in a humane and pragmatic economic policy, of not forcing Germany to meet her crippling reparations under the Versailles Treaty. Practically every member of the British government of those days had fought in the Great War and felt themselves under a duty to go to any lengths to avoid another. They sensed, perhaps, what Adolf Hitler always claimed: that it was the iniquities of Versailles that led to the second war.

The naiveté was therefore my own fault, because my interest in sport, in rowing, overshadowed everything else. I lived only for the moment and was totally focused on the sport I loved. During the years 1935 and 1936 I concentrated on a single aim: to qualify for the British team that would compete in the Olympic Games. My brother and I trained and practised with an almost obsessive energy.

To anyone who had seen us training, or who saw us competing, it might have seemed a foregone conclusion that we would be selected for the team. We were consistently on form and easily won most of the races we entered, but when you are there at the centre of the obsession you feel you can take nothing for granted. When Joe and I were finally selected, at the beginning of June 1936, it felt that this was quite simply the greatest news we would ever receive. We celebrated with friends in a number of Oxford pubs that night, but afterwards returned with single-minded dedication to our training.

My story of what happened to me during the war therefore begins in July 1936, when Joe and I set off together for the Berlin Olympics.

2

I was nineteen years old and although I had no way of knowing it then, it was not to be my only trip to Berlin. My later visits took place when I was in the RAF, at the controls of a bomber, peering down through darkness, smoke and cloud at the vast city below; releasing incendiaries on to the buildings and streets. That future was unimaginable to me in 1936.

I had been living away from our family home in Tewkesbury for less than a year. I went home most weekends and still collected my mail, clean laundry and a great deal of food for the following week. I had hardly grown up at all, so a journey out of England, especially one to Germany in that eventful year, was an adventure at the highest level.

As we headed for the south coast of England I was at the wheel of our equipment van, in itself another small step for me. I had only recently begun driving, as until then my brother Joe normally drove us around. All the trips I made before this had been short ones, mostly on the familiar roads between Oxford and Tewkesbury. I had gone no further south or east than to London, and then in daylight. Now here I was, embarking on our adventure, driving our van slowly in the dark across the Downs towards Dover, with Joe dozing in the passenger seat beside me.

I wonder now if we should have gone on with that trip, but perhaps that is simply the luxury that goes with hindsight. In the small world of rowing, as in most sports, politics was a dirty word. It was easy to close yourself off from international events in the 1930s: there was no television, radio was not the force of journalistic independence it became during and after the war, and for most people the main source of information was whatever newspaper they happened to read. Joe and I rarely read any part of newspapers other than the sports pages. Britons in general closed their minds against Hitler and the Nazis, hoping they would go away. For people like Joe and myself, though, there should have been no such excuses. We were at university, surrounded by articulate and intelligent men and women with views on every subject, frequently aired. We knew well enough what was happening in Germany and that to take part in the Games could be construed as giving aid and comfort to the Hitler regime.

I knew this, but frankly I was not interested. The finest sportsmen and sportswomen from around the world would be in Berlin. It was going to be the only opportunity in my lifetime to compete in my chosen event at the highest level.

Joe did not think entirely alike, I should say. Whenever we discussed what we thought was happening in Germany we vehemently disagreed, but because we were both committed to the sport and had to work as a team we generally steered clear of the subject.

I loved rowing. I loved the strength I had in my body, the speed I could find, the agility with which I could move. I rowed every day that the weather allowed, sometimes alone for endurance development, but usually with Joe, training for speed, for coordination, for the simple familiarity of rowing together. We could never train too much, or enough. I knew I could always improve, always hone my muscles a little more. We competed in a sport in which winning margins were often measured in fractions of a second; there was no possible improvement that was so small we could safely neglect it.

Joe was just as committed. Everything I felt inside myself I could observe taking shape in him. Joe rowed stroke. As we rowed, his body was only inches away from mine. His back filled my view, shoulders, arms, flowing to and fro, straining back with the main pull, recovering, sweeping forward, slicing the blades down into the water, putting on the pressure for the next stroke. When we rowed Joe’s back became my inspiration, the powerful, functional muscles matching every movement I made as if we were somehow synchronized by an invisible power from above. I watched his back in the sunlight, in the rain, on grey days, when our coordination was perfect and when we could get nothing right. I watched it at rest as well as during the bursts of energy. I watched it, yet I rarely saw it properly. It was something on which to rest my gaze, a familiar and undisturbing sight while I concentrated on the mindless task of going faster than ever before. Joe and I became more than a team at such times -it was as if we were one person sharing two bodies.

People said we were the best coxless pairs team in the country. They invested great hopes in us, because rowing was a sport in which Britain excelled. The Olympic coxless pairs gold medallists in Los Angeles in 1932 had been Edwards and Clive, the British team, now retired from the sport. Edwards and Clive were our heroes, but we were still expected to equal or better them.

So this was the consuming foreground of our lives. Youth is blind to the world around it, but obsessive youth is blinder still. Ignoring everything, we trained intensively for the Games through the spring and early summer of 1936. Germany was rearming, building an illegal air force, and Hitler marched in his troops to occupy the Rhineland, but we were training on weights, sprinting and running, bringing our times down, getting the rhythm and the smoothness of the strokes right, learning when and how to burst with speed, when to consolidate our strength, how to take the shortest, straightest line in water that constantly flowed and eddied unpredictably beneath us. Then July came and it was time for us to travel to Germany.

In 1936 there was no combined embarkation of a national team wearing colours, as we see in the modern age. We were expected to make our own way to Berlin, so we carried our equipment in our own van, taking it in turns to drive.

3

I prowled about on the boat deck during the short sea-crossing to France. Joe was inside the lounge cabin and I did not see him again until the ship docked. I was wide awake, exhilarated by everything, but also concerned about the well-being of our two shells, lashed side by side to the roof of the van. We transported them everywhere like that, but never before had we taken them on board a ship. Watching the van being lowered by crane into the hold, the chains swinging, had been an uncomfortable moment of alarm. It reminded me how vulnerable they were and how damage to either of them could put us out of the competition.

I stared restlessly out to sea. I watched the two coasts between which we were slowly crossing. Somewhere in the middle of the Channel, with the lights of both England and France in clear view, it felt as if the sea had narrowed. Both coasts seemed to be almost within reach. I had never before realized how close our country actually was to the mainland of Europe. From this perspective the sea did not seem much wider than a big river. I stood at the rail amidships, thinking such thoughts, little appreciating - how could I have done? - what an important symbol of national security that short stretch of water was soon to assume for everyone in Britain.

Three hours later, with the early dawn breaking ahead of us, we were travelling eastwards away from Calais, along the French coast, heading for the border with Belgium.

Joe was driving. I curled up as comfortably as I could in the passenger seat beside him, closed my eyes and tried to snatch some sleep, but I was too excited. The strange French farmland was drifting magically past our windows, flat fields cultivated in exact, rectangular shapes, tall trees planted alongside the road. Ahead was the prospect of hundreds of miles more of sweet foreignness, Belgium and Holland and Germany.

4

The next day I was driving the van when we reached the border crossing between Holland and Germany.

It was a moment we had been looking forward to with mixed feelings. We were undoubtedly nervous of the Nazis, but at the same time, because our mother had been born in Germany, we had been brought up believing that Germany was a good and beautiful place, with a great civilization and culture. Frankly, we had no idea what to expect.

We had driven through the Dutch town of Eindhoven an hour or two before reaching the German border. The road was straight but perilously narrow, built up on embankments that ran between wide and uninteresting fields. Beyond Venlo we entered an area of woodland. After crossing the River Maas on a long bridge built of girders, we drove into the border zone, hidden where the road ran through a dense thicket of trees.

The officers on the Dutch side dealt with us quickly. After a perfunctory examination of our passports one of the officials raised the barrier and I drove across into the narrow strip of no man’s land. We could see the German border post about a hundred yards ahead, where another long pole straddled the road. This one was painted with a triple spiral of red, black and white.

We drew up behind two other vehicles that were already waiting to cross, inching the van forward as each passed through the border ahead. When it was our turn, the officer, a rotund man wearing a uniform of green jacket, black trousers and highly polished black boots, saluted us with his arm raised at a smart angle.

‘Heil Hitler!’

‘Heil Hitler!’ Joe responded.

Before leaving home we had received a letter sent by the Foreign Office to Games competitors, warning us of the behaviour and courtesies that would be expected of us in Germany. The Hitler salute was the first item on the list. To neglect or refuse to make it could lead swiftly to trouble, including imprisonment and deportation. Like most people in Britain we had seen newsreel film of the Nazis. To us, there was something unmistakably ridiculous and histrionic about it. Back in our rooms in college, Joe and I had Heil-Hitlered each other and our friends, goose-stepping about, laughing and laughing.

The guard lowered his arm stiffly. He leaned down by the passenger window and stared in at us. He was a youngish man, with pale blue eyes and a fair moustache, neatly cropped. He glanced suspiciously into the compartment of our van, where our luggage was stowed, leaned back with his hands on his hips while he regarded our shells strapped to the roof, then held out his plump fingers. Joe gave him our passports.

He looked through both documents slowly, turning the pages with precise motions of his fingers. The sun was beating down on me through the window. I began to feel anxious.

‘[These passports are for the same man,]’ he said, not looking up. ‘[J. L. Sawyer twice.]’

‘[We have the same initials,]’ I replied, beginning what was for us the familiar explanation. Joe was always Joe. I was sometimes called Jack, but usually JL. ‘[But our names - ]’

‘[No, I think not.]’

‘[We are brothers.]’

‘[You are both initialled J. L., I see! Some coincidence. Joseph, Jacob! That is how they name twins in England?]’

Neither Joe nor I said anything. The officer closed the second of our passports, but he did not hand them back.

‘[You are going to the Olympic Games in Berlin,]’ he said to me, looking across. I was in the driver’s seat, but from his point of view the right-hand drive must have put me on the wrong side of the vehicle.

‘[Yes, sir,]’ I replied.

‘[In which event do you propose to compete?]’

‘[We are in the coxwainless pairs.]’

‘[You have two boats. Only one is necessary]’

‘[One is for practice, sir. And as a reserve, in case of accident.]’

He opened our passports again, closely scrutinizing the photographs.

‘[You are twins, you say. Brothers.]’

‘[Yes, sir.]’

He turned away from us and walked to his office, a solid-looking wooden hut built beside the barrier. Several large red flags with the swastika emblazoned on a white circle hung from poles standing out at an angle from the wall. There was no wind in this sheltered spot surrounded by trees and the flags barely moved.

‘What’s he doing?’

‘It’s going to be all right, Jack. Relax ... we haven’t broken any rules.’

We could see the guard through the wide window at the front. He was before a high desk, turning the pages of a large, ledgerlike book. Two other guards were also in there with him, standing back and watching. Behind us and beside us other vehicles were arriving at the border post, but they were being waved through by more guards after only short delays.

Presently our guard returned. He glanced briefly at the trucks grinding slowly past us.

‘[English,]’ he said. ‘[You speak German remarkably well. Have you visited the Reich before?]’ He handed back our passports, directing his question deliberately at Joe. After the first salute, Joe had not spoken during the exchange. He continued to stare ahead, past the barrier pole, along the road that led into Germany. ‘[Do you speak German as well as your identical brother?]’ the guard said loudly, banging his fingers on the window ledge.

‘[Yes, sir,]’Joe said, smiling with sudden charm. ‘[No, we have not visited Germany before.]’

‘[They teach German in your English schools?]’ ‘[Yes. But we also have a mother who was born in Germany]’ ‘[Ah! That explains everything! Your mother is a Saxoner, I think! I knew I was right about your accent! Well, you will know that we are proud of our sportsmen in the Reich. You will find it difficult trying to beat them.]’ ‘[We are pleased to be here, sir.]’ ‘[Good. You may enter the Reich.] Heil Hitler!’ He stepped back. As we passed over a white line painted across the surface of the road, Joe made a perfunctory return raising of his arm, then wound up the window on his side. He said, with quiet bitterness, ‘Heil bloody Hitler.’

‘He was just doing his job.’

‘He enjoys his work too much,’ Joe said.

But soon after that we relapsed into silence, each of us absorbed by the unfamiliar scenery of northern Germany.

The sights we saw have since blended into a few memorable images. A lot of the landscape we passed through was forested, a conspicuous change from the vistas of flat farmland we had seen in Belgium and Holland. Although we went through several industrial towns - Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, all of them shrouded in a thin, bitter-smelling haze that made our eyes sting - there was not enough variety to provide detailed memories. I was keeping a journal as we went along but of that journey I recorded only a couple of short paragraphs. Most of what I remember was a general sense of being in Germany, the place that was always being talked about in those days, and with it the vague sense of dread that the name gave rise to. The feeling was reinforced by the hundreds and thousands of swastika flags that were flying from almost every building or wall, a glare of red and white and black. Many long banners were strung across the autobahns and from building to building across the streets of the towns and villages. They bore inspiring messages, perhaps spontaneously created, but because of the insistent tone more likely to be the product of the party. There were slogans about the Saar, about the Rhineland, about the Versailles Treaty, about Ausland Germans - one banner which we saw many times in different places declared: ‘[WE ARE PLEDGED TO BLIND OBEDIENCE!].’ There were few commercial advertisements on display anywhere and certainly there were no messages about the Olympic Games.

We drove and drove, trying to conserve our physical energy for the training and events which lay ahead, but inevitably, by the time we were approaching the environs of Berlin, we were done in. Joe wanted to find the British team headquarters straight away, to let them know we had arrived, but I was tired of driving, tired of being in the van. I simply wanted to find the house of the family friends with whom we had arranged to stay. We argued listlessly about it for a while. Joe pointed out that we had arrived in the city before noon, that there were many hours of daylight left. I agreed that we should resume training as soon as possible, get our muscles back into competitive trim, but I stubbornly insisted that what I wanted to do was rest. In the end, we came to a sort of compromise. We located the British team headquarters, then went from there to the stretch of water near the Olympic Village at Grunewald, where sculling and rowing teams were to train. We unloaded our two shells and our oars into the boathouse that had been allocated to us. Next we drove to our friends’ apartment, in Charlottenburg, a western suburb of Berlin. We did no training that first day we arrived.

5

Five years later, in the early summer of 1941, I was in hospital in rural Warwickshire. My plane, Wellington A-Able, had crashed into the North Sea about thirty miles from the English coast, somewhere off Bridlington. Only one other crew member was still on the aircraft with me when it went down: Sam Levy, the navigator, who had been hit in the head and leg by shrapnel. Sam and I managed somehow to scramble into an inflatable dinghy and we were picked up by a rescue boat many hours later.

I was in a fog of amnesia. I remembered almost nothing of even the bare outline I have described. Moments only of it remained, glimpsed in flashes, like fragments of a terrible dream.

I came slowly back to full consciousness, confused by what was going on in my mind, a conflict of violent images and what I could see around me in the physical world. I was in a bed, suffering intense pain, there were strangers coming and going, inexplicable actions were being performed on my body, bottles and trays were clattering, I experienced a sensation of helpless motion as I was wheeled somewhere on a trolley.

In my mind I saw or heard or remembered the deafening sound of the engines, brilliant flashes of light in the dark sky around us, a loud bang that was repeated whenever I moved my head, a shock of cold as the windscreen in front of my face was shattered by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel, voices on the intercom, the huge and terrifying surge of the sea, the cold, the terror.

I gradually emerged from the confusion, starting to make sense of what I saw around me.

I realized I was in a hospital, I remembered being on the plane, I knew other men had been with me. My legs hurt, my chest hurt, I was incapable of moving my left hand. I was taken from the bed, placed in a chair, returned to the bed. Medical staff came and went. I saw my mother’s face, but the next time I opened my eyes she had gone again. I knew I was critically ill.

I tried getting answers about my illness from the staff, but as I slowly improved I realized that they would not give answers unless I asked questions. Before I could do that, I should have to formulate the enquiry in my mind. Before even that, I should have to be clear in my own mind what it was I wanted to know.

I worked backwards to find the memories I needed, learning as I went.

6

While we were in the Charlottenburg area of Berlin we stayed in a large apartment in Goethestrasse. By good chance it was not far from either the Olympic Stadium or the training area at Grunewald. The apartment was owned by close friends of my mother’s family: Doktor Friedrich Sattmann, his wife Hanna and their daughter Birgit. They lived on the second floor of a huge, solidly constructed building which on one side looked down on the wide, tree-lined street where trams ran to and fro all day and much of the night, and on the other over an area of open parkland with many trees. Joe and I were given a room to ourselves at the back. We had a balcony where we could sit and enjoy coffee and cakes with the family. It was a home full of music: all three of the family played instruments. Frau Sattmann was an accomplished pianist, her husband played the bassoon. Seventeen-year-old Birgit was a violinist, studying under Herr Professor Alexander Weibl, at the Berliner Konservatorium. Everything, they told us, had been banned - they could not even go to friends’ houses to play in their small ensemble, so they played together at home.

Herr Doktor Sattmann and his wife treated us with great generosity throughout our stay, but we were left in no doubt that the doctor’s medical practice was no longer prospering. He said nothing about it to us, but every morning that we were staying in his apartment he announced formally that he was leaving to attend to his patients, then he would return only an hour or so later, reporting that only one or maybe two patients had required his services.

Frau Sattmann explained that it was no longer possible for her to continue to work at the publishing house where she had been a translator. Birgit, who was in only her first year of study at the Konservatorium, told us that she had become desperate to leave the country. I was dazzled by Birgit from the moment I set eyes on her: she was dark-haired and pretty and her face became illuminated when she smiled. She stayed shyly away from Joe and me.

Every evening Frau Sattmann would prepare a meal for Joe and myself, but the portions were small and the quality of the food was poor. Nothing was explained or described.

It was during our days in Berlin that I first began to feel the emerging differences between Joe and myself that were to have such a lasting impact on us both. When we were not training together I hardly ever saw him. While I maintained a fitness regime, he went on long solitary walks around Berlin, claiming it was for exercise, but often in the evenings I would hear him discussing what he had seen and the whole area of politics with Doktor Sattmann. I tried to join in, but in truth I was not all that interested, constantly thinking ahead to our race. I began to feel that Joe was not pulling his weight, that our existence as a team was in jeopardy.

Although Joe and I were physically identical, our personalities and general outlook could hardly have been more different. It’s difficult to see yourself clearly, but I suppose it would be fair to say that my life from the age of about thirteen was a carefree, fairly selfish one. I enjoyed myself as much as I could, making the most of the advantages with which my well-off and indulgent parents provided me. Sport and flying were my main interests, with girlfriends, beer-drinking and a growing fascination with cars starting to compete for precedence as I grew older.

But Joe was different. He was always more serious than me and he put up an appearance of being more aware, more responsible. He thought about things and wrote them down, sometimes ostentatiously, I believed. He read books on subjects I knew nothing about and whose titles did not even interest me. While I went off and learned to fly, first as a private pupil, then later in the University Air Squadron, he said he was too busy studying and training. His taste in music was classical and serious, he had friends I thought of as secretive and sardonic, and he treated me with contempt and condescension if I tried to talk to him about subjects he was interested in.

Although I was on the receiving end of the rivalry I also understood what he was doing and even why he was doing it. If I was honest with myself I knew I felt much the same. If you grow up with an identical twin you are never allowed to forget it. As twins you suffer endless comments and jokes about the startling resemblance you bear for each other. People say they can’t tell you apart, even though they probably could if they took the trouble. They ask you if you think the same things. Parents dress you alike, teachers treat you alike, friends and relatives give you identical gifts or say things that automatically include you both. Superficial differences, if they are spotted, are remarked on out of all proportion to their importance. Buried in this is the assumption that the two of you must also feel alike.

What you want, what you crave, is to be treated as a separate human being. It’s almost impossible while you’re a child, but as soon as you reach your teenage years and adulthood approaches, you start trying to create a distance. You want an independent life, you want to discover information your twin does not have, you want to have secrets from him. It has nothing to do with a failure of love, or a growing dislike of someone once close to you. It is quite simply the need to become an individual.

In Berlin, I began to realize that the Games were all that remained to bind us together. I was often alone, training by myself, or hanging around the Sattmanns’ apartment while Joe was out somewhere with the family. In the evenings he and the Herr Doktor would go to the study, while I was left to be entertained by Frau Sattmann and Birgit. I loved their music, the fineness of their playing together, and I relished how close this brought me to Birgit, but I could not stop thinking about what was happening between Joe and myself.

However, we were there to race and at least Joe applied himself conscientiously to that. Every morning we set about our training with energy, making full use of the skills and patience of Jimmy Norton, the British team coach. Once we settled down to the strangeness of the place - the unfamiliar sights of Berlin, the unpredictable currents in the water and, above all, the sounds of so many other teams training in their own languages, the voices echoing across the water from megaphones - we managed to concentrate on what we had come to do.

Gradually, slowly, our times and performance improved. Our first aim was to complete the measured course in a modest eight and a half minutes, knowing that Edwards and Clive had won their medal in a fraction under eight minutes, although that was on a downstream course. Earlier in the summer, similarly downstream on the Thames near Oxford, Joe and I had cleared eight minutes five. We knew that this was not our limit, not the best we could do. Athletic performance is all about gradual improvement, not suddenly achieving an outstanding performance in a fluke that cannot be repeated. For the past three months we had been steadily building our speed, reducing our times.

Mr Norton encouraged us to focus our minds forward to the day of the heats, trying to think ourselves into the first race, leaving the times to set themselves.

The heat was five days away. On the first full day of training our best time was eight minutes thirty, on lake water without perceptible currents.

The next day we covered four full courses: our best time was eight minutes twenty-two.

By the fourth day we could touch eight minutes nineteen every time we tackled the course.

7

Five years later I was in hospital in rural Warwickshire, working backwards to memory. I understand now that my memories arrived in the wrong order. Maddeningly, I remembered the end of the incident first, with no recollection of what had led up to it.

There was a slamming noise, a loud crash made by the shrapnel as it burst through the fuselage a couple of feet behind me, low down, somewhere underneath, bursting through into the Wellington’s belly. Just by the navigator’s table, close by the wing spar. The rear gunner, Kris Galasckja, crawled forward from his turret and reported over the intercom that Sam Levy looked as if he was dead. There was blood covering his maps, Kris said. I was watching the dials, seeing the airspeed fall away, the altimeter begin a slow, unstoppable circling decline, our precious height being eaten away gradually by gravity’s suck.

Down below I glimpsed the irregular black line of the German coast as we limped west, across the North Sea towards England.

A few minutes later Kris came back on the intercom and said he thought Sam was going to be all right. He’d taken a bang on the head but was breathing OK. Kris said he was going to drag him around so he could lie more comfortably on the floor, next to the hatch.

I ordered Kris back into his turret to keep an eye open for fighters. They often patrolled over the sea, waiting for our bombers as we straggled home out of formation. For the next few moments I could feel the crew moving clumsily around in the fuselage behind me, the trim of the plane affected by their changing positions. No one said anything, but I could hear their breathing in the intercom headphones clamped against my ears.

By the time they settled down our height had fallen to below twelve thousand feet and was still dropping slowly. There was no extra power in the engines. The flaps were so stiff I could hardly move the stick. The crew began jettisoning unused ammunition, kit, flares, anything removable, the cold night air blasting in not only through the holes in the fuselage but from the open hatch behind me.

We droned on, following our long downwards trajectory with its inevitable end, delaying it as long as possible. An hour passed, deluding me into thinking we might be going to make it after all. We were down to four thousand feet by then. The port engine began to vibrate and overheat.

Colin Anderson, wireless operator, came on the intercom and said he thought it was time to break radio silence, to send a mayday, and how about it?

‘We’re still a long way out to sea,’ I said. ‘Still got to be careful. Anyway, what makes you think I’m going to let the kite crash?’

‘Sorry, JL.’

We all wanted to get home. We hung on silently.

But a minute or so later the port engine began to falter. I changed my mind and gave Col the order to send the mayday. With three thousand feet to go, the night-dark sea passing in and out of sight through low clouds, I switched on the emergency beacon and ordered the crew to take the rafts and life-jackets and jump. They refused, so I shouted at them that it was an order. I swore at them, yelled at them to get out. It was their only real hope. The intercom was silent after that. Were they still on the plane when we hit the sea, or did they in fact jump when I told them to? I had no time to check again: we were a few seconds away from hitting the sea. The shock, when it came, was an immense physical blow - we might as well have slammed into the ground. Somehow I managed to scramble into the inflatable dinghy, barely conscious, freezing to death. I saw that Sam Levy was there in the dinghy with me. No time had passed.

I must have been in shock. I was confused then, I was confused when I tried to remember it later, I am still confused all these years on.

‘Where’s the kite?’ I said, finding that for some reason I could hardly speak aloud. When Sam gave no reaction I asked him again, this time doing my best to shout.

I saw his shape there, across on the other side of the tiny inflatable. His head seemed to move as if he was speaking.

‘What?’ I cried.

‘She sank,’ I heard him say. ‘Back there somewhere.’

‘How the hell did we get out?’

‘The hatch came off in the crash. I was lying close to it and you must have crawled over. Don’t you remember?’

I remembered only chaos inside the flooded cockpit of the Wellington. Total darkness, bitter cold, the drenching of icy water that was rising around me. In an instant the cockpit had been transformed into a place I no longer understood. All sense of direction had gone. Was the area behind me up or down? Was I lying or standing? Or still sitting at the controls? Was I face down? My leg hurt like hell. I couldn’t breathe because my face was under the water and I was choking. The oxygen mask of my flying helmet had become tangled around my throat. Then the plane lurched and the water drained dramatically away from around my head. A dim light from somewhere came glancing in. I saw two legs vanishing through the hatch. The plane lurched again.

Darkness followed, then a violent struggle. Arms and legs flailing in the water. Somehow I was in the inflatable, on the yielding, water-logged rubber floor of the dinghy, trying to twist myself so that I was face up, my fur-lined flying jacket weighed down by the water it had soaked up, the oxygen mask flapping uselessly against my neck.

‘Have you any idea where we are?’ I shouted, after what felt like half an hour of painful struggling. I was still staring across in the darkness to where I thought Sam must be lying. There was a long silence, so long that I thought he had passed out or died, or that he had somehow slipped into the sea.

‘Haven’t the faintest,’ he said in the end.

‘But you’re the navigator. Didn’t you get a fix?’

‘Shut up, JL.’

The night went on, apparently without end. But dawn came at last in the dinghy, the glint of the sun across a cold grey sea, waves punching up around us. The dinghy moved as if it was stuck to the sides of the waves, rising and falling with the swell, never threatening to tip over but constantly kicking us around. Sam and I sprawled on the slippery rubber floor, our wrists tangled up in the ratlines. We had nothing to say to each other - Sam seemed to be asleep much of the time, his hands and face white with the cold. We both had blood all over our clothes but it was gradually being leached away by the salt water that burst across us every few minutes. It was May, early summer. We were going to die of cold.

Then, after many hours, an Air-Sea Rescue launch found us.

That was all I had to go on, as I lay there in Warwickshire.

I was in a fog of amnesia. What I have described is a worked-out version of many fitful images. Moments only of it, glimpsed in flashes that drifted maddeningly out of reach like fragments of a dream.

I gradually emerged from the confusing half-memories, as what I saw around me started to make sense at last. I was hurting in many places: leg, chest, hand, neck, eyes. One day I was moved painfully from the bed and they sat me in a chair. Medical staff came and went. I knew my mother had been to visit me, I knew we had spoken, but I could remember nothing that either of us had said. When I looked back at the chair where she had been sitting she was gone again.

I worked backwards to memory, learning as I went.

It turned out that time had passed and now it was the end of May. They told me we had been shot down on the 10th. I lay still, recovering. A week later everyone said I was on the mend but they told me I should have to remain in hospital for a while longer. I wanted to see my parents again, but the staff explained how difficult it was for them to travel in wartime. They told me, though, that they were going to move me to a convalescent hospital, closer to home. That would make it easier for my parents.

Another gap of memory follows: perhaps I had a relapse of some kind.

I was inside a Red Cross ambulance, shocked into reality when the vehicle jolted over an uneven patch of road. I braced myself defensively against the knocks and bumps I was receiving, but my waist and legs were held gently in place with restraining straps. I was alone in the compartment with an orderly, a young Red Cross worker I knew was called Ken Wilson. It was difficult to talk in the noisy, unventilated compartment. Ken braced his arms against the overhead shelves as the vehicle swung about. He said we were well on our way in the journey, not to worry. But I was worried. Where were we going? I began to think about my parents. Had they been told I was moving from the old hospital? Would they find me wherever it was I was going to? This was suddenly the most important problem in the world.

Our destination was a large country house, with gardens, steep roofs, gables, tall windows, stone-flagged passageways. The large rooms in the wings at the back of the house had been converted into wards. My parents came to see me on the second day I was there, having managed to find me. I cried when I saw them, I was in so much pain.

During the long summer days we were moved out to a balcony shaded from the sun, where there were lounger seats with big cushions, tables made of wicker and a view of a garden in which cabbages, potatoes, spinach and beetroot were being cultivated in large, neat patches. When my parents came to visit, I would sit there with them, not saying much. I felt the events of the war had removed me from them, grown me up.

I discovered that the convalescent hospital was somewhere in the Vale of Evesham. More days had passed while I was ill and by this time it was the end of June 1941. The news on the BBC reported that the Germans had overrun most of the Ukraine and Byelorussia and were advancing on all fronts into the Soviet Union. The news shook me. War must have broken out between Germany and Russia! When did that happen?

The previous night the RAF had bombed Kiel, Düsseldorf and Bremen. Damage to all three towns was described as serious. Our attacks had been pressed home with great courage. Five RAF planes were lost, while two more were missing. I was familiar with that kind of news, but I sat quietly after the end of the broadcast, thinking for a long time about the crews they said were missing. I could imagine them in the sea, clinging to rafts and dinghies. Meanwhile Finland, Albania and Hungary had declared war on Russia. Had they invaded too? President Roosevelt was promising aid to the Soviet Union. Did it mean that the USA was also in the war? The BBC said that one of the Nazi leaders, Rudolf Hess, had flown to Scotland with a peace plan to halt the war between Britain and Germany. They explained who he was: Hitler’s deputy, one of the most powerful Nazis in Germany.

