Making history

'Harvard is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, maybe you made an appointment to meet some friends there.'

'No! I mean Cambridge. You know, the Cambridge. St Matthew's.'

'Cambridge, England?'

'Yes, and I should be there. I should be there now! There's something important. Something I have to do, something that happened. If I could only remember ..."

'Hey now! You sit right down, Michael. Getting yourself all excited is not going to help any. Let's just stay calm.'

I lowered myself back down into the chair. 'Why has this happened to me?' I said. 'What's going on?'

'Well now that's what we're here to find out. You tell me you remember Cambridge, England.'

'I think so.'

'You like English things maybe?' ¦ 'What do you mean?'

He shrugged. 'What are your politics, for example?' 'Politics? I don't have any politics.'

'No politics, fine. But your parents came from England originally did they not, Mike? Back in the sixties.'

'My parents?'

'Your mother and father.'

'I know what parents are!' I snapped. Ballinger's style was beginning to irritate me, much as I could see that my confusion was now openly irritating him.

He didn't reply, but just wrote something down on his pad, which annoyed me still further. Just trying to mask his distaste.

'I know this,' I said. 'My father is dead, and my mother lives in Hampshire.'

'You think your Mom lives in New Hampshire?'

'No, not New Hampshire. Just Hampshire. Old Hampshire. Hampshire, England if you like.'

'You ever been to England, Michael?'

'Been there? It's my home. I grew up there, I live there. I should be there now.'

'You like to watch English movies?'

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'I like all movies. Not English ones particularly. There aren't enough of them for a start.'

'Maybe they're too political for you.' 'What do you mean?'

He didn't reply, but ruled a line on his pad, let the pen drop down onto the pad once more and rested his chin on his hands.

'Maybe you'd like to be a film actor, is that it? Maybe you see yourself as a big Hollywood star.'

'Actor? I've never acted in my life. Not so much as a nativity play.'

'See, I'm trying to account for this accent you're putting on, Michael.'

I'm not putting it on! This is how I talk. This is me.' Ballinger picked up a thick directory from his desk and rifled through the pages, running the tip of his pen down the columns.

'Senior year undergraduates,' he said to himself. 'Let me see, Wagner ... Williams ... Wood ... Yelling ... bingo!' He drew a circle on the page and pushed the book towards me. 'I want you to do something for me, Mike. I want you to look at that name and that number and tell me what you see?'

'Er ... Young, Michael D, 303 Henry Hall. 342 122.1/ 'Good. Now I want you to watch me as I call that number, okay?'

He pressed a button on his telephone and the sound of a dialling tone emerged from its built-in speaker. 'Call out that number for me, Michael.'

'Three-four-two. One two, two one.'

'Three-four-two,' repeated Ballinger, dialling, 'twelve twenty-one.'

Puzzled, I listened to the ringing tone. 'But if that's my number, then why ... ?'

Ballinger held up a hand. 'Sh! Just listen now.'

The ringing tone stopped and was followed by a click and a cheerful voice. 'Hi, it's Mikey. You called, I was out, but hey, it's not the end of the world. Leave a

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message after the tone and maybe, if you're real lucky, I'll get back to you.'

Ballinger pressed the hands-free button again, folded his arms and looked at me. 'Wasn't that you, Mike? Wasn't that your voice we heard?'

I stared at the telephone. 'But it can't have been 'You know that it was.'

'But that was American!'

'That's my point, Mikey. You're American. I have your medical records. You were born in Hartford, Connecticut, April 20th 1972.'

'It's not true! I know you don't believe me, but I'm telling you, it just is not true. I mean, you're right about my birthday, but I was born in England, at least, that is, I grew up in England.'

'And what did you do there?'

'I don't knowl I was at Cambridge. Doing ... something. I can't remember. God, this is a dream, this must be a dream. Everything is wrong, everything has changed. I mean, Christ, even my teeth are wrong.'

'Your teeth?'

'They're straighter than they should be. Whiter. My hair is shorter. And ...'I broke off, blushing at the memory of the shower.

'Go on.'

'My penis,' I whispered, a hand over my mouth. Ballinger closed his eyes.

