The Young Lions

"The Gestapo thinks you may be. That's the important thing. Or at least, that you may not be quite… quite reliable. Don't blame me, please…" She came over to him and her voice was soft and pleading. "It would be different if I was an ordinary girl, in an ordinary unimportant job… I could see you whenever I pleased, I could go to any place with you… But this way, it's really dangerous. You don't know. You haven't been back in Germany for so long, you have no idea of the way people suddenly disappear. For nothing. For less than this. Honestly. Please… don't look so angry…"

Christian sighed and sat down. It would take a little time to get accustomed to this. Suddenly he felt he was no longer at home; he was a foreigner treading clumsily in a strange, dangerous country, where every word had a double meaning, every act a dubious consequence. He thought of the three thousand acres in Poland, the stables, the hunting week-ends. He smiled sourly. He'd be lucky if they let him go back to teach skiing.

"Don't look like that," Gretchen said. "So… so despairing."

"Forgive me," he said. "I'll sing a song."

"Don't be harsh with me," she said humbly. "What can I do about it?"

"Can't you go to them? Can't you tell them? You know me, you could prove…"

She shook her head. "I can't prove anything."

"I'll go to them. I'll go to General Ulrich."

"None of that!" Her voice was sharp. "You'll ruin me. They told me not to tell you anything about it. Just to stop seeing you. They'll make it worse for you, and God knows what they'll do to me! Promise me you won't say anything about it to anyone."

She looked so frightened, and, after all, it wasn't her doing.

"I promise," he said slowly. He stood up and looked around the room that had become the real core of his life. "Well," and he tried to grin, "I won't say that it hasn't been a nice leave."

"I'm so terribly sorry," she whispered. She put her arms around him gently. "You don't have to go… just yet…" They smiled at each other.

But an hour later she thought she heard a noise outside the door. She made him get up and dress and go out by the back door, the way he'd come, and she was vague about when he could see her again.

Lieutenant Hardenburg was in the orderly room when Christian reported. He looked thi

"Did you have a good time?" he asked, his voice friendly and pleasant.

"Very good, Sir," Christian said.

"Mrs Hardenburg wrote to me," the Lieutenant said, "that you delivered the lace."

"Yes, Sir."

"Very good of you."

"It was nothing, Sir."

The Lieutenant peered at Christian, a little shyly, Christian thought. "Did she er… look well?" he asked.

"She looked very fit, Sir," Christian said gravely.

"Ah, good. Good." The Lieutenant wheeled nervously in what was almost a pirouette, in front of the map of Africa that had supplanted the map of Russia on the wall. "Delighted. She has a tendency to work too hard, overdo things. Delighted," he said vaguely and spiritedly. "Lucky thing," he said, "lucky thing you took your leave when you did."

Christian didn't say anything. He was in no mood to engage in a long, social conversation with Lieutenant Hardenburg. He hadn't seen Cori

"Yes," Lieutenant Hardenburg said, "very lucky." He gri

"I want you to understand," Hardenburg whispered, "that all this is extremely confidential. Secret. I really shouldn't be telling you this, but we've been together a long time and I feel I can trust you…"

"Yes, Sir," Christian said cautiously.

Hardenburg looked around him carefully, then leaned a little closer to Christian. "At last," he said, the jubilance plain in his voice, "at last, it's happened. We're moving." He turned his head sharply and looked over his shoulder. The clerk, who was the only other person in the room, was thirty feet away. "Africa," Hardenburg whispered, so low that Christian barely heard him.

"The Africa Corps." He gri

"Yes, Sir," Christian said flatly, after a while.

"I knew you'd be pleased," said Hardenburg.

"Yes, Sir."

"There'll be a lot to do in the next two weeks. You're going to be a busy man. The Captain wanted to cancel your leave, but I felt it would do you good, and you could make up for the time you'd lost…"

"Thank you very much, Sir," said Christian.

"At last," said Hardenburg triumphantly, rubbing his hands.

"At last." He stared unseeingly through the window, his eyes on the dust clouds rising from the armoured tread on the roads of Libya, his ears hearing the noise of gunfire on the Mediterranean coast. "I was begi

"Yes, Sir," said Christian. He started to go, then turned.

"Lieutenant," he said.

"Yes?"

"I wish to submit the name of a man in the 147th Pioneers for disciplinary action."

"Give it to the clerk," said the Lieutenant. "I'll send it through the proper cha

"Yes, Sir," said Christian and went over to the clerk and watched him write down the name of Private Hans Reuter, unsoldierly appearance and conduct, complaint brought by Sergeant Christian Diestl.

"He's in trouble," the clerk said professionally. "He'll get restricted for a month."

"Probably," said Christian and went outside. He stood in front of the barracks door for a moment, then started for Cori

He walked slowly back along the street. He stopped in front of a jeweller's shop, with a high, small window. In the window there were some small diamond rings and a gold pendant with a large topaz on the end of it. Christian looked at the topaz, thinking: Gretchen would like that. I wonder how much it costs.

CHAPTER EIGHT

NOAH stood among the patriots, waiting his turn to be interviewed by the recruiting officer. He had taken Hope home late and it had been a bad time when he told her what he was going to do, and he had slept poorly, with one of his old dreams about being put up against a wall and machine-gu