Characters of "Cold Victory" : CHARLOTTE WALMSDORF

 Charlotte Walmsdorf is a victim of the war. Her brothers were both killed fighting for Hitler, and her fiancee went missing. Her parents were killed by a strafing Soviet fighter. The family home was overrun by the Red Army and turned over to Polish refugees. She was gang raped by Soviet soldiers in the closing days of the war. Yet she survived and struggled to make a living, first as a journalist, then teaching English, and finally running the office of Air Ambulance International. She also fell in love with David Goldman and everything seemed to be getting better -- until her fiancee returned from Siberia.

In this excerpt, Charlotte drags herself through another day, which seems to her like everyday of the rest of her life.  She is living with her cousin, Christian, in his apartment in the American Sector in Berlin; her fiancee Fritz has moved into the guest bedroom since his unexpected return from a Russian prison camp.

Waiting in line for rations had taken five hours and forty minutes today. Charlotte was chilled to the bone despite wearing her dead brother’s Wehrmacht greatcoat over her mother’s thickest jumper and woollen underwear. Her feet were sore from standing so long, too. As she dragged herself back in the direction of the apartment house, she shuffled more like a woman in her sixties than in her thirties, and she did not want to think about the future.

On the blank brick wall exposed by the collapse of the house in an air raid, two young men were busy tearing down the SPD posters that had been put up the day before. Charlotte looked at them warily, prepared to make a run for her apartment building, but they were too thin and shabby to be Russians. She relaxed enough to watch them roll out a new poster and affix it to the wall with their glue-soaked brushes. It was a photo of Berlin burning after an air raid. In large red letters dripping red drops to suggest blood, it read: “Voting strengthens the warmongers! Voting means more night bombing!”

As if Hitler hadn’t started the war! As if Stalin hadn’t been his friend!

She had watched the youths for too long. One of them noticed her. “Hey! Frau! Do you live around here?”

“What business is that of yours!” She answered, turning to hurry away.

He shouted after her. “This block of houses has already been allocated to the Red Army. They’ll move in before the New Year. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to make them feel warmly welcome!” He and his companion laughed.

Charlotte fled, trying to tell herself it was just empty threats and intimidation. “Bullying” was the word David would have used.

The thought of David almost made her stumble. David, David, David. He had given her the practical, thick-soled, warm shoes on her feet and the soft woollen gloves on her hands. Most of all he had given her back the will and a reason to live. Charlotte had hoped this Christmas would be filled with thankfulness and joy for the first time in five years, but that dream had shattered with Fritz’s return.

She paused before the door of her apartment house and looked up toward the top floor. Fritz was up there now, waiting for her and the rations. She wished she didn’t have to go up to him. Even queuing in the cold was better than being with Fritz. He watched her every move and his eyes seemed to take her clothes off and seek to penetrate her soul at the same time. He pressured her to tell him everything that had happened since they parted in the autumn of 1942.

She’d told him what she could: what it had been like in Silesia on her father’s estate with only women and prisoners of war as labourers. She’d tried to describe what it was like as the front came closer and the refugees swept through, full of horror stories about Russian atrocities.  She informed him of her brothers’ deaths and explained her father’s decision to flee by horse-cart. She’d forced herself to recount how the strafing Soviet fighter had killed both her parents, her mother’s maid and one of the horses. She’d attempted to convey how numb and hopeless she’d felt when she arrived in Berlin. She’d tried to make him understand her relief at being given refuge in her cousin’s house. Yet when she admitted that her cousin had been part of the plot against Hitler, Fritz had spat out “treasonous filth!” and she had said no more.

That didn’t stop Fritz from trying to drag more information out of her. He’d asked her what happened after the war, but she kept her answers vague. She claimed she’d survived as a freelance journalist, which was partially true, but she hadn’t breathed a word about Air Ambulance International — or David, of course.

What was the point? She’d broken off with David, admitting to herself that her hopes for a life with him had been a fantasy. He didn’t know about the rapes. He would never have married her after he found out.

