Aubrey Taylor gave a lop-sided grin and said , " I suppose it is .sx " .sx " Try John Lehmann if you like .sx I don't suppose the government will stick it on a poster as a morale booster .sx " .sx Taylor flushed with pride .sx Actually I thought it was a pretty rotten poem - portentous , disjointed and alliterative .sx I was about to tell him as much when he glanced over my shoulder and said , " There's MacCready now .sx " .sx I looked round .sx MacCready , pushing his way through the pub , had the physical presence of an actor playing a medieval baron .sx The crowd parted for him .sx " Where have you been , Morgan ?sx This Anglo-Saxon been boring you , again ?sx " His freckled , boyish face beamed at me as he pulled up a stool and undid his heavy , stained raincoat .sx From the pockets he took out some of his pipe-cleaner animals , put them on the bar and said " So who's going to give me some money ?sx A shilling each .sx " .sx The animals had got squashed in his pocket .sx Delicately he pulled them back into shape with his fleshy fingers .sx " A shilling ?sx " I said .sx " That's bloody outrageous .sx " .sx " But the beauty of these is that you can change them later if you get bored of them .sx It's a new concept in sculpture .sx There .sx " .sx He leaned back to look at them .sx The five animals stood in a row , as though about to enter a pipe-cleaner ark .sx At the back was the biggest and most elaborate :sx a giraffe made from perhaps twenty pipe-cleaners , with an elaborately plaited neck and one of its back legs wittily cocked like a dog .sx In front of that came an elephant with a long , baroque trunk , and a snake that MacCready had arranged so that it was slithering over the rim of an ashtray .sx Then there was a monkey swinging from a branch , and at the front something that I couldn't at first identify consisting of elegant swirls topped by a strange horned head .sx " What's that one supposed to be ?sx " I asked .sx " A snail .sx " .sx " I'll give you ninepence for it , " I said , and counted out the coppers .sx " I always thought you were a man of taste and refinement , " said MacCready when he'd bought himself a beer .sx " Perhaps you'd like to start a collection .sx I do commissions .sx " .sx " I thought you were going to do Morgan , " put in Aubrey Taylor , " when you said you were looking for him .sx " MacCready smiled condescendingly at him between gulps of his beer , and encouraged by this Taylor ploughed on .sx " I've been meaning to ask you :sx where on earth do you get all those pipe-cleaners from ?sx Fell off the back of a lorry , I suppose ?sx I'm surprised the government still allows their manufacture , with all that wire inside .sx They're taking away all the park railings , you'd think they'd do something about pipe-cleaners , wouldn't you ?sx " .sx MacCready suddenly slammed his glass down on the counter , stood up and kicked his stool away .sx He was famous for his tantrums .sx The drinkers along the bar stopped talking and turned to watch .sx For a few moments he just stood there , red-faced and glaring at poor Aubrey Taylor .sx Then he grabbed the giraffe off the counter and , holding it up in front of Taylor's face , started pulling it apart and refashioning it .sx The legs and body were yanked up over the neck , so that the whole thing formed a kind of obscene tower .sx Then the head was pulled apart into a bulbous knob , and two more protuberances formed to hang where the haunches had been .sx The pub looked on , fascinated .sx " What's that , MacCready ?sx " asked Taylor , watching him nervously .sx " What are you making ?sx " .sx MacCready furiously put the finishing touches , then shoved it into Aubrey Taylor's hands .sx " Winston's cock , " he yelled and stormed across the pub , stopped , came back , grabbed my arm , and frogmarched me to the door .sx " Sorry about that , " said MacCready cheerfully when we were outside .sx " Some of these Englishmen have no manners .sx " He leant over me , breathing beery breath .sx " That's all right , " I said , irritated with all this Celtic camaraderie .sx I moved back towards the door of the pub .sx " Wait .sx " MacCready held my arm .sx " I wanted to talk to you about something .sx You speak languages , don't you ?sx Weren't you a foreign correspondent ?sx " I nodded .sx " Well , you might be able to help us then .sx We had an intruder at our place a couple of nights ago .sx We think he might be foreign .sx I thought you could talk to him , find out who he is .sx " .sx " What kind of intruder ?sx " .sx " A boy , about sixteen or seventeen .sx Quite a pretty one , a Jew .sx " He smiled lasciviously .sx MacCready liked trying to shock people by pretending to be homosexual .sx " I suggest you take him along to the police .sx They'll find out who he is .sx " I didn't want to get mixed up in MacCready's capers .sx " For Christ's sake , Morgan , you're sounding like that stupid Englishman .sx Why don't you come and have a look at him .sx He's a mystery .sx He might be a parachutist , or a Russian aristocrat on the run from Stalin .sx " He was still gripping my arm .sx " Where is he now , this boy ?sx " .sx " At the place where we're living , five minutes from here .sx He doesn't seem to have anywhere else to go .sx In fact he seems a bit confused .sx " .sx " All right then , but this had better not be some stupid joke .sx " .sx We started walking up the street , MacCready still holding my arm .sx By now I was quite curious to know what it was all about .sx I was also interested to see what kind of a place MacCready lived in .sx He had referred to " we" .sx As he said , it was only a few streets away , just north of Oxford Street .sx A terrace of Georgian houses glowed in the evening sun .sx The air raid was late tonight .sx In front of the houses stood a row of To Let signs .sx Most of the windows were boarded up , the rich owners having left for overseas or the country .sx I stopped for a moment and looked at the terrace .sx There was something familiar about it .sx