‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ I said, and downed the chaser. I saw his face say that he never had me marked as a drunk and so I said, ‘Don’t let this stuff fool you, Herr Lehmann. I just use it as a mouthwash, only I’m too damned lazy to spit the stuff out.’ He chuckled at that, and slapped me on the back and ordered us two large ones. We drank those and I asked him where the happy couple were going on their sparkle.

‘To the Rhine,’ he said. ‘Wiesbaden. Frau Lehmann and myself went to Königstein for ours. It’s a lovely part of the world. He’s not long back, though, and then he’s off on some Strength Through Joy trip, courtesy of the Reich Labour Service.’

‘Oh? Where to?’

‘Mediterranean.’

‘You believe that?’

The old man frowned. ‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘I haven’t mentioned it to Dagmarr, but I reckon he’s off to Spain . . .’

‘. . . and war.’

‘And war, yes. Mussolini has helped Franco, so Hitler’s not going to miss out on the fun, is he? He won’t be happy until he’s got us into another bloody war.’

After that we drank some more, and later on I found myself dancing with a nice little stocking-buyer from Grunfeld’s Department Store. Her name was Carola and I persuaded her to leave with me and we went over to Dagmarr and Buerckel to wish them luck. It was rather odd, I thought, that Buerckel should choose that moment to make a reference to my war record.

‘Dagmarr tells me that you were on the Turkish front.’ Was he, I wondered, a little bit worried about going to Spain? ‘And that you won an Iron Cross.’

I shrugged. ‘Only a second class.’ So that was it, I thought; the flyer was hungry for glory.

‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘an Iron Cross. The Führer’s Iron Cross was a second class.’

‘Well, I can’t speak for him, but my own recollection is that provided a soldier was honest — comparatively honest - and served at the front, it was really rather easy towards the end of the war to collect a second class. You know, most of the first-class medals were awarded to men in cemeteries. I got my Iron Cross for staying out of trouble.’ I was warming to my subject. ‘Who knows,’ I said. ‘If things work out, you might collect one yourself. It would look nice on a handsome tunic like that.’

The muscles in Buerckel’s lean young face tightened. He bent forwards and caught the smell of my breath.

‘You’re drunk,’ he said.

‘Si,’ I said. Unsteady on my feet, I turned away. ‘Adios, hombre.’

Chapter 2

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