Meikle was dictating letters, to another leading writer; Lavender appeared to have his own office now.

  He said, 'The day after tomorrow, Fairfax. It'll give you time to collect yourself –' He glanced at the writer. 'Where was I?'

  The leading writer repeated, 'With reference to your signal..."

  Fairfax stammered, 'Collect myself, sir?'

  Meikle regarded him with a wry smile. 'The Board meets here then. The other interviewees have no active-service experience so –' His black eyebrows rose together. 'Think about it!'

  As he walked past the operations desk the duty officer called him over.

  'Job for you, Mike. Ride shotgun on a ration train to Hamburg this evening.' He grinned. 'Congratulations, by the way. I'll lay odds that the Board will select you, with your record.'

  Fairfax was walking on air. He did not relish the idea of a trip to Hamburg with a line of ration-trucks and no shelter or heating. He had already done one such trip and had been glad to get rid of the precious rations into the army's care.

  It had to be right this time. He pictured his father's face, and those of his friends when he appeared for the first time with straight stripes on his sleeves. Meikle must have made out a first-rate report. That, with the commodore's endorsement, might just make all the difference.

  But within a few minutes of reaching their destination Fairfax realised that something was wrong. His party of twelve armed seamen, the number constantly reminded him of the firing-squad, was crouching behind the tarpaulin-covered crates trying to find shelter from the icy snow. It tore down across the train like white flak; stung their eyes and faces until they felt raw.

  The petty officer was Arthur Townsend, still not made up to full petty officer, still wearing his square-rig as he had in 801. He had been bemoaning the fact to Fairfax, saying he would be glad to quit the Andrew now and find a job that was useful rather than profitable.

  It was good to see him again. All the others were young ordinary seamen, just out from England, excited like a bunch of kids as the train rolled slowly along the bumpy and much-repaired track.

  Townsend stood up and said, 'God, look at the crowd!'

  Fairfax could see the great mass of figures on both sides of the track, watching in silence, their individuality completely lost in the sleeting snow.

  Fairfax said, 'Don't worry, the army will be waiting. There's always a crowd watching these trains, especially the ones with rations!'

  Anyway, it would soon be over. Back to Plön. A drink or two, maybe tell Jill Wheatley about the Board.

  Townsend shattered his thoughts. 'The track's been taken up, sir! We're stopping!'

  Fairfax climbed up beside him on top of he wagon. He almost fell as the train halted sharply, while the driver and his mate stuck their heads out to see what was happening.

  At first Fairfax thought it was an accident. Then he saw the great black mass of people begin to move towards the train, along either side of the track, soundless, as if it was one great force under a single control.

  Townsend swore. 'Where's the bloody army?'

  Fairfax tried to clear his mind. There was an explanation. Must be. But he was in charge. He looked at his squad of sailors. Not laughing and joking any more, but gripping their rifles, watching the approaching crowd. In a moment they might panic.

  Townsend said harshly, 'Look, sir! They're cutting the lashin's of that truck! God damn them, they're goin' to pinch the lot!'

  'Like hell they are!' Fairfax dragged out his revolver and fired it above his head. He felt the kick of it jar his wrist and forearm, the sensation helping to steady him, and control his sudden fury.

  Everything stopped, and only the muted beat of the engine gave any hint of life.

  If worked. Fairfax shouted, 'Get back! Stopp! Zurück!'

  Somebody may have shouted, or it might have been several voices. Then with something like a roar the whole mob, men and women alike, was surging up to the train, tearing at the lashings, yelling at the young sailors, who without warning were suddenly cut off from one another. A man leaped on to the leading truck and Fairfax saw Townsend jab at him with his boot. But he slipped on the snow-encrusted tarpaulin and slithered down the side, only preventing himself from falling to the track by seizing one of the lashings. The mob was clawing at him or trying to lever the lower crates over the side.

  Fairfax suddenly noticed a man wielding a long crowbar, his eyes crazed as he lashed out at the helpless Townsend.

  Townsend had lost his cap, and was staring up at him, his voice cracked and pleading.

  'Help me! For Christ's sake, help me!'

  The man with the crowbar stood slightly away, preparing to strike, then he looked up and saw the revolver.

  The crowbar started to swing down and Fairfax fired.

  Before the crash of the revolver shot had died the air was split apart by sirens, and the sudden clatter of boots.

  A voice, clipped and tense, yelled, 'Second Platoon! Fix – Bayonets!'

  Headlights swept through the snow and Fairfax saw a gleaming line of levelled bayonets advancing on the train, the mob falling back, and then all at once stampeding away from the helmeted soldiers.

