‘The trouble about you British is you never know when to make a stand.’

‘Oh, well,’ Starling said; he had been at Dunkirk, but he knew when to be quiet.

They got back into the car with Anna, who sat in the front between the two Russians dumb with fear. After they had gone a little way the American touched the Russian on the shoulder, ‘Wrong way,’ he said. ‘H.Q. that way.’ The Russian chattered back in his own tongue making a conciliatory gesture, while they drove on. ‘It’s what I said,’ O’Brien told Starling. ‘They are taking her to the Russian zone.’ Anna stared out with terror through the windscreen. ‘Don’t worry, little goil,’ O’Brien said, ‘I’ll fix them all right.’ His hand was fidgeting round his gun again. Starling said, ‘Look here, Pat, this is a British case. You don’t have to get involved.’

‘You are new to this game. You don’t know these bastards.’

‘It’s not worth making an incident about.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ O’Brien said, ‘not worth … that little goil’s got to have protection.’ American chivalry is always, it seems to me, carefully canalized – one still awaits the American saint who will kiss a leper’s sores.

The driver put on his brakes suddenly: there was a road block. You see, I knew they would have to pass this military post if they did not make their way to the International H.Q. in the Inner City. I put my head in at the window and said to the Russian haltingly, in his own tongue, ‘What are you doing in the British zone?’

He grumbled that it was ‘orders’.

‘Whose orders? Let me see them.’ I noted the signature – it was useful information. I said, ‘This tells you to pick up a certain Hungarian national and war criminal who is living with faulty papers in the British zone. Let me see the papers.’