'Excuse me, did you say your penis?'

Even as I replied I could hear him laughing about this with colleagues, writing up case-notes for publication, shaking his head at the erotic hysteria of the young.

'Yes,' I said. 'It's my foreskin. It's disappeared. Gone.'

He stared at me wide-eyed as I buried my face in my hands and wept.

Personal History Rudis wartime diary

Josef buried his face in his hands and laughed till Hans thought he might burst.

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Ausgezeichnet! That's brilliant! Brilliant. I will tell it to the Colonel at lunch. He just loves jokes like that. Here's one for you now. If Ludendorff and the Kaiser both jumped off a high tower at exactly the same time, which one would hit the ground first?'

Hans Mend wrinkled his nose and inspected the ceiling. 'Mmrnrn ... I give up,' he said.

Josef raised his shoulders and spread his hands, 'Who cares?' He nudged Hans violently in the side and roared with laughter again. 'Hey! Who cares!'

Mend joined in dutifully and took careful sips of his schnapps between buffets to the ribs. 'Ha!' he said. 'Who cares! Wonderful.'

The life of a messenger had its advantages. It was absurdly dangerous to career back and forth between the reserve trenches, HQ and the front line, easy pickings for any bored enemy sniper and as often as not the potential victim of crossfire from one's own side. Sometimes the weather and the terrain allowed for a motorbike, as today, but often it was a question of slogging through churned mud on foot. And that cliche

about blaming the messenger ... how many times Mend had opened his satchel, handed over some orders about which he knew nothing and then been withered in a raking salvo of abuse from some jumped-up junior officer with an imagined grievance against the General Staff. Nonetheless, for the privilege of being able to get away from the front line saps and trenches, even for an hour or so at a time, Hans would have undergone twice the danger. And after all, he was alive now, wasn't he? For four years he had been in the thick of the fighting, from the very first month of the war until now, with only two minor wounds in all that time, two small scars to show his grandchildren one day m the distant peace. If you survived your first two months, they said, you would survive for ever.

So, against the danger, you had to weigh the perks. A glass of schnapps and a pipe of decent tobacco at Staff

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HQ - sure, you get a fool like Josef Kreiss to enjoy them with - but great luxury nonetheless.

Hans sighed, put down his glass and rose. 'Going already?'

'I must. Westenkirchner is on leave and they haven't sent through a replacement. Lots to be done.'

Josef limped over to his desk and made a show of looking carefully through packets of documents. As if, thought Hans, he actually had any hand in their selection. The man's a clerk, for God's sake. Why can't he just give me what he's been ordered to give me and have done with it? Why this feeble charade every time?

'Ah,' said Josef, weighing a piece of paper in his hand and slipping it into Hans's satchel. 'This might

interest you. It has to do with someone who is, I believe, a friend of yours.'

'Who's that?'

'Gloder? Hauptmann Rudolf Gloder?' 'Rudi? What about him?'

'Oh, it's Rudi, is it? We regularly refer to our betters by their Christian names, I see. Perhaps I should send a memorandum to General Buchner on this. He does not approve of this kind of Bolshevism amongst the lower ranks.'

Hans closed his eyes. 'What about Hauptmann Gloder, Josef?'

'Ah, wouldn't you like to know?'

Eyes still closed, Hans now breathed in deeply through his nose. 'Yes, Josef,' he said calmly, 'I would like to know.' Jesus, the puerility of these people.

'Well, it so happens that a recommendation has come through. Iron Cross, First Class, Diamond order.'

Hans did not attempt to hide his pleasure. 'Wonderful,' he cried. 'And about time too. He should have had it three times over.'

'My, aren't we pleased!'

'It's good news, Kreiss, that's all. RuHauptmann Gloder deserves this honour. Without him our.regiment would

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have fallen apart months ago, years probably. I wouldn't be surprised if he made Major before the war's over. Like me he joined up as an ordinary Landser you know.'

'Well that's wartime for you. The scum rises to the top' 'The cream rises,' said Hans. 'He's from a fine family,

he could have joined as an officer, but as it happens he chose not to.'

