High above the darkened Thames estuary a lone German bomber prowled relentlessly towards the appointed target, its four-man crew all under twenty years of age, and scared sick every time another call of duty brought them out on their long and dangerous missions of destruction.

      Paul Muller felt especially wretched every time he was ordered to drop more Nazi bombs onto the British people far below.  As a young able-bodied German he had little choice but to pledge his allegiance to the nation of his birth, despite a strong affinity for England where his mother was born.  He vowed he'd return after the war to visit her former homes, maybe to stay a while and savour the English way of life - the restful romantic image of a duck-pond or a gently flowing brook near some quiet country pub on a warm summer's day, a friendly cricket match in progress on the village green.

      Crouched in the front of his Heinkel one-eleven he had time to reflect, and to remember.  Five weeks earlier, the celebration of his nineteenth birthday should have been a welcome respite when for a few hours his parents and family could have forgotten the vile war that still divided their two nations.

      His British mother had found it increasingly hard to remain close to Paul, knowing he was frequently called upon to cross the North Sea and devastate a part of the land she loved so dearly.  Her one consolation was that he'd so far been spared the heartache of having to disfigure Bristol where she grew up, or Bedford where she and her sister had trained to become teachers.

      She knew Paul was innately a kind, caring boy who would never in normal circumstances harm a living soul.  But these were not normal times, not for her nor for the son of whom she wanted to feel justly proud.

      His English was good.  His mother had seen to that.  But during the political turmoils of the thirties, she had been obliged to keep her British origins at a lower profile, and Paul had ceased to use his second language.

      By now the wretched war was entering its third year, and still taking its ghastly toll in thousands of homes on both sides of the North Sea.  But for the rest of the Muller family it was over.  There had been no birthday party.  Instead Paul had stood alone over the graves of his entire family, all killed during a raid on Frankfurt - his dear mother, blown to pieces by her fellow countrymen, his father, his young sister and grandparents now buried beneath two metres of German soil, never to be seen again.

      Preparing to drop yet more bombs over Essex, Paul had no thoughts of revenge.  He hated neither the British nor his countrymen;  he simply hated war and longed for the peace that would ultimately come.

      Beneath him shone the silver ribbon of the Thames.  No lights were visible, but the impartial full moon showed the unmistakable outline of London's river and Tilbury docks.  The crew were on course, their prime target that night being oil storage tanks near Rainham, north of the river.  The main Great Eastern railway line was also to be disrupted if possible.

      The plane began diving, and thirty seconds later the bombs were away.  Now the crew's sole aim was to return home as quickly as possible.  The heavy bomber banked and climbed toward the east, heading out over the estuary, and leaving behind a grim column of black smoke which rose from a tiny area of orange flame, towering ever upward till it eventually drifted across the face of the moon.  Another mission over!  If only the war could be ended as swiftly as a single bombing raid.

      It had already taken two years and Paul Muller hated the damage that was being done.  He wanted to rebuild a good Europe from the ashes of the old, and then revisit a peaceful England.  But what kind of welcome would he now receive from its hostile countrymen?

      A month later he found himself with both feet on English soil, when his plane was shot down over Suffolk.  Paul spent the remaining war years in a POW camp in Hertfordshire, where he worked on a farm.  With no home or relatives to return to, he was content to stay where he was, and became ever more determined to contribute to the design and rebuilding of a better world in a new age of peace.  He had one good friend in England, someone his mother knew before she married and who had often made visits to the Muller household in less troubled times.

      Finally the war ended and Paul came to England as a free man, determined to find a job as an apprentice draughtsman.  He began studying with a view to becoming a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.  He felt bound to offer something of value to humanity instead of being an unwilling instrument of destruction.

      In time he managed to track down his mother's old acquaintance, a practicising architect named Edward Rustington.  With Edward's help, Paul secured a place at a college in Brighton, and after several years he finally qualified to become a highly talented member of his profession.  He had a flair for tasteful design which set him apart from some of his more conventional colleagues, yet his creativity was never too innovative nor too outrageous for public acceptance and approval.

      He maintained a close contact with Edward, Paul's only link with the past, the only man in his new life who had personally known each member of the Muller family and who had faithfully acknowledged all their birthdays.

      It was in the early summer of 1955 that Edward arranged to meet him for a lunch-time reunion.  Paul expected this to be no more than a casual midday rendezvous with an old friend, but he was to discover that Edward had come with a more formal purpose.  While he was quietly enjoying his roast beef and Yorkshire pudding Paul slowly realised he was being interviewed for a new job.  Edward was suggesting that he join his own South London practice as a junior partner, a totally unexpected offer which the young German was honoured and delighted to accept, as soon as he had finalised the ambitious project he was currently working on.

      Soon Paul was saying farewell to his Brighton colleagues and moved with his few worldly possessions to the outskirts of the big city, not only to begin a new and exciting phase in his career, but to be reunited with the best substitute he had for a living relation, a man who had known his own parents, and whom Paul had liked and respected for as long as he could remember.  At last everything in his life was beginning to turn out well, after what seemed an interminably long grey period.

      He also began looking for a new home...

Back to my Stories Page       Back to my Front Page       Chapter 1 >>>

Except where specifically noted, all music and stories on this web site are my own creations.   You may not use any of them for any purpose without written permission from me.     Copyright © 2003 Colin Johnson     All Rights Reserved.