But for me the name rang a bell: I had met Rudolf Hess while I was in Berlin! Could it be the same man? I knew at the time he was a high-ranking Nazi, but the fact that he was Hitler’s deputy had been lost on me.

What had happened to Rudolf Hess’s peace plan?

8

Joe and I came second in our first heat, behind France but ahead of Finland and Greece. In the afternoon we took second place in our semi-final heat, which allowed us to scrape through to the main race. The final itself had us ranged against Argentina, Denmark, Holland, France and Germany.

We spent the morning of the big day in training, but at lunchtime Joe suddenly announced that he needed to return to the apartment in Goethestrasse, meaning that I would be alone, with at least two hours to kill. I was furious with him, because we were so close to the start of the most important race of our careers. We should keep working, stay out on the water for more and more practice. Joe shrugged it off, saying we could overtrain ourselves into last place. Then he was gone.

At this time of day, with no events in progress, most people, competitors and crowds, had drifted away to lunch. I stayed by the lake, calming down after my argument with Joe, resting on the grass, watching what was going on around me. I started thinking about Birgit. My last real conversation with her had taken place two days earlier, when I had worked up my courage and asked her if she would like to visit the Olympic regatta arena to watch us race. Like all the athletes, Joe and I had been issued with complimentary tickets for our family and friends. Birgit told me she would love to be present for our race but that it would not be safe for her to be there. Although I was disappointed I had not pressed the point. I wished now that I had. We would be leaving Berlin soon, with no telling when we would be able to return.

A little later I went to stretch my legs. Between the two main grandstands and slightly in front of them was a raised viewing podium, draped in Nazi flags and banners, reserved for dignitaries and officials. So far, whenever we had been competing or training, it had remained unoccupied and our efforts passed unobserved by the important and powerful. This time when I wandered past, though, two armed SS men in their distinctive black uniforms had taken up positions at the bottom of each of the flights of steps that led to the platform. I walked past, staring up at the swastika-draped railings.

‘[Move on!]’ said one of the guards as I lingered in the area of the podium.

‘[I’m a competitor,]’ I said mildly, showing him the pass that all athletes were issued with, so that we could gain unrestricted access around the sports complex.

‘[Being a competitor is of no importance. It is forbidden to be here.]’

‘[Yes, sir!]’ I said, having realized during the last few days in Berlin that no one in their right mind questioned the authority of the SS. I added, ‘Heil Hitler!’

He returned the salutation instantly, but continued to stare at me with intense suspicion. I walked away smartly, suddenly a little frightened of the situation.

Down by the river I went to watch the scrutineering of our shell, together with those belonging to the other teams. The German-speaking officials were making no attempt to keep spectators away, so I stood alongside as they methodically selected each of the boats, measured it, weighed it, checked its trim and alignment, then affixed a tiny tag to the helm to certify it was within the set limits.

When I returned to the spectator enclosure I saw a remarkable sight: the crowds were flocking back to the huge grandstands, flooding in from the park area that lay behind. The quiet area where I had been wandering only a short while earlier was now thronged with officials, police, adjudicators, other sportsmen, pressmen and an alarming number of uniformed SS officers, looking out of place in the bright sunlight. A tremendous sense of occasion filled the summer air and I could not help but respond to it.

I was at the Olympic Games and I was about to compete in a final!

Still the crowds poured in, guided towards the narrow entrances to the stands. The officials seemed concerned, overwrought, chivvying people along as if there was no time to lose. A military band marched impressively into the enclosure, took up position and launched into a medley of cheerful tunes with a bouncing beat. The crowd greatly appreciated this. I sat down on the grass again, watching the band and enjoying the music.

I saw Joe walking along the river bank, looking from side to side. I waved, beckoning him anxiously towards me. We were running out of time. After a moment he saw me and came straight over. He squatted down beside me.

‘Look, JL, we have to change our plans,’ he said directly, raising his voice over the noise of the music. ‘Something’s come up. We’re going to leave Berlin tonight.’

‘You want to go home already?’

‘I want to get out of Germany. Whatever it takes.’

‘Joe, we’re here to compete. Where the devil have you been? Have you forgotten the race? This is the most important afternoon of our lives!’

‘Yes, and I feel the same as you. But there are other things we have to worry about.’

‘Not now, not just before the race!’

‘An hour from now the race will be over as far as we’re concerned. There’s no point hanging around in Berlin afterwards.’

‘But it’s in the agreement we signed. We have to stay on for the closing ceremony’

‘It’s not safe for us to be here.’

‘What could possibly go wrong?’ I said, indicating the huge and good-natured crowds, the warm afternoon and the calm river, the oompah band, the squads of officials and adjudicators. I glanced at my watch. ‘We should be warming up.’

Joe turned away from me, his attention grabbed by something that was going on. I looked over to where he was staring. Many of the people in the grandstands were getting up out of their seats, stretching up on their toes to see better. The band continued to play, but we were close enough to the musicians to notice that several of them were rolling their eyes while they blew into their trumpets and tubas, trying to see what was happening. I stood up and after another moment so too did Joe.

A group of men in German military uniforms was coming along the pathway that led down to the enclosure between the two main stands. They weren’t marching but were walking briskly, staring straight ahead. The way for them had already been cleared, with lines of SS men standing to attention on each side.

Many of the people in the crowd raised their right arms at an angle and a huge racket of shouting, cheering and some screaming was going on. Ripples of excitement were fanning through the crowds in both grandstands. The mood was electric.

‘My God!’Joe shouted over the row. ‘It’s him!’

I stared in amazement. In the centre of the group of men, the instantly recognizable figure of Chancellor Hitler was striding along, acknowledging the excited crowd by holding his right hand slightly aloft, the palm turned upwards. He looked to neither right nor left. He was no taller than any of the other men, dressed in a nondescript pale-green military jacket and a peaked cap, yet somehow his presence had instantly become the focus of interest of everyone.

I was astonished by the effect of the man’s appearance on me. Simply by being there, by arriving, by striding into the arena where the regatta was taking place, he commanded our immediate attention. Like everyone else, Joe and I were craning our necks to keep him in sight.

The group of men reached the base of the raised podium. On that hot day in early August 1936, Joe and I recognized none of them apart from Hitler; even though we understood from the way they behaved that they were hugely important men. Without ceremony they climbed the steps to take up their positions on the viewing platform. A few years later, those men on the podium with Hitler would be amongst the most widely known, and feared, men in the world.

The Nazi leaders disappeared briefly from our view as they reached the viewing platform, but Hitler moved forward, flanked by two of the others. He stood by the rail, his back stiff and his head erect, looking from side to side in a calm but imperious manner. He raised his arms with a theatrical motion, folded them in front of him so that his hands clasped his upper arms. He looked around in all directions, silently acknowledging the tumult of acclaim and applause. The noise from the crowd was deafening, yet Hitler seemed detached from it, totally in command of the situation.

After about a minute of this, Hitler swiftly unfolded his arms, raised his right hand briefly in his palm-up salute, then turned and stepped back. As he did so, the crowd noise at last began to fade away.

I looked at my wristwatch.

‘Come on, Joe!’ I shouted. ‘We’re going to be late!’

Several minutes had gone by while Hitler and his entourage were entering the arena, attracting the attention of everyone, but we competitors were subject to a strict timetable. We were already nearly ten minutes past the start of our time allocated for warm-up exercises and we knew that the officials would make few allowances for late arrivals.

We dashed up the slope to the warm-up area, thrusting our passes at the German official on duty. Waiting beyond him was one of the British team officials, who was clearly not pleased by our tardiness, nor impressed by our excuse. A brisk, humiliating lecture on national expectations followed. We humbly accepted responsibility, apologized, then finally managed to move away from the man. We settled down quickly to our routine of exercises, trying to close our minds to everything that had just occurred, concentrating on the crucial race that was only a fewminutes away.

9

Five years later I was in a convalescent hospital in the Vale of Evesham, working backwards to my memories of the crash and before.

The date they had given me for when we were shot down helped me remember: May 10, 1941. Details began to accumulate around it. On that night we were at thirteen thousand feet, approaching the city of Hamburg on a north-westerly track. I was in a state of terror, my hands and feet pressed rigidly against the controls of the Wellington. I was obsessed by the knowledge that the next two or three minutes could hurt, maim or kill us all. During those moments, with the bombs armed and ready to be dropped, the bomb aimer in position and effectively in command of the aircraft, the rest of the crew tensed against attack, I felt unable to think or speak for myself. All I was capable of doing was to react to the events going on around me, trusting that my instinctive reactions would be the right ones, that my terror would not let me make mistakes. I could keep the plane straight and level, I could respond to the warnings and requests of the crew, but memories of the past and thoughts of the future were impossible. I lived for the moment, expecting death at any instant.

So. Thirteen thousand feet. Clear skies under a bomber’s moon. Twenty minutes past midnight, British time. Aircraft A-Able loaded with bombs and flares. City below: Hamburg. We had flown past the city a few minutes earlier at a distance of some twenty miles, trying to mislead the ground defenders into thinking we were passing Hamburg on the way to another target, Hanover or Magdeburg or maybe even Berlin. The RAF had hit Hamburg two nights before and we were warned at our afternoon target briefing that the Germans were bringing in more anti-aircraft guns to defend the city. Return raids were notoriously dangerous for us. We never treated German flak as a minor threat, so we all paid attention to the decoy plan. We used a distinctive curve in the River Elbe near Luneburg as the assembly point, then turned steeply and headed in on our bombing run.

Ted Burrage, our bomb aimer and front gunner, had crawled into the belly of the Wellington, lying on his stomach, watching the ground through the perspex pane behind the nose. It was a night of clear visibility: great for targeting the ground, but the anti-aircraft gunners could see us just as easily and if night fighters were about we would be visible for miles.

As we approached the centre of Hamburg, distinctive on cloudless nights because of the way the river curved through, the intensity of the flak suddenly increased. Ten or more searchlight beams flicked on, criss-crossing ahead, while tracer bullets snaked up towards us. I tried to ignore the tracer: it always moved with hypnotic slowness while a long way below us, but suddenly speeded up and whooshed past us. I could never get it out of my mind that the tracer was only part of the flak - for every bright firefly of light swarming up towards us there were ten or fifteen others that were invisible. Ahead, bursting in the sky, was a huge barrage of exploding shells, brilliant white and yellow, flashing on and off" like a deadly fireworks display. How could we ever pass through that without being hit a hundred times?

‘Bomb aimer to pilot. Are we starting the bombing run?’ It was Ted, in the nose.

‘Yeah, we’re already on it. No need to change track as far as I’m concerned.’

‘The sight is settled. Everything calibrated and checked.’

‘You can get on with it, Ted.’

‘What’s our present course?’

‘Two eighty-seven. Airspeed one thirty-two.’

‘Hold her steady, JL. Right a bit. Thanks, that’s fine.’

I could hear the others breathing on the intercom.

‘Bomb doors open, skip.’

‘Bomb doors open.’

There was a pause, then the plane lurched a little as the air-drag increased.

‘New airspeed, sir?’

‘One twenty-eight.’

‘OK, hold her steady . . . steady . . . hell, we’re hitting them hard down there tonight. . . smoke everywhere . . . that’s it... steady . . . hold her steady . . . bombs gone!’

The plane lifted as the weight of the bomb load fell away. My stomach lurched with it.

‘Less get outa here, JL!’ The deeply accented voice of Kris Galasckja, the Polish rear gunner, came through raspingly on the intercom.

‘You say that every trip.’

‘I mean it every trip.’

‘OK. Hold on.’

I pushed the nose down to pick up a little speed, then turned the plane through forty-five degrees to port, away from the inferno below. I closed the bomb doors, feeling the plane seem to fly itself as the aerodynamic characteristics improved once more.

‘What now, JL? Home?’ It was Kris again.

‘Not yet. We’ve got to go round one more time.’

‘You joking, skip?’

‘Yeah. Relax. But we’ve got to get out of this place.’

Anyone see what we hit?’ said Sam Levy, who had no outside visibility from the curtained-off cubicle where his navigation table was placed.

Just then there was a loud explosion directly beneath the nose of the aircraft. I was thrown back from the controls and fell sideways to the floor of the cockpit, my left leg twisted painfully in the straps. The plane rolled to the left, tipped over, started to dive. I heard the note of the engine change, as if an invisible pilot had taken my place and was making us accelerate towards the ground. For a moment I was so shaken by the suddenness with which everything collapsed around me that I lay immobile. I was thinking, It’s happened! This is it! We’ve been shot down!

My leather flying helmet was still on, although it was wrenched back uncomfortably in some perplexing way across the crown of my head. Somebody was yelling on the intercom - I could hear the sound of the voice through the headphones, but because the helmet had moved I couldn’t make out the words. The connection clicked to an even more shocking silence. My left arm was immovable because of the pain - there was some kind of wetness running down my forehead from under the flap of the helmet. I thought, I’ve been hit in the head! I’m bleeding to death! I managed to shift position, got my right arm free and brushed the top of my head with my hand. It was sore but seemed intact. The blood continued to flow. I pulled at my helmet to straighten it, yanking it forward over whatever the wound was. There was a jab of intense pain from the damage up there, but after that I couldn’t feel anything.

The plane rocked again, tipping the other way, left wing up, momentarily recovering stability. It was nothing I was doing: the controls were out of my reach and I was in too much pain to move. However, the change in the aircraft’s attitude suddenly cancelled the centrifugal force from the spin. Before it started again I levered myself up. I put my weight on my right elbow, rolled to the side, then managed to get my good leg under me. With a further agonizing struggle I was able to clamber back into my seat at the controls. It was easier like that: I could favour the left side of my body, where most of the damage had been done. I could hardly see out of the windscreen ahead: something had burst through it, starring it and opaquing it. A jet of icy air came straight in at me.

I put on full opposite flaps and to my immense relief the plane began to pull out of the turning dive. The stick felt as if it weighed a ton, but by bracing my right leg on the rudder I managed to hold it back as I corrected the spin, fighting the G-force of the recovery from the dive.

I could see something flapping on the upper fuselage in front of the cockpit, but couldn’t make out what it was. As the plane first levelled out then swung upwards in its trajectory, recovering some of the lost height, I began a frantic cockpit check. Engines both still running, though the oil pressure in the port engine was below normal. No fires anywhere that the instruments could detect. Controls stiff but working; the plane was yawing to the left, which I could correct with the rudder. Coolant low. Electrics OK.

Crew? At the same time as I was going through the emergency checklist I shouted to the others to report back.

Nothing from Ted Burrage, who was in the damaged nose. Nothing from Lofty Skinner, who had been behind me; nothing from Sam Levy, behind where Lofty had been. Col Anderson said he was OK. Lofty responded on my second try. He said he was helping Kris with Sam, who appeared to have been hit badly.

We flew on, crossing the German coast, over the dark North Sea, looking for home. The plane was losing height as the port engine was not generating full power. I had to keep throttling it back to prevent it overheating. Soon it was inevitable that we were going to have to ditch. Sam Levy and I were still in the plane when it crashed, but we somehow made it out of the aircraft and into a dinghy. I think the others bailed out before we hit. Sam and I floated around on the choppy sea for many hours before we were rescued.

I thought repeatedly about this incident as I recovered in the convalescent hospital.

I was still in chronic discomfort, with spells of acute pain, but the doctors said I was healing. At night I dreamed of disturbing events. One nightmare involved me having to crawl head first into a long metal tube, barely wide enough for me to fit. The further I crawled along the tube the hotter it became. I reached a point where the tube curved suddenly downwards, looping back, until I had to crawl upside down. Then the tube began to fill with water, hissing in over the hot metal in front of me. I could not breathe or move my head, could not escape. I woke up. It was the last week in June. The news on the wireless told us that Hitler’s army was invading the Soviet Union.

A Royal Navy Lieutenant was brought into the hospital. One of his arms had been amputated at the elbow and both his legs were in plaster. One day they put him on a recliner next to mine, on the verandah overlooking the vegetable garden.

"I was on the cruiser Gloucester,’ he told me, his voice a mere whisper. He had damaged his throat and lungs when he inhaled hot gases. I told him it could wait until he found it easier to talk, but he was determined to describe what had happened. I encouraged him not to rush his story. We both faced long spells in hospital. Nothing needed to be hurried. ‘We were stationed off Crete,’ he whispered, ‘providing cover for the troops who were being evacuated. We came under attack from the air: dive-bombers and fighters. There were U-boats in the vicinity too. I was gunnery officer and we were giving them everything we had. But then something exploded under us and within a couple of minutes the ship heeled over. I think it was a torpedo that got us. The skipper gave the order to abandon ship. I was climbing aboard one of the lifeboats when the magazine went up. I don’t remember much after that.’

I told him what I could remember at that point of my own story, incomplete as it was. But at the same time I was thinking: we’ve lost Crete! That means we must have lost Greece too! I remembered Mr Churchill sending the British army to Greece from Egypt, in an attempt to reinforce the Greeks in their fight against the Italians and the Germans. How long ago was that? What was the cost to our side?

My new friend told me that he’d been hearing rumours from friends who were still serving at sea that one of the German battleships had been sunk. A great triumph, he said. ‘She must have been the Tirpitz or the Bismarck. She broke out into the Atlantic somehow, but the navy chased her and we sank her. We lost the Hood, but we got the damned Germans!’

We lost the Hood in this triumph? Later we learned that the German ship had been the Bismarck.

I was confused and depressed by the news of these events. The world had taken a nasty turn: it was exploding with war. It had not seemed so terrible in the days before I was shot down. The war had gone badly for Britain at first, when Hitler marched across Europe. But under Mr Churchill’s leadership we were fighting back and the tide had started to turn. We won the Battle of Britain and there was no longer much of a threat of invasion, we were bombing the German military industries effectively, the Italians had shown themselves to be ineffectual allies of Germany, we were beating the U-boats, even the Blitz had been running down throughout April and May. Now everything was worse again.

Meanwhile I had my own battles to endure. I had a broken leg and a damaged knee, and I had a serious chest wound and a fractured skull. Three ribs were cracked. My left arm and hand were badly burned. I had not died and the medical staff seemed to take my recovery for granted, but all in all I felt that it had been a close-run thing.

My main concern was to get my health back, return to my squadron and rejoin the battle with Germany. Every day I underwent physiotherapy and received medication, and the dressings for my wounds and burns were changed. Every day I sat or lay on the covered verandah, staring at the rows of vegetables, gleaning what news I could from the wireless. Every day more injured servicemen were brought to the hospital or were moved out of it to somewhere else.

‘When am I going to be able to return to my squadron?’ I asked the senior physiotherapist one day. I was face down on her bench.

She was behind me, leaning down as she worked on my thigh. ‘That’s not the sort of decision we have to make here, thank goodness.’

‘Does that mean you know something I don’t?’

‘Not at all. Would you really expect them to give us information about our patients that we weren’t allowed to pass on?’

‘I suppose not,’ I said. I asked her no more questions, but I was aching to return to duty.

My idleness gave me too much time to think. One subject that seriously worried me was the fate of the rest of my crew. I found out about Sam Levy: he too was in hospital, but we had been separated. They told me he was going to recover, but that was all I knew about him. The other men were officially posted as missing: that terrible euphemism which inspired hope and dread in equal measure. The only thing I was certain of was that they had not escaped from the plane with me. Either they were killed in the crash, or they had jumped from the plane when I ordered them to do so. What worried me was the silence that followed my order. It could mean, of course, that they had jumped when I gave the order. On the other hand, the intercom might have failed or they had simply decided to disobey me, thinking they’d have a better chance if they stayed on the plane until it hit the water. Whatever the truth, Air Ministry letters had been sent to their families.

War was going on, was getting worse. Thousands more good men like Lofty Colin, Kris and Ted would have to die before it was over. If I went back, I might have to die too. For a while the war had seemed necessary and inevitable, but now I had heard about it I could not stop thinking about Rudolf Hess and his plan for peace.

The BBC never mentioned Hess any more. After a flurry of excitement, the story of his flight to Scotland had vanished from the newspapers. Surely an offer of peace from the Nazi leadership could not be tossed aside?

I kept remembering Hess, the way I had met him.

10

The race got away at the first attempt, all six teams starting cleanly. The German pair moved effortlessly into the lead within the first few seconds. I had never rowed so hard in my life, driven to maximum effort by Joe’s ferocious stroke rhythms. All our thoughts of pacing ourselves, our plan of producing a surging burst of energy in the final quarter of the race, went out of the window. We stretched ourselves to the limit and were rowing flat out from the first stroke to the last. We were rewarded with third place, a bronze medal for Great Britain!

The Germans won with a time of just over eight minutes sixteen; behind them came the Danish team at eight minutes nineteen; Joe and I came in at eight minutes twenty-three. All times were slow: we had been rowing into a headwind.

After we crossed the finish line we collapsed backwards in the boat for several minutes, trying to steady our breathing. The boat drifted with the others at the end of the course, while marshals’ motorboats circled around us, fussing about us, trying to make us take the boats across to the bank. My mind was a blank, thinking, if anything, about the medal we had won. Of course, we originally aimed to win the gold. That had been the driving force. However, once we saw the other teams in training in Berlin we realized the enormous task we had set ourselves. For the last few days both Joe and I were haunted by the fear that we would come in last. But third! It was a fantastic result for us, better than anything I had dared hope for.

Eventually, we recovered sufficiently to row back to the bank and we did so with precise and stylish rowing. The first person to greet us as we stepped on to dry land was the coach, Jimmy Norton, who pumped our hands up and down, pummelled us on our backs, treated us like heroes.

About three-quarters of an hour later, after we had warmed down, showered and changed into clean tracksuits, Joe and I were directed to a building behind one of the grandstands and asked to wait. We found ourselves in a small room with the other two medal-winning teams. None of us knew the others, beyond the formal introductions on arrival and seeing each other training during the week. It was difficult to know what to say to one another at this stage. Joe and I tried to congratulate the two Germans who had won the gold, but they only acknowledged our words with dismissive nods.

Eventually, three officials came for us and led us at a quick walking pace across the grassy enclosure to where the Olympic podium stood. It faced the special grandstand used by Chancellor Hitler and the other leaders, but for the moment we were unable to see anyone up there.

Waiting directly in front of the stepped medal-winners’ platform was a small group of men in black SS uniforms. As we climbed up to the platform and took our places on the steps, one of the SS men moved forward. He was a bulky, impressive figure, his face high-cheekboned and handsome, with deep-set eyes and bushy black eyebrows.

He went first to the German pair and placed their gold medals around their necks as they inclined their heads. There was a huge burst of cheering and applause from the grandstands, so although he was speaking to them we could hear nothing that was being said. Press cameras were bobbing and jutting towards the German rowers. A film camera, mounted on the flat roof of a large van, recorded the whole ceremony.

The SS officer presented the silver medals to the two Danes, then it was our turn.

‘[Germany salutes you,]’ he said formally, as first Joe, then I, leaned forward to allow him to place the medal around our necks. ‘[For your country you did well.]’

‘[Thank you, sir,]’ I said. The applause was merely polite and soon finished.

He straightened and peered closely at both Joe and myself.

‘[Identical twins, I think!]’ For such a large man he had an unexpectedly soft-pitched, almost effeminate voice.

‘[Yes, sir.]’

He was carrying a slip of paper in his left hand. He held it up, consulted it with exaggerated care.

‘[I see.]" he said. ‘J. L. and J. L. You have the same names even! How remarkable.]’ He looked again from one of us to the other, his dark eyebrows arching in a theatrically quizzical expression. His greenish eyes seemed not to be focusing on us, as if his real thoughts were elsewhere or he was unable to think what to say next. It was an uncomfortable moment, standing there on the platform with the cameras around us, while this Nazi official took so much interest in us, peering closely at our faces. Finally, he stepped back. ‘[You must be playing amusing tricks on your friends all the time!]’ he said.

We were about to make our usual response to the over-familiar remark, but at the same time the band struck up loudly with the German national anthem. The SS officer moved quickly-back to where a microphone had been placed on a stand. He snapped to attention.

Everyone in sight stood as the flags of our respective nations were raised to the winds on the flagpoles behind us. In the centre, the red, white and black swastika flag fluttered on the tallest of the three poles. It reached the highest point at the exact moment the music ended. The officer stretched his right arm diagonally towards it, straining so hard his fingertips were quivering.

"Heil Hitler!’ he shouted into the microphone, his voice distorted by the amplifier into a high screech. The salute was instantly taken up in a stupendous roar from the crowd.

He turned to face them, swivelling round in a quick and presumably practised movement that ensured the microphone was still before him. His face was glowing red in the sun. The other SS officers turned too, a synchronized movement, a concerted stamping of their right feet.

‘Sieg heil!’ the officer yelled into the microphone, swinging his arm from a taut, horizontal position across his chest to the familiar slanting Nazi salute. The crowd echoed the call in a deafening shout. Many of them, most of them, had also raised their arms.

‘Sieg heil! Sieg heil!’ he shouted twice more, saluting again, his glittering eyes regarding the huge crowd. He was rocking to and fro on his heels. At the front of the crowd, high on his special plinth, was Adolf Hitler. He stood stiffly as the salutations went on, his arms folded across his chest in the same forced position I noticed earlier. He looked around to all sides, apparently basking in the deafening waves of adulation that were flowing towards him.

Next to us, on the highest step in the centre of the Olympic podium, the two gold-medallist Germans were standing side by side, their right arms raised in salute, their faces lifted towards Hitler’s remote figure.

It was simultaneously terrifying and enthralling. In spite of what little I knew about the Nazis, I felt myself responding to the intoxicating thrill of the moment. The sheer size of the crowd, the deafening roar they were making, the almost mechanical precision of the SS men paraded in front of us, the high, distant figure of Adolf Hitler, virtually godlike in his remoteness and power. The urge to raise my own arm, to thrust it emphatically towards the German leader, was for a few moments almost irresistible.

I glanced across at Joe, to see how he was reacting. He was already watching me and I instantly recognized the expression of suppressed anger that Joe adopted whenever he felt cornered, unhappy; uncertain of himself. He spoke some words to me. Although I leaned towards him to hear better I couldn’t make out what he said because of the noise.

I nodded instead, acknowledging him.

With a sudden, peremptory swirl, Hitler turned his back on us and moved to return to his seat. The noisy acclaim quickly died away, to be replaced by the band striking up a new marching number. The SS men in front of our stand dispersed. The man who had given us our medals walked back towards Hitler’s podium with a measured tread. He went at the same relaxed pace up the steps and after a moment I saw his tall figure leaning over to speak to someone. Shortly afterwards he sat down.

The Olympics officials were clustering around us, making it clear it was time for us to leave. We shook hands with the Danish and German athletes we had raced against, uttered congratulations once more, then stepped down on to the grass. Our moment of Olympic fame had already passed.

11

We walked together towards the British pavilion, where we had left our street clothes and our other possessions. As we approached the temporary wooden building we saw a group of British Embassy officials standing by the entrance. They were apparently waiting for us, because as soon as we appeared they strode towards us, stretching out their hands in greeting and congratulation.

A man we already knew as Arthur Selwyn-Thaxted, a cultural attaché at the embassy, was the quietest but most insistent in his congratulations. As he shook my hand affably he gripped my elbow with his free hand. ‘Well done, Sawyer!’ he said. ‘Well done indeed, both of you!’

He turned to Joe and said much the same.

‘Thank you, sir.’ we said.

"It’s a great day when Britain wins another medal. You probably heard us cheering for you! It was a hard race, but you did exceedingly well. What a brilliant race you rowed!’

We said what we felt we were expected to say.

‘Now, we can’t let this remarkable achievement of yours pass,’ said Selwyn-Thaxted. ‘We’d be pleased if you would join us this evening. Just a little celebration at the embassy. The ambassador would like to meet you and there will be members of the German government present.’

Out of the corner of my eye I detected Joe stiffening.

‘What kind of celebration would it be?’ he said. ‘We were planning - ’

‘A quiet reception. It’s not every day that we have Olympic medal-winners to show off, so we like to make the most of them when we can. Your sculling colleagues will be there, the equestrian team, Harold Whitlock, Ernest Harper, many more. The evening clearly wouldn’t be complete without you.’

Joe said nothing.

I said, ‘Thank you, sir. We’d enjoy that.’

‘Excellent,’ Selwyn-Thaxted said, beaming at us as if he meant it. ‘Shall we say from about six o’clock onwards? No doubt you know the British Embassy, in Unter den Linden?’

He smiled sincerely again, then turned away towards somebody else, raising a hand in simulated greeting. He went back to the group with whom he had been standing when we arrived. They moved off at once. When I turned to speak to my brother, Joe had already walked away. I saw him striding at great speed past the marshals by the entrance to the enclosure. His head was lowered. I went after him, but within a few seconds he vanished into the crowds that were standing about in the park outside.

I went into the pavilion, changed into my street clothes, collected Joe’s gear as well as my own and walked down to the U-Bahn to catch a subway train back to the Sattmanns’ flat. By the time I arrived, Joe had already packed his belongings and his bags were stacked in the hallway. He looked impatiently at me then went back into the room we had been using. I followed him in and swung the door to behind me.

Birgit was practising her music in one of the rooms at the front of the apartment. The sweet sound was muted when the door closed.

‘What’s going on, Joe?’

‘I feel I should ask you that. Have you any idea, any idea at all, what’s been happening here at the Olympics?’

‘I know you don’t like the idea that the Games are a Nazi showpiece.’

‘So you’re not as blinkered as I thought.’

Joe, we came here to row. We can’t get involved in politics. We don’t know enough about it.’

‘Maybe there are occasions when we should.’

‘All right. But any country that hosts the Olympics uses the Games as a way of promoting itself to the world.’

‘This isn’t just any country’ Joe said. ‘Not now, not anymore.’

‘Look, you knew that before we left home. In effect we both made the decision to be part of it when we were selected.’

"Did you realize who that was, who handed us the medals?’

‘I didn’t recognize him. I assumed it was someone from the government.’

