20 September
So they gathered, on a dull Friday morning, in the stuffy parlour of George Tanner’s little terraced house in the Old Town of Hastings.
When Mary came downstairs, a sheaf of her research papers under her arm, she found George, Ben Kamen, Gary and Hilda standing side by side. They all held cups of tea in saucers, rather stiffly. The windows were taped, and buckets of sand stood in the corners. Everybody was in uniform save Mary, George in his copper’s jacket, Gary and Hilda in the colours of the British Army and Air Force respectively, and even Ben Kamen, a bit crumpled, in the Army-like khaki of the Home Guard. It would have made a good group portrait, Mary reflected, thinking like a journalist.
Gary and Hilda hung back, shyly. ‘Oh, a card came for you today, Mary.’ George picked it off the mantelpiece and handed it to her. She glanced at it; it was a postcard, addressed to her in a round, unfamiliar handwriting.
Ben was eager to speak to Mary, and he stepped forward. ‘Mary, Hilda said you found out something?’
Mary glanced at Gary and Hilda. ‘We can talk about it later. But, briefly, I dug up a lot of stuff in Colchester, following the lead you gave me about Geoffrey Cotesford. Take a look at this.’ She handed him her sheaf of documents, some copied from the archive she’d visited at Colchester, some her own notes.
Ben read hastily: “Time’s Tapestry: As mapped by myself; in which the long warp threads are the history of the whole world; and the wefts which run from selvedge to selvedge are distortions of that history, deflected by a Weaver unknown; be he human, divine or satanic ... Oh, my.’
‘This is getting very strange,’ Mary said. ‘We need to talk.’
‘Yeah, but not right now, Mom, Jeez,’ Gary said, breaking his silence at last. ‘Look - we don’t have much time. You know I’m being mobilised today. We want to give you time to get used to the idea before, well, before we all go off to our separate duties.’
George looked baffled. ‘What idea?’
Gary hesitated, the silence stretching. Mary’s heart pulsed with pride to see him standing there in his crisp uniform with his crimson-haired girl at his side, even if she ached to think of the damage this war had already done to him.
And Mary suddenly knew why she had been brought here. ‘You’ve gone and done it, haven’t you?’
Ben was grinning. ‘Gary, you dog.’
George snapped, ‘Done what? Will somebody tell me—’
Hilda lifted her left hand. The ring on her finger was a simple gold band. ‘It was my mother’s,’ she said. She faced her father defiantly. ‘Look, Dad, it was all a rush. We didn’t even decide to do it until last Friday, when Gary’s orders came through, and we knew we were running out of time. And then we went to the town hall, and found a registrar who was prepared to see to us on the spot—’
‘See to you,’ Ben said mockingly.
‘Shut up, Ben,’ Gary said mildly.
Hilda said, ‘Dad, we wanted you there, of course we did. And you, Mary. But we didn’t want to lose this chance before - you know. In case we didn’t get another go. And besides—’
‘And besides,’ Mary said drily, ‘you thought if you told us in advance we might have said no. Well, you’re not the only wartime bride, are you?’
Gary looked at her uncertainly. ‘Are you happy for us?’
‘Oh, love, of course I am.’ She crossed to him and hugged him, smelling the pungent scent of his new khaki uniform. ‘It’s a shock. But we live in a world of shocks, don’t we?’
Hilda turned to her father. ‘Dad? What about you?’
George’s face was hard. ‘Well, you haven’t given me much choice in the matter, have you? Gary, you’re a good boy, anybody can see that. But, Hilda - your mother’s ring - and you didn’t even tell me!’
Hilda’s face was set. ‘Yes, well, this is why, I knew how you’d be.’
As tempers soured, Ben shrank back, dismayed.
The telephone rang in the hall. It made George jump. It had only been installed a few weeks earlier, for his job; he hadn’t owned a phone before. ‘Excuse me.’ He walked out stiffly, retreating into his role, more uniform than man.
‘He’ll come around,’ Mary said.’
‘Yes,’ Ben said. ‘It’s just a shock, that’s all. I’m shocked.’
Gary grinned. ‘We’ll do something about it when we get the time - after the war, if we have to wait that long. We’ll have a reception - maybe we’ll try to have a church ceremony, if we can find a tame padre to do it.’
