The thing was that all the guns were pointing not inland but towards the Russian sector and the Baltic. A measure of trust – or the lack of it?

  Passing a bombed church where only the tall pillared windows had remained, he had heard first classical overtures then strident jazz from the organ, and had discovered a rather scruffy gunner sitting admist the fallen roof, oblivious to all but his music. They had shaken hands. The gunner had gone to school with Marriott. What a winding mixtureof trails had brought them both together to these bizarre surroundings.

  Fairfax said, 'I've got the lads all settled in, sir.' He stared at Adair, who was gesticulating, then laughing with his two Germans.

  Marriott said quietly, 'I know. It takes some getting used to.'

  He thought of the ML's final seconds and then pictured some postman, probably like Ted at home, delivering the telegram to Duncan's family. A letter would follow from some senior officer who had probably never known the Devonian lieutenant, nor understood what had happened. Beri-Beri had been blaming himself, but evidence netted by the minesweepers had proved that the disaster had started as a fire in the engineroom, and not because of the explosives' instability.

  He looked hard at the boat's four screws. So many miles, fast and slow, or momentarily stilled while they had drifted and listened for the approach of the enemy. The ML had been like this boat. Clapped-out.

  On their return to Kiel Marriott had reported to Meikle, only to find him in the turmoil of changing his headquarters again, this time to the ex-luxury yacht.

  He had spared him enough time to say, 'Nobody's fault, Marriott. You were lucky you didn't get alongside. I'd have had to replace you then!'

  Leading Writer Lavender, more rabbit-like than ever, had looked up from the one remaining desk and had said, 'According to A.F.O.s, provided that any personnel killed on operations are lost before the end of hostilities with Japan, they will still be entitled to have their names listed on the relevant memorials.'

  Meikle had snapped, 'I'm sure that will be a great relief to all concerned!' But his sarcasm had been totally lost on Lavender.

  Fairfax was watching him. 'Ginger Jackson has shifted your gear to the accommodation vessel too, sir. It'll make a change to stretch our legs.' He stared past him and up at the slipway wall. 'What in heaven's name is that?'

  That turned out to be a long-bonneted Mercedes-Benz open car. As Marriott's head rose above the slipway he wondered if there could be a larger car anywhere in the world. It had huge silver headlamps and sported a metal flag on either wing, on which the new paint only partly covered the SS emblem and swastika of its former owner.

  A sad little man in field-grey sat behind the wheel and Beri-Beri lounged in the passenger seat beside him, making no effort to conceal his pleasure at their surprise.

  They walked right round the car as Beri-Beri explained, 'The maintenance commander insisted I select a car from the pool. So . ..'

  'Maintenance commander? Pool?' Marriott shook his head. 'One hell of a lot seems to have happened round here since we went away!'

  Beri-Beri opened a door. 'Come for a drive, eh? First time you've been out of this place, apart from –' He dropped his eyes. 'But we don't talk about that, do we?'

  'We don't.' Marriott looked at his watch. 'You can take me down to the new HQ if you like. After that –'

  Beri-Beri tapped his nose and yawned. 'Temporary HQ. Our boss has something rather grander in view, I'm told.'

  Marriott looked at Fairfax and the handful of Germans who had arrived to begin work on the hull.

  'Take over, Number One.'

  Fairfax seemed to relax slightly. 'I've got the weight, sir.'

  He watched the huge car glide on to the dock road, the one which had been under thirty feet of fallen masonry and twisted girders when 801 had first tied up.

  Beri-Beri said, 'Always wanted a bus like this. God, they certainly knew how to live!' He gestured to the driver. 'I'm not allowed to handle the thing. Some regulation they've dreamed up. So that if we run over some poor bastard the German driver will get the blame!' He nudged the man. 'That's right, eh, Fritz?'

  The German with the melancholy face grinned and nodded. 'Ja, Herr Leutnant! Pretty damn good!'

  Beri-Beri smiled contentedly. 'It's about all he says.'

  They halted at the foot of the accommodation ship's brow.

  Marriott gazed at it as Beri-Beri murmured softly, 'There is some part of a foreign field etc., etc.'

  The canvas sides of the brow had been painted white, as had a lifebuoy surmounted by a naval crown and the number of the Naval Party here. A proper sentry stood on the jetty, his chinstay down, his belt and gaiters as white as the lifebuoy, a bayonetted rifle in the at-ease position.

  Marriott said, 'God, it's like Whale Island!'

  As they approached, the sentry's eyes measured the distance, then he brought his heels together and raised his rifle to the slope. He slapped it in salute as they climbed the brow, the fresh blanco floating around him like smoke.

