The brigandshaw chronicl.., p.107
The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set 2, page 107
part #4 of The Brigandshaw Chronicles Series
“What’s the matter, Tim? Barnaby’s gone. He’s bored. If you can’t get a lift back you’ll have to take the train. I’ll ask Bruno Kannberg. Borrowed his editor’s car and there’s only two of them in the vehicle. His wife wanted herself photographed with a film star.”
“We think the Gestapo have arrested your friend Klaus von Lieberman.”
“Why?”
“It seems he’s trying to extract his son from the Hitler Youth Movement where they indoctrinate all the youngsters. You can make anyone a fanatic if you catch them young enough. The churches have been doing it for centuries.”
“What happened to his wife?”
“She’s on the estate I suppose. All reports coming out of Germany are sketchy.”
“Could it have anything to do with us rumbling his cousin?”
“I hope not. They shoot them in Germany for treason.”
“They shoot traitors everywhere, Tim. Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Bugger all. You either follow in those political situations or get right out of the way.”
“I told him to go to Rhodesia.”
“Probably wishes he had, poor sod. My guess is he’s in for a very bad nightmare. Maybe you should have left him in his burning aircraft after all. When the Gestapo want information you don’t want to give, it’s better to be dead.”
“They’ll have found out about our radar at Poling even though Klaus said he’d never repeat it.”
“Casualty of war, maybe he can give them Poling to get off the hook.”
“I hope so. What does a man do when his country is going haywire? Do you mind if I give his wife a ring?”
“Not at all. We’re not yet at war. Just make it a normal social call and ask for her husband. Be careful you don’t make it worse for them by letting the Germans know we found out. They’ll have taps on his phone.”
“Maybe I should go.”
“To Bavaria? You work for the Air Ministry.”
“Not officially. I’m just an old pilot helping out. I can fly myself across if someone will lend me an aeroplane.”
“On your own, Harry?”
“The thought just occurred I could take my nephew. He’s due down from Oxford any day. Nothing much to do then and we have a lot to talk about. He’s a damn good pilot.”
“You’ll need more than that Tiger Moth of Woodall’s.”
“See what you can do for me, Tim… My word, this is becoming a circus. I think I’ll need quite a big aeroplane and fly into Switzerland. The von Liebermans are not far from the Swiss border. If Hitler’s prodigy doesn’t want to leave his Youth Movement and is the cause of the trouble, at least I can get the rest of the family out of Germany. I owe that to Klaus if he is locked up. What a bloody state of affairs.”
“What would you do with them?”
“They can go and live on my farm in Rhodesia. The biggest chaos in history has always had an end. Sanity, fortunately for mankind, always prevails or none of us would likely be here, Tim. The old process of evolution would have come to an end once and for all.”
“You’d better hire a civilian aircraft at Croydon.”
“Good idea. Come and have a cup of tea.”
“I’ve had one.”
“Then have another, Flight Lieutenant Kent. No, not Croydon. The Isle of Wight. I know a man with a prototype flying boat who might let me give it a test flight. Plenty of range to reach Lake Constance, or is it the Lake of Constance? When I found Klaus’s estate many years ago I noticed a whole lot of water over the hill, so to speak.”
“When did you last fly a flying boat?”
“The day I hit the hippo in the Congo.”
By the time Harry Brigandshaw took off in the Tiger Moth with John Woodall to fly back to Redhill and pick up his car for the drive to Hastings Court, he was feeling pleased with himself. The day had proved a success.
“A dozen youngsters asked me questions,” John Woodall had told Harry before they climbed up into their plane. “With the Gregory L’Amour story in every British newspaper, the RAF will be inundated with enquiries from young lads. Piece of genius, Harry.”
“You just have to give the newspapers what they want. A good story that sells papers. America will have the story in a few days. William Smythe is well known in the States, even if some like to hate him for suggesting American concern for our colonised subjects is not completely altruistic but guided by big business. They’ve been slavering over our Indian market for textiles for years. Cotton comes from America on British boats to Liverpool and our cotton mills in Lancashire and the subsequent cloth goes to India to make saris. All the Indian women have to do is wrap the cheap, colourful cloth around themselves and look beautiful. America wants their cotton mills in the southern states to make the cloth and the American ships to take it to India. No one says that, of course. Gandhi wants Indians to boycott British textiles but the Indians don’t yet have the machinery to go into the mills. Gandhi is political, America commercial, in William’s opinion. Whenever there is change in the market, someone makes money and someone loses. I’ve told William to tone it down. When we get into another brawl with Germany we’re going to need all the help we can get… So the big film hero wants to be a fighter pilot. Geoff let him take the controls for a couple of minutes dressed in his flying gear with Gordon Stark taking photographs beforehand. Should get the glamour of the RAF across to all the Gregory L’Amour fans. Young people like to copy their heroes. Tina has another dinner party tonight so we’d better get on with it, John. Thanks for your help. How many asked you for flying lessons?”
