Weaver

XIV

21 October

The convoy bowled along the Hastings road.

Heinz Kieser was driving the staff car. He was relaxed, the top buttons of his uniform open, but Ernst thought he was pushing up too close to the truck ahead of them. And he insisted on having the top down, although the day was blustery and overcast. Viv had her scarf tied tightly over her head, to try to keep her hair from blowing all over the place.

Beside his sister in the back seat, Alfie leaned forward. 'Can't this old bucket go any faster, Ernst?'

Heinz snapped at him, 'You shut your mouth. And speak respectfully to the officer.'

Alfie flinched back, shocked. He looked small and very young in his Jugend uniform. But he said bravely enough, 'He's not an officer. He's an obergefreiter, and so are you.'

Heinz, barely understanding, scowled at Ernst. 'What?… Just shut up, boy, or-'

Ernst said, 'Enough. Sit quiet, Alfie.'

'Yes, Ernst.'

Heinz shook his head, and said in German, 'Wretched little kid.'

'There's no need to speak to them like that, Heinz. Not these two.'

'Are you joking? We're an occupying army, not kindergarten teachers!'

'Look, Alfie has joined the Jugend and Vivien is learning the language, and they've both been given a Tuesday off school for Trafalgar Day. I mean, what more can you ask of them? We're building an empire here. We must win the hearts of the next generation. And the way to do that isn't by bullying kids.'

'"Win the hearts."' Heinz laughed. 'You do talk some shit, Ernst.' He grinned and glanced at Viv in his mirror. 'You know the talk is still that you're giving that little sweetie lessons in more than German. Oh, come on, Ernst, you must see how it looks. All the lads are saying it.'

'All the lads are wrong, then, aren't they?'

'Look, we all make this sort of arrangement. I, for example, have an agreement with a lady in Rye. Her husband is a "conchy, as the English say, a conscientious objector. He ended up in prison, up in London, and that's where he still is as far as my friend knows. Let's call her "Mrs X.'

'Let's!'

'Now she has a bad time of it. The English being the English, they despise her for her husband's cowardice far more than they despise us. So they won't help her in all the small give-and-take ways that make life bearable. Not just the black market – nobody will dig her potatoes for her in return for her baking a cake, that sort of thing. And she has a kid, a boy of about ten. Hungry all the time! So it's hard for her.'

Ernst had heard something of this; not all the barracks gossip was about him. 'So you exploit her.'

'No, not at all. I help her out with the ration. Sometimes a bit of chocolate for the kid, that sort of thing. I tell the lads to go easy when they come requisitioning from her little ploughed-up garden.'

'And in return?'

He grinned. 'Let me tell you about Mrs X. She's older than us, Ernst. Late thirties. But she's a strong-looking woman, tall, with a rangy frame. Dark hair, dark eyes. A certain quality, a sad autumnal beauty. And deep, heavy breasts.' He took his hands off the wheel to mime this.

Ernst glanced back uneasily at the children. Cowed, they looked away.

Heinz said, 'We all do it. And I mean, if not for that, why do you stay with these people in their miserable farmhouse? Look, I'm not mocking you, Ernst. I really want to know.'

'I feel responsible, Heinz. It's something like that.'

Heinz laughed. 'Responsible for what? You didn't order Sea Lion.'

'No. But that wretched family has been torn apart. They wouldn't be if we weren't here, would they?'

'These two seem to be embracing the occupation readily enough.'

'I think they're looking for stability,' Ernst said. 'Their mother and father are barely speaking, and the baby- let's just say, I think these two look to me as a pole of order.'

'Ha! There you go again. You take yourself too seriously, you know, Ernst. Obergefreiter Trojan, the successor to Nietzsche! Come on. Stop thinking so hard, and just give the girl a seeing-to. I can see she's longing for it. And probably you are too.'

But there, at least, Heinz was wrong, Ernst thought. He had the latest letter from Claudine in his jacket pocket. He could feel its sharp corners pressing through his shirt to his skin, this little artefact that had been sent from her hands to his. And after the celebrations were done for Trafalgar Day, the latest in the military government's endless stream of 'morale-boosting' memorial days, he had every hope that he would be able to fulfil the arrangement he had made with her, to slip away before the curfew and-

There was an explosion up ahead, a sharp crack. The truck ahead of them stopped suddenly, and Heinz had to brake. Ernst was thrown forward.

'Shit,' Heinz said.

'I told you we were driving too close.'

There was a rattle of brisk orders, all in German. Ernst saw troopers, Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, jumping down from the lorries. The vehicles began to rumble forward, but only so they could be pulled off the road.

Heinz leaned out of the car, trying to see ahead. 'What do you think that was, a Woolworth bomb?' An auxiliary special, a bit of gelignite in a biscuit tin.

'Could be.'

'Bloody auxiliaries. We might be here for hours while they search the ditches.' Waiting for room to move forward, Heinz dug a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his vest pocket. They were Camels, an American brand, and Ernst wondered how he had got hold of them. 'Smoke?' Ernst took a cigarette, and tucked it behind his ear. Heinz turned to the children, and forced a smile. 'You?' he said in English.

Alfie, still nervous, grinned and said, 'Ta.' He leaned forward and took a cigarette.

Viv was shocked. 'Alfie, Mum will kill you. Tell him, Ernst.'

'How's she going to know? You have a light, Herr Obergefreiter?'

Heinz laughed and struck a match.

There was another crump, and more shouts. A blunt, ugly shell went sailing over the column from right to left, landing harmlessly in a wheat field.

'That's a spigot mortar,' Heinz snapped.

'Get down,' Ernst said to Viv and Alfie. He made them crouch in the belly of the car.

There was another boom, the whistle of another shell, and an explosion this time. There were angry shouts in German, and the pop of rifle fire.