Drawing a deep breath, she put down the string bag with the rations, took out her key and unlocked the front door. Once inside, she started wearily up the shallow stairs. In the dark of the unlighted interior (there would be no electricity in this part of the city until six am tomorrow), fear closed around her like a stagnant fog. Those young men had said the Red Army would move in as soon as the Western Allies withdrew. Everyone queuing for rations had been talking about how the Amis and Brits would pull out after the election. Not enough planes were getting through. Food reserves were running out. Rations could not be cut any more. Some people claimed that the announced evacuation of children and chronically ill was a sham. What was really happening, they said, was that the Allies were sending their own children home. The Allied troops would be on the last planes out, and then all of Berlin would belong to the Ivans again.

Charlotte stopped on the landing to get hold of herself. Her heart was pounding not from exertion but from fear. She would not let them do it to her again. Her cousin Christian had given her a pistol, one of several he’d bought on the black market. She had a dozen bullets as well. She would kill herself rather than let them touch her again.

Sometimes, she indulged in imagining what it would be like to kill one or two of them first. She would aim for their faces. Once upon a time, when she had been the daughter of a count with a large estate and had gone hunting with her brothers, she had been a good shot. She was not unfamiliar or uncomfortable with guns. If they were trying to come in the front door, she could position herself in the doorway of the corner room, just three or four metres away. From there, with them confined in the hall and silhouetted against the light on the landing, she thought she could hit them in the face. Out of hate. Out of revenge.

But she mustn’t think about it, she told herself. It was bad enough that her thoughts rotated around this final moment of her life in the dark of her sleepless nights.

She continued up the stairs to the fourth floor and again put down the bag of rations to let herself into the apartment. The interior was dark, silent and icy cold. They did not have enough coal to heat anything except the kitchen oven, and that for only a couple of hours a day. Charlotte could see her breath.

The sound of the door clunking shut behind her provoked a growl from the far end of the hall. “Is that you, Lotte? Where have you been?” Fritz demanded, adding in a self-pitying tone, “I’ve been waiting for you for hours!”

“Yes, Fritz, it’s me!” Charlotte answered, trying to sound cheerful. “I told you I was going out to get our rations.”

“That was hours ago!” Fritz complained, limping to stand in the doorway of the “Berliner Room” that occupied the corner of the house. “Don’t you realise I can’t do anything without your help!”

It was too dark to see more than his shape, but Charlotte could picture him all too well: the way his left eye couldn’t stay focused and drifted off to the side; his mouth with only half his teeth and the others rotting and stinking horribly; the mutilated right hand with only two remaining fingers with perpetually filthy nails. Christian and she had found clothes to replace the rags he’d arrived in, but they had no hot water to give him a proper bath. Although Christian had made him strip down and stand in the tub to be sponged off with water heated in the kettle, the stink of the Gulag clung to him.

“The lines are very long,” Charlotte explained. “I had to wait five hours and forty minutes.”

“Arrogant bastards,” Fritz snarled.

“They’re doing the best they can,” Charlotte reminded him.

“Really? In that case, they’re incompetent fools. Bumbling idiots! We could organise things much better!”

“What do you mean?” The question cracked like a gunshot from Christian, who stepped out of the front salon. He lived there now that Fritz had moved into the second bedroom.

“People never had to wait in long lines for rations in German-occupied territory. Everything was properly organised and went like clockwork!” Fritz bragged.

“Right into the gas chambers!” Christian flung back, adding, “Nobody stood in line for rations because we killed or deported them instead.”

“I should have known a traitor like you wouldn’t be proud of his country!”

“You’re proud of murdering millions?”

“Stop it!” Charlotte shouted. “Stop it!” It was directed at both of them.

“This is my house,” Christian answered in a tone of voice his subordinates in the Luftwaffe would have recognised. “I’ll say what I please.”

“Don’t, Christian! Please don’t!” Charlotte pleaded, tears forming in her eyes. She dropped the rations and, pushing past Fritz, ran to her room at the far end of the hall, slamming the door. Behind her, the angry voices of Christian and Fritz exchanging insults continued. She flung herself onto the bed, covered her head with her pillow and started sobbing. Part of her wondered if she should bother waiting for the Ivans to come. Maybe she should just shoot herself now? 