“Three.”
“I told Bruno Kannberg and Horatio Wakefield to put your telephone number in their papers. That’s the Mail and the Mirror. Don’t know about the others. Just have your girl ready to take the calls.”
“Harry, how do you think of it all?”
“One favour deserves another, John. It’s how the world goes round.”
3
When Bergit von Lieberman took the call from Harry Brigandshaw the following Wednesday she was beside herself. Erwin had gone off in a huff having been rude to his mother and Klaus had still not come home. She was numb with fear with no idea of what was really going on. The two younger children were still staying with friends for their summer holiday; either the children went away or friends came to stay to give them something to do. On their own they were always complaining of being bored, of not having anything to do.
Except for the servants, Bergit was alone in the house having to now run the day to day workings of the von Lieberman family estate. Bergit was not sure which was worse: Erwin telling her the Fatherland was more important than his family, or Klaus being taken away in a stranger’s car without a word to her before he left.
The row with Erwin had erupted two weeks earlier on his seventeenth birthday when Klaus told him it was time to come home from school in Berlin to learn how to run the estate, there being no money to send the boy to university or finish the last year of his schooling. They had been in her husband’s study when the shouting match began. Without another word to his father, Erwin had run out of the house, Bergit following him to find out what the row was really about.
“What’s the matter with you?” she had said in the driveway outside the old house. “How dare you be rude to your father?”
“He doesn’t understand.”
“What doesn’t he understand that you at seventeen understand so much better, Erwin?”
“The Fatherland. The Party is our salvation. Germany will be glorious again. The Fuehrer will lead us to conquer the world. I don’t want to work on the estate. I want to work for the glory of the Fatherland. On my eighteenth birthday I shall join the Luftwaffe. Germany needs pilots. Father should have known that. We want war to obliterate the memory of our defeat.”
“Don’t talk tripe.”
“You are an ignorant woman in defiance of the Party. No one questions the Fuehrer.”
“How dare you? I’m your mother. Go inside and apologise to your father. The servants heard every word.”
“The servants will always do what they are told. So will you, Mother. We will all learn to do what we are told, according to Mr Hahn.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to Berlin. To work for the Party if I am no longer to go to school. The Party will now look after me. Mr Hahn understands the destiny of Germany.”
“Who is this Mr Hahn?” said Bergit, now in a panic at the thought of her son in the air force, the memory of Klaus flooding back.
“Our teacher in the Hitler Youth Movement. Heil Hitler!”
The boy had given the sky a stiff-armed salute and walked down the drive on his long walk to the railway station to join the people who had stolen her son; Bergit had her hand to her mouth, her eyes pricking with tears.
A week later three men had come for Klaus and taken him away. She had heard the first part of the conversation when a servant called her husband to the front door, from where she was standing halfway up the stairs holding the banister and looking down.
“You are required to come to Berlin, Herr von Lieberman. Please come to the car. No, you will not require a suitcase. Now, Herr Lieberman. To the car. Your wife will be told by the servant you have left the estate.”
“Where am I going?”
“Berlin. We have some questions to ask you, Herr Lieberman.”
Bergit had run up the stairs to watch from a second floor window as they took him away in the long black car. Then she was alone in the house, left with the servants with no idea what to do next. The servant who had answered the door and found her in the room was surly, no longer the polite domestic of the past. Cold with fury, Bergit had reflected on their future. Erwin was probably right. The servant was a member of the Nazi Party. In the end, they would all learn to do what they were told or perish.
The same servant called her to the phone, telling her there was a call from England. When she picked up the receiver the man was standing near to the small ivory telephone. The rest of the servants had been frightened of him ever since the three men had taken her husband away in the black car. He was watching her as she said hello.
“Bergit. It’s Harry Brigandshaw. How are you all? Thought I’d call and say hello to Klaus. After your visit to England I thought we would pay your beautiful home a visit and do some horse riding. May I speak to Klaus?”
