Len Deighton, London Match - literature save 2

'I remember,' I said.'Those were the days. I can see him now, waving that stick in the air and yelling.What a crazy old man he was. After the match he'd give each boy a bar of chocolate andan apple. Most of the kids only went to get the chocolate and apple.''You're right,' I said.'I knew I'd seen you somewhere before.' He stood looking across the water for along time and then said, 'Who was in the ambulance? One of your people?' He knew Iwas from London and guessed the rest of it. In Berlin you didn't have to be psychic toguess the rest of it.'A prisoner,' I said.It was already getting dark. Daylight doesn't last long on clouded Berlin days likethis in December. The warehouse lights made little puff balls in the mist. Around herethere were only cranes, sheds, storage tanks, crates stacked as high as tenements, andrusty railway tracks. Facing us far across the water were more of the same. There was nomovement except the sluggish current. The great city around us was almost silent andonly the generator disturbed the peace. Looking south along the river I could see theisland of Eiswerder. Beyond that, swallowed by the mist, was Spandau - world-famousnow, not only for its machine guns but for the fortress prison inside which the soldiers offour nations guarded one aged and infirm prisoner: Hitler's deputy.The police inspector followed my gaze. 'Not Hess,' he joked. 'Don't say the poorold fellow finally escaped?'I smiled dutifully. 'Bad luck getting Christmas duty,' I said. 'Are you married?''I'm married. I live just round the corner from here. My parents lived in the samehouse. Do you know I've never been out of Berlin in all my life?''All through the war too?''Yes, all through the war I was living here. I was thinking of that just now whenyou gave me the drink.' He turned up the collar of his uniform greatcoat. 'You get old andsuddenly you find yourself remembering things that you haven't recalled in about fortyyears. Tonight for instance, suddenly I'm remembering a time just before Christmas in1944 when I was on duty very near here: the gasworks.''You were in the Army?' He didn't look old enough.'No. Hitler Youth. I was fourteen and I'd only just got my uniform. They said Iwasn't strong enough to join a gun crew, so they made me a messenger for the air defencepost. I was the youngest kid there. They only let me do that job because Berlin hadn't hadan air raid for months and it seemed so safe. There were rumours that Stalin had told theWestern powers that Berlin mustn't be bombed so that the Red Army could capture itintact.' He gave a sardonic little smile. 'But the rumours were proved wrong, and onDecember fifth the Americans came over in daylight. People said they were trying to hitthe Siemens factory, but I don't know. Siemensstadt was badly bombed, but bombs hitSpandau, and Pankow and Oranienburg and Weissensee. Our fighters attacked the Amisas they came in to bomb - it was a thick overcast but I could hear the machine guns - andI think they just dropped everything as soon as they could and headed home.''Why do you remember that particular air raid?''I was outside and I was blown off my bicycle by the bomb that dropped inStreitstrasse just along the back of here. The officer at the air-raid post found another bikefor me and gave me a swig of schnapps from his flask, like you did just now. I felt very