Weaver

by Baxter, Stephen

  ‘Mrs Wooler, you are the historian - it is here that Harold fell?’

  ‘As best anybody knows. I mean, William wanted his church consecrated here, with the high altar right on that spot, even though it wasn’t a too convenient place for an abbey. It has no water supply; it needed a hell of a lot of terracing. So here it must be that Harold fell; there’s no reason to have built here otherwise.’

  The SS officer walked around the unremarkable piece of ground. ‘How astonishing.’ He smiled, at Julia, George, Mary, the soldiers who discreetly shadowed them. ‘Then on this spot I give you my pledge. I want you to write this down, Mrs Wooler, so that it may be transmitted to the world, and to posterity.’

  Mary stared at him. Then she fumbled in her pockets for a pen and a bit of paper.

  Trojan declaimed, ‘We of the SS have come here not for conquest. We come to liberate England, a nation with proud Aryan roots, from the subjugation of the Latin conquerors. And we come to avenge the illegal murder of King Harold. I, Josef Trojan, swear by my mother’s life that I will not rest until that historic catastrophe is put right, and the Aryan destiny of England restored.’ He glanced at Mary. ‘Did you get that? Was my English adequate?’

  ‘You Nazis really are as crazy as they say, aren’t you?’

  George held his breath.

  But Trojan just laughed. ‘Oh, not crazy, Mrs Wooler. I mean my promise to be taken literally - and it will be fulfilled, literally. You will see.’ He snapped his fingers, and to George’s astonishment the Wehrmacht driver produced a bunch of flowers, late roses, purloined who knew how. Trojan scattered the flowers on the spot where the last English king had fallen. ‘For Harold Godwineson!’ He shouted the name, and it rang through the English dusk.

  XXV

  By Sunday night the POWs reached Bexhill, from where they were to be moved on by truck.

  They were crammed into the trucks, some German military stock and others purloined farm wagons, maybe fifty men to a vehicle. There was no room to sit or lie down. Ben was stuck somewhere in the middle of the truck, surrounded by a forest of greatcoats that stank of cordite and mud and blood.

  The truck swayed as it drove, and he was thrown against the bodies of the others, and they against him. In the night it was pitch dark. There wasn’t even a glimmer of headlights to be seen; the Germans seemed to be operating under blackout rules. The prisoners had no food, no water. And of course there was no toilet. You just went where you stood, and after a while the floor of the truck swam with piss and shit and a few pools of vomit.

  He thought he slept a little. It was hard to tell. The journey had the quality of a nightmare.

  Once Ben slipped on a puddle of something, and would have fallen. But a beefy hand caught him under the arm, and hauled him back upright.

  ‘There you go, mate.’

  ‘Say, thanks, I was nearly down in the dirty stuff there.’

  ‘You’re all right. What accent’s that? Canadian?’

  It was the man who had tried to help him during the march. Ben could barely understand him, and couldn’t see the man’s face. ‘Um, I spent a few years in America. But I came from Austria originally.’

  To his surprise the man understood. ‘You a refugee from the Nazis, then? I saw plenty of them in France.’

  ‘You were with the BEF?’

  ‘Yep. Barely got out of that without my arse being blown up by Stuka bombers, and after five minutes over here I’ve been jugged. Not having a good year, am I?’

  ‘I guess not. I don’t recognise your accent. Are you Scottish?’

  ‘Not likely. I’m Scouse. From Liverpool. Used to be a house painter before the war.’

  ‘So did Hitler,’ someone said, and there was a rumble of weary laughter.

  ‘Danny,’ the Liverpudlian said. ‘Danny Adams.’

  ‘I’m Ben.’

  ‘You just hold on, Ben, you’ll be all right.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  When the dawn came the trucks jolted to a halt, and Ben was shaken awake. The backs of the trucks were opened up, and to German shouts the men jumped down to the ground. They were clumsy and stiff, and many fell, after a night spent standing up. But they helped each other, the fifty or so men in Ben’s truck. Within a few minutes they were all standing in a rough huddle, surrounded by German troopers with rifles, and dogs, three big Alsatians, on leads.

  ‘Bad news, lads,’ someone called on seeing the dogs. ‘They’ve shipped their girlfriends over.’ That was met with a snarl in German. ‘All right, Funf, keep your helmet on.’

  By the dawn light Ben tried to see what kind of place he had been brought to. He was in what seemed to be an open field, coated with green grass, on a raised rectangular scrap of ground. Truck wheels had churned the turf. The earth was cut up by grassy ditches, and the whole space was enclosed by a ruined wall. At the heart of the site Ben made out a concrete platform with the remains of a kind of cross structure embedded in it. Two Germans in the black uniform of the SS were strutting about this centrepiece, pointing at it with swagger sticks and gazing around at the site.

  The air was fresh; he could smell the sea. ‘Where the hell are we?’

  A murmur went around the men. One of them, a local, recognised the place. This was Richborough, at the very eastern extremity of Kent. Another old Roman ruin, now in the hands of the Nazis.

  A party of Germans came forward, laden with shovels. One of their officers put his hands on his hips and shouted at the POWs: ‘Welcome to your holiday camp, gentlemen. We must ask you to pay for your deposits by digging out your latrines.’ The soldiers threw the shovels on the floor.

  ‘Oh, good,’ said Danny Adams. ‘A German comedian. I feel better already.’

  The men moved forward, grumbling.

  XXVI

  23 September

  Mary was woken by a smart rap at the door, a German voice.

  A crack in the blackout curtains let her see her watch; it was six a.m. Oddly she remembered what day it was, a Monday. But not for the first time recently she had trouble remembering where she was.