  A writer, not Lavender, guided them to a newly painted space between decks where telephones and clattering typewriters were already in full swing.

  Beri-Beri said quickly, 'I'll wait on deck. Old Cuff's coming across shortly. Thought we'd take a spin, eh?' He winced when a tall figure in naval uniform, except that like the others it was bereft of rank markings, jumped to his feet and brought all the other occupants to instant attention.

  As Beri-Beri closed the door thankfully behind him, Marriott faced the room's occupants with something like embarrassment.

  'My name is Verner, Herr Leutnant. Herr Meikle will be here present shortly.' He waved one hand around his small domain. 'These are my staff.'

  It was like hearing a British actor trying to play a Nazi officer in the ever-popular wartime films. Mr Verner was obviously very pleased with his job and himself. New masters maybe, but the same service security.

  He realised with a start that there were several young women sitting at the rear of the room with files and piles of yellow cards. He tried not to let his gaze linger on one in particular. She was small and had hair like black silk piled at the nape of her neck, so that her ears were visible. Her uniform jacket, now with plain, civilian buttons, was like that of a British Wren.

  She looked up and they stared at one another.

  Verner caught the exchange and snapped, 'My clerks, Herr Leutnant, they are sorting out the, er, Soldbuch. Er –' He snapped his fingers, suddenly embarrassed because the translation had escaped him.

  The girl said quietly, 'Paybook distribution, sir. For the workers here.'

  She seemed to exclude the pompous Verner, and her voice, like her gaze, was directed only at Marriott. She continued in the same low tones, 'They receive pay according to their work, and the higher their level of employment so is the higher ration allowance.'

  Marriott smiled. Her eyes were dark brown.

  Verner nodded, both angry and relieved at the interruption.

  'Thank you, Geghin –'

  Marriott said, 'Yes, it's a help to know –' He felt clumsy and very stupid. Her English was excellent, with a slight accent he did not recognise. Perhaps it was local? The others were staring at him, and he thought he saw one of the girls nudge her companion.

  The door opened and Meikle strode in. He nodded curtly, then rapped, 'I want a full report on that theft from Naval Stores, Verner. I don't have time to waste, unlike some!'

  He glared around the room and Marriott expected to see resentment, even fear; he could guess what a loss of employment would mean in this crushed port.

  But they continued with their work as before. It must be what they were used to, he thought.

  Meikle seemed to see him for the first time. 'Boat slipped? Good. Make it as fast as you can. I may want you to visit the Russian sector. If somebody senior goes it will become an event. That I do not need!'

  Verner bustled towards him with an open file. 'Tinned food, Herr Meikle. In the night. It is perhaps easy to enter and leave the docks in their present condition?'

  Marriott thought of the boy the others had told him about. There were usually ways.

  Meikle regarded the tall German coldly. 'For your information, the Military Government ordered the execution by firing-squad of two looters yesterday!'

  Verner took a pace back. 'My Gott.'

  Meikle added, 'They were Poles, displaced persons, and may have had cause for grudges against Germany. Well, you put it about, Herr Verner. It's the firing-squad, not a game of cricket. We can be tough too!'

  He led Marriott from the room and said, 'Useful man, that Verner. If I want something to go round this command like the wind, I tell him to keep it secret. Never fails.' He turned, his head cocked as yet another telephone rang from one of the offices which had once been luxury cabins.

  'Still fretting about that ML?' He studied him keenly. 'You're an odd fellow in some ways.'

  'Is that all, sir?'

  Meikle's guard fell across his eyes. 'For now. If you're going out with that lunatic Kidd, don't get yourself killed, OK? Not until I've found a replacement.' He shouted. 'I'm coming! Can't be everywhere at once!'

  Beri-Beri was waiting for him in the car, but with Cuff already seated beside the driver where his bulk was less noticeable.

  'Hard time, Vere?'

  Marriott looked at him. He could ask him anything. About the young girl he had just seen. And she was young, seventeen or eighteen at the most. He was being plain, damn stupid, even if fraternisation was allowed.

  'No. Just the same as ever. I'll bet Hitler never realised there was Meikle waiting to take over from him!'

  The car roared away in twin trails of hot dust and through the gates.

  Cuff said cheerfully, 'I brought a couple of bottles along.'

  Beri-Beri chuckled. 'Why, aren't you having any?'

  Marriott joined in the laughter. Just the three of them.

  At journey's end. Almost.

  Acting-Petty Officer Townsend held his arm up to a bulkhead mirror and studied his reflection, then smiled approvingly. 'Nice job your tailor did, Ginger.' The crossed anchors and crown on his left sleeve were like keys to another world. The next real step.