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Characters of "Cold Victory" : DAVID GOLDMAN

 David Goldman, a German-Jew with a Canadian passport and a wartime record with the RAF, has invested the fortune inherited from his father in the establishment of an aviation company. His firm is not only flying freight into Berlin as part of the Berlin Airlift, it is also flying patients out in an air ambulance. But while the business is doing well, David's private life is a shambles after the German woman he fell in love with, Charlotte Walmsdorf, rejects him to marry her returned fiancee.

 

During the war, David was badly burned while flying a Hurricane in combat, and his face was 'reconstructed' by the famous plastic surgeon Dr McIndoe -- just as was the face of the young man in the portrait above, Wing Commander Bob Doe. 

This excerpt from the start of "Cold Victory" depicts his state of mind at this low point in his life.

Sammy licked David’s face to wake him. As the dog’s rough tongue brought him back to consciousness, he groaned. His shoulder was killing him from lying on it for too long on the floor. He dragged himself upright and looked around. He was in a small, old-fashioned sitting room with an empty wine bottle beside him and a dirty wineglass on the table. Where was he and what day was it?

Gradually things started to come back to him. After the police had failed to arrest the man living in his uncle’s gracious house on the Havel, he’d been slipped the keys with the hint that no one would object to him re-occupying family property while his restitution claim worked its way through the bureaucracy. He’d collected Sammy from the Priestman’s home in Kladow, taken all his personal belongings out of the apartment over the company office on Kurfuerstendamm, and moved into the house here on the Schwanenwerder. The main house with its high ceilings and large windows, however, was freezing and lonely.  So, he’d set himself up in the housekeeper’s old apartment at the back of the house instead. It was small, cosy and could be heated more easily. In addition, the windows were nearly overgrown with vines, making it harder for people to look in. He could also come and go by the back door, avoiding the main entrance that the police had boarded up.

David had made himself quite comfortable, but then the nightmares started. He dreamt of his childhood, fleeing his father’s contempt and the ridicule of the other children. He heard again his parents’ whispers about bankruptcies, dismissals, terminated contracts and suicides. The memories merged with films of concentration camps and photos of mass graves in the forests east of Warsaw. They mutated into his own melted face, the patchwork of skin, the stitches and swelling, the smell of pus and disinfectant.

“Oh, Sammy,” David gasped out and pulled the blond collie mix into his arms. He’d adopted Sammy when his face was at an early stage of reconstruction. The dog had diligently licked his regenerating skin night after night in an obsessive determination to help his new master recover.

Sammy was skinny, he noted with shock, and sat up more completely. How long had he been lying here? Why on the floor rather than the bed? When was the last time he’d fed Sammy? There was a dog door, and Sammy could get out to drink from the lake, but unless he’d managed to catch a bird or a rabbit for himself, David didn’t think he’d been fed in several days.

David dragged himself to his feet. He was wearing four layers of jumpers, corduroy trousers, thick socks and fleece slippers. His head ached, his mouth tasted foul, and his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t fed himself either. He made his way to the lavatory, relieved himself, and then went into the staff kitchen. He opened cupboards randomly until he found some cans of spam and emptied the contents into Sammy’s bowl. While the dog ate ravenously, he returned to the bathroom to strip down and wash himself, brush his teeth and change into clean clothes.  

When he was dressed again, he returned to the kitchen, gave Sammy a second can of spam, and cut the contents of a third can into slices that he laid on slabs of stale bread. It was dry and unappetizing but temporarily filling. He washed it down with tap water, left the plate and glass in the sink with a stack of other dirty dishes, and sank onto the chair to stare out of the window.