‘You’ll be a war hero by then,’ Ben said. ‘Um, do you think you could stand a Jewish best man? ...’ He had a complicated look on his face, Mary thought, as if he was trying too hard to be pleased. She knew he was close to Gary; she wondered if he was somehow jealous.
George came back into the room. His face was grey; he looked old. ‘Cromwell,’ he said simply.
Ben flinched. Hilda grabbed Gary’s hand.
Mary asked, ‘What does that mean?’
Ben said to her, ‘It’s a code word. The invasion.’
Mary took a moment to absorb this. In these last minutes, somehow she had forgotten the war, and now here it was intruding. ‘I thought it wasn’t going to happen,’ she found herself saying. ‘It’s too late in the season for the weather. The RAF and the Navy are too strong. That’s what they’ve been saying on the BBC. Could it be a mistake?’
Gary said, ‘We have to get out of here.’
George faced his daughter. ‘Hilda—’
‘Later, Dad,’ she snapped, still angry. ‘I think you’ve said all there is to say for now.’ And she stalked out of the room. Gary hugged his mother quickly, then he hurried out after Hilda. George and Ben followed.
Only Mary had no post to man, no obvious duty to fulfil, nowhere to go. She stood in the empty room, marvelling at how her whole world could be turned upside down by a single word.
She was still holding the postcard. It had got crumpled when she had hugged Gary. She turned it over dully. It was from Doris Keeler, the young ARP warden who had been so kind to her during the air raid back in August. They had stayed in touch since, with cards and a couple of letters, sharing their experiences. Now, Mary read, Doris had had a letter from the headquarters of the Children’s Overseas Reception Bureau. On Tuesday evening the SS City of Benares, carrying refugee children bound for North America, had been torpedoed. ‘Forgive me for writing like this out of the blue as they say with such an awful shock and I know you never knew Jenny but I’m writing to tell everybody I can think of ...’ Mary imagined her, alone in her home without her POW husband and lost child, scribbling card after card, obsessively.
Somewhere a church bell started to chime, the first church bell Mary had heard in England for months. And then an air raid siren coughed and wailed.
X
Ernst sat in a crowd, all of them men of the Twenty-sixth Division of the Ninth Army, on the road above Boulogne’s harbour wall. His pack was heavy on his back, and his rifle gleamed in his hands, polished until it shone. The men sat about, smoking gloomily, complaining about their officers, swapping stories about French women and wine, and tending to their feet - doing what soldiers always did. Ernst’s Wehrmacht uniform was stiffly laundered, made smart for England. The men had dreaded these hours of waiting at their embarkation points, for they, and indeed the waiting fleet, were so obviously vulnerable to air attack. But there had been no sign of the RAF. Perhaps Goering had at last done what he promised, and beaten back Britain’s planes for the day.
It was misty and cold. This was S-Day Minus One, the eve of Sea Lion Day itself. Ernst was looking out to sea. And before him an astounding spectacle unfolded.
Beyond the harbour the sea was crowded with ships. Heavy steamships glided in the deeper water, shadows on the sea, laden with stores and the vehicles of the motorised units. Smaller vessels plied the nearer waters, motor-boats and fishing smacks and even a few rowing boats. There were some exotic craft, such as the new varieties of assault
boats like the one Josef had played with, and ‘Herbert ferries’, actually sections of pontoon bridges fitted with motors, stable and massive enough to carry over a complete anti-aircraft unit. All these specialised craft had been designed and built in the fever-pitch hurry of this invasion summer.
But it was the barges themselves that were the most remarkable sight. Many of them had already been towed out of the harbour, and they were forming up in great columns, convoys miles long. Black smoke rose in threads from the steamers that dragged them. There had been no rehearsal for this immense choreography of wood and iron and military force, for none had been possible.
And then yet another wave of planes went roaring overhead, sweeping out to sea: Messerschmitts and Junkers and Stuka bombers, ploughing determinedly towards England, to beat off the RAF and the Royal Navy, and to soften up the landing sites. A wave of Ju-52 transports followed, bearing paratroopers to begin the invasion from the air.