‘It was Hess. Rudolf Hess.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He’s one of the most powerful Nazis in Germany.’

‘But that doesn’t affect us, Joe! It wouldn’t have made any difference if Hitler himself had given us the medals. We’re of no importance to the Nazis. We’re simply here to compete in the Games and when they’re over we’ll go home. We had to go through with the ceremony. Are you suggesting we should have turned our backs on that?’

‘Didn’t you even think we might?’

‘What good would it have done? President Hoover went to Los Angeles four years ago. You presumably didn’t object to that, so how can you object to Hitler turning up at his own Games?’

‘How can you not?’

‘You didn’t say anything at the time.’

‘Neither did you.’

We both stood there angrily in that pleasant room overlooking the broad parkland, hot in the late afternoon sun. Birgit’s plaintive music could still be heard, a little louder than before: it was a piece she played every evening, Beethoven’s Romance No. 1. I noticed that the draught had moved the door ajar. Because I knew that the family who were our hosts could all speak English, I quietly pushed the door and closed it properly.

We argued on, but there was no shifting Joe from his position. He intended to leave for home more or less straight away. I put up objections: our shells were with the scrutineers, the van was parked close to the Olympic Village, we still had some kit at the pavilion. No matter what, we couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Jimmy Norton, the coach. Joe shrugged the objections away, saying he would deal with them all. He said he was going to retrieve the van, pick everything up and set off for England at once. He planned to drive all night and with any luck would have crossed the border out of Germany by the next morning.

All he would say about my position was that if I wanted to leave with him I’d be welcome. If not, I’d have to find my own way home with one of the other teams.

Meanwhile, I was becoming as stubborn as him. If the British Olympic Committee wanted us to stay on for the closing ceremony, then we should do that. And then there was the reception at the British Embassy, which we would have to attend in less than an hour.

Finally, we reluctantly settled on the inevitable compromise that satisfied neither of us. Joe agreed to delay his departure until after the embassy reception, which I would go to on my own while he collected our property and loaded the van. We would then leave Berlin together. But if I was late meeting him after the party, or missed him somehow, he would set off without me.

While we had been arguing, Birgit’s violin had fallen silent.

I settled down in an angry mood to pack my belongings. An atmosphere of resentment hovered in the room around both of us. I put on a clean shirt and jacket and the only necktie I had brought with me. I slipped my medal into my pocket.

I wanted to see the Sattmanns before I left, to say goodbye and thanks. I particularly wanted to see Birgit again, one last time. I went from room to room, but the place was empty. It felt too silent, making me wonder how much of our argument had been audible. To leave without giving thanks to these long-term friends of my mother’s was grossly discourteous, it seemed to me. It added to my sense of outrage at Joe, but there was no longer any point in arguing with him.

I went down to the dusty street outside, where the air was still stiflingly hot at this hour. I walked to the S-Bahnhof.

12

At the end of June 1941, nearly five years after Joe and I competed in the Olympics, I was recovering in a convalescent hospital in the Vale of Evesham. Gradually my memory was sharpening up. I was confident that this alone meant that I was on the mend, that I could soon return to my squadron. I was at last walking without crutches, although I did need a stick. Every day I took a turn about the gardens and every day I was able to walk a little further. The solitude gave me the chance to think, to remember what my life had been before the crash. The mental exercise began as a desperate quest to find myself there in the past, but as the days slipped by I took a real interest in discovering what had happened to me.

I remembered, for instance, that on the morning before that last raid I had woken up early. The squadron had not been on ops the night before, having been stood down in mid-afternoon.

In the indescribably heady mood of release that followed a stand-down I drove into Lincoln with Lofty Skinner and Sam Levy to see the early-evening showing of Santa Fe Trail, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Afterwards we went to a fish and chip shop for our dinner, walked around the quiet evening streets of Lincoln for a while, then decided to return to the airfield in time to watch the Whitleys of 166 Squadron - with whom we shared the airfield at Tealby Moor - taking off for their own raid. By ten-thirty the airfield was quiet again and I went to my hut to sleep. I slept so deeply that not even the sound of the Whitleys returning in the early hours woke me.

After breakfast the next morning, May 10, I carried out an air-test on A-Able, flew three low circuits of the airfield, then before lunch Kris Galasckja told me he needed to calibrate his guns in the rear turret, so I flew him in the Wellington across to the gunnery- range at RAF Wickenby. We had lunch at Wickenby and were back at Tealby Moor before two in the afternoon.

Then the growing, inexorable pre-raid tension could not be ignored any longer. Everyone was watching for the familiar first signs of raid preparations: staff cars coming and going, trolleys of high-explosive bombs being trundled in from the distant dump, the engineers running up the engines and so on. We saw the various section chiefs heading for a meeting with the station commander: bombing and navigation leaders, met. officers, comms chiefs and so on. By two-thirty we were certain we would be flying that night. For us, though, there was nothing to do until the briefings began in the early evening.

Restlessness coursed through me. In the prewar years I would have gone for a run or taken a boat out on the river to work off any unwanted nervous energy, but in wartime conditions on a RAF station there were few such outlets. The rest of my crew were lounging about in the mess, playing cards or writing letters, showing their state of tension in different ways from mine, but I knew what they were going through. I left them to it and walked around the aircraft dispersals for a while, killing time.

At last it was time for the pre-raid briefing and I went across to the station hall, almost eager to begin. Once all the crews were settled in place, though, I found it hard to concentrate on what was being said. The target for the night was Hamburg: the station commander displayed the necessary maps of the general area and the city centre. We would be attacking the commercial area and the docks, making an early diversion to Lüneburg in the south to try to put the Hamburg flak batteries off their guard. I forced myself to concentrate: the lives of everyone in the plane could depend on this briefing.

Afterwards, the same sense of quiet agitation continued through the hasty pre-raid meal, through the technical tests and checks on engines, flying controls, guns, bomb-release mechanism, tyres and so on. I was under no illusions about what was causing the nervousness. By this time, what we all wanted to do was climb into the plane, take off for the raid and get the whole thing over with as soon as possible.

At just before eight o’clock a WAAF corporal drove us out to the aircraft in the crew bus. It was a warm evening and we were sweating and feeling overdressed in our fur-lined leather flying jackets, heavy boots, padded trousers. The gunners wore more clothes than the rest of us: their turrets were draughty and unheated, so they wrapped themselves up in additional layers beneath their electrically warmed flying suits (which warmed nothing): they wore extra underclothes, pullovers, two or three pairs of gloves and socks.

I hauled myself up through the hatch in the floor of the fuselage and went straight to the cockpit. I squeezed into the seat. Everything was in good working order, the LAC told me informally as I scribbled my name on the sheet of paper on the clipboard to sign off the plane for the ground crew. No problems, nothing to worry about. Take her out and bring her home. Our last raid had been six nights earlier, on the dockyards in Brest, where we had been trying to hit the German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, so I felt a little out of practice as we went through the rote of pre-flight technical and arming checks. Both engines started at the first attempt. A good sign.

As we were taxiing down from dispersal to the take-off point it seemed to me that the plane felt heavier than usual, but I knew we were carrying a full load of fuel and bombs. I ran the engines up and down, clearing their throats, kicked the rudder left and right, feeling the aircraft responding sluggishly. Tonight was what Bomber Command called a maximum effort. A runway marshal gave me the thumbs-up as we lumbered past him, then turned away with his head bent over and his hand clamped down on his cap. The slipstream from our props bashed against him. Ahead of us was M-Mother with Derek Hanton at the controls - I’d known Derek since the days of the University Air Squadron. Behind us and to the side other Wellingtons were rolling forward from their dispersal positions, turning laboriously on to the side runway, taxiing down, ready to take off. On the other side of the main runway I could see a similar procession of slow-moving aircraft, a gathering of might, ready to go. We passed the caravan where the airfield controller had his station. No lights showed.

As usual, a little crowd had gathered at the end of the main runway to wave us off: WAAFs, ground crew, station officers, all turned out to watch us leave. Every night there would be someone there, standing against the perimeter fence where a great thicket of trees pressed close to the edge of the airfield. M-Mother rolled forward, turned on to the main runway, propellers blurring, flattening and shaking the grass in the slipstream. Derek accelerated away slowly. Another Wellington from the side runway opposite moved across to take his place. At last our turn came and I pushed the Wellington forward, swung her around to face down the long concrete strip. The airsock was slack.

I watched the dim outline of the airfield controller’s caravan: from this position I could see a steady red light, holding me until the airspace was clear. I waited, waited, the engines turning, the plane rattling and shuddering. My hand on the throttles was blurred by the vibration. I tried to stay calm. The light went to green at last. Our watchers at the side waved cheerfully.

I released the brakes, opened the throttles, adjusted the pitch and we began to move down the runway, slowly at first, so slowly, feeling every bump in the hastily laid concrete, the wings rocking, then a gradual increase in speed, the instruments showing we were going faster than it seemed. At flying speed, with the tail already free of the ground, I pulled back on the stick and the Wellington began its long, shallow climb into the evening sky.

As we ascended slowly through the calm air. circling over the familiar fields to gain a little height before setting off across the sea, I looked down at the quiet meadows and untidy rows of trees, their long shadows striking eastwards. I saw the steeples of churches, clusters of village houses, irrationally curving roads, hazy smoke from chimneys. Lincoln cathedral loomed up a fewmiles away to the south-east, the tall spire black against the blue of the evening sky. There were other aircraft in sight: Wellingtons from our own station, below and around us, but also far away, miles off, more tiny black dots lifting away from their own airfields, circling for height around the wide assembly point, seeking the others, aiming to form a broad and self-defensive stream for the long flight across the North Sea.

At last the radio signal came from the ground controller, his final clearance to start the raid. We turned one last time to the east, climbing steadily, away from the brilliant setting sun and towards the gathering dusk. The gunners let off a few trial rounds, their tracers glinting sharply down towards the sea. At five thousand feet the interior of the plane started to feel cold -for a few minutes we were actually more comfortable than we had been on the ground, before the sub-zero freeze of high altitude gripped us. At seven thousand feet I ordered the crew to put on their oxygen masks.

The evening was a deception of calm and beauty, with the steadily darkening sky above us, a plateau of grey clouds below us with a few more white cumulus billowing up, lit by the lowering sun. Germany lay ahead. We flew for an hour, slowly gaining height.

Ted Burrage suddenly came on the intercom. He was on the front guns.

‘Enemy aircraft below us, JL! Three o’clock. Approaching fast!’

‘How far below?’

‘A long way.’

‘Can you get a line on them?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Hold your fire for a moment . . . they might not have seen us!’

Then I saw the aircraft myself. They were at least two or three thousand feet beneath us, crossing our track, south to north. All were clearly visible against the grey plain of clouds below, lit by the last glow of evening light. The leading aircraft was twin-engined. It looked to me like a Messerschmitt Me-110, a guess that was almost instantly confirmed by others in the crew as they also spotted it. Behind it were four single-engined fighters, Me-109s, flying much faster, rapidly overhauling it. I could see Ted swinging his turret round in the nose of the Wellington, bringing his guns to bear, but within seconds it was obvious that none of the Luftwaffe planes was interested in us.

The fighters were diving on the Me-110. I saw tracer or cannon fire flickering across the short space between them. They hit the plane on their first run. One of the Me-110’s tanks exploded with a spectacular burst of flame, throwing the aircraft on to its back. Immediately, the Me-109s swung away, turning sharply to each side of the stricken plane. There was a second explosion and this time part of the wing fell away. The plane had lost flying speed and was diving, upside-down, towards the sea. It plummeted into the cloudbase. All I could see of it for another second was an orange diffusion of flame, but then that too disappeared.

The Me-109s continued their sweeping turns, diving down towards the cover of the clouds, heading back to the south, the way they had come. They took no notice of us.

‘Bloody hell!" Ted said. Then he said again, ‘Bloody hell!’

‘What was all that about?’

For a moment the intercom was full of voices. Sam Levy and Kris Galasckja had not been able to see what was going on. Lofty, Colin and Ted were describing what we’d seen. I was trying to yell at them to stay on watch. When we were over the North Sea we were never far from enemy aircraft.

As if to underline the point I saw more German aircraft coming towards us. This time they were travelling east to west and were about a mile away from us on the left.

I shouted to the gunners to be ready. ‘More bandits! About nine o’clock!’

‘Got them, JL!’ Ted shouted. ‘They’re the same ones!’

‘Couldn’t be. The 109s buggered off as soon as they’d hit the 110.’

‘No, I think Ted’s right!’ It was Lofty, who had come into the cockpit beside me, standing up, peering through the canopy over my shoulder.

I took another look. Once again, the aircraft were silhouetted against the grey cloudbase; once again an Me-110 was flying fast and low against the surface of the clouds, with a small section of single-engined fighters behind him, in hot pursuit.

‘What the devil are the Jerries up to?’

‘Don’t fire,’ I ordered the gunners. ‘They’re not interested in us. Don’t change things.’

I saw the 109s turning in for an attack, in two groups of two, one following the other. They peeled off in a sharp turn, flew broadside at the 110, their tracer glittering like jewels, curling around the Me-110. The pilot dived sharply, banked away, reversed the bank, swooped down. The 109s recovered from their attacking pass and swept around for another try. Now the 110 was in a steep dive towards the clouds. Tracer curled towards it.

I could hardly see because our flight was taking us beyond the battle. Lofty moved down the fuselage, went to one of the side windows.

‘I still can’t see anything, JL!’ he reported.

‘Kris?’ I shouted. ‘Are you watching back there?’

‘You bet. Rear gunner has the best seat. Germans attacking Germans. Good stuff!’

‘Did they shoot him down?’

‘Nah . . . they miss. Then they turn away. The 110 was in the cloud and I think it went on.’

Lofty returned to the cockpit and was standing behind me again, crouching forward.

‘Do you get it, skip?’ he said. ‘What were they doing?’

‘Haven’t the faintest. We were sitting ducks, but they went after one of their own. Or two of their own.’

Sam Lew came on. ‘Do you want a position fix, JL?’

‘Yeah, where are we?’

"A couple of hundred miles from the German coast and about two hundred and sixty from Denmark.’

‘Why Denmark?"

‘That was the direction the second lot came from.’

‘They could have come from Germany, though.’

‘Either way, they would have been at the limit of their range. That’s why they didn’t hang around out here. The 109s would be watching their fuel.’

‘OK, everyone,’ I said. ‘Keep your eyes open. We’ve got our own work to do.’

As the darkness finally deepened, the Wellington ploughed on slowly through the gentle air. An hour later we approached the German coast under a full moon, to the west of Cuxhaven. The nervous banter on the intercom died out as we crossed the coastline. Light flak surged up, a long way to the side of us. We watched the glow-worms of tracers, climbing, climbing. A solitary searchlight came on, the familiar bluish dazzle, breaking through the now intermittent clouds. It probed around for about a minute, then went off. We were flying at thirteen thousand feet, the highest altitude we could attain with the fuel- and bomb-load we were carrying.

We were now over Germany and anything could happen. I started jinking the plane, putting it into a long, steady rolling motion, side to side, tilting and swinging defensively, a corkscrew manoeuvre that would in theory prevent night fighters from getting an easy line on us. It had worked so far. The gunners reported tensely every minute or so: there was nothing going on that they could see, no planes around us, no searchlights, the cloud was light, visibility good. A bomber’s moon. The dark ground spread out below, marked in places by tightly etched lines of moonlight reflected back from canals, ponds, stretches of river. Lofty Skinner, flight engineer, took the seat beside me, keeping a watch on the engines, the coolant pressures, the hydraulics. He rarely spoke.

We were flying on dead reckoning: a series of timed course changes, calculated before departure and constantly updated by Sam Levy, navigator. He led us to a position north of the German town of Celle (fierce flak briefly came up around us), before we turned through more than a hundred degrees and took a heading on Lüneburg. I went on the intercom, warning everyone that we were a few minutes away from the target. Now we were flying almost due north, with Hamburg less than fifty miles ahead of us. We were looking for a distinctive curve in the River Elbe near Lüneburg.

Ted Burrage, our bomb aimer, had left the front turret and crawled into the belly of the Wellington, lying on his stomach, watching the ground through the perspex pane behind the nose. He yelled up to me when he saw the river. It edged into sight from my blind-spot, directly in front of and below the cockpit: a silvery worm of reflected moonlight, visible for miles. We moved in on Hamburg.

Soon the flak began in earnest and the searchlights came on. Tracer bullets snaked up from below, no longer drifting harmlessly away, miles to the side of us, but targeted on us. Searchlight beams crossed and re-crossed ahead, groping for bombers. As they swept around we caught glimpses of other aircraft in the stream. Every now and again one of the aircraft would be briefly lit from below, but managed to slip away without being coned.

‘I have the target in view,’ came from Ted, lying in the nose of the aircraft, his hands on the bomb release.

‘OK, bomb aimer. Let me know when we’re on the right approach.’

Then, at last, bursting in the sky ahead of us - dead ahead, not above our height or below it - a cannonade of exploding shells began, brilliant whites and yellows, like deadly fireworks. How could we ever pass through that barrage without being hit?

We flew on, we opened the bomb doors, we released the bombs.

We turned for home.

Ted Burrage must have died instantly when the shell struck the nose of the aircraft. Shards of shrapnel went through my left leg, above and below the knee. Something else hit my skull. I was thrown backwards from my seat by the explosion and I lost control. The plane immediately went into a dive, turning to the left, while freezing cold air blasted in through the shattered fuselage ahead of the cockpit. Sam Levy was struck by another piece of shrapnel. Lofty Skinner had left his seat in the cockpit during the bombing run, standing by in case there was a problem with the bomb-load hanging up when we tried to release it. His life was probably saved by not being next to me. Colin, wireless operator, and Kris, in the rear turret, were both alive and responded to my call.

I contrived somehow to get the plane back under control. We struggled on for longer than I expected, losing height only slowly. I managed to keep the plane flying for two more hours. We were picking up the radio beacon at Mablethorpe before we ditched, but we were not in verbal contact with our controllers.

Sam and I were rescued from our life raft at the end of the following day: we were soaked through, freezing cold, both in agonizing pain, both probably destined to die had we been forced to spend any more time out there in the open.

Once we were ashore we were taken to separate hospitals and we lost contact with each other.

So, in June 1941, a few weeks after the raid on Hamburg, I was recovering on a verandah overlooking a vegetable garden, contemplating my past.

On the morning after the navy man had told me about the fall of Crete I went for an unaccompanied walk around the hospital grounds. This was not as strenuous as it might sound, because we weren’t allowed to go far. Patients were confined to the narrow strips of lawn and the path that surrounded the vegetable patch, a tiny orchard beyond and some further paths that led around the outside of the house. However, I enjoyed the brief solitude, walking slowly through shrubbery that was still sparking with droplets after an early shower, looking back at the impressively gabled house and wondering what it had been used for before the war, what great events it might have seen.

Returning to the convalescent wing, I clambered up the steps to the verandah, squeezed past the other patients and headed for my room.

Three people were waiting for me in one of the downstairs lounges: the matron of the hospital was there with two men, one a civilian, the other an RAF Group Captain. The matron called me in as I hobbled slowly along the corridor. The moment I saw the officer I stiffened and tried to salute, an action made more clumsy by the fact that my stick was in my right hand, taking my weight.

The officer responded to my salute but seemed amused by my appearance. I was wearing my hospital dressing-gown over a pair of old trousers.

‘This is Flight Lieutenant Sawyer,’ the matron said.

‘Good to meet you, Sawyer,’ the Group said. ‘148 Squadron, I believe. Wellingtons.’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘Had a bit of a prang over Hamburg, I hear. Well, that can’t be helped. You seem to be walking again.’

‘It gets better every day, sir.’

‘Good. Then we would like you to come with us. No formalities are necessary’

‘Am I going back on ops, sir?’

‘Not exactly. Not straight away, at least.’

Half an hour later I was dressed and ready to leave. I found a crisp new RAF officer’s uniform hanging in my room, a perfect fit. It bore the insignia of a Group Captain. I supposed that some kind of administrative error had been made: if not, I had been kicked up three levels at once when I had no reason to expect any promotion at all. I was too bemused by the swift change in my circumstances to ask about it, knowing that the RAF would straighten everything out soon enough. When the nurse had seated me comfortably in the back of the Air Ministry staff car, we drove slowly out of the hospital grounds and turned on to the main road outside.

The civilian’s name was Gilbert Strathy, he told me, without describing his position in the Air Ministry. Strathy was a middle-aged man with a cherubic face and a shining bald head. He wore a pin-striped suit, immaculately pressed. He was extremely cordial and concerned about my well-being, but gave nothing away about why I had been collected from the hospital. The officer was Group Captain Thomas Dodman, DSO DFC, attached to Bomber Command staff, but again he passed on no more information than that.

I stared away from the two men, out through the window on my side of the car, watching the summery banks and hedgerows slipping past. The roads were deserted, of course, since petrol was more or less unobtainable for most people. The fine weather helped disguise a drabness that had settled over the whole country since the autumn of 1939. At midday the WAAF driver made a halt in Stow-on-the-Wold and we ate lunch in the hotel on the town’s main square. The bill was settled by Mr Strathy signing a chit. The hotel proprietor treated us with extraordinary civility. After lunch we continued our journey, slipping through the peaceful countryside, heading south-east in the general direction of London.

13

Looking for the British Embassy, I left the S-Bahn at Friedrichstrasse and walked along the side of the River Spree until I reached Luisenstrasse. The embassy building had been described to me as being on the intersection of this wide street with Unter den Linden. I was apprehensive, feeling that I was being pulled between the unreasonable demands of my brother and the only slightly more reasonable expectations of my country.

As I made for the main entrance of the embassy building I spotted Terry Hebbert, the captain of the athletics team, also walking pensively in the same direction as me. I caught him up and we greeted each other with some relief. He congratulated me on our bronze and told me briefly about his own hopes for the track events that were still to come. He asked where Joe was, but I merely said he was unable to be at the party. While we were talking I took my medal from my pocket and, feeling a little self-conscious, slipped it around my neck. We found the correct entrance and followed elegantly lettered signs towards the Imperial Ballroom. We were duly announced from the door.

The reception was being held in a long hall with a highly polished floor and glittering crystal chandeliers. A four-piece orchestra was playing on a dais at the far end and uniformed waiters moved deftly with trays of drinks and snacks held aloft as they wove between the large number of guests already there. The noise and heat were tremendous. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, chattering in both English and German and laughing with increasing vivacity and noise. Several high-ranking German officials were present, wearing their distinctive black or dark grey uniforms even in this unventilated and crowded room. I saw a couple of fellow athletes I recognized from Oxford, deep in conversation. Under pressure from Joe to stay at the party as short a time as possible, I resisted the temptation to go over and say hello. As we slowly worked our way across the congested floor of the ballroom, somebody in a small party wheeled round and touched Terry Hebbert’s arm and he promptly joined them. I wandered on, alone. I soon emptied my first glass of champagne, and exchanged it for a full one.

The orchestra finished a piece and silence was called from the rostrum. A tall British gentleman made a short welcoming speech, alternating between English and near-perfect German. He mentioned the Olympic athletes who were competing so successfully, singling out the British, of course, but also generously praising the athletes of the host country. Germany was already so far ahead in the medals table that no other country was likely to catch up. He also paid tribute to the German government, for ensuring that the Games were being played in such a spirit of fairness and sportsmanship. He concluded with the earnest hope that the Games would be the beginning of a new and lasting spirit that would imbue the German nation with a sense of brotherhood towards the other countries of Europe.

Halfway through the speech I realized that of course the speaker was the British ambassador. Behind him on the little stage I also spotted Arthur Selwyn-Thaxted. When the ambassador had finished speaking and the band struck up again, he stepped down from the dais and walked quickly through the throng towards me.

‘I’m so glad you could be here, Mr Sawyer!’ he said loudly. ‘Which of the JLs are you?’

Tm Jack, sir. Jacob Lucas.’

And is your brother here too this evening?’

‘I’m afraid not. Something came up at the last minute.’

‘That’s a tremendous shame. Well, at least you have been able to make it. There’s someone here who is anxious to meet you. Could you spare a moment to say hello to him?’

‘Of course.’

I put down my half-empty glass of champagne and followed him as he squeezed politely through the crowd. A number of long tables covered in white cloths were arranged along one side of the hall. Clustered behind, separating themselves from everyone else, were several German officials. Prominent among them was the man who had made the presentation of medals to Joe and myself. He noticed us as we walked towards him and at once came forward.

Selwyn-Thaxted said, ‘[Herr Deputy Führer Hess, I have pleasure in presenting Mr J. L. Sawyer, one of our Olympic medallists.]’

‘[Good evening, Mr Sawyer!]’ Hess said at once and made a jocular gesture towards the medal hanging on my chest. ‘[Of course I remember you. Please, you will join us for a drink.]’

The table where he had been standing was laden with a large number of tall steins and lidded tankards. Several huge glass jugs of a foaming black liquid were standing there, while two waiters stood ready to serve. Hess clicked his fingers peremptorily and one of the waiters filled a tankard.

‘[You will enjoy this,]’ said Hess.

I took the heavy pot, raised the lid and sipped the frothy liquid. It was sweet and cold and had a strong but not unattractive flavour. I noticed that Hess himself was not drinking the same stuff but was holding a small tumbler containing fruit juice.

‘[Thank you, sir. It is a pleasant beverage.]’

‘[You have tasted Bismarck already?]’

‘[Bismarck?]’I said.

‘[It is a great favourite; I am told, at your Oxford. Maybe you know it by its English name, which is Black Velvet?]’

‘[No, I’ve never tasted anything like it. Because I have been training for the Games I drink only beer, and that in modest quantities.]’

‘[This Bismarck is popular in the Reich with many people. Most of them like to drink it when you Britishers are here, as today. You have a good black beer, as you know, which you bring from Ireland. It is called Guinness? Then we mix the Guinness with champagne from France. So we are all friends in Europe, as your ambassador advises us!]’

Selwyn-Thaxted was still standing beside me, smiling attentively, while the banal conversation proceeded.

‘I have other guests I must attend to,’ he said, speaking softly and quickly in English. ‘I shall be on hand if you need any advice.’

‘Advice?’

‘You never know. Do excuse me.’ He nodded with deep courtesy to Rudolf Hess.’[We are greatly honoured by your presence here this evening, Herr Deputy Führer. You must make yourself feel welcome. Do let me or one of my staff know if there is anything you require.]’

‘[Thank you, my gentleman.]’ Hess turned directly to me, in a gesture of dismissal to Selwyn-Thaxted. Hess had already removed his jacket and was wearing a khaki shirt tucked into grey trousers. An Iron Cross on a ribbon hung at his throat. He moved his burly body closer to me. ‘[Why have you not brought your brother with you this evening?]’ he said in his rather disconcerting tenor voice.

‘[He was unable to be here.]’ I saw from Hess’s reaction that it was not a satisfactory answer, so I added, ‘[He is training alone this evening. Only one of us felt able to take advantage of the invitation.]’

‘[That is a great pity. I was looking forward to seeing you together again. Your bodies are so healthy and muscular. And you are so alike! It is a marvellous deception and a great novelty.]’

‘[We never try to deceive anyone, sir. Joseph and I feel that-]’

‘[Yes, but surely you realize how useful it must be, if you wish not to be somewhere! To be there in your twin brother’s guise so that others you do not know think that you are somewhere else or that you are not what you appear?]’

I barely followed that. I thought to take a sip of the drink in order to cover my confusion, but when I raised the tankard to my lips the sweet, malty smell deterred me.

‘[We are either seen together,]’ I said, thinking how pointless all this was. ‘[Then people know we are twins. Or we are seen apart, when no one need know.]’

‘[That is so true, Mr Sawyer. Do you do everything together, even those things that-?]’

‘[We lead separate lives, sir]’

‘[Unless we speak of your rowing! You could not do that alone!]’

‘[No, sir.]’

‘[Where and how did you learn to speak German?]’ He was moving closer to me. ‘[It is excellent and almost without fault.]’

‘[My mother is from Saxony, sir. She emigrated to England before the last war. That is where I was born, but I grew up speaking both English and German to her]’

‘[So you are half German! That is good. Half your medal is ours, I think!]’

He laughed uproariously and repeated his observation to some of his associates, standing close behind him. They laughed as well. I looked around to see if Mr Selwyn-Thaxted was anywhere near, but I could not spot him. I needed what he had called his advice. The small talk went on.

‘[Herr Speer is an oarsman also. You should meet him perhaps.]’

‘[HerrSpeer?]’

‘[Speer is our leader’s architect. Look around you when you are in Berlin. Herr Speer is designing most of our great buildings and arenas. But he is fanatical about talking of boats.]’

‘[I should like to meet him, of course,]’ I said, but as vaguely as I could. ‘[What about Herr Hitler? Is he interested in sports? ]’

‘[He is our leader!]’ Hess was suddenly alert and upright, and for a moment I thought he was going to raise his arm and salute. His deep-set eyes stared away across the room, apparently not focusing on anything in particular. Then he said, ‘[After the reception we are going on to a private dinner. Will you and your handsome brother accompany us?]’

‘[My brother cannot be present at all this evening,]’ I said.

‘[Then you will come alone. We have good drinks and you will eat wild boar for the first time and we will explain many interesting things about Germany to you.]’

I was becoming increasingly anxious to escape from this man. I knew Joe was waiting for me in one of the streets outside the building. The longer I delayed the more furious he would be with me.

‘[I’m sorry, Herr Deputy Führer,]’ I said. ‘[It is not possible. I am really sorry]’

‘[We will make the arrangements for you. In the Third Reich all things are possible!]’ His voice had taken on a bantering quality, which gave it a threatening undertone. ‘[What else is there for you to do in Berlin, while you are here? You will come with us when we leave in a few minutes. You will enjoy the rest of the evening. There will be no women, no one to interrupt what we wish to do. You understand, of course! We all have a good enjoyment and you can show me how you stroke. I your little boat shall be!]’

He laughed again, his eyes squeezing momentarily closed beneath his jutting eyebrows. I felt a wave of confusion, embarrassment, uncertainty, fear. His associates were watching for my reaction.