'So he's got friends in high places,' said Kreiss. 'What's new?'

'He's got friends in all places,' retorted Hans. 'Unlike some.'

'Well, well, I'm sure this Gloder is a paragon of all the virtues. He's obviously got you eating out of his hand, anyway.'

Leaning down on the handlebars, mud flying up onto his goggles, Hans chewed on the news with pleasure. He pictured to himself the party that Rudi would most certainly throw in celebration of this decoration. A dinner in a first class restaurant somewhere behind the lines, perhaps even Le Coq D'Or. There would be music, glorious wine, laughter and real German comradeship. Gloder would not be embarrassed to invite officers and men to sit at the same table. Later on there would be girls. Expensive, pox-free girls.

Hans drew up at the fermier, threw his motorcycle against the wall of the stable-yard and hurried through to the house.

At the moment Gloder was on attachment to Major Eckert of the Sixth Franconians as acting adjutant, an assignment, he had told Hans, that irked him excessively. 'I do not like to be missing the fun,' he had said on finding himself stuck half a mile behind the lines in the small farmhouse that constituted Colonel Baligand's HQ. 'Eckert's idea of war is to lick the arse of the general staff and pray for peace. I do what I can to fire

him into action, but I'm a soldier. I'd be more use at the front.'

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Hans delivered a bundle of despatches to the Colonel's ADC, waited in a fever of impatience to receive papers in return and then, as excited as a child on Christmas morning, he hurled himself up the stairs to the first floor, where Major Eckert's staff had their offices and quarters.

Hans stood on the landing and straightened his tunic. He decided to play it very cool. 'Good day, Hauptmann Gloder,' he would say languidly, 'nothing very interesting today, I'm afraid. Just this from HQ. Probably some chit forbidding the use of paprika in donkey stew or announcing that every man is to polish his buttocks thoroughly in honour of the Kaiserin's birthday.'

Rudi would smile at this, take up the letter and open it. He would read it through and then look up to see Hans beaming down at him fit to bust and then he would roar with laughter and bring out his oldest bottle of Cognac.

Hans walked past the door to Major Eckert's office, satchel tightly in hand, until he came to the end of the corridor where stood a door of bleached French oak. Carved upon it by hand in perfect Gothic lettering were the words: Schlok Gloder

Hans grinned and knocked lightly. No reply.

He knocked again, louder this time. Still no cheerful answering voice.

Disappointed, Hans pressed down the black iron latch and pushed the door open. With no clear idea of what he should do, he entered and looked around.

It was a large, square room, with another door leading off to a bedroom. It was amazing to Hans that anyone should wish to give up this princely suite for life on a dug-out bunk but then, he reminded himself, Gloder was not anyone.

He approached the desk, pulled the envelope from his satchel and laid it squarely in the centre of the massive leather-cornered blotter.

Hans stepped back into the middle of the room and looked at the effect.

Not enough.

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Smiling at himself for such schoolboy foolishness, he took up a silver letter-opener and a pen, arranging them above the envelope at ten-to and ten-past the hour, so that they pointed at it, shouting: 'Look at me! Look at me!' Still not quite the desired effect, he decided.

A pencil at six o'clock helped, but ruined the symmetry. Hans opened one of the drawers and rummaged around for appropriate pointing implements. He came across two more pens, an English hand grenade of the type known as a Mills bomb, the trophy of some daring raid Hans supposed, and a loaded Luger pistol. Perhaps he should arrange a circle of bullets around the letter, their sharp ends pointing inwards? That would be very fine.

While he was pondering this artistic possibility he opened another drawer. Nothing but papers here. And at

the back of the drawer a thick book bound in glowing tree-calf leather. Hans took it out. He did riot think he had ever seen anything so fine. The weight of it, the sheen of it, the gleam of gold from the page edges.

The book was held shut by a gold clasp in the centre of which was a small keyhole. Hans, his heart beating fast, pulled at the clasp. To his surprise it was unlocked. Perhaps it was unlockable. His own memory of such books was that the locks never worked anyway.

Hans slowly turned the first page as though he were opening an original Guttenburg bible.

