Bombers fly over an unnamed German city during the course of an hour in July 1944. As they discharge their bombs, far below, in the midst of the inferno, an elderly couple trapped in their apartment try to live out their last moments with dignity. Elsewhere, a man searches desperately for his son, only to run into a troop of drunken soldiers. And as hundreds of civilians wait in an air-raid shelter, an American pilot drifts gently down on his parachute, unaware that he is about to join them. Based on Gert Ledig's experiences of air raids on Germany, and first published in 1956, Payback paints a savage and unflinching picture of the realities of warfare for ordinary men and women. Its recent reissue in Germany marked the start of a much publicized rediscovery of the author's works.