It was a magnificent spectacle, he told himself: a conjunction of forces, on land, at sea and in the air, the largest invasion across this ocean since the Romans. He would write a book about it one day. But for now Ernst felt very small, very vulnerable, a tiny disregarded piece of a vast machinery.
And somehow none of it seemed real. After the months of playful training, all the saloon-bar arguments about the relative strengths of navies and air forces and the sea-going capabilities of river barges, suddenly the order had come. It was strange to sit here and share a cigarette with a man, trying to believe that by this time tomorrow you might be in England, and there was a good chance that either he would be dead, or you would, or both, trying to believe this was serious, not just another exercise.
And here, out of nowhere, came Josef. He strode along the harbour wall, his black SS uniform standing out against the camouflage green battle dress. The men glared at him, or deliberately ignored him. Traditionalists in the Army had never accepted the SS. But Josef rose above it all. When he spotted his brother he beckoned.
Ernst glanced at his obergefreiter, who shrugged, his head wreathed in cigarette smoke. Ernst slipped his arms out of his pack, leaving it on the ground, and stood and crossed to Josef.
‘Brother.’ Josef shook his hand warmly. Then he studied Ernst’s face. ‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me.’
‘I’m pleased enough.’ He glanced back at his unit. ‘It’s just, I don’t know, I feel like a junior worker in a factory favoured by the manager.’ In fact, that was the aura Josef gave off, with his strutting about in his glamorous uniform. But then, Ernst thought, 1940 was a good year to be a Nazi with ambition.
‘Never mind these jealous dolts.’ Josef said this loudly so the others could hear. ‘Look, you should appreciate me being here. I’ve been pretty busy these last hours.’
‘Doing what? Shagging that English girl?’
He laughed. ‘No. Planning. Preparing. You must be aware of the detail involved in an operation like this. The Fuhrer’s final commit order has been broken down in the planning until we are visualising every footfall of every soldier on every beach. As for Julia, don’t mock her. She, and the rest of her Legion of St George, will be crossing in the second wave with me. I have a feeling Julia Fiveash is going to be very useful to us in the days of the occupation to come.’
‘She’s as mad as a rabid stoat.’
‘You’re much too cynical, Ernst. Look, I found you because Mother would want to know that we shook hands at least before we parted for England.’
Ernst was touched. ‘Well, that’s true. Thank you for finding me.’
‘Not that that was easy, in a mob like this. Now listen to me, Gefreiter Ernst. You are caught up in the detail, you will be a mere pebble on those shingle beaches. But you must see the bigger picture. The Fuhrer has determined that Churchill will never be reasonable, that England must be eliminated from the war - and that we have just enough to make Sea Lion work. And so by the force of his personality he has brought his great generals together for the project. Even Goering!’ He waved a hand. ‘And now we are ready; you can see it. Goering has beaten back the RAF, just enough. The Kriegsmarine with its barriers of mines and purloined French ships can keep the Channel clear for the crossing, just enough. Even the weather is behaving itself - just! And so the Fuhrer has ordered that we go. Within six weeks we will have half a million men in England, the British army, weakened by Dunkirk, will be scattered, and Churchill will be suing for peace, if he has not been deposed or shot.’
Ernst said, ‘Six weeks? In the ranks it is said that the Panzers will run out of petrol in three days.’
Josef snorted. ‘I believe there is petrol in England.’ He gripped his brother’s shoulder. ‘Listen to me. We will find each other tomorrow or the next day, the two of us, brothers on English soil. Yes?’
The obergefreiter nudged Ernst. ‘Hey, Trojan. Smile for the camera.’
A truck was driving along the length of the sea wall, with a camera crew set up in the back, and a woman shouting directions. It was Leni Riefenstahl, who had followed the Nazis from Nuremberg to Poland, and now to the edge of the sea. The men waved and shouted cheerful obscenities.
More planes thundered overhead, in layers stacked up tall in the air, so many of them that they turned the grey afternoon sky black.
XI
Once the raid started it went on and on, the planes rumbling across the sky, and the little shelter shuddered and rattled as the bombs slammed into the carcass of the town. Mary supposed the whole south coast was getting it, a final softening-up before the invasion forces landed.
