wrong with my visa? You will wait, please. This time all three officials retired to the rear office, once more taking David's passport with them. They heard the tinkle of a telephone bell, and then the senior officer's voice, loud and obsequious.
What's going on? They looked to Tara.
He's talking to somebody in Berlin, Tara told them. He's explaining about David. The one-sided conversation in the next room ended with Jawohl, mein Kapitdn, repeated four times, each time louder, and then a shouted Heil Hitler! and the tinkle of the telephone.
The three officials filed back into the front office. The rosy-faced superior stamped David's passport and handed it to him with a flourish.
Welcome to the Third Reich! he declared, and flung his right hand up, palm open, and extended towards them, and shouted, Heil Hitler! Mathilda Janine burst into nervous giggles, Isn't he a lark! Blaine seized her arm and marched her out of the office.
So they drove into Germany, all of them silent and subdued.
They found lodgings in the first roadside inn, and contrary to her usual custom, Centaine accepted them without first inspecting the beds, the plumbing and the kitchens. After dinner nobody wanted to play cards or explore the village and they were in bed before ten o'clock.
However, by breakfast time they had recovered their high spirits, and Mathilda Janine had them laughing with a poem she had composed in honour of the extraordinary feats that her father, Shasa and David were about to perform in the Games ahead of them.
Their good humour increased during the day's easy journey through the beautiful German countryside, the villages and hilltop castles right out of the pages of Hans Andersen fairy tales, the forests of pine trees in dark contrast to the open meadows and the tumbling rivers crossed by arched bridges of stone. Along the way they saw groups of young people in national dress, the boys in lederhosen and feathered loden hats, the girls in dirndls, who waved and called greetings as the two big motor cars sped past.
They lunched in an inn full of people and music and laughter, on a haunch of wild boar with roast potatoes and apples and drank a Moselle with the taste of the grape and sunshine in its pale greenish depths.
Everybody is so happy and prosperous-looking, Shasa remarked as he glanced around the crowded room.
The only country in the world with no unemployment and no poor, Centaine agreed, but Blaine tasted his wine and said nothing.
That afternoon they entered the northern plain on the approach to Berlin, and Shasa, who was leading, swung the Daimler off onto the verge so suddenly that David grabbed for the dashboard and the girls in the back squeaked with alarm.
Shasa jumped out, leaving the engine still running, shouting 'David! David! just look at them, aren't they the most beautiful things you have ever seen. The others piled out beside him and stared up at the sky, while Blaine pulled the Bentley in behind the Daimler and he and Centaine climbed out to join them, shading their eyes against the slanting sun.
There was an airfield adjoining the highway. The hangar buildings were painted silver and the windsock waved its long white arm in the small breeze. A stick of three fighter aircraft turned out of the sun, coming around in formation to line up for the strip. They were sleek as sharks, their bellies and lower wings painted sky blue, their upper surfaces speckled with camouflage and the boss of their propellers bright yellow.
What are they? Blaine called across to the two young pilots, and they answered as one. 109S., Messerschmitts. The machine-gun snouts bristled from the leading edges of the wings, and the eyes of the cannon peered malevolently from the centre of the spinning propeller bosses.
What I'd give to fly one of those! An arm And a leg And my hope of salvation! The three fighters changed formation into line astern and descended towards the airfield.
They say that they can do 350 mph, straight and level- Oh sweet! Oh sweet! Look at them fly! The girls were infected by their excitement, and they clapped and laughed, as the war machines passed low over their heads and touched down on the airstrip only a few hundred yards beyond.
It would be worth going to war, just to get a shot at flying something like that, Shasa exulted, and Blaine turned back to the Bentley to hide his sudden anger at the remark.
Centaine slid into the seat beside him and they drove in silence for five minutes before she said: He's so young and foolish sometimes - I'm sorry, Blaine, I know how he upset you. He sighed. We were the same. We called it 'a great game' and thought it was going to be the glory of a lifetime that would make us men and heroes. Nobody told us about the ripped guts and the terror and how dead men smell on the fifth day in the sun. It won't happen again, Centaine said, fiercely.
Please don't let it happen again! In her mind's eye she saw once again the burning aircraft, with the body of the man she loved, blackening and twisting and crisping; then the face was no longer Michael's but that of his only son, and Shasa's beautiful face burst open like a sausage held too close to the flames and the sweet young life juices burst from it.
.Please stop the car, Blaine, she whispered. I think I am going to be ill. With hard driving they could have reached Berlin that night, but in one of the smaller towns that they were passing through the streets were decorated for some sort of celebration, and Centaine asked and was told that it was the festival of the local patron saint.
Oh Blaine, let's stay over, she cried, and they joined in the festival.
That afternoon there was a procession. An effigy of the saint was paraded through the narrow cobbled streets, and a band followed it, with angelic little blond girls in national dress, and small boys in uniform.
Those are the Hitler Youth, Blaine explained. Something like old Baden-Powells Boy Scouts, but with a much stronger emphasis on German national aspirations and patriotism. After the parade there was torchlit dancing in the town square, and barrows serving foaming tankards of beer or glasses of Sekt, the German equivalent of champagne, and serving-girls with lace aprons and cheeks like ripe apples carrying over owing platters of rich food, pigs trotters and veal, smoked mackerel and cheeses.
They found a table at the corner of the square, and the revellers at the neighbouring tables called greetings and merry banter to them; and they drank beer and danced and beat time to the oom-pa-pa band with their beer mugs.