Hess tipped up his glass and finished the fruit juice. As he placed the glass on the table beside me, leaning forward so that his shoulder pressed against me, Selwyn-Thaxted materialized beside me with marvellous deftness.

‘Ah, Sawyer,’ he said. ‘I see you need another drink.’ My tankard of champagne-Guinness was still almost full, but Selwyn-Thaxted took it from me and put it down on the table. He flipped the lid closed. ‘[The ambassador has specifically asked if it would be possible to meet you, Sawyer,]’ he added loudly in German, for Hess’s benefit. ‘[Nothing formal. Do come with me straight away.]’

Hess was looming beside us.

‘[We have decided already to leave, my gentleman,]’ he said to Selwyn-Thaxted, then looked directly at me with his dark, worrying eyes. ‘[Come, we will depart, I think!]’

‘[The ambassador presents his compliments, Herr Deputy Führer,]’ said Selwyn-Thaxted. ‘[With your permission he asks if he might have a private audience with you also, but in a few minutes’ time?]’

‘[That is not possible.]’

‘[Then His Excellency will not insist.] Come, Sawyer.’

With his hand firmly gripping my upper arm, Selwyn-Thaxted led me at a relaxed pace across the ballroom, then through a pair of double doors to a small room adjacent to the hall. He closed the doors behind him, cutting off most of the noises of the reception.

‘May I assume you will be staying on in Berlin until the closing ceremony?’ he said.

‘I don’t think that’s going to be possible.’ I told him about my brother’s unexplained but urgent need to set off for home, to which Selwyn-Thaxted listened intently. He thought for a moment, staring at the ornately woven Persian carpet.

‘Yes, I think that’s probably wise,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what your brother has in mind, but as far as you are concerned it’s probably sensible not to see Herr Hess again.’

‘May I ask why you encouraged me to meet him?’

‘He asked for you by name. We also knew that you are a fluent German speaker, which suggested there might be an extra dimension that would possibly be useful.’

‘It was small talk,’ I said.

‘Nothing at all of any interest?’ Selwyn-Thaxted asked mildly.

‘In what respect?’

‘Well, did he happen to mention anything about Chancellor Hitler’s plans, for instance?’

‘No, that didn’t come up. He is intrigued that my brother and I look so much alike. And he said that Herr Speer was interested in rowing.’

Selwyn-Thaxted smiled fleetingly. ‘I don’t think we knew that.’

‘Is it important?’

‘Probably not . . . but you never know’ Without being obvious about it, he was already steering me towards the door. ‘I’m grateful to you, Mr Sawyer. I hope you didn’t mind speaking to him.’

‘No, sir.’

In the outer hall Selwyn-Thaxted asked one of the undersecretaries to conduct me out of the building by way of the main entrance.

By this time it was twilight but the air remained warm. I saw a line of open-top Daimlers waiting in Unter den Linden, ready to collect Hess and his colleagues, but of the Nazis themselves there was no sign. I walked quickly along Unter den Linden in the direction of Brandenburger Tor, beyond which I had agreed to meet Joe. I saw the van from a distance: the two shells were lashed once more to the roof. As I walked closer I saw Joe himself, pacing impatiently. He greeted me without more than a gruff acknowledgement and went quickly to the driver’s side.

In no time at all we were driving at speed through the darkening streets of Berlin, going north. I said nothing. Night fell as we left the outskirts of the city and headed out into the German countryside, using the new autobahn that led towards Hamburg. It was not the same road as the one on which we had arrived. I mentioned this to Joe. He made no reply.

14

The Air Ministry car made several more stops during our long drive south from the hospital: for fuel, for Gilbert Strathy to make a telephone call, and finally for a snack and a cup of tea in a pleasant market town somewhere on the way. Without road signs it was difficult to recognize towns if you did not already know them. Neither of the other men commented on the route. After our final stop I fell into a doze, rocking uncomfortably in the back of the car, my head lolling forward. I was in that peculiar state of non-sleep that it is possible to achieve while travelling, in which you remain partly aware of your circumstances yet able somehow to rest. I heard the other two men discussing me, presumably thinking I might not hear them.

I heard Mr Strathy say, ‘I’ve managed to arrange a place for Group Captain Sawyer to stay tonight. It’s a great asset that he doesn’t need nursing.’

‘Is he staying where we’re going?’

‘No, that wasn’t possible. He has to be in London after this. There’s a room in the Officers’ Mess at Northolt. He could make that his base for as long as he needs.’

‘Northolt’s still a long way’

‘I know, but it’s the best I could do. I have to return to London, so I can give him a lift as far as Northolt. After that, Downing Street will have to take over.’

I dozed on, interested but not interested, feeling exhausted after the long drive, with my left leg starting to hurt like mad, my neck stiff. The unfamiliar uniform, which at first had felt like a good fit, now proved to be cut too tightly under my arms and at my crotch. The fabric felt prickly where it pressed against uncovered skin: my legs, my neck, my wrists. I waited until the other two fell silent again, then popped an eye open surreptitiously looking through the passenger window on my side. It was dark and the car was moving slowly, the shielded headlight beams throwing only a restricted glow forward. I thought sympathetically of the young driver in her glassed-off compartment at the front: she had been driving all day along narrow, difficult roads without town or direction signs, without many traffic signs, now without daylight. She too must be exhausted.

Mr Strathy reached over and gently touched the back of my hand, to rouse me.

‘Are you awake, Sawyer?’

‘Yes, I am,’ I said, instantly alert. I realized that I had been dozing more deeply than I had thought. I felt myself plunged back into reality. The car, the other occupants, bulked large around me. The engine noise sounded much louder. I was aware of a draught flowing from the door and playing around my leg.

‘We will be arriving shortly,’ Strathy said. ‘I thought you would like time to compose yourself.’

‘Where are we?’

‘We are about to drive through Wendover, which is not far from Chequers. I’m able to inform you now, Group Captain Sawyer, that the P.M. has asked to see you. Naturally, we could not tell you before.’

‘The Prime Minister?’ I said. ‘Mr Churchill has asked to see me? I can’t believe he even knows I exist.’

‘Mr Churchill knows, I do assure you.’

The real Group Captain spoke. ‘It’s a short-term staff secondment, Sawyer. You’ll be told the details when we arrive, but from time to time the Prime Minister’s office makes personal appointments from within senior echelons of the forces. Many young men like you are chosen from the armed services for this kind of experience. It’ll stand you in good stead later on.’

‘What will I be expected to do?’ I was still slightly dazed by the news.

‘The P.M. or one of his people will explain that to you. Tomorrow you’ll receive a more detailed briefing from the staff at Admiralty House. Tonight, you are simply to meet the P.M. for a few moments. After that we’ll drive you to your quarters, which will be at RAF Northolt. You’ll be based at Northolt for the time being."

‘Sir, I thought I was going back on ops.’

‘You will be soon. This is a temporary posting. The promotion is also an acting one, although if you acquit yourself well in the next few weeks I dare say you won’t be returned all the way to your former rank.’

The driver suddenly braked the car and swung it to the left, as if until then she had not seen the turning she was looking for. As I lurched sideways in my seat I glimpsed tall, brick-built gateposts in the quick glare of the headlights, then wrought-iron gates. Uniformed police officers stood beside each gatepost, saluting as we passed through. Beyond the gate itself there was a more familiar military-style checkpoint, with a guardhouse next to it. Here the car halted and an army sergeant leaned down and examined everyone’s papers with careful movements of his torch. It was almost impossible for me to see what was going on. Strathy and Group Captain Dodman waited patiently. I carried no papers: my military identification had been lost or destroyed when the Wellington crashed into the sea. However, there appeared to be no problem as to my identity.

We drove on down the unlit driveway, passing between mature trees, with white-painted stones set at intervals on the sides of the track, each one gleaming briefly as we passed.

I remember those few seconds vividly. No one in the car spoke from the moment we left the barrier until we were inside the famous house called Chequers, giving me an opportunity to collect myself and prepare for what was to come.

As I write these words it is many years since the Second World War ended. I live in a time when it is fashionable in some quarters to be cynical about patriotism, bravery, political leadership, national purpose. I feel it myself sometimes, as in a properly sceptical democracy who should not? In 1941 things were different, for which I make no apology.

Winston Churchill then was an incomparable figure, almost unique in British history. For those of us who were alive at that time, we happy few, Churchill was the man who mustered the nation’s spirit when everyone expected defeat. We held out alone against Hitler’s Germany, then the most powerful military nation in the world. The result, a few years later, was the eventual military victory of the Allies, although in 1940 and 1941 there were few who would have seen victory as inevitable, or even likely. When the war ended in 1945, everyone was so relieved to be able to put the war behind them that they turned their backs on the years they had recently lived through. The war was over. What had mattered most then suddenly mattered not at all. Churchill fell spectacularly from power and languished in Opposition while much that he predicted came to pass. He returned as Prime Minister in 1951, for one more short term of office when he was physically enfeebled by old age. It is also true that for many years before he came to power in 1940 Churchill was a controversial figure on the margins, unpopular in some quarters, distrusted by most of his political contemporaries. But he rose to the moment. Churchill, in those long and dangerous months before the USA, the Soviet Union and Japan were involved in the war, quickly became a legend to most ordinary British people. He seemed to sum up a certain kind of British spirit, a symbol of British willingness to fight, perhaps never before identified until that need arose.

I was of that world, that generation. I was serving in the RAF when war broke out, with the rank of Flying Officer. Our early attempts to launch daylight bombing raids were met with fierce resistance. We suffered terrible losses and the raids were soon discontinued. The Blenheims we flew were too slow and badly defended for daytime use and did not have the range for deep-penetration night flying, so for most of the first winter and spring of the war we restricted ourselves to anti-ship ‘sweeps’ across the North Sea, rarely engaging, or even seeing, the enemy.

With the invasion of France, the war entered a deadly earnest phase and Britain’s safety was at risk. As the dangers loomed, Neville Chamberlain’s reputation as the man who had appeased Hitler made him an unsuitable war leader. He stood down, Churchill took over and a new spirit swept through the nation. Never was the peril greater; never were the British people so willing to face it. If you were there, if you lived through those times, you were in awe of Churchill. There is no other word for it, and it was awe that described my feelings as we drove slowly up to the main entrance of the Prime Minister’s country residence.

I was stiff from being cooped up in the car all day and it took me a long time to ease myself out on to the gravel surface, supporting myself with my stick. The two men I was travelling with watched with some sympathy, but I was determined to manage on my own. Sharp daggers of pain stabbed into my legs and back.

Gradually the pain eased. Group Captain Dodman was by my side as we went through the door, his hand lightly supporting the elbow of my right arm. We were met by a man wearing black trousers and a white shirt, neatly pressed, not in the least casual. He greeted all three of us by name, then asked if we would please wait a while.

We were shown to a side room: a long, dim, panelled chamber, with dark landscape paintings, trophies and bookcases lining the walls on each side. A table ran down the centre of the room, well polished, with a great number of chairs arranged neatly around it. The windows were draped with thick tapestry curtains, the dark fabric of blackout material visible behind them, covering the glass panes. The three of us stood in a nervous group just inside the door, waiting for what I at least assumed would be a summons in the next few minutes.

We were still there two hours later, having long since taken seats at one end of the table. During the time we were waiting callers to the house came and went, some merely delivering or collecting various things, others arriving on apparently urgent missions and being conducted straight away to other parts of the building. About an hour after we arrived we were brought a tray of tea and biscuits. We conversed little, all drained by the long day in the car and expecting to be called at any moment.

At about twelve-fifteen the summons finally came.

Stiffly again, I climbed to my feet. Leaving the other two in the waiting room I hobbled after the man who had come for me, feeling I should hurry so as not to keep the Prime Minister waiting, but put under no pressure to do so.

We crossed the hall where we had entered, then went along a short, darkened corridor. I was led into a room where there were four desks bearing large typewriters, with women working on two of them. The room was sparsely and cheerlessly furnished: bare floorboards, no curtains apart from the inevitable blackout screens, harsh overhead lights, a multitude of filing cabinets, telephones, in-trays, trailing wires, paper everywhere. Again, I was asked to wait. The secretarial work went on around me, with the two typists paying no attention to me at all. The clock over the door said that it was twenty minutes past twelve.

‘The Prime Minister will see you now,’ said the man who had brought me from the waiting room, holding open the door. As I limped through he said, ‘Mr Churchill, this is Group Captain J. L. Sawyer.’

After the bright unshaded lights of the office I had left, the large room I entered felt at first as if it was in darkness. Only the centrally placed desk was illuminated, by two table lamps placed at each end. In the light reflecting up from the papers I saw the famous visage of Winston Churchill leaning forward across his work. Cigar smoke shrouded the air. As I walked painfully towards the desk he did not look up but continued to read through a sheaf of papers, a thick fountain pen in one hand. He held a cigar in the other. An almost empty cut-glass tumbler was on the desk, glinting in the light - a decanter of whisky and a jug of water stood beside it. Mr Churchill was wearing half-moon reading spectacles. He read rapidly, pausing only to inscribe his initials at the bottom of each page, then turning the sheet with the hand that held the pen. On the last page he wrote a few words, signed his name and turned the sheet over.

He tossed the papers into an over-full wire basket under one of the lamps, then took another wad from his dispatch box.

‘Sawyer,’ he said, looking up at me over his spectacles. I was only a short distance away from him, but even so I wondered if he could see me properly, so deep was the shade in the room. ‘J. L. Sawyer. You’re the one named Jack, is that it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Not the other one.’

‘Do you mean my brother, Mr Churchill?’

‘Yes. What’s happened to him? My people had the two of you muddled up for a while.’

‘My brother is dead, sir. He was killed last year during the first few weeks of the Blitz.’

Churchill looked startled. ‘I hadn’t heard that dreadful news. Words are always inadequate, but let me say how appalled I am to hear it. I can only offer you my sincerest condolences.’ The Prime Minister was staring straight at me, saying nothing. For a moment he seemed genuinely lost for words. He put down his pen. Then he said, ‘This war . . . this bloody war.’

‘Joe’s death happened several months ago, sir,’ I said.

‘Even so.’ He shook his head slightly and pressed his hands flat on the desk. ‘Let me at least tell you why I have asked to see you. I’m in need of an aide-de-camp from the RAF, and your name was put forward. You won’t have much to do for a while, but I might have a more interesting job coming up for you later.

For now, when we go anywhere I would require you to walk behind me, stay visible and keep your trap shut. I see you’re on a stick. You can walk, can’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The staff here will give you the passes you need. Be at Admiralty House first thing tomorrow morning, if you will.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said again. Mr Churchill had returned to browsing through his papers, the hand and the pen moving steadily down the margin. After a few seconds of indecision I realized that the interview had ended, so I turned round painfully and went as quickly as I could towards the door.

‘Group Captain Sawyer!’

I paused and looked back. The Prime Minister had put down the papers and was now sitting more erect behind his desk. He added whisky and water to his glass, more of the former than of the latter.

‘They tell me you and your brother went to the Berlin Olympics and won a medal.’

A bronze, sir. We were in the coxless pairs.’

‘Well done. They also tell me you were introduced to Rudolf Hess afterwards.’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘Was that you alone, or was your brother there too?’

‘Just me, sir.’

‘Did your brother ever meet him?’

‘Only briefly. Hess handed us our medals at the ceremony’

‘But I gather you spent some time with him after that. Did you form any kind of impression of the man?’

‘It was a few years ago, Mr Churchill. I met Herr Hess at a reception at the British Embassy. I didn’t spend long with him, but I would say that I didn’t like him.’

‘I didn’t ask if you liked him. I’m told you speak fluent German and held a long conversation with the man. What did you make of him?’

I thought before answering, because since that evening so long ago I had not dwelt on my memories of what happened. Larger and more interesting events had followed.

Mr Churchill took a sip from his glass of whisky, watching me steadily.

‘From the way he was acting I would have thought him drunk, but he was not drinking alcohol. I came to the conclusion he was used to getting his way by bullying people. He was with a crowd of other Nazis and he seemed to be showing off in front of them. It would be difficult for me to say what I really learned about him.’

‘All right. Would you recognize him again if you saw him now?’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll never forget him.’

‘Good. That could be invaluable to me. As you possibly know, Herr Hess has acquired a certain notoriety in recent weeks.’

I had no idea what Mr Churchill meant by that last remark. The news of Hess’s sensational arrival in Scotland had apparently been overtaken by events. I was stunned by the realization that the Germans were seeking peace, but after the first blaze of publicity there was no follow-up in the papers and Hess was never mentioned on the wireless. I had discussed it with some of the other patients at the convalescent hospital, but none of them knew any more about it than I did.

Mr Churchill put down the drink, took up his pen and returned to the papers. I waited for a few seconds but once again it was clear that he had finished with me. I opened the door behind me and returned to the outer office. One of the secretaries was waiting and she handed me a folder containing several pieces of paper and card. She explained what they were, where I should sign them and when I would be expected to show them.

A few minutes later, reunited with Group Captain Dodman and Mr Strathy, I went back to the car waiting on the gravel drive outside the house. The WAAF driver was asleep, hunched forward uncomfortably over the steering wheel.

15

Joe was tense and silent as he drove away from Berlin. He checked the rear-view mirror constantly and reacted nervously if any other vehicle overtook us. Of course I asked him what the matter was. As before, he would say nothing.

We left the huge sprawl of the city behind us and were driving along the autobahn through the dark countryside when I heard a muffled knocking from the back of the van. It sounded like a mechanical problem to me, but Joe shrugged it off.

‘Hold on, will you?’ he said to me harshly.

A few minutes later we approached a turn-off, signposted to a place called Kremmen, and after further checking in the mirror Joe slowed the van. There was no traffic around. We left the autobahn and joined a narrow road, leading across hilly country and through tall trees. Joe drove for another two or three minutes before he spotted a narrow lane that led off to the side. He pulled into it, switched off the engine and doused all lights.

I said into the sudden silence, ‘Joe, what’s going on?’

‘I sometimes think you must be blind, when so much occurs around you that you don’t see. Come and give me a hand.’

Outside the van we were in almost total darkness. Whatever light there might have been from what remained of the dusk was blotted out by the canopy of trees. There were no sounds of traffic, no lights from houses, no sign of anything happening anywhere. A warm, piny smell embraced us. Over our heads we could hear the branches brushing lightly against each other as the breeze soughed through the forest. Our feet crunched on dried needles. Joe opened the rear double doors of the van. He reached in, felt around for a moment, then located what he was looking for. It was our torch, which he switched on and passed to me.

‘Hold it steady,’ he said.

He clambered up into the van compartment, bending double, and pushed our bags of kit away from the side where they were piled up. There seemed to be several more cases and boxes than I remembered bringing with us when we left home.

‘Over here!’ he said, waving his hand with an annoyed gesture. ‘Don’t point the light at me.’

A mattress had been placed on the floor of the van, concealed until now by the bags and cases Joe had stacked alongside it. The mattress itself was covered by a wooden board of some kind, leaning at a forty-five-degree angle against the wall of the van to make a cramped, triangular space beneath. Joe was kneeling on the edge of the mattress, pulling the board away. As soon as he did so I realized that there was someone lying underneath it. The figure exclaimed loudly in German and made an irate movement, pushing at the board from below and sitting upright as soon as there was enough space to do so.

It was a young woman, but because of the angle of the torch beam I did not recognize her at first. Joe took her hands and helped her out, and as soon as I was able to see her properly I realized it was Birgit, the daughter of the family we had been staying with in Berlin.

Joe tried to embrace her but she pushed him away angrily.

"[Why have you taken so long?]’ she cried. ‘[I’ve been trapped for hours! I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, I’m dying of thirst!]’

‘[I stopped as soon as I thought it would be safe,]’Joe said. ‘[I was held up in Berlin, waiting for him.]’

He jabbed his thumb in my direction. At least some of Joe’s earlier impatience was explained, but many other questions remained glaringly unanswered. For a few minutes there was a noisy scene between the three of us, there under the darkness of the trees, with Birgit angry and Joe defensive, while I was thoroughly confused and unable to get replies to the string of questions I felt had to be asked.

Birgit’s unexpected appearance caused an explosion of feelings in me that I could never explain to Joe. I had never discussed her with him, so I assumed, partly because it suited me to assume, that he had no interest in her. However, thoughts of her had haunted my every moment since we had arrived in Berlin. She was the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen or met. Her lively, amusing personality had smitten me, provoking wild fantasies which I reluctantly suppressed. When she picked up the violin and became absorbed in her music I simply doted on her. I managed a few short conversations with her, but most of our contact had been during the family meals. I had not been able to take my eyes off her. She ravished me with her looks, her laugh, her sensitive intelligence. When I was away from that apartment in Goethestrasse I could hardly dare think of her, so turbulent were my feelings about her, yet I could barely think of anything or anyone else.

Things eventually quietened down. My eyes began to adjust to the gloom so that it was no longer so profoundly dark around us. I could see that Joe and Birgit were standing side by side, leaning back against the van.

I said, ‘Would you mind telling me what’s been going on, Joe?’

‘[Speak in German so Birgit can follow what we’re saying.]’

‘She speaks English well enough,’ I said, sulkily.

‘[We’re still in her country. Let’s make it as easy for her as possible.]’

‘[All right, Joe. What’s happening?]’

‘[Birgit is going to travel back to England with us. She has to leave Germany as soon as possible.]’

‘[Why?]’

Joe said to Birgit, ‘[It is exactly as I was telling you. People like JL haven’t the faintest idea what Hitler has been doing to the Jews in this country.]’

‘[You needn’t patronize me,]’ I said, stung by his words, but more so by the way he tried to belittle me in front of Birgit. ‘[I can read the newspapers.]’

‘[Yes, but you don’t act on what you read.]’

‘[How can you say that?]’ I retorted. ‘[If you felt as strongly as that, you wouldn’t have come to Germany for the Games.]’

‘[I couldn’t tell you before,]’Joe said quietly. ‘[I was going to try to convince you we should stay away. After all the training we’ve done I wasn’t sure how I could tell you, or what I could say to persuade you, but that’s how I was feeling. Then Mum told me about Birgit, how desperate the situation had become in Berlin for Jews, and that she was desperate to help. You know she and Hanna Sattmann were brought up together. The truth is that the main reason I came to Germany was not to race, but to try to bring Birgit out with us.]’

‘[JL, he’s right about the situation,]’ said Birgit, her head turning from one of us to the other. ‘[You can’t know what it’s been like for us. But neither can you, Joe. No more than any of the visitors who have come from abroad for the Games. The Nazis have been pulling down their banners, cleaning slogans off the walls, allowing Jewish shops and restaurants to open up again, to make foreigners think that what they’ve been told about the persecution of Jews is untrue. As soon as the Games are over, they’ll start up on us again.]’

She gulped, then fell silent. In the darkness I could see she was pressing her hands over her eyes. Joe leaned towards her, apparently trying to console her, but she pushed him aside. In the gloom I saw her move away from the van, stepping into the darker area beneath the nearest trees. I could hear her crying.

My heart impelled me to run across to her, hold her, comfort her, but in the last few minutes I had started to realize how little I really knew about her or her life. For that matter, too, how little I understood about what the Nazis had been doing to the Jews in Germany.

Here again, the time I am describing seems an age ago. Postwar hindsight threatens the accuracy of my memories, in particular the reliability of my remembered sensibilities. This was 1936. The concentration camps and the extermination camps, Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen, the vile medical experiments on prisoners, the forced labour and starvation, the gas chambers, all these lay years ahead. To say that Joe and I could not have known about the growing persecution would be facile, but even had we been blessed or cursed with foresight, who could have believed how it would in reality grow?

Yet the clues were in place. They were nakedly exposed in the speeches of Adolf Hitler, there for anyone to understand them, if they took the trouble. Rudolf Hess was no better, but he was not so well known at that time outside Germany. Although it was Hitler who announced the Nuremberg Laws, the series of measures that removed all civil, legal and humanitarian rights from the Jews, and which Birgit was in effect beginning to tell us about, it was Hess who had enacted them and it was Hess’s signature on the orders.

Again, Joe and I were two naive young men from a relatively sheltered background, whose principal interest was sport. Perhaps I was more naive than Joe, but it was true of us both. We were not untypical. Even those who should have known better, the politicians and diplomats of the Western democracies, clearly did not realize the enormity of what was happening in Germany. Perhaps they suspected more than they admitted, but they have claimed since that they did not. There was some mitigation: nothing like it had ever happened before, or not on such a scale, so it was easier to try to believe something else, to hope for the best. But those few minutes, in the hush of the silent forest, turned out to be the beginning of an education for me.

I sat down on the carpet of pine needles, away from the other two, thinking that my presence was only adding to the confusion. I certainly realized that the turbulence of my feelings and wishes meant that I was likely to say or do something I would quickly regret. I watched the indistinct dark shapes of the other two, visible against the white-painted background of the van. Birgit was sobbing quietly; Joe was talking to her. Either I could not hear what they were saying, or I closed my mind to it. Gradually she calmed.

A little later I went to the rear compartment of the van and found the Primus picnic-stove that Joe and I had brought with us from England. I set it up with some difficulty and managed to light the burner and heat up water from our canteen. I made coffee for all three of us, dark and strong, the way we knew the Germans liked it. Birgit sat on the van’s floor, between the open doors, cradling her cup and sipping the hot drink. Joe and I stood before her.

Joe told me what he and Birgit were planning. We spoke in English.

‘Birgit has no money with her, no passport, no documents of any kind,’ he said. ‘Just about everything has been taken away from the Jews in Germany. She is forbidden to travel and if she is discovered with us we will be in the most serious trouble. But we think we can get out of Germany OK. Her parents found out that there’s a Swedish ship sailing for England tomorrow, leaving from Hamburg. If we drive tonight and tomorrow we can catch it.’

‘What if we miss it?’

‘That’s when things might become more difficult. Doktor Sattmann thought that if we miss the ship we should attempt to drive across the border to Denmark and try our luck there, but it might be impossible.’

Joe, what in God’s name are we getting involved in here?’

‘We have to take Birgit to England. She’s not safe in Berlin anymore.’

‘What about her parents?’

‘They’re in the same position as Birgit. of course. They’ve decided they must escape from Germany too. They’ve been warned by friends in Berlin that if they travelled as a family they would probably be stopped at the border, so Birgit has to leave with us. As soon as they know she’s safe in England, they’re going to try to travel separately to Switzerland, where her father has a little money. With luck they’ll be able to get to France from there, then make it across to England. They might even leave next week. No one’s sure what’s going to happen to the Jews after the weekend, when the Games finish.’

‘Wouldn’t Birgit be safer staying with her parents?’

‘No. They’ve heard stories about other German Jewish families caught trying to escape.’

We were already committed to a desperate plan, with no safeguards except the most elementary ones. Joe and I agreed that Birgit could travel in the front of the van for as long as it was dark and we were not trying to cross any borders. As soon as we got near Hamburg, though, she would have to return to her hiding place and stay in it until we were on the ship and clear of German territorial waters.

Time was passing. We knew that we should cover as much distance as possible in the darkness of the short summer’s night. I offered to take the first turn in the cramped rear compartment of the van, settling myself on the mattress to make myself as comfortable as I could, with the board Joe had used as a cover stacked out of my way on the other side. It was hardly cosy, but after while I was able to doze a little.

After midnight Joe found another place in a side road to make a brief halt, and he and I changed places. I was stiff from being confined in the noisy, shaking rear of the van and was glad of the break. Birgit, sitting to my left, hunched down in the passenger seat with her knees drawn up against her chest. I said nothing as I turned the vehicle around and headed back towards the autobahn. The engine felt rougher, noisier than before. Every shift of the gears made the van jerk and shudder.

Once on the wide, modern road I was able to drive at a steady cruising speed, with few of those disruptive changes of gear. I hoped that Joe, silent in the compartment behind my seat, was finding it possible to sleep. I wanted to talk to Birgit, to make the most of our temporary companionship, but I already knew that for all the noise and vibration in the vehicle it was possible for someone in the back to hear what the two in the front were saying.

Whenever another vehicle went past in the other direction, I used the momentary glare of its headlights to steal a glance across at Birgit.

She remained awake, staring forward into the night. She gave no hint of what she was thinking. Eventually she did shift position, twisting her body and switching her legs so that they were on the other side. This put her head and shoulders closer to mine. When the next vehicle roared past on the other side of the autobahn, I glanced towards her and found that she was looking at me. Still neither of us said anything. Quite apart from Joe’s silent presence, asleep or awake, a few inches away, Birgit had the power to strike me dumb, to make me feel clumsy, to inspire me to think and say the most foolish and impetuous things. I sensed that it was a crucial night in my life, one that I should not ruin with hasty words, so I kept my silence. My senses reached out towards her. I was aware of every tiny movement she made, every small sound. I imagined I could feel the warmth of her face radiating across the short space between us so that my own cheek felt the glow of her. I craved to hear a first word from her that I could respond to, even a grunt or some other kind of semi-voluntary noise, a reaction to something which I could in turn react to. She remained silent. I drove on, completely obsessed with her, driven mad by her silent presence, but beginning to enjoy what we were doing. In the monotony of the almost deserted highway I could pretend to myself that Birgit and I were alone in the van, that Joe was no longer with us, that she and I were eloping together, driving through the warm European night to some romantic destiny.

I began yearning for every next vehicle to appear from the distance ahead of us and pass with a flood of its headlights. Whenever it happened I turned to Birgit and found her looking towards me. Her eyes were serious and calm, seeking mine with some unstated private message.

The few hours of darkness passed slowly before light began to glimmer against the clouds low on the eastern horizon. Birgit became aware of the coming dawn at the same moment as me, as if realizing that the intimacy of the night would pass with daylight. She leaned even closer to me and placed her hand on mine, where I was holding the steering wheel.

She said, in English, ‘JL, I am most happy to be here with you and Joe.’

I grinned back at her, unwilling to speak in case it brought a response from Joe, hidden behind me. I could see her now, without needing the lights of a passing vehicle to show her to me. She was smiling; a conspiratorial flicker of her eyes towards Joe’s position seemed to confirm my own feelings about not wanting Joe to be a part of it.