MacCready and his friends , it turned out , were living in the basement of one of the more dilapidated buildings .sx I was led down some iron steps and into a low , dark basement with stone paving on the floor .sx It extended quite far back and I could just make out at the far end piles of old junk :sx wood , metal , some bits of plastic .sx Perhaps these were the materials for MacCready's sculptures .sx Around the walls were four or five mattresses , heaps of bedding , and an old sofa with the stuffing coming out .sx In the middle of the room was a table , at which sat a long-haired man , a woman who had once been pointed out to me in the Belgravia as MacCready's 'model' , and the mysterious visitor .sx " This is Morgan , " said MacCready .sx " He's going to talk to the boy .sx Go on then , Morgan :sx ask him something in German .sx " .sx I had stopped dead still in the doorway , staring at the boy .sx " He's not German , " I said .sx " He's Czech .sx " .sx " How can you .sx ..? " began the woman .sx " So you do know him ?sx " said MacCready .sx Through my amazement at seeing Antonin Treiber sitting in this London basement , I registered MacCready's comment .sx It was a strange thing to say .sx At that moment , the sirens started up .sx III .sx Stories Are There To Be Told .sx BEFORE THE WAR , I had been the News Chronicle 's correspondent in Vienna .sx The paper had sent me there in February 1934 , when Chancellor Dollfuss , under the guidance of Mussolini , had turned on the Austrian socialists .sx I was there in July when a group of Austrian Nazis occupied the Chancellory and murdered Dollfuss .sx And over the next four years I watched as the conservative and authoritarian Austrian leadership - with the acquiescence of Italy , France and Britain - gradually surrendered Austrian independence .sx I grew to hate the hypocrisy of those smooth , aristocratic Austrian politicians for whom anything could be glossed over by a 'gentleman's agreement' couched in suitably elevated , diplomatic language .sx Then in March 1938 , when Schuschnigg made a last , small gesture towards Austrian autonomy , Hitler's troops marched in and took over .sx A few weeks later , along with a number of other British and French journalists , I was ordered out .sx Back in London , during the nervous celebrations surrounding Munich , I conceived a hatred for the British leadership as bitter as that I had had for the Austrian , and for similar reasons .sx When the war came , I presented myself for service - but aged forty , overweight and with bad eyes , I was turned down .sx With my fluency in German and knowledge of Austria , I had hoped and expected to be approached for Intelligence work .sx But the call never came .sx With hindsight it was easy to find reasons for this - my lower middle-class origins , for example , or my membership in the late twenties of the Independent Labour Party .sx I applied to the Ministry of Information and was given a job , though not an important or interesting one .sx I resented the fact that my considerable skills and experience were being under-used in the war effort .sx One of my last acts before leaving Vienna was to help a Czech journalist acquaintance , a Jew , obtain British visas for his son and brother .sx Another instance of my squeamishness .sx Josef Treiber , an aloof man who found it distasteful to ask me for help , was convinced that Hitler was encouraging agitation by the Sudeten Germans in order to establish a pretext for the invasion of the whole of Czechoslovakia .sx He was also convinced that Jews in a German-controlled Czechoslovakia would be no safer than they were in Germany itself .sx His wife insisted on staying with him throughout , but Treiber was determined to get his only son and his elder brother away to safety .sx I arranged meetings with an official I knew at the British Embassy in Vienna and wrote to Peter Musgrave , a pro-Zionist Conservative MP who had interceded in similar cases in the past .sx I didn't hold out much hope for Treiber , because the embassy official had told me privately that the government feared an anti-Semitic backlash in Britain and was ordering its embassies to reduce the number of visas they granted .sx In addition , the security services had warned that the Germans could use Jewish emigration as a means of smuggling spies into the country .sx But Musgrave's influence must have helped , because the next thing I heard , once I was back in England , was that the uncle and nephew had got their visas and were being housed , along with a number of other Czech refugees , in Musgrave's mansion in Sussex .sx I visited them there in the spring of 1939 .sx The boy , Antonin , I had never seen before , and the uncle I had met just once , in a caf e in Vienna .sx Stefan Treiber was even more distant and difficult to fathom than his brother .sx He was fifty-five , but looked and moved more like a man ten years older .sx According to Josef , he had been a successful businessman in Germany , but in 1933 had been in a train accident in which he himself had been injured and a number of those around him killed .sx He had never recovered from this experience , and Josef had had to take over his affairs and sell his business .sx Stefan had never married .sx He was tall , with a stooped back and thinning grey hair .sx He didn't look in the least Jewish .sx He spoke excellent German and English , and told me at length , as we sat together in the chilly gloom of a servants' pantry , of the kindness he and his nephew had received since arriving in England , and of the beauty of the English countryside .sx But his flat voice told me that he was uninterested in what he was saying , that he was performing a duty and couldn't be bothered to disguise the fact .sx All the time , the boy gazed solemnly at us .sx He seemed to be hanging on our every word , though when I asked him questions in English and German , he didn't appear to understand either .sx That was the last I saw of the Treiber uncle and nephew .sx