There was nothing to see but fog and desultory moisture dripping from the eaves. Then he noticed a sparrow clinging to a dead vine. A microcosm of his life perhaps? Sammy leaned against his leg and whimpered, begging for his attention, so he bent to scratch him behind his ears and massage the back of his neck, murmuring apologies. “Sorry, old boy. I didn’t mean to neglect you. I promise to improve. I should not have come here. It was a colossal mistake. I should have left the ghosts alone. I don’t need anything here. It’s a ball and chain around my ankle holding me back, stopping me from flying. We ought to be flying, Sammy. Above the clouds. Soaring again.” The thought of a Spitfire on the wing brought the faintest of smiles to his lips, and Sammy reached out with his tongue to express approval.

“At least that Nazi bastard is gone. I can turn the house over to the city and let them relocate homeless people here.  Whatever.” He shrugged as he registered that most of those homeless people would also have shouted “Heil Hitler,” rejected their Jewish neighbours, thought of themselves as ‘supermen’ and gloried in the conquest of half of Europe. But he couldn’t find the energy to be outraged any more. He just wanted to get away. To leave Berlin and Germany behind and start his life over again.

He had a Canadian passport, after all. His mother, one sister and his brother were still there. He could go to the New World and start over again.

But he didn’t move. He just stared out of the window and watched the moisture on the tip of a naked vine fatten until it was heavy enough to fall with a soft ‘platsch’ onto the windowsill. He also heard faint laughter echoing in the rooms overhead. His cousins were giggling as they played some silly game. His uncle called out that he was home, and his aunt urged, “Come girls, your father’s home.”

“It’s so peaceful here,” Charlotte said timidly in his brain. “It’s as if there never was a war.  Are those lilacs? They must be glorious when they bloom. And look! Is that a peacock? Do you think it escaped from the Pfaueninsel?” Charlotte was always so timid and hesitant in his presence. “Is that a stable? Oh, David, could we have horses? I would so love to have horses in my life again.”

David put his hands to his face. Desperate to explain why Charlotte had left him, he’d searched his memory a million times for some trace of disdain, contempt, superiority, arrogance, or a hint of antisemitism. Instead, all he heard was Charlotte’s shy, breathy voice as she expressed her thanks for every little thing he did for her. His memories revealed only uncertainty when she talked of business matters and diffidence towards every decision he made. He was haunted by the rare tinkling of her laughter and her smiles like rays of sunshine piercing the fog. How could Charlotte, of all people, reject him?

Christian had said it was because of the rapes, but David’s brain refused to go there. He simply could not cope with the thought of Charlotte being ravaged — much less six times. He did not believe it. Christian had been trying to manipulate him into forgiving her. Or maybe Christian believed it. But David didn’t. Charlotte could not have survived being gang raped. She was too fragile. An experience like that would have destroyed her. She would have gone mad or killed herself. Ergo it could not have happened at all, and that meant she had some other reason for rejecting him. There had to be something about him that she could not accept....

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Characters of "Cold Victory" : EMILY PRIESTMAN

 Although Emily is the wife of Wing Commander Priestman, she is much more than the woman at his side. She is also a veteran pilot, having been a ferry pilot with the ATA during the war, and the business partner of David Goldman, the owner-manager of the aviation company "Emergency Air Services." But it isn't Emily's positions that matter, but rather the fact that she has a gift for holding things together and helping people to get along. 

 

In this excerpt, Emily is at a low point, realizing that her husband's posting puts an end to her work with the air ambulance as well.

Emily had a quick wash and dressed in her Emergency Air Services (EAS) uniform of black trousers, double-breasted, black blazer and red silk ascot. Although she liked this attire and was proud of the golden cloth wings above the left breast pocket and the three golden stripes on her sleeve, she wondered how much longer she would wear it. She could not let Robin return to the UK alone, so his dismissal as station commander meant that her days flying the air ambulance were also coming to an end.

Despite her best efforts to appear calm and resigned about the situation, she was inwardly seething. She found it unfathomable that Robin’s dedication and effectiveness at Gatow had gone unnoticed. She also considered it unforgivable that he was being punished for doing the right thing: saving orphans, malnourished children and people with chronic diseases from unnecessary suffering. The fact that he had been requested to organize the evacuation by the senior British officer in Berlin made things even worse. None of it made sense!