  Then he could only see the woman who lay on her back in the snow. He vaguely recalled her in the crowd, near or beside the man with the crowbar. He must have ducked, while she –

  He dropped to the ground and tried to raise her shoulders, but took his hand away as blood reddened the snow beneath her. The heavy bullet had hit her in the temple. Fairfax pulled her skirt down to cover her legs and stood up.

  An army captain walked over and looked at the body. 'We were just in time, it seems. This must have been organised by the size of it – your chaps okay?'

  Fairfax clenched his fists, the revolver hanging at his side.

  'Where the hell were you?'

  The captain eyed him curiously. 'Two trucks in collision. We had to take a different route. Still, nothing broken or lost. My colonel would have been most displeased about that!'

  Two soldiers, their slung rifles bouncing at their hips, hurried across, and in the glare of headlamps dragged the woman's body across the snow. She lost a shoe, but they did not retrieve it. Fairfax heard a tail-board slam shut, the sudden revving of engines.

  The captain said, 'We'll back the train to the last intersection. Then you can carry on and unload as planned, right?'

  Fairfax was still staring at the wet patch of blood. It was pinker now as the snow got heavier and more persistent.

  Townsend watched the captain marching back along the line where some railwaymen had suddenly appeared.

  'Well, I'm not bloody sorry, sir! But for you I'd be dead, not her!'

  But Fairfax knew that his luck, like 801's, had run out.

  One of the three commanders put it rather differently when Fairfax re-entered the room where the Admiralty Board was meeting.

  'We know that these things happen in such difficult circumstances. I am sure that we all agree that there will be nothing recorded against you, and for myself I see no reason why you should not continue with peacetime training in the voluntary reserve. And with your fine wartime record, should there be another national emergency I feel certain –'

  Fairfax did not hear the rest. He was finished.

  As he walked towards the privacy of his quarters he thought of Cuff, and the man found dead in the dockyard. He had failed to report that, and now all he could think of was the woman lying in the snow, her eyes wide with disbelief and shock.

  J didn't mean to kill her. The echo came back like the crash of the firing-squad. But you did!

  Kiel's central mainline station, Hauptbahnhof, was not so busy as usual, and, compared with the weeks and months after VE-Day, it was barely moving. Marriott stood beneath a little stone archway and turned up the collar of his greatcoat as more snow filtered down from the dome-like shell of the station's roof, which because of other priorities was still open to the sky.

  He had left Heinz in the adjoining square and found himself wondering why he had come. If Meikle's brief message was true he would feel left out, an intruder again. If it proved to be false, he would have to be witness to their despair.

  For the hundredth time he glanced at his watch. He had been here for three hours. How much worse it must be for Ursula and Leisl. If he leaned forward just a bit he could see them by a barrier on the far side of the concourse, the child Bernadette shifting between them.

  He looked at the tall hoardings which lined the exits; they had become as much a part of the once-thriving station as the people who ran it. Hundreds and hundreds of old photographs. Faces of husbands, sons and lovers. But even they lacked the urgency they had once had. Some were curled by the weather and damp air; a few had fallen unheeded on the splinter-chipped stones, as if all hope had gone, or confirmation had been received that those countless portraits would no longer be needed.

  Marriott could remember his first visit here. The way the women had pushed against the barriers and the lines of military police who met every train, especially those bringing released prisoners from Russia.

  'My son! Have you seen my boy?' Or frantic eyes seeking out a familiar uniform or regiment. 'My husband was with you! Have you seen this man?'

  The soldiers had for the most part shrugged them off, pushed past, eyes straight ahead as if they feared that, by stopping, their new freedom would vanish.

  Today, there was just a handful of women. Watching the closed gates and the station clock which miraculously had survived the bombs. Staring at the gleaming tracks as if they could see or hear an incoming train.

  He watched Ursula stamping her booted feet on the wet stones, her hands in her coat pockets. He realised that he had never seen her with her hair down before. When she turned, it swung across her shoulders, shining despite the grey light.

  For her brother perhaps? He felt the same ache, the longing to cross the concourse and join her, to share either her joy or her grief. But if Lothar did come back today he would be like all those others he had seen. Startled by the sight of so many British uniforms, the navy, the army provost men; even the RAF police were here. Before, the only foreign uniforms they would have seen would have been Russian. It would be like suffering defeat for a second time. The last thing Ursula's brother would want was to see a British officer in the welcome-home party.