She did not remove her hand from mine. I drove on and on, as smoothly as I could, north-west towards Hamburg, savouring every second of the long moment of intimacy with the girl I thought of as the prettiest in the world. Gradually, morning came.

16

I was woken at 6.30 a.m. in my room in the Officers’ Mess at RAF Northolt. I had slept for less than three hours. I forced myself out of bed, reeling with the need to sleep, fighting back the compulsion to stay lying down for a few minutes more. I showered, shaved and dressed, stumbling, dropping things, yawning. I was stiff with fatigue and my leg was aching. Breakfast was the standard RAF fare for non-operational officers: as much toast as I could eat, spread with the yellow gunge the mess called butter but which tasted of fish and was widely rumoured to be refined from the sumps of trawlers.

The car was already waiting for me outside the mess. It was a large black Riley with the crest of the House of Commons imprinted on the doors. A WAAF driver - not the same one as before - was standing beside the passenger’s door. As I approached she stood to attention, saluted smartly and held the door open for me. It had started to rain: a warm but depressing drizzle, slicking down over the roads and trees from a sky the colour of lead.

The WAAF drove swiftly towards central London, expertly negotiating through what little traffic there was.

It was my first visit to London since the early months of 1940, when I had spent a weekend leave with some of the other officers from 105 Squadron. We were in the West End for two nights, carousing our way through the pubs and nightclubs, taking a break from what we thought at the time to be the unspeakable horrors of war. Like most people we had no conception of what was to follow within a few weeks. After the invasion of France and the Low Countries, the Germans were able to move their bomber squadrons to within a short flying distance of the British coast. Every major city in Britain was suddenly within range. For most people the war changed from an anxious time of distant skirmishes to a battle in which they found themselves in the front line. The nightly Blitz had begun in the first week of September 1940 and continued more or less without a break for eight months. London suffered the most, but almost every provincial city was attacked at one time or another. By November, casualties among civilians and rescue workers were numbered in the thousands. One of those killed was my brother Joe, who died when the Red Cross ambulance he was driving in London took a direct hit from a bomb.

Months later, I had still not become reconciled to the shock of his loss.

Today was my first visit to London since the Blitz began. I stared out of the car as we drove to the centre, appalled by the sheer scale of destruction. Everyone in Britain knew the capital had taken a beating during the winter. Even though what the newspapers printed was controlled by government overseers, so as not to give information or encouragement to the enemy, there was enough for most people to gain a pretty vivid idea of what was going on. The weekly newsreels at the cinemas were filled with images of flames, smoke, gutted and collapsing buildings, snaking hosepipes in the roads and torrents of water jetted against the fires.

But to see some of the damage for myself was horrifying. As we drove along Western Avenue I saw street after street where houses had been blown to pieces, where rubble-mountains of brick and plaster and jagged beams of charred wood had been created by the bulldozers. In Acton I saw a whole street that had been destroyed: it was just a rough, undulating sea of broken bricks and other rubble. Windows everywhere were broken, even where there was no other visible damage. There was a pervasive, squalid smell: something of drains, smoke, chalk, oil, soot, town gas. Along the main road itself there were many places where the surface had been cratered by an explosion or was being dug up to repair water mains, electricity supplies, telephone connections, gas pipes, sewers. These constant obstacles slowed our progress. In a few places, where the damage was worst and bombed buildings hung perilously awaiting demolition, there were police warning signs, tapes, boards hastily erected to prevent pedestrians from wandering into areas where the paths or the road surface had been undermined. The rain still fell lightly, streaking the car windows with muddy rivulets and creating areas of shallow flooding across the roads and pavements.

We were held up by a large truck blocking the road. Accompanied by a team of workmen, it was reversing slowly into one of the bomb sites. I stared out at the dismal scene, the shattered bricks and pipes lying in the muddy puddles, the filth of charred wood, the glimpses of broken and crushed household items, the pathetic remains of wallpaper visible where inner walls still happened to stand. I tried to imagine what the street must have looked like before the war, when it was full of homes, harmlessly lived in by ordinary people, going about their lives, worrying about money or jobs or their children, but never imagining the worst, that one night their house and all the houses around it would be blown apart by German bombs or incinerated by phosphorus incendiaries.

I also tried to imagine what those former inhabitants must have thought about the men who had bombed their houses, the Luftwaffe fliers, coming in by night. The fury they must have felt, the frustration of not being able to hit back.

I recoiled from the thought. The popular press depicted the Luftwaffe crews as fanatical Nazis, Huns, Jerries, shorthand codes for an enemy impossible to understand, but sense told me that most of the German fliers were probably little different from me and the young men I flew with. Our own bombing missions to Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin, Kiel, Cologne were no different in kind from the raids that had brought the German bombers here to Acton and Shepherd’s Bush. Today, in Hamburg, there would inevitably be piles of rubble, fractured water mains, homeless children, where A-Able’s high-explosive bombs had fallen.

There was surely a difference, though? What everyone hated about the German raids was that they were indiscriminate, the bombs falling on every part of the cities that were attacked. Women and children were as likely to be killed or injured as soldiers - more likely, indeed, since cities are full of civilians. By contrast, it was repeatedly argued that the British bombing of German cities was a matter of careful targeting, of meticulously chosen aiming points on military installations distant from civilian centres.

War cannot be fought except with lies. I knew the dispiriting reality of the RAF’s bombing campaign. I had experienced at first hand the impossibility of aiming accurately at targets shrouded in cloud or smoke, I remembered so well the crews’ inability in the dark to find the chosen town, let alone the specific target: the power station, the military camp, the arms factory. I had tried to fly through anti-aircraft fire without losing my nerve, listening on the intercom to the terrified reactions of the other men, knowing that sometimes bombs were released early in panic, that sometimes the bomb load was jettisoned in frustration after a target could not be found, believing it preferable to drop bombs on anything German - even a German field - than to return home with a full load of unused weapons.

We left the suburbs, passing the White City stadium, then turned south towards Holland Park, heading for the part of central London close to the river. The nature of the damage changed noticeably. Where in the suburbs there had apparently been few attempts to clear the wreckage, in the central parts of the city, where several raids had been concentrated, much had been done to keep the streets clear. Where the bombing was worst I saw gaps in the rows of buildings, and the streets, if they were cratered, had been effectively repaired and smoothed. Everywhere I looked I saw piles of sandbags guarding the entrances to buildings or shelters and windows criss-crossed with sticky tape to try to prevent glass splinters flying. Directions to the nearest air-raid shelters were everywhere, painted on walls or printed on paper placards pasted to shop windows.

In some respects London life was continuing as it had before the war: there were many red double-decker buses driving along, as well as more than a few taxi-cabs. Apart from the general absence of other cars, there were whole stretches where for a few moments you could believe that nothing much had been changed by the war. It was an illusion, of course, because as soon as you convinced yourself that you were seeing a part of London the bombers had somehow missed, the car would turn a corner and there would be another burnt-out ruin, another gap, another hastily erected wooden facade concealing some scene of devastation beyond. The sheer magnitude of the damage was a shock to me: it extended for mile after mile, with every part of London apparently affected.

I guiltily remembered a night when we had been despatched to bomb Münster, a town that had been difficult to find. When we finally located the place, it turned out to be covered in cloud. Because A-Able was starting to run low on fuel, we dropped the bombs blind, through ten-tenths cloud cover, down on Münster below, then headed for home. Where did those bombs fall, what did they destroy, what human lives had they permanently disrupted?

We crossed Hyde Park Corner then went along Constitution Hill, past Buckingham Palace, which was almost unrecognizable behind the mountains of sandbags placed against every visible door and window. Green Park, to the left, was a curious sight: much of the open space had been ploughed under and replanted with vegetables, but at frequent intervals I saw emplacements of anti-aircraft guns, or winching stations for the multitude of silvery barrage-balloons that floated five hundred feet above the trees.

We turned into The Mall, where more anti-aircraft guns pointed upwards through the summer-leafed trees on each side. The car was moving alone, unhindered by other traffic. I realized that I had crossed over into a part of London that was closed to normal traffic, that my new status as one of Churchill’s ADCs was already letting me move in places, and around people, that I would not have dreamed about even two days earlier.

Admiralty House is part of the great archway that separates The Mall from Trafalgar Square and the warren of offices it contains had provided Mr Churchill with a London headquarters that was more practical for the conduct of a war than the cramped quarters of 10 Downing Street, a short distance away. The WAAF driver took the car to the rear entrance of the building, in the wide area called Horse Guards Parade, in peacetime a place of pageantry and commemoration of great national events, now in wartime a huge open-air depot for military vehicles, supplies and temporary buildings. The inevitable brace of anti-aircraft guns stood among the trees adjacent to St James’s Park.

I walked from the car towards the only entrance I could see, wondering what I was supposed to do and to whom I was supposed to be reporting. My orders said only to attend the building by the stated time. However, as soon as I limped to within sight of the door, a Regimental Sergeant-Major marched out to greet me, snapped to attention, saluted me and, after briefly checking my identity, conducted me to a room close to the main entrance. Here, already waiting, was a small group of men, presumably civil servants, dressed in suits and carrying bowler hats, two senior policemen, and two other serving officers: a submarine captain from the Royal Navy and a colonel from the Brigade of Guards. Everyone was extremely cordial and welcoming and I was offered a cup of tea while we waited.

At about eight-thirty we heard a great deal of noise in the corridor outside and a number of men and women hurried past. A few moments later, entirely without ceremony, the stocky figure of Winston Churchill appeared at the door of the room.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said, glancing around as if checking that we were all present. ‘Let us be done with this task as quickly as possible, as I have to be elsewhere this afternoon and out of London tonight.’

He turned smoothly and walked out of the door. We followed, making way for each other. It was only a few hours since my interview with Mr Churchill at Chequers. Before he appeared I had been thinking that he might acknowledge me personally, perhaps make small-talk about the late night that he must know we had both had. In fact he barely glanced at me. I noticed that for someone of his age, who in the early hours of this morning was still awake and working and who, like me, could have snatched only two or three hours’ sleep to be in central London by this early hour, he looked remarkably fresh. I had seen him only in the glow of his desk lamps - in the bright light of morning his face, the familiar rounded outlines, so reminiscent of a baby’s features, looked vigorous and untroubled.

Outside, he was standing beside the first of three cars that were waiting for us. He was wearing his familiar black hat and coat and already held a fat Double Corona cigar in his hand, as yet unlit. Like all of us, he carried a gas-mask in a pouch slung over one shoulder. As the civil servants and the other military men started to dispose themselves in the three cars, Mr Churchill signalled to me.

‘Group Captain, this is your first tour with me, is it not? You should travel in the front car today. Get the feel of things.’

He climbed into the rear compartment and I followed. One of the civil servants clambered in beside me and the three of us squeezed into the back seat. I held my walking-stick between my knees in front of me, exactly in the same way, I suddenly noticed, as Mr Churchill was holding his own cane.

Without further ado the convoy of cars set off, first wheeling around Horse Guards Parade, then passing through Admiralty Arch into Trafalgar Square. A crowd of pigeons scattered noisily as our cars rushed along. We headed east.

It was for me an extraordinary experience to be sitting so close to, indeed crushed up against, this most famous and powerful statesman, to feel the warmth of his side and leg pressing casually against mine, to feel his weight lean against me as the car went round corners. He said nothing, his hands resting on the handle of his cane, the unlit cigar jutting up from his fingers. He stared out of the passenger window, apparently deep in thought, his lower lip set in that familiar expression of stubbornness.

I had heard that Churchill was normally a talkative man and the silence in the car was becoming one of those that you feel must be broken. What had Mr Churchill known about me and Joe before we met, that had made his staff confuse us?

Joe and Birgit had moved to the north of England soon after they married at the end of 1936, renting a house on the Cheshire side of the Pennine hills, near Macclesfield, but I had seen hardly anything of either of them since I left university. The last occasion was when we met at our parents’ house during one of my leaves. That was the week of the first Christmas of the war, an occasion of bitter arguments between us which ended up with my leaving the house in a rage, infuriated by Joe’s intractable attitude and beliefs, and feeling, wrongly as it turned out much later, that my father was taking Joe’s side against me.

I had not seen or spoken to Joe after that: in our different ways we became caught up in the war, I more obviously in the RAF. At the beginning of 1940, Joe successfully applied to be registered as a conscientious objector, afterwards starting to work for the Red Cross. I was bitterly regretful that he and I had not been able to patch up our differences before he died, but that was not to be. Much of what he had gone through in his last months was unknown to me.

Our motorcade was passing through areas of much heavier bomb damage, where many burnt-out buildings stood looming over the road with their smoke-darkened walls and blank windows. The sky could be glimpsed through their roofless shells. Not all such damaged buildings remained: many had been demolished and the rubble cleared away, allowing new vistas across to other parts of the city. I saw St Paul’s Cathedral, still more or less intact, having famously survived the worst nights of the Blitz, but it was surrounded by acres of levelled ground, ruined buildings and bulldozed heaps of rubble.

At last I spoke.

‘Mr Churchill, last night you mentioned my brother Joseph. May I ask what you knew about him before he died?’

For a moment Churchill did not seem to react. Then he turned to look at me.

‘I’m sorry, Group Captain. I know nothing more of your late brother than what I told you last night.’

‘You implied he was known to you in some way. You said your staff had been confusing the two of us.’

Mr Churchill looked back out of his window, not burdening himself to answer.

The man who was in the seat beside me, presumably a member of Churchill’s staff, suddenly spoke.

‘Group Captain Sawyer, we are passing the Bank of England. It remains undamaged, as you can see. And the Mansion House. I think you’ll find as we move further down towards the docks that the destruction gets worse.’

I nodded politely. The Prime Minister’s answer had piqued rather than satisfied my curiosity. He had in fact told me nothing at all about Joe during our short meeting.

‘Is this your first visit to London since the Blitz?’ said the man beside me, persisting.

‘Yes. . . yes, it is.’

‘The damage must seem terrible to you. Did I hear you say you had a brother who was killed in action?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ I said, distractedly. ‘Not in action. He was a civilian.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. My own brother’s in the Royal Navy, you know. Commands a destroyer, out on the Atlantic convoys. Nasty job sometimes.’

‘Yes, so I hear.’

‘Did you ever fly any naval liaison missions. Group Captain? My brother speaks highly of the RAF.’

‘I’m not attached to Coastal Command,’ I said. ‘I’ve never worked with the navy.’

‘I must arrange an introduction for you to the C-in-C Western Approaches. Good man. I’m sure he’d be fascinated to meet you. Look,’ he said, pointing across me and the Prime Minister into the distance, over another field of rubble. ‘Tower Bridge is still standing. The Luftwaffe uses it as an aiming point, you know. They line up on the docks by using the river and they know where they are when they see the bridge. They could knock it out if they wanted to, but it’s probably more useful to them left as it is.’

So it went on, the flood of chatter from the man beside me, removing any possibility of my pressing Mr Churchill on what he might have known about Joe.

After we passed through the City the visible damage became even more extensive than before, at one point the road narrowing to a single lane that wound between two immense heaps of rubble. Policemen were on duty here, waving our convoy through. They saluted the P.M. as our car went by. Afterwards we crossed the Mile End Road - my companion the civil servant smoothly identified it for me - then joined a narrower road leading down to the river. Here the car slowed to a gentle halt. The other two cars pulled up behind us.

Two uniformed policemen emerged from one of the intact buildings at the side and together with our driver set about lifting back the convertible roof and folding it into its special place at the rear. The drizzle, still misting down as it had done since first light, began to settle on us.

The Prime Minister watched the operation of removing the roof calmly. When the driver was back in his seat at the front of the car, he stood up, bracing his weight on the long metal handle that was at the front of the compartment.

‘Gentlemen, it’s usually left to you to decide whether you should stand with me or remain seated,’ he said. ‘Because of the weather today, from which there’s no escape, you might prefer to take it on the chin with me up here. It’s actually rather more comfortable to be standing for short distances. You’ll discover, Group Captain, that a firm grip on the handle in front of you will keep you steady.’

The civil servant and I both stood up, finding, as Mr Churchill said, that with all three of us on our feet it was possible to stand in some comfort. Churchill felt around in his pockets, but the civil servant was already ahead of him. He produced a box of matches and struck one of them. He held the flame steady so that the P.M. could light his cigar.

Churchill took two or three deep pulls, turned the end around in his mouth to moisten it, then declared himself ready. The car moved forward at about ten miles an hour.

Behind us the other ADCs were also standing up in their cars. Steadily our little motorcade headed down into the wasteland of blasted homes, warehouses and dock installations.

We came around one particular corner and I saw that the Women’s Voluntary Service had erected a large tent, from which hot food and drinks were being handed out. A large crowd was clustering around it, but a sizeable number of the people on the edge of the crowd were looking expectantly towards us. The moment our car came in sight, an immense cheer went up and everyone began waving and yelling enthusiastically. People inside the tent rushed out to join the crowd. Everyone was waving. Some people were clutching Union flags. The noise was tremendous.

Mr Churchill immediately raised his hat, waved it in a jovial fashion and held up his big cigar for everyone to see. The cheers redoubled.

‘Are we downhearted?’ he cried.

‘NO!!’ came the immediate response.

‘Give it to ‘em, Winnie!’

‘We can take it!’

‘Dish it out, Mr Churchill!’

‘Give the Jerries all we’ve got!’

The car drove steadily on. A smaller crowd beyond the tent heard the noise and as soon as we hove in view another great commotion arose. Mr Churchill waved his hat, beamed at the crowd, puffed expressively on his cigar.

‘We can take it!’ he said loudly.

‘We can bloody well take it!’ they responded.

‘Give ‘em as good as we got!’

‘Give old Adolf what he deserves!’

‘God Save the King!’

‘Hoorah!’

‘Are we downhearted?’ cried the Prime Minister, waving his hat and puffing on his cigar.

This continued for about a mile, with unbroken crowds along the side of the roads, well marshalled by alert police officers, all of whom, I noticed, were eager to take a look of their own at the famous visitor. We reached an area of total destruction where even the bulldozers had not yet started work. It was shocking to realize that the undulating, broken mass of concrete slabs, splinter-ended beams, broken brickwork, millions of shards of glass, large pools of water, rampant weeds already poking up through the rubble, had all of it once been people’s homes and places of work. There were no crowds here, probably because there were no homes left, no reason for anyone to be about. We remained on our feet, silent as we passed along the navigable track that was cleared on the edge of the Luftwaffe’s night-time work.

Eventually the car entered a less damaged area and drew to a halt outside a tall Victorian edifice. Apart from a few boarded-up windows and the ubiquitous sandbags, it appeared to be comparatively untouched by the bombs. From a sign near the main gate I saw that the building was Whitechapel Hospital. A squad of uniformed police was waiting in the yard to greet us, saluting as Mr Churchill stepped down. We walked at a smart pace into the building, my injured leg giving me difficulty for the first time that day, but I managed to keep pace. A huge roar was going up: people had crowded into the yard to welcome the Prime Minister, and seemingly hundreds more were leaning from all available doorways and windows, waving and shouting and cheering.

Mr Churchill raised his hat, beamed about in all directions, puffed cheerfully on his cigar.

‘Are we downhearted?’ he shouted to the crowd.

‘NO!!’ they yelled back, waving their flags enthusiastically.

We toured the wards, spoke to doctors, nurses and porters, chatted to patients. Mr Churchill spent extra time in the children’s ward, meeting not only the children but their parents too. At every point his message was the same, endlessly repeated, with only minor variations: ‘We’re going to see it through to the end, we’ll never give up, we’ve got Hitler on the run now; we can take anything he throws at us, he’s in for a few surprises.’

After the hospital we drove to a large school in Leytonstone which had taken a direct hit from a German parachute bomb. After that we drove down the badly bombed High Road in Leyton, where people were crowding on both sides of the street. Wherever there were crowds, Mr Churchill repeated his performance with the hat, the smile and the cigar.

We were back at Admiralty House by lunchtime. With a curt nod to us and a word of thanks Mr Churchill hastened away into the interior of the huge building. By this time I was exhausted after the morning of crowds and noise and the long walks among them. Mr Churchill remained spry and energetic to the end. I was given a light lunch with the other ADCs, then our respective cars arrived to take us home. I went to my room at RAF Northolt and fell asleep at once.

Nothing happened the next day, but the day after I was summoned again to Admiralty House. This time the tour Mr Churchill took was to the south of the river, visiting the areas of Southwark and Waterloo that had been devastated in a raid at the end of April. The next day we returned to the East End and dockland. Two days later the entourage travelled north for tours of the worst-hit parts of Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester and Liverpool. Back in London after a week, we immediately set off touring Battersea and Wandsworth.

I served as a Churchill ADC for just under three hectic weeks, by the end of which time I was convinced of two things about the Prime Minister.

The first was that he was a truly great man, inspiring belief in the impossible: that Hitler could and would be beaten. In that summer of 1941, the Germans were massively engaged in the first phase of the invasion of the Soviet Union, so for a while the pressure was off the British Isles. But the danger of air raids never really went away and the submarine war in the Atlantic was entering its most dangerous phase for Britain. The fighting in North Africa, which had been thought to be almost over when the Italian army collapsed, suddenly took a new and more worrying direction as Rommel assumed command of the Afrika Korps and moved swiftly on Egypt and the Suez Canal. Most of Europe was occupied by the Germans. The Soviet Union was in retreat. The Jews were being moved into ghettos; the extermination camps were built and ready. The Americans were still not involved. Whichever way you looked at it, the British were not in reality winning the war, nor did the prospects look at all good. Churchill, however, would have none of that. Britain has never had a greater leader at a worse time.

But I was also convinced of an altogether different matter.

I quickly realized what the other ADCs must also have known, but which none of us ever admitted or discussed. The cheerful, charismatic man who toured the bombed-out streets and homes of London’s East End, who smilingly received the cheers and shouts from the crowds, who gamely puffed his cigars and uttered the familiar words of patriotic encouragement and defiance, was not Winston Churchill at all.

I do not know who he was. Physically he was almost identical to Churchill, but he was not the great man himself. He was a double, an actor, a paid impostor.

17

I returned to my college in Oxford at the end of September 1936, feted as a hero and briefly the subject of great interest and curiosity. The fame was only brief, though, because a bronze medal is not the same as a gold, and sporting achievement is ephemeral when you cannot follow it up. That is what happened to me, because Joe showed no interest in returning to Oxford. My career as one half of a coxwainless pair immediately ended.

For a while I tried to find another rowing partner, meanwhile concentrating on solo rowing, but it was not the same without Joe. Gradually, my practice sessions grew shorter, less frequent, until the cold spell in January 1937 when I no longer rowed at all.

Instead, I turned to flying, the other obsession of mine that rowing had for a long time overshadowed. I had joined the University Air Squadron as soon as I arrived in Oxford for my first year, and even through the long months of my most intensive training before the Olympics I managed to keep up my flying training hours with the squadron. After the Games I spent more and more time flying, neglecting my academic course. Everyone at Brasenose College knew that I was at Oxford because of my skill at sport, not because of academic brilliance, but I had become a rowing blue who no longer rowed. Flying was no replacement, so I turned reluctantly to the books. I came down from Oxford in July 1938 with a third-class honours degree in German History and Literature.

Through the adjutant of the University Air Squadron I applied for a permanent commission in the Royal Air Force, intending to become a fighter pilot. I had already logged many solo flying hours and I was qualified to fly single-engined aircraft. It seemed to me that I possessed all the natural aggression and quick reactions needed in a fighter pilot and that the RAF would welcome me with open arms.

Nothing, of course, is ever as easy as that. After my first medical examination I was told I was physically unsuited for fighters: I was simply too tall and big-boned and would not fit into the cockpit of any of the aircraft in service. Instead I was selected to fly bombers.

After my time at Cranwell, the officer college for the RAF, I ended up as a trainee Flying Officer with 105 Squadron, equipped with the Blenheim light bomber. By the time war broke out, at the beginning of September 1939, I was in command of my own aircraft and I was ready for operations.

When the Germans launched the Blitz, Britain at first tried to respond with bombing attacks on German targets. I was part of that effort: I had been posted to 148 Squadron, equipped with Wellingtons, and I began flying operationally from the end of 1940. At first our targets were the French ports occupied by the Nazis - Brest, Boulogne, Calais, Bordeaux -but with increasing frequency we were sent to attack targets in Germany itself: Gelsenkirchen, Emden, Wilhelmshaven, Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg. Over Hamburg it ended for me, on May 10, 1941.

I saw nothing of my brother Joe during the early months of hostilities and was completely out of touch with him at the time he was killed. After our falling-out at Christmas 1939 we went our separate ways, cursing each other, misunderstanding each other. We were no more deeply alienated from each other at the time of his death than before, but our separation added an extra ingredient of despair to my loss.

Our row had simmered for years, ever since our escape from Germany with Birgit. In practical terms, that adventure turned out to be greater in anticipation than in reality. When we arrived in Hamburg, we went to the docks area and located the ship we had been told about, the Swedish motor vessel Storskarv. We reported to the shipping office, still with no concrete plans about how we hoped to smuggle Birgit aboard, and discovered that Herr Doktor Sattmann had managed to make arrangements by telephone ahead of our arrival. Our passages were booked, the papers were in order. We crossed the North Sea in some luxury, our equipment van buried deep in the hold of the ship.

The real upheaval did not begin until we were safely back in Britain, and then it took me some time to realize what was going on.

The ship docked after midnight. Our parents were waiting in the bleak dockside buildings in Hull to greet us. It became a family event: Mum and Dad had been on a trip to Germany four years earlier when they had stayed in Berlin with the Sattmanns. While we were waiting for our van to be lifted out of the ship’s hold we sat in the dreary hall of the waiting area and Birgit passed Mum a long letter written by her parents. My mother glanced through it and began to cry. Then she put it aside, most of it unread, and cheered up suddenly. Everyone was speaking German, hugging each other. Joe told them of the way Birgit had hidden, the daring escape from Berlin. I felt removed from the reunion, increasingly conscious that most of these arrangements had been made without anyone telling me. It made me see myself in the same way that they perhaps saw me: Joe was obviously to be trusted with the task of helping Birgit escape, while I was kept in the dark.

I contented myself by watching Birgit, wondering how I could claim her now we were all safe in Britain.

We drove home to Tewkesbury. Joe and Birgit travelled in the back of our parents’ car, while I drove the equipment van alone. I was filled with excitement: hopes and plans circled around insistently in my mind, all focused on Birgit, my fantasies of love and romance, of easing her away from Joe and taking her for myself.

All this was to be quickly dashed. Long before three months were up Birgit was married, but not to me. She and Joe married quietly in Tewkesbury Register Office and went to live temporarily at my parents’ house. By then I was already back in Oxford, in turmoil, fretting about my life, about Birgit, about Joe, about having been forced to give up rowing, about wanting to fly about the mounting pressure on me to take my studies seriously. It was too painful to think about Birgit, so I tried to close my mind against her.

With the outbreak of war, everyone’s life changed. Like many people, I found a renewed purpose to my own life in fighting a war I had not started, did not want and barely understood. War simplifies problems, sweeping up a multitude of small ones and replacing them with great concerns. To many people the shift in personal priorities was almost welcome. I was among them. A process of immense social and political change was about to flow through the country, and there was no stopping or questioning it. Of that process I was a tiny part, as were we all. No one understood at the time what was going on, even though we experienced it every day. All we knew was that Hitler had to be fought and the war seen through to the end. Only afterwards would we be able to look back and begin to comprehend what had happened, what had changed.

18

In a way that had rapidly become familiar to me, my first warning that I was required for duty came in a telephone call from the Air Ministry. I was in the Officers’ Mess at RAF Northolt, relaxing with some of the other officers. Even though I was in a somewhat anomalous position compared with theirs, because they were on operational duty while I obviously was not, I was starting to get to know the other men. The war brought circumspection to us all, so apart from the most general enquiries when I first arrived no one asked me what I was actually doing. To them, I was the group captain on staff duties, who came and went in official cars. Now it was about to happen again.

The mess steward approached me discreetly and told me I was wanted on the telephone. I went to a small office at the back of the building, where a certain white telephone was located.

After I identified myself with the usual codeword, I was told that a car would be collecting me at six o’clock that evening. I was to pack for at least two overnight stays, perhaps longer. It was unusual for them to call for me at this time of day, but apart from that there did not seem to be anything special about the mission. I assumed that another provincial tour was about to take place. I went to my room, bathed and shaved and put on my uniform. The Air Ministry car arrived at exactly five minutes to six.

As soon as we left the base and turned away from London I guessed that we were going to Chequers again, but we drove on into the evening shades for much longer than I had expected. It was dark when we arrived at our destination, but once again there was a ritual with an armed guard post set in the grounds of what was apparently a large country house.

Once I was inside the house I was informed that dinner was about to be served. A manservant showed me to a tiny guestroom where I deposited my overnight bag, then he led me downstairs to the dining-room, a long hall, panelled and tapestried, high-ceilinged with a gallery running around three sides. Two long tables were set, side by side, with many people already sitting down and sipping a watery brown soup. Winston Churchill was one of the diners, seated about halfway along the table next to the huge, blacked-out windows, talking rapidly to the heavily bearded man sitting at his left.

I was ushered to a place on the second table, with my back to the Prime Minister, but I could clearly hear his voice over the general hubbub. Because of the echoes in the high-ceilinged room I could not make out his actual words, but the sound of his familiar voice was unmistakable.

Later, when the party moved to a large lounge next to the dining-hall, where after-dinner drinks were served, we were sitting or standing about in a much more informal way and I was able to take a good look at the Prime Minister.

By this time I had spent many hours in the company of his double. The resemblance between the two men was uncanny. The famous baby face, the wispy hair, the pugnacious jaw and down-turned lower lip, the way of walking and using his hands, all these made the two men almost indistinguishable. When we were out in public, more obvious props would misdirect the eye: the distinctive high-crowned hat, the cane, the bow tie, the cigar. Now that I could see the real Winston Churchill, though, the differences were easy to spot. The Prime Minister was a slightly smaller man, his head closer to his shoulders, his waistline more stocky. He turned his head with a particular mannerism the actor had not mastered and his expression changed in many lively ways when he spoke.