Part of her wanted to protest publicly. She’d been briefly tempted to go to the press. What would the public think if they learned that the RAF leadership preferred blind obedience to responding to the needs of innocent children? There was a woman reporter with the Times who loved breaking stories of bureaucratic obtuseness and incompetence. Yet Emily held herself in check. Robin didn’t want any publicity. He identified too strongly with the RAF to want any criticism of it to be made public. 

Coming down the stairs to the ground floor, Emily told herself that rather than pursuing mental fantasies of revenge or protest, she ought to start packing up their personal things in preparation for returning to the UK. Robin’s replacement might come with a wife and several children. He would expect to move into the official residence immediately and, according to Robin, that might be as early as next Monday afternoon.

Emily crossed the icy dining room to join their house guests at the breakfast table. Kit Moran was another pilot with EAS, while his wife Georgina worked as a teacher at the British school.  “Good morning!” Emily greeted the others as she closed the glass doors behind her to keep as much warmth inside as possible.

Her guests responded with cheerful greetings and then Kit announced, “Georgina and I were just wondering whether the Station might host a Christmas party for some Berlin children. Although the sickest children are being flown out, hundreds of thousands remain, and what sort of Christmas are they going to have? There aren’t any Christmas trees or decorations, let alone presents and feasts.”

“What I was thinking,” Georgina took up the topic enthusiastically, “was to approach some of the nearby German schools. If we work with the teachers and focus on the younger children, we might be able to organise a party for three or four hundred children. We could ask the staff at Gatow to donate presents. I’m sure we’d collect plenty!”

Listening to her, Emily was reminded that Georgina was a vicar’s daughter. She was used to both organizing Christmas events —and asking for charity.

Kit, clearly in the spirit of things, pointed out, “I think that a hot meal with turkey, real potatoes and hot chocolate might be more appreciated than gifts. I was thinking, that while we can’t take the Halifax off the Airlift, you might be able to sneak in a flight to the UK and back with Moby Dick” (that was what they called the air ambulance). “The Wellington,” Kit reminded them, “had a bomb capacity of 4,500 lbs, which means that Moby Dick could carry more than enough turkeys, potatoes and Christmas pudding for several hundred kids.”

“We could even bring in oranges!” Georgina enthused.

Her husband, however, had detected Emily’s reticence and asked, “Is something wrong?”

“It sounds like a wonderful idea,” Emily admitted, “and weather permitting, I think David would be willing to authorise the use of Moby Dick to bring in food. However,” she drew a deep breath and then added, “I’m afraid, the station commander will have to approve the use of RAF facilities and access to the station for so many children, their teachers or parents.”

“But why wouldn’t Robin….” Georgina started confidently only for her words to fade away as her husband flashed her a warning with his eyes.

Emily drew a deep breath and announced, “Robin is no longer station commander, and we have no idea who will replace him, much less if he might be inclined to approve a Christmas party for German children or not.”

“But when….why… I don’t understand,” Georgina admitted, looking from her husband to her hostess and back.

“The evacuations,” her husband drew the right conclusion. “I heard rumours that Group Captain Bagshot had not approved them and was furious.”

Emily nodded. “Robin won’t make a public announcement about his departure until he knows more details, but I should have said something privately. This is RAF housing, you understand, and when we turn it over to Robin’s successor, you will have to move out. I’m very sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” Kit assured her. “We can take rooms in the Malcolm Club with the others.” The other four members of Kit’s crew along with the second pilot and flight engineer of the air ambulance rented rooms at the Malcolm Club at RAF Gatow.

Before Emily could say any more, a voice rang out from behind them. “Hello? Anybody home?”

“That’s Kiwi!” Emily exclaimed in astonishment, leaping to her feet to open the glass doors. She called through the dining room towards the front entry, “Kiwi! We’re in the breakfast room!”

A moment later the tall, fair-haired New Zealander breezed in. He received welcoming kisses on both cheeks from Emily and handshakes from the Morans. Then he tossed aside his cap and laid his damp greatcoat over the back of an unused chair as he sat down at the table. The sound of his arrival brought one of the housemaids out of the kitchen. She asked politely if she should bring another place setting and more coffee, which Emily welcomed.