“He’s not here, Harry. Ran up to Berlin for a business visit. Finding buyers for the potatoes and the onions. We like to sell straight into the big shops and cut out the man in the middle.”
“When’s he coming back? I’ll call again.”
“Not for a while, Harry. He’s staying with his Uncle Werner.”
“So everything is all right?”
“Everything is wonderful, Harry. How are Tina and the children?”
“They are fine. How is Erwin getting on at school?”
“One year to go and then university,” Bergit lied, the sweat coming out on the palms of her hands as she wondered if the servant understood English or whether someone else was listening on the line at the telephone exchange.
“If you ever need help, Bergit, you know where to find me.”
“Why would I ever need help, Harry? Germany has recovered from the hyperinflation. Why don’t I get Klaus to call you when he comes home?”
“How are Gabby and Melina?”
“Sailing with school friends on the lake.”
“Lake Constance?”
“It’s only twenty miles away. The pass through the Alps is easy to travel in the summer. Children like friends their own age. Us old fuddy-duddies, I think is your odd English expression, are boring to the children in the long summer holidays.”
“Don’t I know it? Your use of English always amazes me, Bergit. Just tell Klaus I called.”
“It’s a long way to come to ride a horse, Harry.”
“I suppose it is. We were just thinking of you. So you are quite all right?”
“Never better, Harry.”
“That kind of English is more American.”
“Goodbye, Harry. Thank you for calling.”
Smiling for the benefit of the servant, Bergit put down the phone and walked through the house into the garden that led into the woods where she walked and walked, playing through every word of Harry’s conversation in her mind. It was not difficult for Bergit to understand Harry had phoned for a reason. Harry Brigandshaw knew something was wrong. The fact he knew made her even more frightened.
Harry kept looking at the phone in his hand, the call to Germany having come to an abrupt end. Then he put the receiver back on the hook in his office. Timothy Kent was sitting in a comfortable chair on the other side of the desk.
“What happened, sir?”
“I think she brushed me off. Said Klaus would call me, rather like don’t call us, we’ll call you. He’s in Berlin on estate business and Erwin is still going to school, according to Bergit. Her voice was taut, as if someone else was listening to our conversation. She gave me the feeling she was frightened. Sometimes in life, Tim, you can do more harm than good. It’s often better to mind one’s own business. I think this may be one of them. My blundering over to Germany could create a disaster for whoever is left behind.”
“Are you going to call the Shorts factory?”
“Set it up, maybe. Left it open for Mrs von Lieberman to come back to me. Yes, I’ll phone Crookshank, though it’s a bit of a cheek. Never met the man. Just heard on the grapevine they have developed a viable flying boat. I don’t think we should do anything more direct for the von Liebermans at the moment. Tinus will be disappointed. He liked the idea of flying to Switzerland. Two of the von Lieberman children are in Switzerland. On a sailing holiday with school friends.”
“Hope she has the sense to leave them there.”
“So do I. Poor Bergit. Apart from the servants she’s all on her own by the sound of it. When you go out, ask the girl to get Crookshank on the line for me. It’s better to be prepared.”
Harry went back to the work on his desk, trying to concentrate. When the call to the aircraft engineer at Short Brothers was put through to him half an hour later, he had temporarily forgotten the call.
“Harry Brigandshaw,” he barked into the phone without thinking.
“Crookshank.”
“Mr Crookshank. Sorry to get the girl to get you on the line. You don’t know me and what I’m going to ask is highly impertinent. Would you like me to test fly your new flying boat?”
“You don’t know me, Colonel Brigandshaw, but I certainly know you. Your epic flight down Africa that ended so tragically inspired us here at Shorts to try harder to build a viable flying boat. The first Short Empire flew a little while ago, as you probably heard. We’re building them for Imperial Airways. They’ve ordered six of the big aircraft that can fly twelve passengers in the kind of comfort they would get on a ship. We think it will make a financially viable airline. But if you would fly the Short Sunderland for us, its military variant, with all the attendant publicity, I'm sure the company would be delighted. How did you know my name, Colonel Brigandshaw? That I designed the plane?”
“Iggy Bowes-Lyon knew you in the war.”
“You never heard another word of him?”
“Just disappeared with Fred Dwyer, the civil engineer who was on his way to Rhodesia to help build a dam. We’re going to call it the De Wet Cronjé Dam when it’s finished.”