I fell into conversation with a tall and rather handsome middle-aged woman, who said she was from the Cabinet Office, ultimately working for the Prime Minister but only indirectly responsible to him. She had never in fact met him before this weekend and said what a thrill it was for her. She told me that the house was called Ditchley Park, in Oxfordshire. It was a privately owned house sometimes lent to Mr Churchill for his working weekends. One of her duties was making practical arrangements for visits like this one. She in turn asked about my role in the RAF, so I gave her a general account of flying with a Bomber Command squadron. I realized that even here, in this inner sanctum, I was on my guard.

As we were speaking a number of ATS girls were moving around the room, shifting the armchairs and settees into lines, while two young women army officers were setting up a film projector and screen. Although nearly a month had passed since I had left hospital and I was able to walk without a cane, I quickly grew tired if I stood still for too long. I therefore sank gratefully into one of the armchairs in readiness to watch whatever we were going to be shown. The Cabinet Office woman chose a seat in the same row as mine, but not next to me. I saw her starting a conversation with another woman. I stared at the pale screen, waiting for the film to begin. I was expecting some kind of newsreel or information film, which would inevitably be followed by a talk or lecture.

I could hardly have been more wrong. When everyone sat down - Mr Churchill took pride of place in a settee all to himself in the front row, with a large ashtray, whisky decanter, water and glass close by his hand - one of the ATS girls started the projector and the film began. It turned out to be a comedy called The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. I settled back to enjoy it, noting that the Prime Minister, who was only a few feet away from me, smiled and laughed all the way through. Clouds of cigar smoke billowed up into the projector beam. When the film ended, Mr Churchill led the applause.

As the lights came up, many of the guests began to disperse. I moved uncertainly, wondering why I had been invited. Was it for a specific meeting with the Prime Minister, or was I here for the same reason as everyone else, apparently part of a weekend house-party? I hesitated, allowing some of the others to leave first.

Churchill walked up to me. He was wearing spectacles with round lenses, which glinted with the reflections of the overhead lights.

‘Group Captain Sawyer!’ he said. ‘We’re planning to post you back to your squadron next week. I believe that’s still what you wish to do?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, it’s up to you, my boy. I hear it’s becoming more dangerous over Germany. I’ve just been given a note of our bombing losses for last month, which are most concerning to me. We could find you a permanent job on the Air Ministry staff if you’d like one. You’ve done your bit for the effort, so you need have no fears on that score.’

‘I think I’d rather be flying, Mr Churchill.’

‘Well, I must say I’m with you there, Group Captain. I respect your decision, but if you should change your mind, let my office know. We’ll arrange something.’ We had started speaking in the centre of the room, but now he led me across to one side, away from the others. ‘Before you return to your squadron, there’s one more job I’d like you to carry out for me. I don’t want to make it sound more dramatic than it is, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the less you know about it in advance, the better you will be able to come to a sensible conclusion about what you find.’

‘All right, sir.’

‘Speak English as much as you can while you’re there, but your German will be invaluable. A car will pick you up from here after breakfast. All I ask you to do is make up your own mind about what happens, then provide me with a full written report as soon as you can. Spare no details. Say what you think, no matter what. I am eager to soak up intelligence from you, no matter how trivial it might seem to you. Are you clear on that? Time is of the essence, so I should like to read your report by the end of the week, if possible.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, but in the second or two it took me to draw breath and utter those two syllables, Mr Churchill had turned away from me and was crossing the room towards an inner door on the far side.

The next morning, when I was still feeling stiff and half asleep, and weighted down by a stodgy breakfast of yellow powder concocted into something that only faintly resembled scrambled eggs, I was in the back of another Air Ministry car being driven along the leafy Oxfordshire roads. I opened the window and breathed in the air thankfully. It was a misty morning, one that would later turn into a hot day, but the early coolness was a foretaste of autumn, now not many weeks away. I was thinking about what Mr Churchill had said about returning to ops, wondering what the winter would bring, where I might be sent, whether I would live to see the end of it. Winter nights were the open season for bombers and their antagonists: extended flights across German territory were possible in the long hours of darkness, with night fighters to contend with most of the way. The thought of the risk was like sniffing a dangerous intoxicant. Death remained an ever-present prospect but one that usually felt acceptably distant. I wanted to live, wanted no more injuries, but I was also desperate to return to the work I had chosen: the planes, the rest of the crew, the tracer bullets, the horrifying sight of an enemy city in inferno a few thousand feet beneath me. While the war went on, everything else was secondary.

We drove for about an hour after leaving Ditchley Park. I was not paying close attention to the route, absorbed in the thoughts of my other concerns. Other than the codename of my destination - "Camp Z’, which was typed on my new identity card, valid for the next ninety-six hours -- I had no idea where I was being taken. I calculated from the position of the sun that we must be heading generally back in the direction of London, if by a southerly route.

We were passing through wooded countryside, with tall conifers shading the road, when I noticed that the driver was peering from side to side as she drove, as if trying to find a landmark she had been told to watch out for. The car slowed. We passed down a short village street, one with cottages and shops, a car-repair workshop, a pub, a church. The name of the proprietors was painted on the overhead sign of the general store, A. Norbury & Sons, while underneath the words Mytchett Post Office and Stores were written in smaller letters. If Mytchett was the name of the village, it meant nothing to me, but in a moment we arrived at an unfenced driveway where the words Mytchett Place were dimly visible in faded paint on a brick gatepost.

Beyond was the now familiar guard post, although in this case there were high metal gates, surmounted by coils of barbed wire. Sturdy fences, with dense tangles of more barbed wire, ran off in both directions into the surrounding trees and shrubbery.

I handed my papers to the sergeant, together with the sealed envelope I had been given by a member of Mr Churchill’s staff before I left Ditchley Park that morning. The sergeant took the envelope unopened to the guard post and I saw him speaking on a telephone.

The driver and I sat in the car, the engine idling smoothly.

After about five more minutes I saw a young Guards officer walking briskly down the driveway towards us. He glanced in the direction of my car, saluted quickly but courteously, then joined his sergeant inside the guard post. He emerged a moment or two later, holding a sheet of paper and the envelope it had been in.

He came to the car, saluted again, then leaned down towards me.

‘Group Captain Sawyer?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Good morning. We have been expecting you. Captain Alistair Parkes, Brigade of Guards.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Captain Parkes.’

I reached through the open window of the car and we shook hands. I opened the door and climbed out.

‘Let’s walk across to the house,’ said Captain Parkes. ‘Your driver can wait for you there. Gives us a chance for a brief chat before we take you in.’ He slipped my letter of accreditation into his pocket and set off along an earthen path that ran through the trees, roughly parallel with the main drive. Once we had walked far enough for the guard post to be out of hearing, he said, ‘[Do you speak German, my gentleman?]’

‘[Yes, I do,]’I said.

‘[We speak English to the prisoner, partly as a matter of principle but also because we have reason to believe he understands more English than he admits to. It won’t hurt him to learn a bit more, since he’s likely to be with us for some time. But he sometimes insists on speaking German only, so it’s useful to have some.]’

‘[I’m fluent in German,]’ I said and explained about my mother.

Captain Parkes seemed to assume that I knew as much as he did about the German-speaking prisoner, because he added no more information. He said, ’[In my own case, I was sent to school in Berlin because my father was military attaché at the embassy. Another language comes more easily when you’re a child. I never thought it might be an advantage one day. How about you?]’

We chatted for a while in German about growing up bilingually, then slipped back naturally into English. On the way through the woods we passed a defensive position consisting of slit trenches, a small concrete pillbox and a lot of camouflage netting. There was also a sophisticated system of telephone communications, with wires strung high between the trees.

We emerged at last into sight of the house, which was an unprepossessing building. My life recently seemed to have become a progress from one large country residence to another. Many of the great English estates had been requisitioned and made over to war use for the duration; this one, Mytchett Place, was a Victorian manor house built of pale brick with a red-tile roof. One wing looked as if it was in need of renovation, although the main part of the house was in good repair. The grounds had not been tended properly for some time and long grass and weeds grew in profusion. Untidy creeper spread over most of the walls that I could see, covering some of the lower windows of the neglected wing. A number of temporary buildings had been erected in the grounds and around them visible efforts had been made at tidying up and instituting the customary sense of military order. I saw several soldiers on guard duty.

‘We have two or three unique problems here,’ said Captain Parkes. ‘It is technically a prisoner-of-war camp, so naturally we have to be sure we can keep the prisoner locked up inside. At the same time, in this particular case we think there’s a reasonable chance someone might get it into their head to try to push their way in and snatch him, so we have to be ready for that too. There are other special features, as well.’

‘Such as?’

‘You’ll be monitored the whole time you’re here. All the parts of the house you’ll be visiting are wired up with hidden mikes. Conversations are recorded. We’re trying to get whatever information we can out of him, so long as there’s still a chance he might have something we can use. Also, there are several MoD intelligence officers in the building. You’ll meet them before you go in to see the prisoner. They will brief you with anything you need to know.’

I was intrigued by what the captain was telling me, but even then it did not occur to me to guess who the solitary prisoner might be. I think I was assuming it must be a captured senior German officer who needed to be interrogated in his own language. It did not occur to me to wonder why this agreeable young army officer was not qualified to do the job himself. Once again, I remembered what my brother Joe often said in the past, that I did not fully connect with what was going on around me.

I was led up to the first floor of the house, where I was introduced to the three Ministry of Defence intelligence officers on duty that morning. At last I was led through a solidly constructed metal door and along a short hallway to the rooms where the prisoner w⁷as being kept. As I entered the first of the two rooms, he was lying on his back in the centre of the floor, full-length on the bare boards. He was dressed in the uniform of a Luftwaffe Hauptmann. His eyes were closed and his hands were folded across his chest.

It came as a considerable shock to discover that the man being held in the building was Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess.

19

In the first nine months of the war, until the beginning of May 1940, I notched up only eleven sorties against the enemy. After the German invasion of France and the Low Countries I was posted to 148 Squadron, which until recently had been operating the obsolete Fairey Battle in France, with horrific losses of both men and machines. Now back in the UK, based at Tealby Moor, the squadron itself was being re-manned and re-equipped, this time with the Wellington night bomber. Although the summer of 1940 was a period of maximum danger for Britain, the squadron had been pulled back from the front line while the process of reconstruction went on. Everyone was anxious to do what we could, to give back to the Germans what we were taking from them, but for several weeks the squadron to which I was attached did not even have aircraft to fly.

At the beginning of August, when I was going through a dull refresher course on night-time navigation, I received a letter from Birgit.

The last time I had seen her was during the disastrous family reunion the previous Christmas, during which she hardly spoke to me or even looked in my direction. After that I had not expected to hear from her again, although I had in fact received an earlier letter from her, back in May. It was a short, semi-formal note telling me that Joe had been beaten up by some off-duty squaddies. They apparently took exception to his not being in uniform. That at least was how my mother described it when I phoned her to find out more. She told me that Joe was not badly hurt and that after a short spell in hospital he would be back to normal.

But now Birgit had written to me again. When her letter was brought round during the daily distribution at the airfield, she was so far from my thoughts that I did not recognize her handwriting on the envelope.

The letter was short and written in her plain, almost formal English. I could sense her straining to write carefully and correctly to me. Without explaining why she had decided to write at that particular moment, she told me the circumstances of her present life. She said she had not heard from her parents for more than three years and feared they were dead. She was trying to find out what might have happened to them, but the war made communications with Europe almost impossible. A problem that seemed to her connected was that she was in danger of being interned by the British authorities, as she was known to have been born in Germany. She had already been visited twice by the police but on both occasions Joe had persuaded them to let her stay at home. Now there was a new danger: she said that Joe had been sent to London to work for the Red Cross and he was therefore away for weeks on end. Travel was so difficult with all the fears of invasion, the defensive preparations going on, that he had been home for only one weekend since he left. Being alone terrified her, but because of everything else that had happened she felt especially vulnerable.

That was all her letter said: she made no requests, no suggestions, asked for no help.

It threw me into an emotional quandary. I was living with the idea of her marriage to Joe by ignoring it. The latest row-between Joe and me made that easier, of course. Because Birgit did not intervene at the time, and because she was after all his wife, I assumed she was allied with him on whatever it was, whatever new thing we rowed about that evening. She was still Birgit, though. Now she was in her early twenties, Birgit, as I witnessed from a distance during the Christmas reunion, had matured both physically and emotionally. The slightest thought of her would tip me into a long reverie about what might have been had events worked out differently.

Now I had a whole letter from her.

I wrote back to her the same day. I composed what I intended to be a thoughtful letter, one that was helpful and sympathetic without trying to interfere in any way. At the end I said, as blandly as possible, that if she thought it would help, I could probably obtain a short leave and make a hurried trip across to see her.

Two days later I received a one-sentence reply from her: ‘Come as soon as you can.’

I immediately put in an application to the station commander’s office for a forty-eight-hour pass, but at the same time I felt I should take a final precaution against the impulses of the heart. I too wrote a one-sentence letter to her.

‘If I come to visit you,’ I said, ‘am I likely to see my brother Joe?’

She did not reply. As soon as my leave was confirmed I went anyway.

20

My meetings with Rudolf Hess at Mytchett Place extended over three days. As soon as I realized who the prisoner was, I assumed that I had been sent because he remembered me from our meeting in Berlin, or he had asked to see me for some other reason. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He showed no sign of recognition at all, was suspicious of me and for the first day the only responses I had from him were hostile or uninterested.

Hess’s circumstances had changed a great deal in five years. In 1936 he was one of the most important and feared people in Germany, but by the time he was incarcerated in Mytchett Place he had become a prisoner of war allowed only the minimum of comforts or privileges. The easy bullying manner had gone. The small talk did not exist. When he spoke at all, it was to complain about his treatment or to make demands to which I was simply unable to respond. For most of that first day he was sullen and silent, unwilling even to acknowledge my presence in the room.

Matters changed and improved on the second day. Although his suspicions remained, I think it finally sank in that I really had been sent by Churchill himself. For that day, and the next, I made much more progress than at first. It wasn’t an ideal meeting, because of the circumstances, but by the time I finished I felt I had gained some important information for the Prime Minister.

I left Mytchett Place on the fourth morning, immediately after an early breakfast. I did not see Hess again before I left. The car drove swiftly to London, taking me to Admiralty House. My mind was swirling with a heady mixture of excitement, intrigue, anticipation and the more prosaic memories of many hours of awkward boredom. Whatever the circumstances, Hess was the worst of social company.

As soon as my arrival at Admiralty House was known I was taken to a two-roomed suite of offices which had been set aside for me on the top floor of the building. That my investigation was something of a priority was borne in on me because, as well as being allocated the rooms, I also had assigned to me a secretary and a translator. I was promised that the archivists in the library would treat any requests from me as a priority. Still feeling as if I had been thrown suddenly into a world of intrigues I barely understood, I settled down to assemble my thoughts and try to write them down in a coherent form.

I worked solidly for the next few days, travelling into central London every morning from my base at Northolt. In that time, two reminders came through to me from the Prime Minister’s office, asking when my report might be ready. Time was of the essence and I was not to be allowed to forget it.

I had never been involved in this sort of work before, so organizing the material sensibly was a serious problem. My first version of the report was a lengthy and ill-arranged affair. I presented it as a verbatim account of each of my several meetings with Hess, including unedited transcriptions of the recordings of our conversations (translated into English when we had spoken in German) and supported by much other detail and elaboration that I was able to obtain from the library archives. I tried to produce a comprehensive account, a definitive record, comparing my own observations of Hess with what facts I could find about him in the Foreign Office archives. They had been observing him for years and the files were stuffed with information.

Miss Victoria MacTyre, the War Office secretary who was assigned to me, took the report away and had it typed out in full. She distributed it among four typists downstairs in the pool. If I say that it took them a day and a half of intensive typing this will give some impression of how many pages the report comprised.

Miss MacTyre brought the finished report to my office. While the secretarial work was going on, she managed to read the whole thing. She complimented me generously on it and told me that in the two years since the outbreak of war she had never read such an interesting piece of work. However, she said, there was a particular problem.

‘Group Captain, I must warn you that Mr Churchill will not read it,’ she said.

‘I think he will. He commissioned it personally and has been pressing me to deliver it to him as quickly as possible.’

‘I do understand that, sir. The fact remains that he will take one look at it and send it back to me.’

‘Why should he do that?’

‘It’s far too long,’ she said. ‘It presents a brilliant analysis of the subject and I’ve never read any report that is so well cross-referenced and supported by evidence, but the plain fact is that Mr Churchill does not have the time to read anything so lengthy and detailed.’

‘There are an incredible number of ramifications,’ I said. ‘Until I went to the place, to Camp Z, I had no idea how complex the situation is. It wouldn’t do justice to the problem if I left half of it out.’

‘What the Prime Minister requires,’ Miss MacTyre said, with what I belatedly realized was immense patience, ‘what he needs is a succinct and reliable summary of the salient points. You should add detail where it is necessary, but wherever possible the supporting material should be contained in a separate report. That is the version the officials will analyse and retain as the basis for whatever actions the Prime Minister decides to take.’

Still feeling the pressure of Mr Churchill’s expectations on me, I stared gloomily at the thick pile of typewritten sheets on my desk, wondering how I should ever be able to organize such rambling and discursive material. Everything in it needed to be there, because everything I had learned about Rudolf Hess had a bearing on what I had discovered. I began sifting through the pages, trying to see what I could distil from them.

After leaving me for an hour to work on the problem alone, Miss MacTyre returned and briskly offered me the solution. She brought with her a copy of a report commissioned by the Admiralty into what had gone wrong during the Narvik campaign at the beginning of 1940. It was four pages long.

‘This took more than three months to prepare,’ she said, laying it on my desk. ‘The original depositions amounted to over five hundred sheets of paper. What Mr Churchill read is the first four pages, from which he gained an accurate summary of the main points. The rest of the report was distributed to the various departments who needed to act on the lessons learnt from what went wrong.’

I glanced through the four-page report. It looked so easy, so plain and straightforward. It consisted of a number of fairly short sections, each one of which was preceded by a question.

It was such a practical and obvious solution that I was amazed I hadn’t thought of it myself.

Miss MacTyre said, ‘As you know, sir, I’ve read your report and I think I have drawn from it a number of different leading questions. I’ve taken the liberty of suggesting some for you.’

She passed me the sheet with a list of questions neatly typed. The first was: Before you arrived at Camp ‘Z’, did you know the identity of the prisoner you were going to meet?

The second question was: Did you recognize the prisoner when you met him?

The third read: Why did you recognize him?

The fourth: What were your first impressions of the prisoner?

‘Thank you,’ I said simply.

‘You can leave some of them out if you wish,’ she said. ‘Or you could add some of your own.’

‘But not too many of them, I suppose,’ I said.

‘No, sir.’

I settled down to work.

21

Birgit and Joe were living in a rented house in a tiny village on the western side of the Pennine hills, overlooking the Cheshire Plain, with a longer view to the north-west across a large part of the city of Manchester. This much I knew from my mother’s description. Otherwise, I had only the address on Birgit’s letter to guide me.

I borrowed a motorbike from Robbie Finch, another pilot with 148 Squadron, scrounged some petrol, then rode the bike at high speed on the almost traffic-free roads across the breadth of England. The main part of the journey took me less than two hours, but I spent another hour driving around in the general area of the village before I found the house.

Birgit opened the door to me, ushering me in coolly and politely. When the door was closed I held out my arms towards her. We pecked a kiss on each other’s cheek.

My first words to her were, ‘Is Joe here?’

‘No. I don’t know where he is.’

She pulled herself away but smiled encouragingly at me. She showed me around the house, which she kept in a state of scrupulous cleanliness. It had many rooms, some of a good size and with stunning views across the countryside below. She had made one of the upstairs rooms into her studio, where there were music-stands, a glass-fronted cabinet to hold her sheet music, a large gramophone, a wireless, a long couch. Her violin lay in its case on top of a low cupboard.

In spite of its generous proportions the house was in dilapidated condition, with several holes in the roof, windows that would not open or close properly and floorboards that were uneven and in places rotting away. There was running water and a crude inside toilet, but the water-heater, run from bottled gas, had stopped working several weeks earlier. The house had no proper heating. There was no cooker, just a small hob with two gas rings, which used the same bottled gas as the water-heater. As we went around from room to room I noted all this, thinking how cold and uncomfortable the place must be in winter. Even on the sunny day in August when I arrived, the inside of the house felt draughty and damp.

With the tour of the house soon out of the way, we sat together in her stone-flagged kitchen drinking tea. She had no coffee, said how much she missed it, how much she would like to offer me some.

We had much to talk about. We spoke mostly in English and although her manner to me was warm she was clearly holding her feelings back. She treated me like her closest friend, but a friend she kept at a distance. To me, she had never looked more attractive, more so because I could see the signs of recent stress in her appearance. She looked thin and her face fell easily into a troubled look, but to me she was as beautiful as I ever remembered her. Now that I was there with her, though, it was the beauty of reality, not of some lonely, wishful dream. During my noisy motorbike ride across the country I had been harbouring a vision of a passionate, loving reunion with her, but once I was really there all that changed. She made me happy, but it was the happiness of being with her, not of yearning for her.

She told me about her troubles and worries: Joe’s frequent and long absences, the loss of contact with her parents, her fears that they were dead or in one of the Nazis’ concentration camps. More pressing still was her situation here, in England. Our youthful adventure, in which we had smuggled her out of Germany, seemed long ago in the past, but it was a small indicator of the worse trouble that was to come.

When the war broke out, her German birth meant that she faced internment with many other German nationals. Only the fact that she was married to a Briton and had taken out British citizenship saved her from the first round of internments. A second round had followed, two months later, at the time of Dunkirk when the country was rife with rumours of a fifth column. She again managed to avoid that, partly through the intervention of the Red Cross in Manchester, for whom Joe was working. She and Joe had assured the police that she was pregnant, though in fact she was not. Now once again, with the air battles in the south-east of England going on every day and huge numbers of invasion barges being assembled by the Germans in the Channel ports, the British authorities were again casting their net. She had come increasingly to see Joe as her last defence: so long as he was there with her, she had a form of security. But Joe’s work had taken him to London, from which he was rarely able to return. She was existing from one day to the next, waiting for the police to arrive.

‘I am British!’ she said to me desperately, as she wept. ‘I became British because of what I had been. When I was growing up ...[I thought I was German, because that’s how we thought of ourselves, a German family. An ordinary German family. I was a German first who was born a Jew, but still a German]. Then I found out I was only a Jew, not a German at all. So I came to England to escape being German, to escape being Jewish. But here I am not British, not even Jewish, but German again![I fled from Germany because of what the Nazis were doing. Now I am to be persecuted again because they think I am a German spy, a Nazi! I am just a woman with an English husband. Can’t they leave me alone?] Who will look after me, now that Joe is away all the time?’

I had answers to none of this, but I comforted her as well as I could.

She gave me lunch: a simple snack of bread and cheese, with some lettuce she said she had grown in the garden.

Afterwards she said, ‘JL, I want to ask you a favour. A big, big favour.’

‘What would it be?’

Then she retreated, wouldn’t tell me what it was. I didn’t need to be asked, because for Birgit no favour would be too big. A few minutes later, she started again, building it up before she would tell me what it was, explaining that she was so reluctant to ask because she did not want me to think that it was the only reason she was pleased to see me. I assured her that I would not think that. Finally, she came out with it.

‘I want you to walk around the village with me, so that everyone can see me with you. I want them to see you too. They will think they see Joe. Will you do it?’

‘You want me to pretend to be Joe?’

‘A little walk,’ she implored me. ‘Down the lane, past the houses, so people can see I’m not alone. Will you do it for me?’

No favour was too big for Birgit.

But in my RAF uniform I was wrongly dressed for the role of Joe, which meant I would have to change into his clothes. Birgit had already chosen and laid out some of them, which underlined the fact that she had planned the whole thing.

Once we were in the lane she slipped her hand through my arm, squeezing her fingers lightly around my elbow. She leaned affectionately against me. We walked slowly along in the sunshine, looking around at the scenery. The light pressure of her hand on my arm was like a glowing imprint of her. To be seen with this lovely woman, to feel her affectionate touch, her closeness, to see her smile, was like a fantasy come true, even in an imposture. I slowed our pace, wanting to prolong the harmless physical contact with her. If to have her as close as this meant I had to be Joe, then Joe I would be for as long as it took.

Back at the house, we pushed my borrowed motorcycle out of sight and discussed how, in future, I should come and go when I visited. We agreed that unless it was night-time I should change into civilian clothes before I arrived, then be seen in them when I was with her or around the house and garden. The quiet assumptions implicit in these arrangements sent a thrill of anticipation through me.

In the evening Birgit played to me, a Mozart serenade, more Beethoven, the emotionally stirring cadenza from Mendelssohn’s violin concerto.

I stayed overnight, sleeping uncomfortably in an armchair in the living-room. During the day that followed I tackled some of the most urgently needed repairs around the house. I replaced a broken window-pane in Birgit’s studio. I sealed up many of the places where draughts came in through the loose-fitting window-frames. I rehung the front door so that it closed properly. I managed to clear the blockage in the water-heater so that Birgit did not have to heat water on the gas ring. The bathroom, where the walls were being invaded by cracks and a spreading damp mould, was another urgent job to be done, but there was no time for it then.

While I worked, Birgit assisting and cleaning up around me, we talked about Joe, endlessly about Joe. He was an obsession we shared, if for different reasons.

The words poured out of us both: we described what we knew about him to each other, talked about fond memories of good times with him, expressed our thoughts about what he was trying to do with his life and how it felt when he hurt or abandoned the people who loved him most. I told her of the pain I suffered caused by the separation he and I were going through, but also about the ambivalence of the separation, the contradictory needs for closeness and individuality. Birgit said that from the time the war began, when he became a conscientious objector, he had seemed to her remote, awkward, stubborn. She desperately needed and wanted him, but he had become so difficult to live with.

I left her as the evening drew on, hastening back to Tealby Moor at the eleventh hour. I dashed in through the main barrier at the guardhouse with only a few minutes of my leave remaining. After another night of restless sleep I turned my mind to the concerns of the squadron, where the Wellingtons were at last starting to arrive.

Crews were assigned to planes and testing began immediately. All bomber squadrons were under pressure to become operational as quickly as possible. As a result, 148 Squadron was moved back to front-line status when only a handful of the aircraft were ready. My crew was not assigned to one of the first planes, so for a little while longer I was still relatively idle. With another weekend coming I was able to arrange a second forty-eight-hour leave, borrowed Robbie’s motorbike again and rode at high speed to see Birgit. She welcomed me with tears of relief, putting her arms around me and holding me close. She was looking even thinner than before. Exhaustion lined her deep-set eyes and her long dark hair hung shapelessly around her shoulders. My mind’s eye overlaid what I saw with what I knew she was really like. I still thought she was beautiful. I could never forget what had once briefly flared up between us.

That Friday evening we sat together in her dimly lit kitchen and talked again about Joe. It was August, but the weather had suddenly turned cool. The hilly countryside was silent around us, but for the blustering pressure of wind against the windows. The blackout shades moved with the draughts. Birgit was looking tired, desolated, worn down.

The next morning I rode the bike across to Buxton to visit the estate agents who collected the rent money. They told me that the landlord had moved to Canada for the duration of the war and there was no hope that he would accept responsibility for the physical deterioration of the house. While I was in Buxton I did some food shopping, then found a hardware shop and bought nails, paint, lengths of timber, electrical flex, a couple more tools. I rode back to the house, the side panniers at the back of the motorcycle packed to overflowing, the timber carried precariously under one arm. There was a limit to the number of repairs to the house I could tackle on my own, but I did what I could. I changed the broken lock on the front door and replaced light bulbs and dangerous wiring. I borrowed a ladder from a neighbour and clambered unsteadily over the roof, knocking loosened tiles back into place, repairing the flashing against the chimney stack, clearing leaves out of the gutters, stopping up holes everywhere, fixing, patching, sealing.

I began to relish the cool airy heights of the Pennines, the gusting winds with their constant threat of rain, the clouded view of the great Cheshire Plain below, the fields and towns and drystone walls, the dark sprawl of industrial Manchester lying to the north. It made me think of the post-raid briefing I had listened to half-enviously a few nights earlier, when the other crews returned from the squadron’s first full raid. They had attacked Emmerich, a German town on the border with Holland, and returned with vivid descriptions of flying over the buildings, watching the bombs exploding beneath them. The madness of the war I still had not properly fought was infecting me: from this elevation I imagined how the land down there on the plain would appear from the air, what it would be like to fly over it at night and drop bombs and incendiaries on the people who lived there.

Then, after dark, the race back to the airfield.

That week I was assigned to a new Wellington, A-Able, and began training hurriedly with the rest of the crew. We had waited so long that we were eager to throw ourselves into the campaign. We were not made to wait long. As I was an ‘experienced’ pilot, with eleven full sorties on my record, our first raid was against a target in Germany: an industrial area in the Ruhr valley. The next night, while we were still exhausted from the previous raid, we were sent to attack an airfield in Holland that had been taken over by the Luftwaffe. The following night we were sent out again.

Meanwhile, in the south of England, the Battle of Britain was growing in ferocity. British airfields and military bases were being attacked every day, while larger and more dangerous dogfights took place high above the Weald of Kent and the Downs. At last we were fully engaged with the enemy!

Leave became difficult to obtain while we were so intensively in action, so two or three weeks went by when not only did I not see Birgit, but I was hardly able even to think about her. She wrote to me every week: short, factual letters, with no hint of special affection, but informing me in a quiet away of her everyday concerns. One letter sent a small, guilty thrill through me: she told me that Joe had turned up unexpectedly at the weekend and stayed for three days before returning to London. That particular weekend was one when I had been angling for a two-day pass, but it was cancelled at the last moment. What might have happened if Joe had walked into the house when I was there, dressed up in his clothes, alone with his wife?