“Did you just fly in?” Emily asked eagerly.

“Hitch-hiked with Rafair.”

“Which means they’re flying?”

“Some flights are getting through — not as many as are needed. They’re prioritizing the larger aircraft. Albatross” (the nickname for Moran’s Halifax) “ought to be able to get cargoes, so I came to find out what’s going on. Are we in business or aren’t we?”

Silence answered him. Kit and Georgina looked at Emily.

Drawing a deep breath, she explained, “Robin’s been relieved of his command—”

“What a flaming cock-up! Excuse me, ladies. That bastard Bagshot!” Kiwi grasped the situation at once. “I should have known!”

“That doesn’t in itself close down EAS,” Emily hastened to point out. “I will, of course, resign and return to the UK with Robin, but you can take command of Moby Dick, Kiwi.”

“That’s not the issue,” Kiwi replied. “The point is that David’s so cracked up over Charlotte dumping him that he’s stopping running the company. It’s bad enough that Charlotte is no longer handling the customers, but for most of November, David handled them himself and we managed to limp along. Since last Saturday, he’s stopped doing even that. I’ve called the office a dozen times, and all I get is the frightened secretary who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.  Does David intend to fold or what?”

“I can’t answer that, Kiwi,” Emily admitted. “I haven’t seen David this week either. Robin’s dismissal took me by surprise and the weather was an excuse not to probe. It didn’t help that Robin thinks the Airlift is on the brink of collapse. If the majority of the Berliners boycott the election or vote outright for the SED on Sunday, then HM government will probably withdraw the British garrison.”

Kiwi countered with, “Look, we call ourselves ‘Emergency Air Services’ and that means we fly precisely where and when things are risky and unstable. We’ve got two fully serviceable aircraft sitting in a hangar at Gatow, not to mention idle ground and aircrew. We ought to be flying until they shoot us out of the sky.”

“Agreed,” Kit seconded him. “Albi’s had a cargo stowed for eight hours. If Gatow’s open, I’ll make a run to Hanover with it.” He stood as he spoke, bending to give Georgina a quick kiss.

“Emily?” Kiwi asked.

“There’s no reason why the Halifax shouldn’t be flying whenever visibility allows. Regarding the ambulance, however, we can’t fly until we have a flight plan based on what patients need to go where. Either David or Charlotte is going to have to start working again.” She hesitated, but it had to be said. “And while I agree that we ought to keep flying, David writes the cheques. We have to find out what he wants.”

Her remark was met with silence. It wasn’t only the people in this room who depended on EAS for their livelihood. The company employed German office staff, eight other aircrew and seven ground crew, including a man paralyzed from the waist down. Closing EAS would be a disaster for all of them. Emily knew that, but David had founded the company, and he was its majority shareholder and chief executive officer.

“I’d better go and talk to him,” Emily concluded, knowing that this was much more important than packing up her things.

“Thank you,” Kiwi replied, adding “And try to talk some sense into him, would you?”

“I’ll do my best.”

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Characters of "Cold Victory " - Wing Commander Robin Priestman

 Cold Victory has a large and diverse cast. There is no one character who dominates the book and deserves the title of "main protagonist." Nevertheless, as the senior officer at RAF Gatow -- at this time in history the business airfield in the entire world -- Robin does take precedence of the others. Besides, he's was the hero of "Where Eagles Never Flew" and is familiar to my loyal readers as a Battle of Britain ace and squadron leader.

 

This excerpt is the first scene in which Robin appears in Cold Victory and highlights the situation he finds himself in at the the start of the book. 

The drizzling rain from the low overcast sky suited Wing Commander Robin Priestman’s mood. Although somewhat better than the dense fog of the previous few days, the ceiling was still too low to allow a return to full operations. The tower was landing aircraft with ground-controlled approach (GCA) once every five instead of once every three minutes, and due to worse weather at the departure fields, there were intermittent gaps in the incoming traffic.