“Where do you want to take our plane?”
“To Lake Constance in Switzerland.”
“I suppose you have a reason?”
“It may not develop.”
“Call me again, sir. This call is quite a privilege, I’m sure. The Short Sunderland would be perfect for Coastal Command.”
“I’ll pass that on.”
“The girl said she was calling me from the Air Ministry so I presumed…”
“Let me fly the aircraft first. You’ll be pleased to know there are no hippopotamuses on Lake Constance.”
“So that’s what happened?”
“Came up for air right in front of me as I came into land on the river. I hit the animal with the float and careered into the riverine trees, smashing the seaplane beyond our ability to repair. Cost three good men their lives. More, in fact. I bribed the Tutsis with a consignment of guns to get out when de Wet died of malaria. The crash had paralysed him. Now my guns have slaughtered the rival Hutu clan, a rivalry that goes back into Congo history. It never seems to stop, Mr Crookshank.”
“Please call me Phillip. Phil, really. At least the Solent won’t be used to kill people. Save people, maybe. Land on the sea if it isn’t too rough and pick up downed pilots.”
“Coastal Command.” Harry was smiling. No one missed an opportunity to sell.
“That’s right, Colonel. Anytime you want to fly her, give me a ring. He was a good friend of mine, Iggy Bowes-Lyon.”
“He was my friend too. I miss him. All his friends miss him. Really good friends are hard to find.”
“You can’t blame yourself, sir.”
“But I do. Oh, yes, I blame myself all right. My conceit wanted to fly the first airline down Africa.”
While Harry was sitting in his office alone, worrying about his friend in Germany caught in the spider’s web of men’s ambition, Gillian Kannberg, who still thought of herself as Gillian West, was having the time of her life. She had never travelled in anything first class before and it suited her well, a way of life to which she would dearly like to become more accustomed. Everyone on the Queen Mary knew Gregory L’Amour and Genevieve, even if some of the high society tried to ignore the two film stars in their midst. Genevieve had declined sitting at the Captain’s table saying they were all too old and stuffy, though not to the Captain’s face.
They had their own table, the four of them, giving Gillian the kind of prestige she had longed for all her life and never found as a shorthand typist with a father who was a grocer. She was in her element, having spent as much as she could of the book advance in the short time before they sailed for America, her onboard wardrobe competing with the best of the younger generation, all by the look of them from the British and American moneyed class.
“We think the Gestapo have arrested your friend Klaus von Lieberman.”
“Why?”
“It seems he’s trying to extract his son from the Hitler Youth Movement where they indoctrinate all the youngsters. You can make anyone a fanatic if you catch them young enough. The churches have been doing it for centuries.”
“What happened to his wife?”
“She’s on the estate I suppose. All reports coming out of Germany are sketchy.”
“Could it have anything to do with us rumbling his cousin?”
“I hope not. They shoot them in Germany for treason.”
“They shoot traitors everywhere, Tim. Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Bugger all. You either follow in those political situations or get right out of the way.”
“I told him to go to Rhodesia.”
“Probably wishes he had, poor sod. My guess is he’s in for a very bad nightmare. Maybe you should have left him in his burning aircraft after all. When the Gestapo want information you don’t want to give, it’s better to be dead.”
“They’ll have found out about our radar at Poling even though Klaus said he’d never repeat it.”
“Casualty of war, maybe he can give them Poling to get off the hook.”
“I hope so. What does a man do when his country is going haywire? Do you mind if I give his wife a ring?”
“Not at all. We’re not yet at war. Just make it a normal social call and ask for her husband. Be careful you don’t make it worse for them by letting the Germans know we found out. They’ll have taps on his phone.”
“Maybe I should go.”
“To Bavaria? You work for the Air Ministry.”
“Not officially. I’m just an old pilot helping out. I can fly myself across if someone will lend me an aeroplane.”
“On your own, Harry?”
“The thought just occurred I could take my nephew. He’s due down from Oxford any day. Nothing much to do then and we have a lot to talk about. He’s a damn good pilot.”
“You’ll need more than that Tiger Moth of Woodall’s.”
“See what you can do for me, Tim… My word, this is becoming a circus. I think I’ll need quite a big aeroplane and fly into Switzerland. The von Liebermans are not far from the Swiss border. If Hitler’s prodigy doesn’t want to leave his Youth Movement and is the cause of the trouble, at least I can get the rest of the family out of Germany. I owe that to Klaus if he is locked up. What a bloody state of affairs.”
