‘Won’t you come out, dear Klara? We are here to help you. And I know I must say to you that Bismarck loves carrots.’

Wilde heard a gasp of recognition from the girl.

‘Come on, liebling, come out. My name is Sunny, and this is my friend Tom. Your father, Matthias, sent us. Bad men came to your house, but now you will be safe with us. I promise you this with all my heart.’

Slowly, the girl’s head rose from the gloom. She had long wavy fair hair, though now it was caked in mud and dust. And then came her face, wide-eyed and full, much like the picture of her true mother Geli Raubal – the one Wilde had been shown by Jim Vanderberg in the American embassy.

She climbed the steps that her father had built, looked nervously in all directions, then stepped out into the light of day. She was wearing a coat over her nightgown, and school shoes without socks and she was shivering.

Sunny smiled and held out her hand.

Klara looked at the woman’s hand, then gave a stiff little bow of her head, but instead of taking the hand, she threw out her right arm in a salute.

‘Heil Hitler,’ she said.

Sunny seemed taken aback, but quickly responded in kind.

‘Heil Hitler.’

Wilde did the same. He had seen the picture of the Führer in the girl’s bedroom, and he knew that the children of Germany were taught in school to believe that Adolf Hitler was the father of the nation. This was not the time to try to disabuse Klara of all she had been told.

‘Will you come with us, Klara?’

The girl nodded. Her shoulders were back now, her fear controlled.

‘We have a long walk.’

*

They made their way to the far side of the lake, then strode out northwards through woods and back into open farmland. If they saw a road, they avoided it. The flat fields, rivers and woodlands of Germany stretched out endlessly; one could almost imagine that the sea must be just beyond the horizon. But that was wishful thinking.

The countryside was coming alive in a rush. Teams of workers marched along the roads and farm tracks. Fields were soon full of men and women bringing in winter crops. Ploughmen were out with their horses, preparing the soil. Wilde tried to skirt these fields and keep them out of sight. He stopped his two companions at the edge of a field. Dozens of men and women were out among the furrows, harvesting a root crop.

‘Zwangsarbeiter,’ Sunny said. ‘Forced labourers from the east. Look at the letters on their jackets – OST. They are from the eastern Baltic beyond Poland.’

‘Will there be guards?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then we have to go another way. We can’t easily explain ourselves.’

‘But this is the right direction. The guards will not care about us.’

‘I disagree,’ Wilde said. ‘We have to avoid anyone in uniform – even if it means going the long way round.’