Hearing the silence, Robin left his desk and went to gaze into the gloom. Spread out directly before his window were the hangars and hardstandings where the aircraft off-loaded inbound cargoes and a couple of the civilian charter aircraft loaded outbound cargoes. Further in the distance were the parallel runways, one surfaced with pierced-steel-plate or PSP for take-offs and one made of concrete and surfaced with tarmac for landings. Roughly two dozen Yorks were being off-loaded just below his window, while a squadron of Dakotas was drawn up beyond the farthest runway preparing to embark children bound for the West. But no aircraft were moving.

Robin sighed. He was no longer the station commander, merely the “acting station commander” until his replacement arrived. He could not allow that subtle change to alter his efficiency or his outward appearance and behaviour. He had been careful to arrive sharply at 7:30 am as usual. He had dressed in his best blues with his shoes polished to a shine and the creases of his trousers smartly pressed. He attempted to look and sound cheerful whenever he interacted with other personnel.  

In the privacy of his office, however, it was hard to maintain that façade of normality. Although he had accepted the assignment to Berlin reluctantly, in the eleven months since his arrival, his lingering wartime hostility toward the Germans had melted away. In its place, first mistrust and then gradually hatred of the Russians had taken root. He had come to see Stalin as every bit as bad as Hitler — if not worse. Stalin had institutionalised inhumanity and was actively trying to spread his reign of terror to the whole of Germany and ultimately the rest of Europe. He had to be stopped. As a result, with each day of the Airlift, Robin’s commitment to aiding the besieged Berliners had grown. It had long since reached the point where his work here was not a job but a mission. Only, as of Sunday, it was not his mission any more.

There was a knock on the door, and he called “Come in” over his shoulder. Flight Lieutenant Boyd, the intelligence officer, entered. “I’ve got today’s papers for you, sir.”

Robin returned to his desk but remained standing as Boyd spread the press clippings out in front of him. Most of the headlines declared “SED Putsch!” or “Attempted Communist Coup!” He also noticed an article headed with the words: “Mayor Reuter requests Allied protection.” According to the translations tacked to the Soviet-controlled newspapers, the tone in the Eastern media was triumphant: “Workers and Farmers End Tyrannical Government,” “Capitalist Puppets Thrown Out!” “Democratically Elected Council Boots Out Reuter Terror-Clique!”

“I’d like to draw your attention to the following item,” Boyd continued his briefing by pointing to one of the clippings. “In this article, the Soviet Military Administration promises to increase coal rations and to provide 250 grams of chocolate per household per month to those registered in the East.”

Robin snorted, then with a glance at his intelligence officer, he asked, “Do you think many West Berliners will take the bait and register in the East for the sake of a little more coal?”

“It’s hard to know,” Boyd admitted. “Everyone I’ve been able to talk to scoffs at the idea — pointing out that it highlights Soviet stinginess and contempt. But it’s the people I can’t talk to who may be inclined to take up the offer.”

“Not that it hurts us in any way,” Robin reflected. “The more coal the Berliners get from the Soviets, the less we need to fly in. As for the chocolate….” He shrugged. “Why would any child want Russian chocolate when American chocolate rains down on them from the skies?”

“My view exactly. You may be more interested in this piece.” Boyd indicated an article he had circled. “The SED’s counter-mayor has promised to give workers a 30% pay rise while declaring his intention to expropriate all factories and businesses employing more than five people.”

“At least he’s honest and open about it. Anything else I need to know?”

“Not just now, sir,” Boyd replied. Robin thanked him and the flight lieutenant withdrew.

Before Robin could settle into his work, however, there was another knock. This time the head that looked in was that of Lt. Colonel Graham Russell of the Corps of Royal Engineers. Graham was not his subordinate; he was a friend.

“Got a minute, Robin?” Graham asked.

“For you, yes,” Robin answered.

Graham closed the door behind him and advanced across the room to stand just in front of Robin’s desk. “I had to talk to you because I’ve heard a terrible rumour at Army HQ.”

Robin raised his eyebrows.