“What would you do with them?”
“They can go and live on my farm in Rhodesia. The biggest chaos in history has always had an end. Sanity, fortunately for mankind, always prevails or none of us would likely be here, Tim. The old process of evolution would have come to an end once and for all.”
“You’d better hire a civilian aircraft at Croydon.”
“Good idea. Come and have a cup of tea.”
“I’ve had one.”
“Then have another, Flight Lieutenant Kent. No, not Croydon. The Isle of Wight. I know a man with a prototype flying boat who might let me give it a test flight. Plenty of range to reach Lake Constance, or is it the Lake of Constance? When I found Klaus’s estate many years ago I noticed a whole lot of water over the hill, so to speak.”
“When did you last fly a flying boat?”
“The day I hit the hippo in the Congo.”
By the time Harry Brigandshaw took off in the Tiger Moth with John Woodall to fly back to Redhill and pick up his car for the drive to Hastings Court, he was feeling pleased with himself. The day had proved a success.
“A dozen youngsters asked me questions,” John Woodall had told Harry before they climbed up into their plane. “With the Gregory L’Amour story in every British newspaper, the RAF will be inundated with enquiries from young lads. Piece of genius, Harry.”
“You just have to give the newspapers what they want. A good story that sells papers. America will have the story in a few days. William Smythe is well known in the States, even if some like to hate him for suggesting American concern for our colonised subjects is not completely altruistic but guided by big business. They’ve been slavering over our Indian market for textiles for years. Cotton comes from America on British boats to Liverpool and our cotton mills in Lancashire and the subsequent cloth goes to India to make saris. All the Indian women have to do is wrap the cheap, colourful cloth around themselves and look beautiful. America wants their cotton mills in the southern states to make the cloth and the American ships to take it to India. No one says that, of course. Gandhi wants Indians to boycott British textiles but the Indians don’t yet have the machinery to go into the mills. Gandhi is political, America commercial, in William’s opinion. Whenever there is change in the market, someone makes money and someone loses. I’ve told William to tone it down. When we get into another brawl with Germany we’re going to need all the help we can get… So the big film hero wants to be a fighter pilot. Geoff let him take the controls for a couple of minutes dressed in his flying gear with Gordon Stark taking photographs beforehand. Should get the glamour of the RAF across to all the Gregory L’Amour fans. Young people like to copy their heroes. Tina has another dinner party tonight so we’d better get on with it, John. Thanks for your help. How many asked you for flying lessons?”
“Three.”
“I told Bruno Kannberg and Horatio Wakefield to put your telephone number in their papers. That’s the Mail and the Mirror. Don’t know about the others. Just have your girl ready to take the calls.”
“Harry, how do you think of it all?”
“One favour deserves another, John. It’s how the world goes round.”
3
When Bergit von Lieberman took the call from Harry Brigandshaw the following Wednesday she was beside herself. Erwin had gone off in a huff having been rude to his mother and Klaus had still not come home. She was numb with fear with no idea of what was really going on. The two younger children were still staying with friends for their summer holiday; either the children went away or friends came to stay to give them something to do. On their own they were always complaining of being bored, of not having anything to do.
Except for the servants, Bergit was alone in the house having to now run the day to day workings of the von Lieberman family estate. Bergit was not sure which was worse: Erwin telling her the Fatherland was more important than his family, or Klaus being taken away in a stranger’s car without a word to her before he left.
The row with Erwin had erupted two weeks earlier on his seventeenth birthday when Klaus told him it was time to come home from school in Berlin to learn how to run the estate, there being no money to send the boy to university or finish the last year of his schooling. They had been in her husband’s study when the shouting match began. Without another word to his father, Erwin had run out of the house, Bergit following him to find out what the row was really about.
“What’s the matter with you?” she had said in the driveway outside the old house. “How dare you be rude to your father?”
“He doesn’t understand.”
“What doesn’t he understand that you at seventeen understand so much better, Erwin?”
“The Fatherland. The Party is our salvation. Germany will be glorious again. The Fuehrer will lead us to conquer the world. I don’t want to work on the estate. I want to work for the glory of the Fatherland. On my eighteenth birthday I shall join the Luftwaffe. Germany needs pilots. Father should have known that. We want war to obliterate the memory of our defeat.”
“Don’t talk tripe.”
