Weaver

XXX

25 September

'Morning, ladies.' Unteroffizier Fischer came stomping through the lounge bar, his boots clattering on the pub's straw-strewn stone floor. He yanked open curtains with his gloved hands, pulling one so hard it came away from its hooks. The window was a rectangle of blue-grey. 'It's Wednesday morning, and you're still in England.'

The men under their army blankets stirred, like huge slugs. Their boots and rifles were stacked against the bar walls.

Ernst glanced at the big railway clock on the wall. Five in the morning, English time. He groaned. He heard a distant rumble, like thunder. Chances were it wasn't a storm. He sat up, rubbing his face. 'Today's the day, is it, Unteroffizier? The break-out.'

'That's the idea, Trojan. You pretty boys will have the privilege of following Seventh Panzer out of here, all the way from Uckfield to Guildford.'

'Where on God's earth is Guildford?'

'I don't even know where Uckfield is.'

'I'll tell you where Guildford is, Kieser. It's on OKH Objective One, our first operational objective. And if, when, we reach it today, we'll have achieved in five days what the Fuhrer's plan called for in ten. And then we will be out of this hedgehog country where there's a partisan in every piss-pot, and we will let the Panzers loose and it will be like France all over again.'

'We'll all get medals,' said Kieser.

'I'll pin yours on myself. Personally I would like to see Oxford. Now shift your pretty arses, we form up in half an hour.' He stomped out.

The men stirred, sitting up and pushing back their blankets. The rotting-feet stink and stale farts that had been trapped under the blankets filled the air. Kieser waved a hand. 'By Christ, lads. Fuhrer directive forty-seven. Soldiers of the Twenty-sixth Division shouldn't light a fag in the mornings.'

The men moved slowly. They all knew Fischer was a bit soft, and you could grab a few more minutes' kip with impunity.

Ernst got to his feet. He was in his shorts and vest and socks, and he picked up a kit bag containing his razor and a bit of soap. He stepped over the bodies of the stirring men, making for the door. The floor was sticky with stale beer. This pub, in this place called Uckfield, had been a big disappointment to the men billeted here. Some English bastard had stolen all the spirits and taken an axe to the barrels behind the bar. 'These English partisans fight dirty,' Unteroffizier Fischer had said.

Ernst pushed out of the bar room into fresh, cold air. There was already a queue outside the lavatory, four or five men in their grubby underwear with towels around their necks, rubbing their arms to get warm. The paving stones were slick with dew, and Ernst took off his woollen socks and tucked them into the elastic waist of his pants. Better wet feet than wet socks.

He heard a distant explosion. It came from his right, the south, back towards the coast. When he looked that way there was a fading glow.

'That was a big one,' somebody grumbled. 'Must be fifteen miles away.'

Ernst heard a rumble of engines. Looking up he saw planes crossing the sky, very high, without lights, just silhouettes against the steel grey, like cardboard cut-outs, flying north to south.

'Old Goering will swat those fuckers like flies,' somebody said, yawning.

'But he was supposed to have got rid of the RAF by now.'

'Nothing to do with us, lads,' said the man at the head of the queue. He hammered on the toilet door. 'What are you doing in there, Wilhelm? We're freezing our balls off.'

More planes swept over, all of them coming from the north, wave after wave of them, without a challenge from any Luftwaffe planes, or a single anti-aircraft shot being fired.