After the first rush of sorties, the powers-that-be must have realized that if we maintained that level of activity for long we would be too exhausted to function properly. Crews were therefore put on a duty rota: not a rigid timetable as such, but the staff officers worked it out so that each crew flew on average just over once a week, or about three times a fortnight. This more calculated use of resources continued for the rest of the war, disrupted whenever Bomber Command demanded ‘maximum effort’ for certain targets. From my own point of view, it meant that most weeks, with careful planning and a bit of luck, I could arrange a thirty-six-hour pass, or even a whole weekend away.

Birgit and I soon settled into a kind of cautious familiarity, even though I had to be away from her so often, for so long. I would try to take her little extras that I knew were difficult for her to find or afford: tins of meat, powdered egg, chocolate, coffee, sometimes a few pieces of fresh fruit, all scrounged from the base. There was little she could give me in return, but my satisfaction lay in seeing her starting to look better. She put on a little weight, her face lost its haggard look, she seemed less careworn, less despairing. She remained unhappy without Joe, and she was still scared of being rounded up by the authorities, but I was beginning to sense a hopeful future for her. She looked increasingly beautiful to me. I was obsessed with her.

One weekend in September, while I slept as usual on the ancient armchair in her parlour, Birgit woke me up. I opened my eyes, saw her in the dim light spilling into the room from the hallway. She was kneeling beside me, her face close to mine. Her cold fingers were resting on my arm and her long hair brushed against my cheek.

‘I can’t sleep, JL,’ she said, her voice wavering as she shivered. ‘It’s so lonely upstairs.’

I swung myself from the chair and stood up. I took her in my arms and instantly we were kissing and caressing each other passionately. Her mouth bruised against mine. She forced herself against me so vigorously that I almost fell backwards. I was still half asleep. I had not planned or expected what we started. Dreaming of it and hoping for it were not the same. It simply started to happen and afterwards I did not try to justify it to myself. We became ardent lovers, delirious with a desire for each other that we could scarcely satisfy. For the remainder of that short weekend we left her bed only for brief spells: food, bathroom visits, then back to our nest and our frantic love-making.

The single most difficult thing I have done in my life was to part from Birgit at the end of that leave. I delayed until the last possible moment, then rode at headlong speed along silent roads to the base. The following night our squadron flew to the port of Antwerp, where the Germans had amassed many invasion barges.

September and October went by slowly, the war becoming more bitter and destructive in every direction. After two or three weeks of effective bombing attacks against British airfields, the Germans inexplicably changed tactics. Had they continued to hit our airfields, they might well have overcome us, but they shifted their attention to bombing the cities, in particular to bombing London, and inadvertently they spared the RAF. The military benefits were not realized for several months, because in the short term the change in tactics meant that ordinary members of the public were now in the front line. Night after night the Luftwaffe bombers droned in above London and indiscriminately released hundreds of bombs on residential areas. Soon they were making for other cities, bringing a feeling of imminent danger to everyone in the country. Nowhere was safe from the raids.

Joe was still in London, working for the Red Cross. We heard little about what he was doing, except indirectly. Red Cross workers gained occasional mention in the newspapers or on the wireless. It was clear they were in the thick of events. Concern about Joe’s well-being was a constant in my life, but as the Blitz worsened, the damage to the cities increased, the deaths mounted, Birgit became obsessed with his safety.

Even so, our passionate affair continued. I went to see her when I could and after the first few times I no longer worried if Joe might be at home when I arrived, or that he might arrive when I was there. All pretence that I was visiting Birgit for her company or to tackle repairs around the house was abandoned. We were lost in our fervent, passionate need for each other.

Then, suddenly, it changed. One day, at the beginning of November 1940, I received a message from the adjutant’s office that there had been a long-distance telephone call for me, from Mrs Sawyer. She had left a number for me where I could contact her. Full of alarm, I raised the operator and booked the call, person-to-person. Within half an hour Birgit and I were speaking and she told me the news straight away: Joe was dead. He had been killed in London when a German bomb hit the Red Cross ambulance he was driving.

22

Joe’s body was cremated after a secular ceremony in Gloucester. The service of remembrance consisted of a reading of a poem by Wilfred Owen and an extract from Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Joe’s short life was described in moving terms by a man from the Quaker Society of Friends. Joe was not a Quaker, but apparently his work had brought him into contact with Meetings in Manchester and London. The speaker described Joe as friend to the Friends. Mrs Alicia Woodhurst, who was Joe’s boss at the British Red Cross Society in Manchester, gave an emotional account of the quietly heroic rescue work he had been carrying out in the Blitz in London.

Birgit, standing next to my father, leaning on his arm, sobbed all the way through. I, standing next to my mother, my arm around her shoulders, was stiff with grief and the sudden realization of loss, inexplicable and final. Afterwards, when we returned to my parents’ house, Birgit would not look at me or speak to me. I was thankful she would not. Waves of guilt consumed me. I was devastated, shocked, deeply depressed by Joe’s death, but as well I felt sick at heart when I thought about my affair with Birgit, behind his back, in his bed, dressing up as him to delude his neighbours, taking his place in his own house. Of course, of course!, Birgit and I could not have known or guessed what was going to happen - perhaps we would not have been deterred by the foreknowledge if we had - but even so. We did what we did, but now that we had done it we were left to agonize in a mire of guilty feelings.

The squadron had given me eight days’ compassionate leave and my parents pleaded with me to stay with them for the whole of that time. I was there at their house on the night after the funeral, but the next day I could stand it no more. I hopped on Robbie Finch’s motorbike - which had become mine ever since a raid on Cuxhaven, two weeks before, during which Robbie and his crew bailed out over Germany and were now prisoners of war - and headed back to Tealby Moor as quickly as I could.

What happened next made sense only in the callous context of wartime. Joe’s death was the worst and most emotional experience of my life and for a time I thought I might never recover from the complex feelings of guilt, lost love and misery. But wars are filled with deaths, both remote and close at hand. Every night that the Luftwaffe bombers came to a British city, thousands of people were injured or killed. Ships were being sunk at sea with frightful loss of life, sickening news that came in daily. And every time the aircraft of our squadron, or of any of the front-line squadrons, took off for Germany, inevitably there was a loss to contend with in the morning. Some mornings there were several losses. Four of our Wellingtons were destroyed in a single night in a raid on Bremerhaven in December of that year, a disaster within the squadron, demoralizing and depressing us all, but the young men who died were simply more to be added to the war’s tally. We never became blasé about death or immune to its shock, but as the war went on we grew to accept that deaths were the price we were paying. This was the context; this was the world in which Joe had died.

For me, the war was the only distraction I had from my private troubles. Now that the heady affair with Birgit had been taken from me, I gave myself up entirely to fighting the war. In doing so I realized the danger in which I had inadvertently been placing my crew. Those men were my closest friends and allies, yet for half the time I had been flying with them my mind had been on Birgit. I changed. I dedicated myself to war.

We went through the winter of 1940/41, one raid following another: Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Sterkrade, Düsseldorf. We learned what there was to learn about night bombing, but in that period of the war our techniques were crude and our successes uncertain. The only certainties were that we went out to Germany and that some of us never came back.

On May 10, 1941, after bombing the port and city of Hamburg, my aircraft A-Able became the latest plane from our squadron not to make it home and my crew the most recent to be posted missing or wounded.

23

Following the question-and-answer format suggested by Miss MacTyre, I wrote a shorter version of what I had learned about Rudolf Hess during my visit to Mytchett Place. The typewritten copy prepared in her office then went straight to the P.M., with copies of that and the full version sent to the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Admiralty and the War Ministry. All those copies, short or long, vanished into the government labyrinth.

Of all the actions in which I was involved during the war, preparing my report on Hess seemed the most important, certainly at the time and still, in some ways, even now. There for a few days, by what seemed like happenchance, I was acting as a kind of intermediary between two of the most powerful men in Europe, investigating one of them for the other, with whatever conclusions I drew being likely to affect the way the war would be conducted. That is how it felt at the time.

Yet in the end my work made no difference, or none that I could discern. The war continued and what I had discovered about Hess appeared to have no impact on it. Perhaps that was what Churchill wanted. With post-war hindsight I realize that the presence of Hess in Britain must have been a serious embarrassment to the British government: as soon as Stalin found out that Hess had landed in Scotland, he leapt to the conclusion that Britain and Germany were conducting secret negotiations. In papers released by Churchill soon after the end of the war it was revealed that at this time Britain was putting a great deal of effort into reassuring Stalin that the Anglo-Russian alliance was intact. The German invasion of the Soviet Union was in full flow at the same time as I was at Mytchett Place, with the Red Army retreating on every front.

Those published papers never included anything that even remotely resembled my findings. I have always been curious about why this might be, since what I discovered about Hess should have thrown everyone’s assumptions about him into turmoil. At first I assumed it was simply the way governments worked, but once I made serious efforts to find out what happened after I met Hess I realized that there must have been a decision to cover up the details.

Because I am telling my own story, not an official one, I don’t feel bound by the political imperatives of half a century ago. Although I can’t locate the original report I wrote, I do vividly remember the meetings, and because I have kept my own handwritten notes from which the report proper was typed I can reproduce a fair copy of it here. My days with Hess were long and often tedious, with many interruptions, distractions and obscurities. He often confused me and frequently annoyed me, but for a lot of the time he simply bored me. My report boiled everything down to the salient facts, thanks to Miss MacTyre’s advice. Some details might have become blurred by the passage of time, but the main conclusion is identical to the one I reported to Churchill in 1941. This report is still an accurate summary of what I discovered.

Report: To Prime Minister

Author: Group Captain (Acting) J. L. Sawyer

Date: August 26, 1941

Subject: Prisoner ‘Jonathan’, currently held at Camp ‘Z’, Berkshire.

Q Before you arrived at Camp ‘Z’, did you know the identity of the prisoner you were going to meet?

No. When I arrived, officials of the Ministry of Defence told me that Camp ‘Z’ contained a single prisoner of war, whose codename was ‘Jonathan’. That is all I knew in advance.

Q Did you recognize the prisoner when you met him?

I immediately recognized the prisoner as being Walther Richard Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of the Third Reich.

Q Why did you recognize him?

I recognized him because I had previously met Rudolf Hess on two occasions in 1936, when I was in Berlin as a member of the British Olympics team. Hess is a man of distinctive physical appearance. He is tall and fairly broad. He has a high forehead beneath dark, wavy hair. He has prominent cheekbones. He has deep-set eyes, coloured greenish-grey with large black eyebrows. That is an exact description of the prisoner.

Q What were your first impressions of the prisoner?

Although I instantly knew who he was, I was surprised by Hess’s appearance. He did not look well. He has been in captivity in Britain for several weeks and he complains of mistreatment and insufficient food. If his complaints had any substance they might explain the deterioration in his appearance, but as far as I could tell they are unsubstantiated, as I describe below. From his present appearance he appears to have lost a great deal of weight, more than you would imagine possible after only a few weeks in captivity. His cheekbones have become more prominent and his jaw looks bony. He stands with his shoulders stooped. His front teeth protrude slightly. He is not as tall as I remember him and his voice is deeper in pitch.

Q Did the prisoner recognize you?

I spent a total of three days with Hess. At no point did he say that he remembered meeting me before, even when I deliberately raised the Berlin Olympics as a subject and we discussed them for several minutes.

Q In which languages did you and the prisoner converse?

German and English, although predominantly German. My own first language is English; my second language is German, which I speak fluently.

Our spontaneous conversions were in German. Whenever Hess was reading from his notes or lecturing me on Hitler’s plans for supremacy, he spoke in German. When I asked questions in English he appeared unable to understand them. However, he spoke English on several different occasions. I gained the impression that he had memorized in advance much of what I heard him say in English.

Hess is an ‘Auslander’, born to German parents in Alexandria, Egypt. He spent much of his childhood and young adult life in Bavaria and he speaks German with a ‘southern’ accent. However, I detected several words and phrases more commonly used by Swiss or some Austrian German-speakers. In Germany, his unusual accent would make him stand out. I can find no reference to it in the Foreign Office profile of Hess that I have since consulted.

Q Did the prisoner describe the circumstances in which he was captured by the British?

Hess said that he had flown to Britain with a proposal for peace between Britain and Germany. He called it a ‘separate’ peace, one which would exclude all other parties, notably the USA and the USSR. While he was looking for somewhere to land, his plane ran low on fuel and he was forced to escape by parachute. He was arrested before he could contact the people he was intending to meet. He repeatedly referred to a ‘peace party’ in Britain, which at first I took to mean an opposition party in Parliament. Of course, no such party exists. He said he was carrying a letter addressed to the Duke of Hamilton, which has since been mislaid or stolen. He expected that after he had read the letter, Hamilton would introduce him to the Prime Minister. Peace negotiations would begin immediately. He frequently expresses in most bitter terms his frustration at not being able to present his proposals for peace.

I explained to the prisoner (as I was authorized to do) that I was a personal emissary of the Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill. I showed him the letter of accreditation supplied by the P.M.’s office. He read it closely.

For a few minutes afterwards he treated me with noticeable deference and courtesy. Then, without explanation, he suddenly refused to speak to me. It lasted for the rest of the first day. When our conversation resumed, the following morning, he was more guarded in his responses and seemed suspicious of me. (Transcripts in German and English of all conversations are included in the full version of this report.)

Q Did the prisoner ‘Jonathan’ bring any messages with him to Britain?

The prisoner carries a sheaf of handwritten papers, which he consults from time to time. On two occasions I was allowed to see short extracts, but the pages were handwritten illegibly. When reading from these papers, or speaking extempore while referring to them, Hess invariably spoke in German. The subject was a long-winded history and justification of Nazi ideals, which I found tedious and sometimes offensive.

When the prisoner spoke in English, he was less wearisome but often more ambiguous.

Q When the prisoner ‘Jonathan’ flew to Britain, was he acting on his own or was he on a mission authorized by Adolf Hitler?

Hess was never clear on this subject. He sometimes said that the Führer had ordered him to negotiate a separate peace. (He used the German verb befehlen, ‘command’.) At other times he referred to it as ‘my’ proposal or ‘our’ proposal.

To try to clarify the matter I asked the prisoner if the proposal was being made by him personally or if it came with Hitler’s backing and therefore could be treated as an official approach from the German state. The prisoner replied in German that in wartime the two were the same. He then said that he was acting on his own initiative on behalf of the German government and that a separate peace with Britain was the personal wish of Chancellor Hitler. It had his full backing and authority.

I felt this did not clarify the situation in any way.

On another occasion, the prisoner said that Hitler had made a number of public pronouncements about his wish for peace with Britain. He drew my attention to several of Hitler’s speeches, in particular the one to the Reichstag on July 19, 1940. In the speech Hitler pleaded for common sense to prevail in both countries.

Q What are the details of the peace proposal from Germany?

After much discussion with the prisoner it appears that the offer of peace is based on the following five principles:

1. The United Kingdom is to concede unconditionally that the war against Germany is or will be lost.

2. After the UK has made that concession, Germany will guarantee the independence of Britain and her right to maintain her present colonies.

3. The UK undertakes not to interfere in the internal or external affairs of any European country. In particular, Germany is to be allowed a free hand in Eastern Europe.

4. The UK and Germany are to enter into an alliance for a minimum of twenty-five years.

5. So long as war continues between Germany and other states, the UK will maintain an attitude of benevolent neutrality towards Germany.

Q What was your response to these proposals?

None. I said merely that I would pass on the proposals to the Prime Minister’s office.

Q Did you form any views as to the prisoner’s sanity or otherwise? I have no medical or legal training so I can only offer a general or informal impression.

In the first place, there is no question but that the prisoner acts in a peculiar way. His behaviour is often puerile, especially at mealtimes. Like a child, he plays with his food, refuses in a bad-tempered way to eat, deliberately spills food and drinks. It could mean anything: that he has a puerile personality, or that his hold on sanity is slipping, or that he is acting in a way that he hopes we will think means that he is losing his sanity.

He is a persistent complainer. He says that people open and close car doors outside the house at night. He says that motorcycles are revved up outside his window to keep him awake. He even complained that for several nights running he was woken by gunfire. I might add that I slept in the same house as Hess for three nights and, although there were many comings and goings, I considered noise levels normal. The house is close to a large army base where there is a range. I came to the conclusion that his complaints were made as a part of the larger picture concerning his dislike of being held prisoner.

He is convinced that his food is being poisoned. During the meals I shared with him he elaborately examined and sniffed the food before eating it. At one meal he demanded that I exchange plates with him before we started eating. (I refused.) He claims that the people holding him prisoner are starving him, but while I was there he was given substantial portions - somewhat bigger, I might point out, than most serving RAF officers are currently being offered - which he ate with speed and relish. He told me several times that he was a vegetarian, yet he ate meat of some kind at every meal, without complaining about it. (According to the Foreign Office file, Rudolf Hess has been a vegetarian for many years.)

From time to time he breaks off a conversation to indulge in yoga-like exercises (such as lying on the floor or folding his legs) but the clumsiness of his movements makes it appear that he has not been practising it for long. (According to Foreign Office intelligence, Rudolf Hess began practising yoga while he was still at school.)

The prisoner claims to be losing his memory and makes unspecified accusations that his captors are drugging or influencing him in some way. When questioned on potentially sensitive matters, the prisoner frequently claims that he cannot remember, while at other times his memory is exact and detailed.

Q What are your general observations about the conditions in which the prisoner is being kept?

The regime at Camp ‘Z’ is efficient, thorough, clean and restrictive. The prisoner is treated humanely and has access to writing materials and German-language books. He is allowed a copy of The Times each day. He is addressed with firmness but courtesy-Given that we are in a war and the general populace is having to put up with severe rationing of ordinary supplies, the food the prisoner is offered is plentiful, well prepared and reasonably varied.

The prisoner is allowed several periods of exercise every day. Camp ‘Z’ has large grounds. There is a tennis court in good condition which is used by several of the staff while off duty. The prisoner shows no interest in exercise other than short, undemanding strolls on one small lawn.

(According to the Foreign Office file, Rudolf Hess is a keen tennis player and an advocate of healthy exercise. The prisoner has apparently stated to one of his captors that he dislikes tennis and will not play.)

As far as I can see, the prisoner’s larger complaints about mistreatment are unfounded.

Q What conclusions do you draw from what you have seen and what the prisoner has said to you?

(1) THE PEACE PROPOSAL:

I believe it to be genuine in the sense that Rudolf Hess sincerely wants to offer peace to the UK.

Without Hitler’s endorsement, such an offer would be worthless. Although the prisoner sometimes asserted unequivocally that Hitler had ‘commanded’ it, I was left feeling unsure whether Hitler even knew about it.

Rudolf Hess left Germany on May 10 - Germany invaded the Soviet Union six weeks later, on June 22. Hess said nothing in my presence about the invasion that he could not have found out since from reading the newspaper. He revealed no special insights into Hitler’s strategy, military intentions, etc. His peace proposal makes no mention of the war against Russia, other than a vague reference to ‘other states’.

My conclusion is that the prisoner knew nothing of the invasion before he left. This alone underlines the probability that he was not privy to Hitler’s plans in the weeks leading up to his flight. It in turn suggests that his plan does not have Hitler’s backing.

(2) THE PRISONER:

All through my meetings with the prisoner I felt there was something ‘wrong’ about him. I made a conscious effort to think back to my earlier meetings with Hess in 1936 and to compare the man I remembered with the man I was interviewing. In doing this I kept in mind the prisoner’s greatly altered circumstances.

Throughout our meetings, the prisoner ‘Jonathan’ struck me as impulsive, naïve and afflicted with a persecution complex. In 1936, Rudolf Hess showed none of this. At that time he struck me as clever, calculating, intimidating, sinister and something of a bully.

Rudolf Hess is a leading Nazi who enacted several anti-Jewish laws before the war began, the notorious ‘Nuremberg Laws’. He made several well-reported speeches with distinct anti-Jewish sentiments. However, other than using his documents to quote Hitler’s record and express Nazi policy, the prisoner revealed no anti-Semitic attitudes.

While it is known that Rudolf Hess was brought up by prosperous middle-class parents within a Germanic expatriate community, the prisoner ‘Jonathan’ displays vulgar table habits, frequently remarked on by the staff at Camp ‘Z’. For example, he invariably drinks soup by tipping the edge of the bowl against his mouth, he belches loudly between courses, he leans over his food with his elbows resting on the table, he chews with his mouth open and so on. Rudolf Hess is well known to be a vegetarian, but ‘Jonathan’ routinely eats meat without complaint.

‘Jonathan’ bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Rudolf Hess, claims to be Rudolf Hess and by his act of bringing a proposal for a separate peace he is arguably acting as Rudolf Hess, but I am left in real doubt as to his identity.

I have no idea why a substitute should have been sent on the mission, nor how such an imposture might have been arranged and carried through, nor why the prisoner, now the game is up, does not reveal his true identity. Even so, I can state categorically that the prisoner in Camp ‘Z’ is a physical double, an impostor. The prisoner ‘Jonathan’ is not the Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess.

REPORT ENDS.

I returned to Northolt. After two days I received my posting back to 148 Squadron at Tealby Moor. A week later I was summoned to the Station Commander’s office and given a sealed envelope which had been delivered by a motorcycle despatch rider. Noticing the insignia on the back flap, I took it to my room and opened it in private. It contained a short, typewritten note:

Dear Squadron Leader J. L. Sawyer,

The Prime Minister is grateful for your diligent attention to the task you undertook on his behalf. He wishes you to know that your report has been studied in detail and is currently being acted upon. You are of course aware of the highly confidential nature of your findings and conclusions, which confidence must not be breached within the foreseeable future for any reason whatsoever.

Yours sincerely,

(signed) Arthur Curtis

Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister

Underneath was another note, this one written with a broad-nibbed fountain pen. It said:

Hess will no doubt receive what he deserves, as will in the end Herr Hitler. Yr. report is a great credit to you. I wish to apologize once again for my insensitive remarks concerning yr. late bro., which were based on a misunderstanding within my department. I held him in the highest regard.

WSC

(I never again saw the man who stood in for Rudolf Hess. He remained a prisoner in Britain until the end of the war, with no information about him being released to the public. He frequently feigned amnesia and madness, but always maintained he was Hess. He was taken to Nuremberg in October 1945, where he was indicted under all four Counts as a war criminal. He was found guilty on Counts One and Two - Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War and Waging Aggressive War - but not guilty on Counts Three and Four - War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Because of Soviet suspicions about Hess, he was not allowed remission against his sentence. He therefore served forty-two years in prison (forty-six years when the time spent in Britain is included). For the last years of his life he was the sole prisoner in Spandau Prison, West Berlin. He never appealed against his sentence on the grounds of wrongful conviction or mistaken identity. He refused to see Frau Ilse Hess or her son Wolf for many years, finally relenting in 1969 when he mistakenly believed he was near death. At the time he was seventy-five years old. Frau Hess had not seen her husband for more than twenty-eight years. Medical examination of the prisoner in 1973 could find no trace of the scarring that would have been caused by rifle bullet injuries known to have been sustained by Rudolf Hess during the First World War. This is the only forensic evidence made public that supports my own belief about the imposture, because scars caused by bullet wounds never disappear. The prisoner died in mysterious circumstances while he was still being held in Spandau, in August 1987. A suicide note found by the body appeared to have been written many years earlier. Post-mortem examination of the body did not establish conclusive cause of death, other than asphyxiation. In some quarters his death is regarded as murder. Again, no sign of heavy scarring from war injuries was found on the body. Soon after the death of the prisoner, Spandau Prison was demolished to prevent it becoming a shrine for neo-Nazis. The body was laid to rest by the family in a secret location. Some time later, it was moved to the family plot in Wunsiedel. The prisoner’s real identity, if known, was never revealed by the authorities.)

24

After my spell working for Churchill I was posted back to 148 Squadron in September 1941 and in theory resumed operational flights in December. In reality, because of my long absence, I was sent on a flying refresher course to an airfield on the Welsh coast near Aberystwyth. When I returned to Tealby Moor I was assigned a new flight-crew, but almost at once the news came through that 148 Squadron was converting to four-engined heavy bombers.

Once again, the squadron was taken out of the front line and many of the personnel started to disperse to other postings. While I was working with Churchill I heard a report that 148 Squadron had been selected for conversion to the new Lancaster bomber. For that reason I opted to stay on. I was posted to an RAF base in Scotland used by an HCU (Heavy Conversion Unit), where I was introduced to the new plane, first by training on its immediate two-engined predecessor, the Manchester, then by practising on the Halifax, another four-engined plane of slightly older design. I was therefore one of the first RAF pilots to fly the Lancaster operationally, the plane that over the next few years was to become the backbone of the RAF’s bombing campaign against Germany.

In 1942 the Lancaster represented a radical breakthrough in bomber design. It could fly faster, higher and further than any existing type. It was strong, well defended and carried a much larger and more varied payload of bombs. It was equipped with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines - the same unit that powered the famous Spitfire fighter - and it flew like a dream, laden or empty.

After two weeks of familiarization training at the HCU, working with my new crew, we were sent back to Tealby Moor. In due course the squadron started taking deliveries of Lancasters from the factory and by mid-May we were ready to become operational again. My first Lancaster raid was on the German town of Mannheim, but after that ‘blooding’ we were once again taken out of operations. Two weeks later, during which rumours were constantly circulating that the Air Ministry was preparing a ‘spectacular’, I took part in the first so-called thousand-bomber raid on the city of Cologne on May 30, 1942.

These two missions, to Mannheim and Cologne, were in some respects routine affairs: we experienced no technical difficulties with the aircraft, we came under no sustained attack, we dropped our bomb load as close as we could to the target area and we returned home safely. Apart from an extra feeling of nervousness, as it was more than a year since I had flown on a raid, the main practical difference was the fact of flying the Lancaster. However, both the raids had a signal effect on me, if for different reasons.

The day after we went to Mannheim we received photographic evidence of our bombing results. As I was a senior operational pilot in the squadron I went to the debriefing session where the photographs were produced. The pictures revealed that the raid had been an almost total failure: most of the bombs we dropped fell in open countryside or forest, some of them many miles from the town. Only a handful of bombs fell where intended and these had started fires in a small industrial area. There was a scattering of bomb or incendiary damage over the rest of the town, all of it minor. At the same time, we already knew that of the two hundred RAF aircraft sent to Mannheim that night, eleven had been shot down. No parachutes were seen.

Each plane carried a crew of five or seven men, depending on the type of aircraft: around seventy young men were dead. By any standards it was a disaster, with unknowable but all too imaginable impact on the families, friends and colleagues of the dead men. Seventy men dead for what?

While the raid on Mannheim was a ‘failure’ in strategic terms, the attack that followed was a ‘success’. It was carried out as a show of Bomber Command’s strength, to demonstrate to the enemy that we possessed the ability to put a thousand bombers into the skies above a German city and bomb it into oblivion.

A thousand planes were in fact sent, although less than half were from front-line operational squadrons. Most of the aircraft were found elsewhere: mostly from OTUs (Operational Training Units) or HCUs. Some of these planes were piloted by instructors, but many others were flown by trainee pilots. The Germans were not to know this, however, and the effect of the raid was devastating, both as propaganda and in terms of damage to the target.

148 Squadron was despatched to Cologne late in the evening, so when we arrived over the city much of the bombing had already been completed. We were at twenty thousand feet, close to the Lancaster’s operating ceiling. We took advantage of this to stay above the general level of activity. As we turned in to start our bombing run the city lay ahead of us, already blazing and smoking, fires spreading out in all directions. Planes below us were silhouetted against the terrible conflagration. Pinpoints of brilliant light, our incendiaries, lay like ten thousand glinting beads on the streets, roofs and gardens below. Flares tumbled down, spitting magnesium light like immense escaped fireworks, illuminating the horrors on the ground. Whole districts were ablaze, as individual fires reached out and joined up with others, the flames dazzling yellows, whites and reds, mottled by the bulging, rising smoke. Explosions continued in every part of the city, shattering the buildings, blasting them open so that the incendiaries might take a better hold.

Anti-aircraft shells exploded around us, shaking us and unnerving us, but we came through unscathed. It seemed to me that the flak was much lighter than I had known it on earlier raids. We were flying higher, we arrived later. Our bomb aimer called up to report that we had released our load. I heard the voices of the rest of the crew speaking in relief. I flew on according to plan, heading south across the city, not daring to swing round and across the path of the planes in the bomber stream.

As soon as we were clear of the main inferno I turned the Lancaster through a hundred and eighty degrees and we went back. Now we were flying north, heading for the first navigation marker on our route home, the town of Monchengladbach, near the Dutch border. We passed Cologne on our right, staying well away from the centre of the city, not wanting to attract the flak. More British planes were arriving to drop their bombs.

Even from this distance we could see their bellies shining orange with the light from the fires on the ground. The explosions and flares continued. The fires were much bigger already, spilling across the city like floods of flaming liquid.

I noticed that most of the searchlights were out and the antiaircraft fire from the ground had almost ceased - the last RAF planes were flying in unchallenged to drop their bombs. I looked again at the inferno: who could be down there still, manning the guns, loading and aiming them, firing them off at the sky? Fire and smoke were everywhere. Turmoil had consumed Cologne. The RAF planners called it ‘overwhelming’ a city: it happened when the level of bombing reached saturation point, one bomb following another, wiping out everything, obliterating the searchlights, silencing the guns.

I remembered the guns I had seen in London, poking up through the trees of Green Park and Hyde Park, and alongside Horse Guards Parade, their ineffectiveness against even a small force of a hundred planes apparent. We were a raiding force ten times that size. How can any city defend itself against air bombing? After only a few nights of the Blitz, London became a chaotic tangle of broken gas- and water-mains, disrupted electricity supplies, cratered streets, burned-out buildings, fallen rubble, homeless families. Our single raid on Cologne was by several factors larger than anything London had suffered during even the worst of the Blitz. We used ten times as many bombers, which were bigger, stronger and carried three or four times as many bombs. Cologne was a compact city, while London sprawled. Cologne had a population less than one-tenth the size of London’s.

The only point of trying to destroy a city would be to attack the morale of the ordinary people, to make them wish to give up the war.