“You are an ignorant woman in defiance of the Party. No one questions the Fuehrer.”
“How dare you? I’m your mother. Go inside and apologise to your father. The servants heard every word.”
“The servants will always do what they are told. So will you, Mother. We will all learn to do what we are told, according to Mr Hahn.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to Berlin. To work for the Party if I am no longer to go to school. The Party will now look after me. Mr Hahn understands the destiny of Germany.”
“Who is this Mr Hahn?” said Bergit, now in a panic at the thought of her son in the air force, the memory of Klaus flooding back.
“Our teacher in the Hitler Youth Movement. Heil Hitler!”
The boy had given the sky a stiff-armed salute and walked down the drive on his long walk to the railway station to join the people who had stolen her son; Bergit had her hand to her mouth, her eyes pricking with tears.
A week later three men had come for Klaus and taken him away. She had heard the first part of the conversation when a servant called her husband to the front door, from where she was standing halfway up the stairs holding the banister and looking down.
“You are required to come to Berlin, Herr von Lieberman. Please come to the car. No, you will not require a suitcase. Now, Herr Lieberman. To the car. Your wife will be told by the servant you have left the estate.”
“Where am I going?”
“Berlin. We have some questions to ask you, Herr Lieberman.”
Bergit had run up the stairs to watch from a second floor window as they took him away in the long black car. Then she was alone in the house, left with the servants with no idea what to do next. The servant who had answered the door and found her in the room was surly, no longer the polite domestic of the past. Cold with fury, Bergit had reflected on their future. Erwin was probably right. The servant was a member of the Nazi Party. In the end, they would all learn to do what they were told or perish.
The same servant called her to the phone, telling her there was a call from England. When she picked up the receiver the man was standing near to the small ivory telephone. The rest of the servants had been frightened of him ever since the three men had taken her husband away in the black car. He was watching her as she said hello.
“Bergit. It’s Harry Brigandshaw. How are you all? Thought I’d call and say hello to Klaus. After your visit to England I thought we would pay your beautiful home a visit and do some horse riding. May I speak to Klaus?”
“He’s not here, Harry. Ran up to Berlin for a business visit. Finding buyers for the potatoes and the onions. We like to sell straight into the big shops and cut out the man in the middle.”
“When’s he coming back? I’ll call again.”
“Not for a while, Harry. He’s staying with his Uncle Werner.”
“So everything is all right?”
“Everything is wonderful, Harry. How are Tina and the children?”
“They are fine. How is Erwin getting on at school?”
“One year to go and then university,” Bergit lied, the sweat coming out on the palms of her hands as she wondered if the servant understood English or whether someone else was listening on the line at the telephone exchange.
“If you ever need help, Bergit, you know where to find me.”
“Why would I ever need help, Harry? Germany has recovered from the hyperinflation. Why don’t I get Klaus to call you when he comes home?”
“How are Gabby and Melina?”
“Sailing with school friends on the lake.”
“Lake Constance?”
“It’s only twenty miles away. The pass through the Alps is easy to travel in the summer. Children like friends their own age. Us old fuddy-duddies, I think is your odd English expression, are boring to the children in the long summer holidays.”
“Don’t I know it? Your use of English always amazes me, Bergit. Just tell Klaus I called.”
“It’s a long way to come to ride a horse, Harry.”
“I suppose it is. We were just thinking of you. So you are quite all right?”
“Never better, Harry.”
“That kind of English is more American.”
“Goodbye, Harry. Thank you for calling.”
Smiling for the benefit of the servant, Bergit put down the phone and walked through the house into the garden that led into the woods where she walked and walked, playing through every word of Harry’s conversation in her mind. It was not difficult for Bergit to understand Harry had phoned for a reason. Harry Brigandshaw knew something was wrong. The fact he knew made her even more frightened.
Harry kept looking at the phone in his hand, the call to Germany having come to an abrupt end. Then he put the receiver back on the hook in his office. Timothy Kent was sitting in a comfortable chair on the other side of the desk.
“What happened, sir?”
“I think she brushed me off. Said Klaus would call me, rather like don’t call us, we’ll call you. He’s in Berlin on estate business and Erwin is still going to school, according to Bergit. Her voice was taut, as if someone else was listening to our conversation. She gave me the feeling she was frightened. Sometimes in life, Tim, you can do more harm than good. It’s often better to mind one’s own business. I think this may be one of them. My blundering over to Germany could create a disaster for whoever is left behind.”