  He wondered how Meikle had done it; if indeed the Russians could be trusted. After Swinemünde, Marriott was more than doubtful. He had heard that Meikle had exchanged a wanted prisoner, and with full approval from the Military Government.

  It might even have been Helmut Maybach, although he could not fathom out the connection.

  He thought too of Fairfax. Always so buoyant and trusting, and never without courage when it had been needed in those terrible nights in the Channel and North Sea.

  Marriott had taken Ursula to a local theatre, the small Schloss Theatre and Casino in Eutin. It had been crowded with servicemen, officers and other ranks as well. He had guessed that she had never been to the place before even though it was in her own town. He had recalled Meikle describing her as a good girl. Innocent, he had really meant.

  There had been a scantily clad girl in a spangled jacket and tiny pants, wearing a stetson while she rode a white horse around the dance-floor, her gestures with a cowboy pistol leaving little to the imagination. The servicemen had cheered and waved their beer mugs, and at least one officer had slipped away soon afterwards to the dressing-rooms. There had been a singer too, a fair girl not much older than Ursula. She had wandered among the tables singing some of the old melodies which the Germans had enjoyed before their fortunes had changed. A spotlight had followed her through the smoke-filled room, making her face shine, adding to the atmosphere of memory and loss.

  It was when she had begun to sing 'Lili Marlene', the song beloved by both the Afrika Korps and Montgomery's Eighth Army in the desert, and now every one's favourite, that Marriott had seen Fairfax.

  He had been sitting alone at a small table, his chin resting on one hand, a half-empty bottle of gin or schnapps by his elbow.

  The girl had seemed to sense something, to pull herself from the thoughts and dreams she could share with no one. She had wanted only to sing, and was able to ignore the whistles and the cheers; but Fairfax, as completely alone as herself, had penetrated her solitude.

  She had taken his hand and pressed it to her waist. Ursula had gripped Marriott's arm until he could feel her fingers biting into it.

  Fairfax had looked up as if seeing her for the first time. Had held out his arm so that she could sit on his lap, her heavily powdered face just inches from his.

  Marriott had expected her voice to be drowned by the noisy audience. But in the large, smoke-filled room, apart from the piano and her lilting, haunting voice, you could have heard a pin drop.

  When they had left the casino and walked through the slush in the darkened streets towards the Gasthaus, Ursula had whispered, 'I will not forget that. It was the saddest thing – and yet so perfect!'

  Marriott looked at his watch once more. He thought he could hear bells ringing and knew it could only add to the poignancy of their vigil. Christmas Eve. A family's time to be together. He had already checked with the R.T.O. There were just two more trains. After that –

  The child was playing up, bewildered by the unexplained waiting, and probably cold in spite of the coat and woolly hat which would cover the scar on her forehead. How could she understand?

  Her mother Leisl was crouching down to placate her. How did she feel? Was she still full of hope, or would she be dreading the questions? How had she lived and behaved in his absence? It was never easy.

  He felt Heinz slip into the archway beside him.

  Heinz glanced over at the small, isolated group. He had witnessed it all before, and thanked God he had been in Kiel with his family when their world had collapsed.

  'Not here yet, Herr Leutnant?'

  'No. There's still time.'

  Heinz shrugged. 'They will miss the lights.'

  The lights. The F.O.I.C. had ordered all ships in Kiel to turn on their searchlights, and sound their sirens. There might be fireworks too. A night to remember, to cling to.

  Marriott looked at them. Ursula had lifted the child and was speaking quietly, rocking her back and forth.

  There was not much anticipation now. Despondent, resigned, and not knowing what to do about it.

  Heinz said, 'I will be with the car, Herr Leutnant.' He tried to manœuvre his words into order. 'You were – most kind to us.'

  Marriott thought of his face when he had given him a parcel for his own family Christmas. Mostly food, but some toys too from the White Knight shop in Flensburg.

  'We remember you afterwards –' He could not go on, but thrust a small package into Marriott's gloved hands and hurried away.

  Somewhere a bell jangled noisily, and around the concourse the remaining figures seemed to come alive again.

  Like a scene from an opera, Marriott thought. The mourners and the ghosts. The drifting snow filtering through the overhead lights like in some ancient cathedral.

  He watched Leisl straighten her coat and fluff out a bright neck-scarf to lessen the drabness of her clothing. She had been very pretty once.

  Marriott had seen her go through the same motions so many times today.

  Ursula had put down the little girl and was gripping her hand while she stood close to the barrier. She tossed her head, and Marriott felt his heart jump as the long hair drifted over her shoulders.