LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘The boy has a better chance than he’d have with an infantry regiment on the Western Front. Did you see the casualties the British have suffered on the Somme in July? Column after column after column of names in the newspapers. Neither side can keep on like this. Two years ago, right here on the streets of London, I saw crowds cheering the prospect of fighting the Germans, but there are not many cheers left anywhere now. Even the fliers I teach make grim jokes about how long they expect to last.’

      ‘Winter gave me photos of his two boys. I should have brought them. Peter is big. In his naval officer’s uniform he is a handsome young man. He’s tall and dark, with eyes just like Veronica. Peter is the solemn one – dedicated and scholarly. He’s a German through and through, but he’s like the best sort of Germans I knew before the war: solid, honest and reliable. Harry is so proud of them.’

      ‘I saw Peter in Berlin the summer the war started. Veronica took me to see a friend of hers, Frau Wisliceny. Did you ever meet the Wislicenys?’

      ‘I met the professor here in London one time.’

      ‘Frau Wisliceny got Peter to study music. He played the piano for us. It sounded kind of good to me, but I don’t understand any of that classical music. It seemed to me that Peter was more interested in the three daughters. The youngest one – Lisl, I think her name was – was obviously crazy about him. Yeah, he’s a nice kid.’

      ‘Mathematics and music. Harry said that Peter was interested in nothing else.’

      ‘Fathers don’t always know what sons are interested in,’ said Glenn.

      ‘I wish like hell you’d get interested in some lovely daughters,’ said his father.

      ‘I’m interested in all kinds of daughters, Dad. But I don’t want to marry any of them right now.’

      ‘Those two boys of Harry Winter’s are the only grandchildren I’ve got, Glenn. You tell me that maybe I shouldn’t cosy up to him on account of the war, and maybe you’re right. But I’m getting old, Glenn, and there’s no sign of you providing me with heirs. Those two boys are all I’ve got.’

      ‘I didn’t realize how much that kind of thing meant to you, Dad.’

      ‘At one time it didn’t mean a thing. But you get to being sixty-five and you look at the work you’ve done and you look at the money you’ve stacked away and you start wondering what it’s all for.’

      ‘I just don’t know enough about business….’

      ‘It wasn’t intended as any kind of reproach, my boy. You’ve lived your own kind of life and I respect it. You seldom ask me for anything…. To tell you the truth, I wish you asked for more, and asked more often. A man wants to feel his son needs him now and again….’

      ‘I always…’

      ‘Let me finish. I’m just trying to explain to you why I didn’t go over there and sell out my holding in Winter’s factories and tell him to go to hell.’

      ‘I didn’t criticize you.’

      ‘I know you didn’t, but over the recent months you’ve made it clear that you would have handled Harry differently. I wanted you to understand why I go along with the bastard.’

      ‘I understand, Dad.’ Glenn wondered whether marrying Dot Turner was his father’s excuse for taking over the Turner kids. This sudden interest in young people was something to do with growing old.

      For a few moments Cyrus was silent. When he spoke again it was in a quieter voice. ‘The younger boy, Pauli, is an unmistakable Rensselaer with that big Rensselaer jawline and wide flat head. He’s never done well at school – he just scrapes by each term, Harald tells me – but he’s such a character. A regular Yankee Doodle; I’ve always said he was a real little Yankee. And what a charmer. Always laughing, takes nothing seriously, not the Kaiser, not military school, not the war, not Harry. He adores Veronica, of course, and she dotes on little Pauli. He’s coming up to his final year at military school. Soon he’ll be at the front. Harry worries about both boys. He hated it when Peter went into the Airship Division, but Pauli has always been the baby of the family. You should hear Harry’s stories about little Pauli. He adores him. The thought of him leading a platoon of infantry in a bayonet charge is not easy to face. And, like you say, everyone knows what kind of casualties there are among young infantry lieutenants. The thought of it – plus his worries about Veronica – is wearing Harry down.’

      At that moment a servant entered the library. After unhurriedly adjusting the edges of the curtains, he said to the older man, ‘The secretary’s compliments, Mr Rensselaer, and I am to inform you that there is an air-raid warning.’

      ‘Thank you,’ said Rensselaer calmly. He drank a little whiskey before asking his son, ‘What exactly does that mean, Glenn? Aren’t you supposed to be the expert on zeppelin raids?’

      ‘The German zeppelins take off from their bases after lunch. One, two, anything up to a dozen airships fly out over the North Sea and then they hover there, just over the horizon, where the British can’t see them, and well out of range of any aeroplane. They sit out there for hour after hour waiting for the light to fade. When it gets dark, they sail in and bomb their chosen targets.’

      ‘Sounds kind of spooky.’

      ‘Maybe. Hurry and wait: that’s the way the military always do things. But the Royal Navy has learned to take advantage of that ritual. They have listening posts along the eastern coast, and they pick up the radio messages that the zeppelins send to each other while they are waiting out there. Sometimes they are even able to discover what the target is going to be.’

      ‘And tonight London is the target.’

      ‘Nowadays London is always a target, and usually the main one.’

      ‘And what are we supposed to do now?’

      ‘There are probably shelters down in the cellar. Some clubs even have sleeping arrangements. But I usually go up to the roof and watch the fireworks.’

      ‘Then what are we waiting for?’

      ‘The nights are beginning to get chilly now, Dad. I think we’ll need our overcoats, and maybe a bottle of Scotch.’

      Sitting on the chimney parapet that night in 1916, with his son beside him and a bottle of whiskey to hand, was something Cyrus Rensselaer remembered vividly for the rest of his days. The strange life the old man had led, the travelling and the hard work, had prevented him from seeing his son grow up in the way that other, luckier men did, watching their sons and helping them as they faltered into adulthood. But to some extent this night compensated for that lost relationship. Tonight the two men drew together, not as proud father and dutiful son, but as two friends with common interests and values who enjoyed each other’s company.

      Glenn, too, remembered this night for as long as he lived not just for the events they witnessed but because it was the high point of his relationship with his father.

      ‘My boys will be excited,’ said Glenn.

      ‘Will they be in the air?’

      ‘Not yet. They’ll probably be sitting on their butts waiting for a sighting.’

      ‘Then?’

      ‘Then they have to take off in the dark and climb like hell. The zeps can get damned high nowadays. An aeroplane pilot has to be darned nifty to get in among them before they bomb and climb away. But they’ll try. They’ll chase after those zeps until their gas tanks run dry. Then comes the bit they all dread, landing in the dark – it’s a bitch. We’ve lost too many good boys in accidents; sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.’

      ‘What do you mean by that?’ said the elder man, although he could not repress a shudder. If landing in the dark was the most dangerous part of the mission, what were the chances that Glenn would survive the job of teaching

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