Oddly she wasn’t afraid. She had lived through too many raids.
When the others had gone running off to their posts, Mary had pulled on an overcoat, collected her bag and gas-mask, and went down to George Tanner’s Anderson shelter. She got there just before the first planes came over. George had made the shelter a bright little place, like a den. He had painted the interior white, lined it with canvas to keep out the damp, and brought in blankets and deck chairs and a wireless set. There was even a camping stove to make a cup of tea. But the wireless delivered only static. Maybe the raids had knocked out the transmitting towers, silencing the BBC.
She had been back to the house a couple of times, trying to remember what needed to be done. She’d turned off the lights, switched off the gas, and filled sinks and the bathtub with water in case the mains got cut off. She had her briefcase with her research materials, and she packed a small rucksack with clothes and bathroom stuff. But then it was back to the shelter. She felt useless stuck down here, contributing nothing.
There were safer places to be than this. The best shelter in Hastings was a system of caves called St Clement’s, which had been fixed up to hold a few hundred. And it would be safer yet to get out of town altogether and head off inland, where she could evade both the bombs today and, presumably, the stormtroopers that were likely to land here tomorrow.
But she didn’t want to leave the house. This was the last point where they had all been together, she and her son, his new wife and her father, and even poor sweet Ben. She wished she had thought to arrange a way they could contact each other.
It occurred to her that even if the house was bombed flat, as seemed highly likely right this minute, the Anderson shelter might survive. Here, then. She scrabbled in her bag for her lipstick. It was an American brand, and she used it sparingly; cosmetics were just one item in desperately short supply over here. She made an experimental mark on the white-painted wall. The lipstick was bright red; you couldn’t miss it, and, in the interior of the shelter, it wasn’t likely to get washed off or rubbed away.
But where should she tell them to meet? Nowhere in Hastings itself; the place would be crawling with Germans if they landed. Somewhere nearby, somewhere memorable. She held up her lipstick, and wrote clearly:
MEET AT BATTLE. MW 20/9/40.
It was just as she dropped the lipstick back in her bag that the big bomb fell.
XII
&nb
sp; Ben and Hilda had driven off in Mary’s car, her rented Austin Seven. Hilda had to get to her radar station, and Ben to his Home Guard assignment at Pevensey.
With Hilda at the wheel they barrelled along the coast road, heading west through Bexhill and onwards. They drove past the long fortified beaches with their huge coils of barbed wire and emplacements of superannuated Navy guns. The traffic was heavy, as the men of the Home Guard and the army detachments struggled to get to their pillboxes and machine-gun nests, and WAAFs and Wrens hurried to their naval gun emplacements. But the road was clogged with civilians, fleeing from the towns. There were a few cars, and carts drawn by horses and donkeys, amid files of pedestrians pushing prams and wheelbarrows heaped up with luggage and furniture. All of this got in the way of the military vehicles, and of the ambulances straining to get through.
Overhead, a war was being fought out in the air, Messerschmitts and Spitfires and Hurricanes tearing into each other over fleets of German bombers. Nobody looked up to watch.
Hilda grunted and swore as she rammed the car through the clogged traffic. Ben could see the ring on her finger, her mother’s ring, just a little too big for her; Hilda, focused, seemed to have forgotten it was there.
‘So, Pevensey,’ she said. ‘We’ll reach my radar station first.’
‘I can drive on from there. I’m a lousy driver, but I know the way.’
‘It’s an observation post, yes?’
‘And a defensive point, and a headquarters ... There are a bunch of Canadians there. They fortified the old castle. I’m surprised your radar station is still operational.’
She glanced at him. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter if I tell you now. The RAF is withdrawing, moving the fighters back from the forward bases. They’ll operate from deeper inland now. Before sunset we’ll have to decommission my station. Scrap the gear if we can’t bring it back out of the threatened zone. Well, here we are.’
She lurched off the road, throwing Ben sideways.
An unprepossessing station lay ahead, locked behind a fence of barbed wire. Ben glimpsed masts, seven or eight of them, hundreds of feet high, and blocky buildings. The station had already taken damage, Ben saw; part of the fence had blown down.
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