  Ginger Jackson grinned broadly and looked around their temporary quarters in the converted steam-yacht.

  'This'll do me. Like the bleedin' Mauritania!'

  Craven entered and waited to catch Ginger's eyes. Then together they walked out on to the perfectly scrubbed deck and leaned on the wooden guardrail. It was certainly not what they were used to.

  Craven said uneasily, 'Jack Rae's ready for the shore, Ginger.' He glanced sideways at a painted rope barrier which separated the temporary accommodation from the HQ's section. There were a bored-looking sentry beyond it, and some German workers busy with pots of paint on the sleek superstructure.

  Ginger said, 'Makes a change not to 'ave some of us doin' that job! It's yer fruits o' victory, that is. Quite right and proper.' He watched the leading seaman and added, 'Wot's up? Cold feet, then?'

  'I was just thinkin'. I don't want to end up in the brig. Not for a few bloody Kraut watches.'

  'There'll be more than that, mate. You'll see.' Ginger considered the tins of coffee he had secreted in a locker, a few packets of cigarettes and some chocolate. It would do for starters, he thought.

  Craven sighed. 'Well, let's get on with it.' They both stared at two young women in overalls, carrying mops and pails, and Craven added bitterly, 'No fratting either! I'll bet the officers do all right, just the same!'

  Ginger chuckled. The battle was almost won. 'Sure they do. But don't give up 'ope.' He tugged down his skintight jumper and adjusted his cap. 'From what I 'ear all their young blokes are either in the bag in Russia, or still tryin' to get 'ome.' He picked a thread from his friend's sleeve. 'You didn't say nuthin' to our new PO, did you?'

  'I'm not that simple, Ginger. 'E's one o' Them now.'

  Ginger grinned. 'Right then. We'll meet my whiter-than-white, never 'eard of 'itler Nazi, and find a suitable place to barter.'

  They walked along towards the ratings' gangway where an unknown sub-lieutenant was staring gloomily at the filthy water between the hull and the jetty.

  In one of the offices below deck and just level with the brow, Petty Officer Evans paused and looked out of a scuttle as he heard their voices. Craven and Jackson. Up to no good if he was any judge. He found it hard to accept that none of them was any longer his responsibility. He returned to some open files on the desk. Meikle had put him in the screening and security section. It might be a long search. But he had the rest of his life to do it if need be.

  He peered at each photograph in turn, as if to stare the face into submission. It was the first file he had found which gave known details of the unsmiling photographs. Physical abnormalities, name, rank, serial number, allegiance to the party or not, where he had served, which unit; the work was painstaking and endless. Army and SS, security units and a few, a very few, known members of the Gestapo. It would be easy enough to slip into another man's identity, once you had the means to purchase it. It was said that many senior enemy officers who had not yet been captured had already fled to South America, even the United States.

  His heart felt as if it had stopped. But the empty face in the photograph meant nothing to him. It was the wording of service details which stood out like letters of fire. Served in the Channel Islands, Security division St Helier, Jersey.

  The face he longed to discover was not this one; he might not even still exist. But after leaving the Channel Islands he had been reported first in Copenhagen and then in Lübeck. Evans pounded his fist on the desk until he drew blood.

  Lübeck was only about fifty miles from here. Furthermore, Kiel had been listed as a suitable place for vetting prisoners and suspects before sending them to transit camps and eventual release.

  Evans felt trapped. Release. For what they had done to his family they deserved far worse than death. But to find that one face would be a beginning.

  Meanwhile, outside the main gates, Ginger Jackson and his two companions, smart and jaunty in their best uniforms and gold badges, paused to study their surroundings.

  There were signposts everywhere. Some pointed to the various divisional or battalion headquarters, others directed you to individuals, like Town Major, or Provost Marshal, Hospital or NAAFI Canteen. There were boards which pointed to Lübeck and Hamburg, Eutin and Schleswig, with the distances carefully recorded. At the top of one post some wag had fixed a sign which announced sadly, To Canada – 3,000 Miles!

  A jeep containing several redcapped military policemen idled against the pavement, and a corporal called, 'Watch yer step, lads. Don't go into the Out-of-Bounds parts or you'll be in real trouble!'

  Ginger had been used to dodging coppers in Kentish Town since he could walk, and asked innocently, 'Why's that, guv? Is that where the officers go?'

  Surprisingly the redcaps laughed and roared away in a cloud of dust.

  'Red light district, eh?' His eyes twinkled. 'That's where we make our meet with my new pal, as it 'appens!'