“Herbert made an off-hand remark that you were on our way out. Surely that isn’t true?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“But why?” Graham sounded stunned.

“Because I went ahead with the evacuation of the children and other vulnerable citizens without clearing it through Group Captain Bagshot.”

“But the Berlin City Government requested the evacuations?”

“Correct.”

“I must be missing something,” Graham admitted and looked at Robin expectantly.

“General Herbert is Commandant of the British Sector of Berlin. He has no authority over the Airlift. He asked General Tunner to handle the evacuations and Tunner said ‘no,’ but gave explicit permission for the RAF to do whatever it liked. Herbert asked me for RAF action, bypassing Bagshot, and I agreed without clearing it. Bagshot, unsurprisingly, was livid about my breach of military protocol and sacked me on the spot.”

“Did he order the evacuations halted?”

“Even he recognised that I’d made that impossible by my promise to the City Council and by starting the evacuations on a large scale before running cameras. Which is why, no doubt, he was so determined to have my head.”

“I can’t say how sorry I am about this. Your friendship, Emily’s hospitality — it has meant the world to me,” Graham stammered out. [...]  "I can’t believe you’re being cashiered for doing what General Herbert asked you to do. Does this mean you could face additional unpleasantness?”

Robin drew a deep breath, “It could. The Air Ministry doesn’t like ‘insubordinate officers’ and I may be handed a bowler hat instead of a new assignment.” Robin tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible, but Graham saw through him. They were alike in this; the service was their life.

Graham asked in a low voice, “Do you regret it, Robin?”

“Not for a moment. Look out there, Graham.” He pointed toward the row of Dakotas and the dilapidated Berlin buses disgorging children beside them. “Every child that gets out of Berlin today is one who will not be subject to Stalin’s terror tomorrow. Every child boarding those Daks will have a chance to grow up without the fear of famine or arrest or a trip to the Gulag.”

Graham nodded grimly. Eleven days in Soviet detention had convinced him that the worst rumours of brainwashing, slave labour and mass murders were true. Graham had learned to fear the Russian bear.

Robin was watching the invariably chaotic embarkation of the children. Despite efforts by teachers and parents to keep the kids quiet and still, they were too excited to do as they were told. Even from this distance, Robin could see children drifting off to look at the planes and saw frantic adults trying to herd them back to the side as a Lancastrian tanker on approach fell out of the cloud and plonked down hard on the runway.

“Do you think the kids appreciate what we’re doing for them?” Graham asked from behind him.

“They understand, Graham,” Robin answered seriously, “they understand more profoundly than you could imagine.” He turned to look back at Graham and asked, “Haven’t you noticed anything unusual on my desk?”

Graham looked blank and then directed his attention to the Station Commander’s desk. It took him a moment before he exclaimed, “The Teddy Bear!”

Robin reached over and took the ragged, threadbare and lopsided stuffed animal from his desk. He looked down into the beady eyes of the toy for a few moments before turning it around and holding it up to face Graham. “Meet Bertie the Bear, a wise veteran of — I’m told — 62 air raids, including one that destroyed the house in which he lived. Bertie, his friend Liesl explained, kept his beloved friend safe day and night, even when the Ivans broke into her apartment and did terrible things to her mummy. Bertie, she said, was the only thing of any value that she could give to me. I tried to convince her that he wanted to stay with her, but she said ‘no.’ She said, ‘You are keeping us safe from the Ivans. I want Bertie to help you, so you can make sure my mummy will not be hurt like that ever again.’”

In the silence following his words, the sound of the rain seemed stronger.

“If I were still station commander, Graham, I would ask permission to increase, not reduce, these evacuations. I would seek to get not just the children and chronically ill people out of Berlin, but the single mothers and some of the youths as well. Did you know the Boy Scouts have asked permission to help off-load the aircraft? Not one of them weighs what they should at their age, but they insisted they could double up to carry ten-pound sacks of coal!”

Graham nodded understanding, and Robin concluded with a defeated shrug, “But I am no longer station commander, and God knows how my successor will feel about the evacuations — or the Berliners themselves.”

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