I could never forget the hundreds, the thousands of ordinary English people I met when I was with Mr Churchill’s double, touring the most damaged parts of our cities. I saw again and again how manifestly unbeaten they were, how resistant they had become to loss and destruction, how keen they were to pay back the Germans in their own coin. They did not want to give up. Their morale was intact. They wanted to hit back, to bomb German cities in the way they had bombed ours, but with a force ten or a hundred times greater.

So there I was on their behalf. Cologne lay overwhelmed beneath me.

I could not put out of my mind the look in the eyes of Rudolf Hess, the captive Deputy Führer, when he told me he had flown to Britain to stop the war, to forge a peace between our two countries. He finally accepted that Churchill himself had sent me to hear what he had to say - until then Churchill had not listened to him. and now I was there on his behalf. But after I left, Hess remained in prison, silenced for the rest of the war.

We flew on, high above Germany. The land was dark beneath us. Occasionally, a squirt of tracer fire would rise up towards us from some isolated gun position, but mostly we flew unchallenged. Half an hour after we had left Cologne and were flying across Holland towards the coast, the rear-gunner came on the intercom and reported that he could still see the glow of the burning city, far away behind us.

We headed out across the North Sea, thinking of home. Soon we were there.

Later we learned that more than forty British bombers had been shot down during the raid on Cologne before the German guns fell silent. Each plane had carried five, six or seven young men. The arithmetic of loss was all too easy to work out, but impossible to understand.

Two nights later, June I, we went back to Germany. Once again Bomber Command put up a force of one thousand bombers, the target this time the industrial city of Essen in the heart of the Ruhr valley. Later in the same month we returned to Essen, then twice more. We called it ‘turning over the rubble’, thinking that after the first raid there could be nothing left standing, but whenever we went back the German guns blazed out with terrific ferocity. The morale of the German people remained intact, their wish to take revenge on us more sharply defined with every raid. So we overwhelmed them, then flew home in the dark. What were we achieving?

I was approaching the end of my tour of duty, the one that had started at the outbreak of war. There was one more mission I had to fly. This was to Emden, a port on the north coast of Germany that was easy to locate because of its unique position: it faced south across an inlet bay. Even so, with such a compact target, so readily identifiable, the raid turned out to be another ‘failure’ for Bomber Command. Most of the bombs were later discovered to have fallen in the open countryside between the target and Osnabruck, some eighty miles away. Nine British aircraft were shot down for the sake of it. At the end of the raid I landed the Lancaster safely at Tealby Moor, and the next day I went on leave. By the time I returned to the squadron a week later my crew, whose own tours still had several missions outstanding, had dispersed.

I was re-posted within a few days, this time to 19 OTU, based near Liskeard in Cornwall. Like all pilots who completed a tour, I was to act as an instructor of new pilots for the next few months. A second tour of active duty would follow. I travelled down to Cornwall full of misgivings. For the next few weeks I went through the motions of being an instructor, but I was not good at it. Some people are born to be teachers, others are not.

The only consolation during those weeks was that I was not the worst instructor at the unit.

Deeper worries were nagging away inside me, though. My recent experiences had made me think about the way we were fighting our air war, what we were trying to achieve with it, whether or not it was the right thing to be doing.

I began to question my own motives and abilities. I suspected that such a mental process was part of the reason why crews were taken out of the front line: after thirty operations most aircrew were in a state of burn-out. A spell at an OTU gave you an opportunity to recover, rebuild your morale, think things out, then, in theory at least, return to operational flying not only refreshed but with a wealth of experience. Experience was a key to survival. The wastage of new crews was terrible. Even by mid-1942 it was known that the average number of sorties a crew-member would survive was only eight. After three raids you were considered to be a veteran. Few men completed thirty flights.

As I worked with the new pilots I could not get these facts out of my mind. I knew that most of the young recruits I was working with would soon be dead.

So there was that burden. But in addition my own fears were growing. So long as I kept flying, I did not think about it. The fear was there all the time, but once a mission was under way, once the plane was on track and working well and the target was in sight, then I could take the dangers in my stride. Away from the action, though, there was too much time to think.

Why were we constantly attacking civilian areas of cities while tactical raids were comparatively infrequent? Why did we seem never to attack the U-boat construction yards or their service pens? Why were aircraft- and tank-factories, oil refineries and pipelines, shipbuilding yards, power stations, army bases, fighter stations never targeted, except when they happened to be in some more general target zone? Surely these were the very engines of Hitler’s war machine?

Why were we trying, night after night, to damage civilian morale when every ordinary person in Britain knew from their own experience that the effect on civilians was to make them more, not less, determined? What was the point of it all?

25

After my spell of duty at the OTU I reported to my new-squadron, this one being 52 Squadron, based at RAF Barkston Ash, in Yorkshire. Not long after arrival I was assigned to a Lancaster and a crew, and I returned to operations.

We were at the end of summer in 1942 and Bomber Command was stepping up its campaign against Germany. There was a new commander-in-chief: the legendary, notorious and widely feared Air Marshal Arthur Harris, ‘Bomber’ Harris to the press, but ‘Butch’ (short for ‘Butcher’) to the crews who flew under his command.

Harris reorganized Bomber Command and introduced many changes. For all the increased danger to which Harris exposed us, morale began to improve. A sense of purpose surrounded what we were doing. Not only was the size of the bomber fleet increasing rapidly, the planes were being fitted with ever more complex electronic navigation, defence and target-locating devices. Certain top squadrons were designated as ‘pathfinders’, reaching the aiming zones ahead of the bomber stream, finding the targets, then laying down markers for the other planes to bomb. All pretence that we were trying to hit industrial or military targets was finally abandoned: the RAF followed a clear policy of area bombing, in which the houses, schools, hospitals and jobs of the German civilian population were what we were out to destroy.

I settled down to my second tour of duty with a sense of grim determination, closing my mind as far as possible to my doubts.

Gradually my number of completed missions began to notch up. I went to Flensburg, Frankfurt, Kassel, Bremen, Frankfurt again. At least two hundred bombers visited every target, and sometimes twice that number were sent, or even more. Our accuracy was improving, the percentage of aircraft we lost on each raid began to decline. The cities we visited were hit with increasing ferocity. They fought back when we arrived, they glowed like hot coals when we left.

It did not bear thinking about, so we thought only of ourselves, of our own survival. There was no end in sight to the war, so we were not due to finish yet.

In the middle of September 1942, after a raid on Osnabrück, I was given a weekend leave. I rode around the country lanes for a few hours on the motorbike before returning to the airfield. There was nowhere else I wanted to be. Two nights later, 52 Squadron was one of a dozen squadrons that visited Berlin. The big city, we called the place. Its size made it seem indestructible, but every time we went there we did our best to destroy it. That night we left the big city behind us, glowing in the dark, the smoke pouring into the moonlit sky.

I flew back to Germany another night and dropped bombs and incendiaries on the people who lived in Kiel. Later we went to Ludwigshafen, to Essen, to Cologne, to Dusseldorf, doing to them what we had come to do, overwhelming them from the air, then abandoning them to burn behind us as we flew home through the long nights. Next was Wuppertal. With three hundred other RAF planes, we dropped bombs and incendiaries on the people who lived there. We overwhelmed the defences, then left the place burning in the night as we set off for home.

Two days after the Wuppertal raid we received a visit from one of the senior officers in 5 Group and were briefed on Bomber Command’s strategy for the next few months. Our raids were to intensify: more aircraft would be despatched on every mission, more and better bombs would be dropped, accuracy would be improved by electronic aids, a number of innovative defensive measures were to be introduced. New and recently revised maps of Germany were handed out and we were shown aerial photographs of industrial and residential complexes. We would become an irresistible force that would bomb the German people into surrender.

That night we set off in the company of some two hundred and fifty other RAF bombers to Stuttgart, a place notorious among the crews for being difficult to find and bomb accurately. When we arrived, the area was shrouded in thick cloud and ground mist, but we saw the fires that had been started by the first waves of aircraft, so we bombed those. Hundreds of explosions flared beneath us, brightening the clouds with shots of brilliant light. The areas of flame began to spread, their glow suffused. We dropped our bombs, continued to the end of the targeting track and turned for home.

As I banked the plane, a huge blast from somewhere shattered our starboard wing. The Lancaster immediately went into a dive, turning and spinning, flames soaring back from the main fuel tank in the broken wing. I hunched down in terror, crashing my hand involuntarily against the joystick in front of me. My head bashed against the canopy at my side. I shouted an order down the intercom to bail out, but there was no response from anyone.

I struggled out of my seat, crawling towards the hatch in the fuselage floor behind the cockpit, climbing up against the pressure of the diving spin. The noise inside the aircraft was tremendous. I became obsessed with time, thinking that there could be only a few more seconds to go before we hit the ground. Where the navigator’s table had been was a gaping hole in the side of the fuselage, with white flames roaring against the metal struts. The rest of the fuselage, the dark, narrow tunnel that was always so cramped, was filled with smoke glowing orange from the light of tires further along.

I could see none of the other crewmen. I kicked the floor hatch open, thrust my legs through and after a struggle I was able to push myself out. The plane fell past me as a hot torch of blazing fuel. I was plunging through the night, the wind in my face and battering against my ears. I found the ripcord, snatched at it and a moment later felt a violent jerk against my spine as the chute opened above me.

My instinctive need to escape quickly from the crashing plane was borne out, because now that I was in the air I could see that I had not much further to fall before reaching the ground. I had already passed through the layer of cloud. I could see the burning city beneath me, still suffering many explosions and bursts of fire. I instinctively shrank away from it, not wanting to land in the worst of the inferno. After a few seconds it became clear that the wind was carrying me away from the biggest fires. I drifted down into a plume of smoke, suddenly blinded and choking for breath. Something hot and yellow was swelling and moving beneath me. I was terrified of falling into a blaze. Then I drifted out of the climbing smoke, breathed clean air and looked around to get my bearings again, but almost at once I hit the ground, rolling across a paved surface of some kind, my leg an agony of pain. The parachute dragged me along until I was able to release it. I lay still, unable to move, paralysed by pain. I could smell the smoke, and the fires were a huge orange radiance behind the buildings away to my right, silhouetting them. For a while there were explosions in the near distance, but I could not tell if they were bombs going off or anti-aircraft guns firing.

As the raid ended those noises faded quickly away. In their place I heard sirens, engines, signal whistles blowing, people shouting, others weeping.

I lay wounded, somewhere in the heart of the glowing city, as the remaining bombers flew for home.

I was soon discovered, arrested and taken into captivity at gunpoint. My leg was giving me hell and my blood had made a mess of my uniform, but the damage to me was mainly superficial. I had cuts to my hands, face and chest, bruises on my arms and back. As I landed awkwardly in the parachute I inflamed the old injuries to my left leg and at the same time twisted the other ankle.

After a few days in a German military hospital I was transferred by way of a slow, two-day train journey to a prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag-Luft VIII, situated in the heart of a pine forest somewhere in central Germany. (I eventually found out that it was about twelve miles to the west of the town of Wittenberge.) It was in that camp that I was destined to spend the remainder of the war, from the beginning of November 1942 until the camp was liberated by the US army in April 1945.

Looking back to that now fairly distant period of my youth, I realize that my captivity lasted just over two and a quarter years, not after all such a huge chunk of my life. That’s not how it felt at the time, of course. I was young, physically fit - once my injuries healed - and desperate to escape somehow from the drab wooden huts and barbed wire of the camp, make my way back to Britain and resume the fight.

Many of the men with whom I was in captivity had been in the camp for a long time before I arrived. Some of them had already attempted to escape and a few of them had made repeated attempts. One or two of them got away for good, or so we believed. In some sections of the camp the talk was constantly of escape. I sympathized, but I was never a candidate for being included in one of the attempts. At first it was because of my difficulty with walking, but later, when most of the damage healed, I realized I had adjusted to captivity and no longer wanted to run the risk of being a fugitive in Germany. I decided to stay put, sitting out the war.

Hunger was the worst enemy in the camp, with boredom running it a close second. On the whole we were not treated badly by the Luftwaffe guards and although there were long periods when food rations were sparse, we survived. I lost a great deal of weight, which I regained within a few weeks of returning to England in 1945. My ability to speak German was undoubtedly a valuable asset to many in the camp: I was often called upon to act as an interpreter or translator, I tutored the men who were preparing for their escapes and during the last twelve months of captivity I ran regular language lessons. It was all a way of passing the time.

Soon after I arrived in 1942 I wrote the permitted single-page letter home through the Red Cross. I wrote to my parents, telling them the news that they would most want to hear, that I was alive, safe and well. At the end I asked them to pass on my best wishes to Birgit and to tell her that I’d like her to write to me.

More than two years had passed since Joe’s death. For much of that time I had barely thought about Birgit: she was a sore spot in my life that I shrank away from. All the signs were that she felt much the same about me. Our guilt feelings obviously ran deep. While I was still in England, from time to time I asked my parents how she was but they always looked embarrassed, said that she had closed herself off and wanted no further contact. I never knew how to press for more information, so I never did. But already, in the first week of imprisonment, I found that one of the problems of idleness was constantly thinking back over your life, reminding yourself where you had gone wrong.

Frightened by the experience of being shot down a second time, hurting because of my new injuries, lonely in the prison camp, I soon began thinking back to my love affair with Birgit and wondering what the real reasons were that ended it. It seemed to me that nothing had actually gone wrong between the two of us, that what drove us apart was the awful accident of Joe’s death and our resulting guilt. In the special circumstances of isolation in a prison camp, when I became the focus of my own interests, it seemed to me that perhaps it was time to try to patch up the friendship with Birgit. Of course there was no chance of seeing her or speaking to her until after the end of the war, but I thought it might be possible for us to write letters to each other. Somewhere there was a residue of hope.

Within a few weeks I received a reply from my mother, saying, amongst much else, that she had passed on my ‘request’ to Birgit. However, months went by without any kind of response from Birgit.

Her silence created a difficult time for me. At first I irrationally expected, hoped, assumed, that she would reply within a few days. Some of the men who had been in the prison camp longest warned me that letters could sometimes take weeks or months to travel to and fro through the international agencies and neutral countries. I struggled to control the torment and settled down to wait, hoping intensely that in this case the system might work more quickly and that Birgit’s reply would soon arrive.

It was nearly a year before I heard from her, by which time I had assumed that no letter would ever come. When I realized who the letter was from, and what it might contain, I ripped the envelope open immediately and read the contents with my heart pounding. Written in the careful English handwriting that for a short time had been so familiar to me, it said:

My dear JL,

I am so pleased to hear you are safe that I cannot find the words. Your parents told me as soon as they heard from you. I think of you with love and excitement and deep gratitude for the kindness you gave me. I shall never forget you. I hope you will come home to England soon and that you will find a nice wife of your own and that the rest of your life will be what you want it to be. I am safe now and also happy with a new husband and a new life. I hope you understand.

Yours sincerely,

Birgit

It had been foolish of me to harbour even vestigial hopes, but when I read her letter I discovered that those hopes had been powerful. Against all the odds I had been counting on Birgit.

Hers was the kind of letter, I gradually realized, that was received by many of the men in the camp. The arrival of the Red Cross mail and parcels was always an event which was highly anticipated, but it was invariably followed by a mood of restless quietness everywhere. This was what it was like to be a prisoner: the lives of the people you loved at home went on without you and it was hard to accept that. A brushing-off of hope is terrible to suffer. For weeks after I received Birgit’s letter I was depressed and disconsolate. I kept away from the other men as much as I could.

The worst of my disappointment eventually passed. I accepted at last that it was over. I wanted her to be safe and happy and could live without her so long as I did not have to see her. When I thought of her as part of my life, I went through terrible rigours of rejection, misery, jealousy and loneliness. But she was out of my life for good.

Some of the men in Hut 119 had built a radio from spare parts stolen from the Germans. With this it was possible to pick up the news from the BBC. From the middle of 1943 we were able to follow the progress of the war: the carnage and suffering on the Russian front, the difficult campaign across the islands of the Pacific being fought by the USA, the invasion of Italy and . the collapse of Mussolini’s regime. After the D-Day landings in June 1944 our craving to go home was intensified by the knowledge that the war was at last being won by the Allies. Again, hopes of a swift conclusion to our predicament loomed over most of the captives. We could do nothing but wait impatiently for rescue. The days and months dragged by.

26

One night towards the end of the war, in January 1945, the air raid siren sounded and the floodlights surrounding the compound were abruptly extinguished. It had happened dozens of times before, so this was nothing unusual. According to the rules of the Kommandant, prisoners were to stay inside their huts and not to move into the compound for any reason until after the all-clear had sounded and the lights were switched on again.

We knew though that the German armies were retreating on all fronts, that the Luftwaffe as a fighting force was almost defunct, that the Russians were advancing at formidable speed across the northern plains of Europe. The British and Americans were poised to cross the Rhine. When that happened, the only question would be which of the Allied armies would reach us first. We were certain the war could not last much longer. The Kommandant and his rules were still a powerful presence, but we no longer feared for our lives. Small freedoms crept inexorably around us, presaging the larger liberty that lay ahead.

I had been out for a stroll around the compound late that afternoon, the weather fine and still. After dark the sky cleared and a full moon was high overhead. The air was bitterly cold but there was hardly any wind. It was possible to stay outside without feeling the worst effects of the cold. I was restless inside the hut, so that night, when the lights went out, I pulled on a thick pullover and a coat. I moved in the darkness from my shared room within the hut, down the short corridor to the main door. In defiance of the Kommandant I stepped out quietly into the Appell compound, where the roll-call was taken every morning. The dark, tall trees pressed in on all sides, beyond the camp barbed wire. The wooden watch-towers were outlined against the sky. I breathed the air in deeply, feeling it sucking down sharply over my teeth and throat, a bracing coldness. I stood on the hard, bare gravel by myself, listening to the sounds of the night. I could hear some of the guards talking restlessly; somewhere the guard dogs were barking; there were quiet sounds from many of the huts. Few of us could relax when we knew an air raid was expected.

I stood alone in the gravelly compound for about five minutes. After that, some of the other men emerged one by one from the huts and walked out into the compound to stand with me. I knew everyone in our part of the camp by sight, but in the unlit square the men were just dark shapes. We acknowledged each other in English, muttering tentatively, not wanting to draw the attention of the guards. Most of the British prisoners were RAF officers and most of those were Bomber Command aircrew. In the same camp, but in their own huts largely by choice, were Polish, French, Czech and Dutch officers who had flown with the RAF. The Australians, Canadians, Rhodesians and New Zealanders tended to mix with the British. We were a cross-section of what the Allied air force had become. There were also many American crewmen, who were kept in a separate compound of their own, but a few of them had managed to transfer themselves across to our part of the camp, and they mixed in with us. The Yanks were popular with everyone but they were generally more fretful about being held prisoner than any of the Europeans. I think some of them still saw the war as a European sideshow, something they had been called in to help with, not a war that was truly their own. They were a long way from home. Their food parcels were bigger than ours and contained foods and treats that seemed to us exotic, but all the Yanks who were with us were generous, so we readily forgave them that sort of thing.

That night we all stood together silently in the dark, watching the sky.

A few minutes after midnight we heard the first sound of engines, far away and high above us. In silence we scanned the sky, hoping for a glimpse of the planes. The sound grew louder, a deep-throated roar, a throbbing noise that was more felt than heard. The aircraft came steadily closer.

Then someone said, ‘There they are!’ and we turned to look away behind us to the west. Against the stars, against the moon-bright sky, the distant bombers began to appear. At first they came singly, then in increasing numbers, high and tiny, flying relentlessly on. The stream thickened and widened. We tried to keep a count of them: fifty, a hundred, two hundred, no, more over there, at least five hundred, maybe six or seven! We craned our necks, looking and looking, expertly identifying them from the engine sounds as Halifaxes and Lancasters, bombed up and ready. The bomber stream went on, a seemingly unstoppable flow, unchallenged, dreadful, unhesitating. The droning of the engines seemed to blanket everything else. In the moonlight we could distinguish the Luftwaffe camp guards emerging from their command positions, standing as we were standing, staring up at the sky.

The bomber stream passed over us for twenty minutes, rocking us with the deep, pulsating sound of their engines, a terrifying armada in the moonlight, until finally the tail-end bombers flew on and out of our sight. Silence slowly returned.

I stood in the dark, feeling as if I was straining to catch the last particles of the engine noise, the last tiny pressure of the droning sound the planes had made.

One by one the other men returned to the warmth of the huts, but I stayed put. Soon I was alone, standing in the open space at the end of the ranks of huts, my head tilted back, searching the sky. I was shaking with cold.

How many more cities did Germany have, that the Allies might visit to destroy? What was left? Who could still be alive in those flattened ruins, those acres of turned-over wreckage and rubble, cold and broken, overwhelmed?

Once again, thinking of the war’s futility, I remembered the prisoner everyone thought was Rudolf Hess. I had not at that time forgotten the man I met at Churchill’s behest, half out of his mind, a captive in a foreign country, clinging to the past, offering a kind of future that no one wanted, that no one was prepared to discuss with him. I had not solved the mystery he presented - perhaps no one ever would.

I was to glimpse him again in the months ahead, though only in the newsreels. Towards the end of 1945, by which time I was back in England, the Nuremberg war crimes trials began and the man who looked like Hess appeared in the dock with the other surviving Nazi leaders. He sat in the front row between Goering and Ribbentrop, wearing an inane, friendly expression - there is film of Goering openly mocking Hess, who sat through most of the trial without the translation headphones, quietly reading books. Whereas most of the Nazis received the death penalty, Hess was given a life sentence, his crimes mitigated by his attempt in 1941 to forge a peace. He vanished from public gaze after the end of the trial, going behind the walls of Spandau. Once there, he was not seen again. He was never again in his lifetime called by his own name: from the moment the sentence was handed down he was addressed invariably as Prisoner 7. When his death was reported in 1987 I was shocked to discover he had remained alive until then, but shocked as well that I had all but forgotten him until the news broke.

By January 1945, it was irrelevant whether or not he was an impostor, or even whether he had tried to bring a genuine peace proposal to Churchill. Peace was not made in 1941 and the war went on, becoming immensely more dangerous and complex than it was when Hess flew to Britain. In that long winter of 1945 the war was at last heading towards its bitter end, and for people like me all that really mattered was how soon I would be able to return home.

Dreams of escape, which had once charged the thoughts of the prisoners of war, became dreams of repatriation. After the Americans finally arrived to free us from the camp we were soon being transported by trucks to the north of Germany, where the British army held the ground. From there we were flown back in small groups, crammed uncomfortably into the fuselages of the same bombers in which many of us had flown.

Home turned out to be a state of mind rather than a reality in which I could live. Everything I knew had gone or was going. As soon as I reached my parents’ house I learned the truth about Dad that my mother’s intermittent letters had deliberately skirted: he was in the advanced stages of prostate cancer and he died at the end of July, shortly before the atomic bombs were used against Japan. My mother’s own death from angina followed soon afterwards. Joe of course was dead; Birgit had remarried.

I tried to obtain a job in civil aviation, thinking that I should put my flying skills to use, but there were many ex-RAF pilots around with the same idea, and flying jobs were few. A small number of dead-end jobs followed but I was only twenty-eight. I still felt youthful, still able to look forward to a future. I took a decision that many men of my age and background were taking at the time and in March 1946 I bought an assisted-passage ticket to Australia. I had to wait four weeks before the ship left.

With one more week to go before I sailed, I borrowed a friend’s car and drove across to the Cheshire side of the Pennines. I entered the village, drove down the lane and passed the house where Birgit and Joe had lived, where she had still been living on the day she wrote me her final letter. I halted the car a short way down the lane, turned it around so that I could look back at the house and switched off the engine. It was a fine day, with thin clouds and intermittent periods of sunshine. From the quick glances I took as I drove past, and from this more distant but steady look, the house had not changed much. The roof still needed retiling and the flashing I had amateurishly fixed in place against the chimney stack was the same.

The sight of the house evoked in me a strange mixture of feelings: it had become the love nest where Birgit and I spent those still memorable weekends, but it was also Joe’s house, a place I should have been forbidden to enter. I sat there in the car for an hour, wondering all that time whether I should stay or leave. If Birgit was there, then one thing; if she was not, then another. Both seemed likely to hurt. To be honest, I really had no idea why I was there at all. I had finally decided to drive away when I saw a movement by the front of the house.

Birgit appeared at the front door, reaching back inside to hold the door open, looking downwards. She was smiling. Her hair was short and she had put on weight. I stared at her, my feelings suddenly awoken by the sight of her. She was facing towards my car but apparently had not noticed me. A small child ran past her and out into the garden and promptly sat down, out of my sight. Without even glancing towards me, Birgit went back inside the house, leaving the door ajar. She had been in sight for only a few seconds.

I left the car and walked down the lane. As I approached the house I saw that a chicken-wire fence had been put up to create a play area. Someone had dug a shallow pit in one corner of the sloping lawn and filled it with white sand. The child, a small girl dressed in brown dungarees, was sprawling in the middle of the sandpit, making tiny shaped piles with her hands. Her hair fell forward across her face, as Birgit’s had often done when she concentrated on her violin. As I reached the fence and stared down at the little girl, she glanced up once, looked straight at me, then immediately lost interest and continued with her game.

I was thunderstruck by the child’s appearance. She had the look of my family: I could see my father’s face in hers, his eyes, his mouth. Her colouring, her hair were the same as mine. The same as Joe’s. She had the Sawyer look, whatever that was, but it was instantly recognizable to me on some instinctive level. I tried to guess the girl’s age - I was inexperienced with children but thought she might be about five. That would mean she was born in 1941, which itself would mean that she must have been conceived in the latter part of 1940.

I was still standing there, mentally reeling, my gaze locked on the playing child, when the door of the house burst open.

‘Angela!’

Birgit was there, in a desperate mood. She dashed across the lawn, snatched the little girl up, shielding her head and face with her hand, and moved quickly back into the house. She did not look at me once.

As the door slammed behind her, I heard the child starting to wail in protest at the rough way in which she was being handled. The door did not catch properly but swung back open. I could see a short distance into the narrow hall that lay beyond. I heard Birgit’s voice again, shouting: ‘Harry! Harry! There’s someone out there!’

So I had a name for the child. I held the knowledge to me like a coveted prize. Angela, her name was Angela. My daughter -I felt a thrill of intoxicating excitement - my daughter was called Angela!

A moment later the door opened fully again. A man stepped through with a rough movement of his shoulders. I had never seen him before in my life: he looked to me as if he was about forty or fifty, with a weather-beaten, unshaven face. In the house behind him I could still hear the child crying. The man stood there on the threshold of his house, staring steadily at me, his silence and the resentful set of his head radiating a stubborn aggression.

I backed away, returned to the car and drove away down the hill.

The following week my ship sailed from Southampton and I set off on my fresh start in Australia. During the six-week voyage, itself an adventure like nothing I had known before, I made a conscious decision that if I was going to make a go of my life in Australia I must leave the old emotional baggage behind. Of course, such a decision is easier to plan than to carry-through, but I sensed that many of the people who were on the boat with me, emigrating for similar reasons to mine, were undergoing something of the same feeling themselves. We talked about our hopes and plans, about the challenge of starting again in a new and young country. We were silent about our past lives.

As we sailed across the calm swell of the Indian Ocean, I felt all that starting to slip away.

I arrived in Australia. In that beautiful and exhilarating country I lived my new life, working hard and long. First I was a part-time pilot for a crop-dusting concern. There was a great deal of work available because Australia had vast fields. Soon I graduated from part-time hired pilot to full-time salaried pilot; later I became a manager in the company; within fifteen years I owned the whole firm. After that I moved into other aviation businesses, usually involving the chance for me to keep flying, something that burned up energy if not always my own.

I returned to Britain in 1982, when I reached sixty-five. By then I had earned and saved plenty of money and I bought the flat where I have lived until recently. I settled down to retirement, not really thinking what it would mean until I had time to sit still long enough. Sitting still long enough turned out to be what I was least good at.

I went through a period of physical restlessness, endlessly travelling, constantly trying to meet people and make new friends, opening up possible non-vocational interests and projects. I made tentative contact with some of my colleagues from the RAF and prison camp days, even visiting one or two of them. I realize that this can be predictable behaviour in some recently retired people, those whose lives have been full of activity. In my case it achieved little and anyway it was brought to a sudden end by a minor heart attack. Whether one thing led to the other is not for me to say but the result was that since then I have been taking things much easier.

In the time of reflection that necessarily came while I recuperated, I started thinking back over my life. Reflection was something that seemed timely, now that I was in my seventies, living with a heart that had given me an unwelcome reminder of my own mortality. It was time to think matters through.

Writing this down, looking back on my life, it seems plain to me that I am one of that generation whose lives were permanently marked, perhaps blighted, by involvement in the Second World War. To be young and to live through a war is an experience like no other. It was enough experience for a lifetime, but if you survived, as I survived, there was more life to come but it was not the same thing at all.

For me the war, and therefore my early life, ended in January 1945, as I stood there in that freezing prison compound, somewhere in Germany, waiting alone.

It was the last time in the war that I saw a bomber stream flying overhead, as Bomber Command went about its deadly business. I did not know which city the planes were visiting that particular night, but I do know that it was not to be the last of their visits. Great and terrible bombing raids still lay ahead, of which I was to know nothing until long after the war ended: the devastating raids on Dresden, Pforzheim, Dessau, many other towns and cities, now almost without defences as German resistance collapsed, lay in the weeks ahead.

I sensed some of this as I shivered in that bitter night - I wanted to see the planes for the last time. The other prisoners had returned to their huts, the guards had moved away. There was no reason why the aircraft would fly back by the same route they used on the way in. Usually, in fact, to avoid the risk of night fighters the planes would scatter and take different routes. But at this stage of the war, every crew probably chose the shortest, most direct route. The long silence continued.

Then, as I was about to give up, I heard at last what I was waiting for: the sound of distant engines. I scanned the sky and before long I was able to pick out the first of the bombers returning. More followed, then more. Soon the same hundreds were flying overhead. They were no longer in a stream but were flying at different heights, most straggling alone, sometimes in pairs or small groups. It took more than an hour for them to go by. They were heading towards the west, back to their bases, home to England. Somewhere behind them, a German city whose name I did not know was lying overwhelmed in the night, glowing and smoking.