After the past few weeks of living in cells and on trains, a bed with sheets and blankets seemed the greatest luxury. The camp doctor even saw fit to remove the cast on his little finger and apply a small field dressing. He slept better and better each night, gradually growing accustomed to his membership in the SS. It didn’t seem real—after all, he was just sitting around in a wooden hut in the middle of a forest, talking to Strasser about Winchester and Oxford. His would-be executioner was even opening up, telling Lockhart a little about his days as a student.

It appeared that the two men shared a love of gambling, a habit that had got both of them into financial difficulties as students. Lockhart had accrued a lot of poker debts at Oxford, and his father had had to bail him out. It was the first time he had raised his voice at Lockhart, saying that despite the wealth the boys had inherited from their late mother—her father had made a fortune on the railways—it was an insult to her memory to have her money used in this way. Lockhart hadn’t gambled again until his father had died; since then, each time he had visited White’s he’d felt a twinge of guilt. Strasser had been less lucky, and had had to wait tables in the evenings to cover his debts. He would never gamble again, he said, as the SS frowned on it. Lockhart tried to tempt him to a game of backgammon, saying they could make a set from cardboard and buttons, but Strasser had refused even that.

Christmas Eve was a raucous affair, sitting with Lange and Strasser in the mess for a traditional dinner of carp, weisswurst and sauerkraut, washed down with vast quantities of pilsner. The alcohol had made Lockhart relax somewhat, and he reluctantly found Lange’s humor and Strasser’s sophistication engaging. However, in the morning he suffered, along with his hangover, a sense of guilt. He had nearly enjoyed himself, and he recalled that he had even hummed a verse from the “Horst Wessel Song.”

Flag high, ranks closed,

The SA marches with silent solid steps.

Comrades shot by the red front and reaction

march in spirit with us in our ranks.

Did humming along to that, even though he was doing it for appearances, make him a traitor? On the surface it did. But he knew he was acting. If he was going to make this deception work, then he had better look wholehearted. But he hadn’t toasted Hitler, and had stayed sitting, scowling. Strasser had let it go, but he knew that the German had filed it away somewhere in his brain, ready to use it one day.

Early one morning, between Christmas and New Year, Strasser burst into Lockhart’s room. He looked unusually fired up.

“I have some good news for you, Lockhart.”

“Yes?” yawned Lockhart, sitting up.