“What is this thing?” the rottenführer shouted out. “It looks like a schnapps still to me—we have one back on the farm.”

Lockhart couldn’t speak. They were going to fail before they had even gotten over the first fence, all because they had the rotten luck to have a sodding farm boy for a guard.

It was Strasser who replied.

“What it is, Rottenführer, is none of your business!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but my orders—”

“All you need to know is that it is important scientific equipment for Mittelwerk. I barely know what it is myself! You can put down what you like on your form, but what we’re not going to do is stand around discussing technical matters.”

The rottenführer turned around.

“But…”

“No ‘buts,’ Rottenführer,” said Lockhart. “You’ve had your look. Fill in your form, do whatever it is you have to, and then let us proceed. Is that understood?”

The rottenführer stepped down with his comrade. For a moment, Lockhart thought that he was going to continue in this officious vein, but he obviously had no desire to wage war on two hauptsturmführers.

“All right, Hauptsturmführer,” he said. “All you need to do is fill in and sign this form. You’ll need it when you get up to the mountain.”

He passed Lockhart his clipboard. Lockhart scanned the form quickly—it was dense, and contained at least twenty boxes he had to fill in. Shit. If the guard didn’t get the better of them, then bureaucracy would.

“Pen?” asked Lockhart wearily, casually holding out his hand. The rottenführer passed him a cheap ink pen.

“Carl,” said Lockhart, “you’d better help me fill this in.”

Together they went through it, entering spurious details about the origin of the cargo—“Berlin”—an exact description of the cargo—“research equipment”—although they paused when it came to entering the name of the officer supervising the cargo. Lockhart knew that it would be foolish to enter a British surname on the form.

“Here, Carl,” he said, “do you want to be the officer for this one?”

He hoped that Strasser didn’t think that he was being cowardly, that he was being a shirker. Strasser hesitated. After what seemed an age, he took the pen from Lockhart, and then entered his own name before filling in the rest of the form. Lockhart noticed that he also put down his old unit, rather than admitting that they were members of the BFC. He handed the form back to the rottenführer, who looked it over with a disdainful eye, before tearing the form off the clipboard, exposing a sheet of carbon paper underneath, and giving it to Lockhart.

“There you are, Hauptsturmführer,” he said, stressing Lockhart’s rank in retaliation for Lockhart’s similar tactic, showing the other man that he was not concerned at his seniority, or at least did not want to appear so.

“Thank you, Rottenführer,” Lockhart replied, his voice lacking any sarcasm. He would rise above playing such games.