“Are you going to call the Shorts factory?”
“Set it up, maybe. Left it open for Mrs von Lieberman to come back to me. Yes, I’ll phone Crookshank, though it’s a bit of a cheek. Never met the man. Just heard on the grapevine they have developed a viable flying boat. I don’t think we should do anything more direct for the von Liebermans at the moment. Tinus will be disappointed. He liked the idea of flying to Switzerland. Two of the von Lieberman children are in Switzerland. On a sailing holiday with school friends.”
“Hope she has the sense to leave them there.”
“So do I. Poor Bergit. Apart from the servants she’s all on her own by the sound of it. When you go out, ask the girl to get Crookshank on the line for me. It’s better to be prepared.”
Harry went back to the work on his desk, trying to concentrate. When the call to the aircraft engineer at Short Brothers was put through to him half an hour later, he had temporarily forgotten the call.
“Harry Brigandshaw,” he barked into the phone without thinking.
“Crookshank.”
“Mr Crookshank. Sorry to get the girl to get you on the line. You don’t know me and what I’m going to ask is highly impertinent. Would you like me to test fly your new flying boat?”
“You don’t know me, Colonel Brigandshaw, but I certainly know you. Your epic flight down Africa that ended so tragically inspired us here at Shorts to try harder to build a viable flying boat. The first Short Empire flew a little while ago, as you probably heard. We’re building them for Imperial Airways. They’ve ordered six of the big aircraft that can fly twelve passengers in the kind of comfort they would get on a ship. We think it will make a financially viable airline. But if you would fly the Short Sunderland for us, its military variant, with all the attendant publicity, I'm sure the company would be delighted. How did you know my name, Colonel Brigandshaw? That I designed the plane?”
“Iggy Bowes-Lyon knew you in the war.”
“You never heard another word of him?”
“Just disappeared with Fred Dwyer, the civil engineer who was on his way to Rhodesia to help build a dam. We’re going to call it the De Wet Cronjé Dam when it’s finished.”
“Where do you want to take our plane?”
“To Lake Constance in Switzerland.”
“I suppose you have a reason?”
“It may not develop.”
“Call me again, sir. This call is quite a privilege, I’m sure. The Short Sunderland would be perfect for Coastal Command.”
“I’ll pass that on.”
“The girl said she was calling me from the Air Ministry so I presumed…”
“Let me fly the aircraft first. You’ll be pleased to know there are no hippopotamuses on Lake Constance.”
“So that’s what happened?”
“Came up for air right in front of me as I came into land on the river. I hit the animal with the float and careered into the riverine trees, smashing the seaplane beyond our ability to repair. Cost three good men their lives. More, in fact. I bribed the Tutsis with a consignment of guns to get out when de Wet died of malaria. The crash had paralysed him. Now my guns have slaughtered the rival Hutu clan, a rivalry that goes back into Congo history. It never seems to stop, Mr Crookshank.”
“Please call me Phillip. Phil, really. At least the Solent won’t be used to kill people. Save people, maybe. Land on the sea if it isn’t too rough and pick up downed pilots.”
“Coastal Command.” Harry was smiling. No one missed an opportunity to sell.
“That’s right, Colonel. Anytime you want to fly her, give me a ring. He was a good friend of mine, Iggy Bowes-Lyon.”
“He was my friend too. I miss him. All his friends miss him. Really good friends are hard to find.”
“You can’t blame yourself, sir.”
“But I do. Oh, yes, I blame myself all right. My conceit wanted to fly the first airline down Africa.”
While Harry was sitting in his office alone, worrying about his friend in Germany caught in the spider’s web of men’s ambition, Gillian Kannberg, who still thought of herself as Gillian West, was having the time of her life. She had never travelled in anything first class before and it suited her well, a way of life to which she would dearly like to become more accustomed. Everyone on the Queen Mary knew Gregory L’Amour and Genevieve, even if some of the high society tried to ignore the two film stars in their midst. Genevieve had declined sitting at the Captain’s table saying they were all too old and stuffy, though not to the Captain’s face.
They had their own table, the four of them, giving Gillian the kind of prestige she had longed for all her life and never found as a shorthand typist with a father who was a grocer. She was in her element, having spent as much as she could of the book advance in the short time before they sailed for America, her onboard wardrobe competing with the best of the younger generation, all by the look of them from the British and American moneyed class.