Das Kriegstagebuch bon RudoIf Gloder

Rudi kept a diary! Trembling, Hans turned to the next page. Two bars of music were hand-written at the top of the page and below it the words:

Blut - Bruderschaft schwore ein Eid!

Wagner, Hans supposed. An oath to blood-brotherhood. How impossibly Teutonic, how magnificently Rudi.

He turned to a random page near the beginning. In his girlish enthusiasm, Hans was hoping above all else that he might find some reference to himself, however small.

14th January, 1917

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I am finding that the translation from Leutnant to Oberleutnant is almost meaningless. It is the next hurdle that counts. 'Hauptmann Gloder.' That would sound very well indeed. There are some officers who still resent my ascension. Very well, let

them. Gutmann, I have noted, is the only officer to greet me as a brother, but we know his motives. The Jew will do anything to ingratiate himself into pure-blooded company. He also regards me, insultingly, as some kind of fellow intellectual. His idea of the intellect is far from mine. He is useful however. He has studied military history very deeply and I allow him to think me his friend. Four members of a wiring detail were killed by snipers yesterday. I wrote letters of condolence to their families back home, the first time I have had to perform such a duty. Eckert showed me the standard letter that is used on such occasions. Not good enough for me. I wrote four beautiful and distinct letters, making up all sorts of nonsense about the heroism of each dead trooper. 'May I add on a personal note, that Wolfgang's loss is not just your own? He was dearly loved here. His spirit, his courage, his humour and his charm are irreplaceable to us, as his memory is sacred.' And then quotations from Goethe and Holderlm. All for some clod-hopping oaf of a farm boy who didn't have the wit to dodge a bullet. Each letter will no doubt be framed in gilt and hung on a wall somewhere. As Puck so righdy says:-

Lord, what fools these mortals be! Otherwise a dull, bitterly cold day.

Hans looked up from the book, frowning. He did not understand the quotation in English, which he supposed to be Shakespeare, but he could not like the reference to oafs and clod-hoppers. Well, bitterly cold day it was that day, and everyone has his moods. He turned ahead to the middle of the book.

22nd April, 1918 Spring at last!

Wintersturme wichen dem Monnemond in mildem Lichte leuuchtet der Lenz; auf Linden Luften Leicht und lieblich

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Munder webend er sich weiegt; durch Wald und Auen weht sein Atem, weit geoffnet lacht sein Aug'.

Well, in theory. The winter storms may have vanished, but the artillery storms are with us still. And while the gentle light of springtime may in truth be shining out on lovely light balmy breezes, the breath that blows through woods and meadows is not laughing with smiling eyes, but scowling wickedly as it hisses out huge rolling clouds of poison. Yes, another gas attack from Tommy. Two dead this morning, and Ernst Schmidt injured. Mend and I were the first to dive for masks, but Schmidt insisted on staying up to sound the alarm. He nearly paid for such stupidity with his life. As soon as I saw what he was up to, I leaped out again with a mask for him and dashed about the place like a tiger cheering the ranks and tending the wounded. Schmidt got all the credit however, so I was the first to pat him like the dumb faithful dog he is and promise the recommendation of a mention up the line for his 'selfless courage'. Intensely annoying.

Hans felt his heart sink as he read on.

Went along the line relaying new orders on the use of gramophones in dug-outs. How wise our masters are, what a firm grip they have on priorities! Schmidt's bravery the talk of the ranks. None louder in their praise than I. I make a joke about 'Tommy's "Gift" of poison gas' but not enough people speak English to understand the pun.

Good news and bad news came through. The good news is that we seem to be holding Messines Ridge and Armentieres. If we can thrust forward before the Americans get a real foothold in the Western Front this latest push will succeed. The bad news, not a rumour this time, but certified fact, is that Rittmeister von Richthofen was shot down and killed yesterday by a tyro Canadian pilot. Much gloom all around. For two years I have envied 'Den Roten Freiherrn' and the worship he inspired, but secretly I have known that Berlin's adoption of his myth was fatal. The British will bury him with full military honours. Some doubt apparently as to whether it was the

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