  As an American, Standartenfuhrer Trojan had made it clear, she was an honoured guest. So on the Sunday night the Germans had given Mary this billet, a kind of store room in the school that had been built into Battle Abbey, a box with a few mops, a stink of bleach, and no furniture but a heap of English army blankets. But the power was on, and there was a bathroom nearby, with running water, thanks to the efficiency of the German engineers who had already restored the supply. Mary had been racked with guilt at the thought of the people she’d walked with, who were going to be spending the night out on the street. But there was nothing she could do for them, and, by God, she needed sleep. Now she washed quickly, used the toilet, and dressed and gathered up her shabby possessions.

  No later than a quarter past six, she stepped out of the room.

  The young German soldier waiting for her bowed. ‘Bitte.’

  She followed him out of the Abbey. It was a surreal experience, as if she were being escorted by a footman out of some old-fashioned hotel.

  In the grounds, a bus was waiting. It was a mundane sight, covered with advertising panels for Typhoo Tea and Bovril. Another young German soldier sat behind the wheel. There were a few people already aboard, and the engine was running. Evidently the bus was waiting for her.

  And here came Josef Trojan, brisk and smart in a fresh uniform. He bowed to her and reached out to take her hand, but she flinched back. ‘Mrs Wooler. I hope you slept well.’

  ‘I suppose I did. In the end exhaustion overwhelms everything else, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Indeed. As the armies of the English will discover in the next few days. We have provided transport for you, as you can see. Along with these others, who also have reasons to be protected.’

  ‘Where will we be taken?’

  ‘Only a few miles north-west of here, to a place called - ah’ - he checked a schedule - ‘Hurst Green. This is on the current line held by Army Group A,
which we call the covering line. Do you understand?’

  ‘You’re taking me out of the occupied territory.’

  ‘Exactly. We have been in contact with the British military authorities, over this and other matters. It is all very civilised, as you can see. At Hurst Green you will be collected by a bus to take you to, ah, Tunbridge Wells. And from then on you are free to travel on to London or wherever you wish.’ He smiled at her. ‘Personally I hope you will remain in Britain, and continue to report for your audience in the United States on the civilising progress we intend to make here in England, as in Europe. Now you must forgive me, Mrs Wooler, I have appointments. Please board the bus; you will be quite safe.’

  What choice did she have? And, she had to admit, a large part of her longed to be out of this damn war zone.

  None of the handful of people on the bus met Mary’s eye. They were mostly women, some quite expensively dressed, and a couple of men, youngish, who sat near the front. What had they done to deserve this privileged treatment? Were they more foreign nationals, or collaborators of some kind?

  The driver settled at his wheel. A second German soldier sat behind him with a weapon across his lap. The bus pulled out, turned, and rolled through the gatehouse.

  As they passed through Battle Mary saw that the people she had walked with, after a night out in the open, were being prodded to their feet by German soldiers. She couldn’t bear to look for long; she turned away in shame.

  It was not yet seven a.m.

  XXVII

  George set off for work at the town hall. He was due at eight a.m.

  It was a bright September day, a Monday morning, sunny and clear, with just a hint of chill in the air. There were no planes in the sky, and the noise of the war was distant. The only vehicles on the roads, dodging heaps of rubble, were German trucks. A bakery was, astonishingly, open, and a lengthy queue had formed, mostly old folk, all clutching their ration books. A couple of nervous-looking German soldiers watched them, rifles hanging from their shoulders. The town stank of sewage and dust, but the breeze off the sea was fresh, and he thought he could just detect the wood-smoke smell of autumn leaves.

  He felt as if he was floating. He wasn’t sure he’d slept a wink.

  And he’d been got out of bed by a phone call from the mayor, news about the invasion. Since dawn, elements of the Germans’ second echelon had been landing, all along the coast. Their losses were ferocious, the Navy and RAF pounding away, worse probably than the first wave. But nevertheless some of them were getting through. And they were managing to land their tanks and heavy equipment at ports like Folkestone, though their engineers had to clear the harbours of rubble. ‘Things will get worse before they get better, George,’ Harry Burdon had said gloomily.

  George’s head was spinning after all that had happened. The worst of it was worry for his daughter, his little girl in her WAAF uniform, caught up in the middle of a lethal conflict. He’d heard nothing of her since Friday, when they had parted in the middle of a row. But he had his duty to fulfil. He took deep breaths of the fresh air, trying to clear his thoughts.

  When he got to the town hall the mayor was just arriving. He was carrying a suitcase. ‘Morning, George. Sleep well?’

  ‘As well as can be expected, I suppose, Harry. You?’

  ‘Tossed and turned. That bonkers business at the Abbey.’

  ‘Why the suitcase?’

  ‘Well, I’m moving in. Orders of the SS. Me and my family. They don’t use the word “hostages but that’s what it amounts to.’

  ‘Hmm. We have to behave or you come to harm, is that the idea?’

  ‘That’s it. Of course since no bugger cared for me before the war I’m in a pickle, aren’t I?’ He smiled, but it was forced.

  ‘It’s bloody, Harry.’

  A German truck drove up. A couple of soldiers got out, quite young, one bespectacled, talking rapidly. They hauled cardboard file boxes out of the back of the truck and walked up to the door, still talking. They entirely ignored Burdon and George, until they realised that the door was closed. Then they broke off and stared at the two of them.

  George said, ‘Let me—’

  ‘No, no,’ the mayor said, red-faced. He pulled the door back and held it while the two Germans passed through, without further acknowledgement.

  George murmured, ‘It’s going to be a long day.’

  Harry Burdon plucked George’s sleeve. ‘Listen, George,’ he murmured, ‘Never mind little pricks like those two. There’s a bit more news.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘Never you mind. Churchill’s talking to the Americans. There may be some kind of deal. That’s what I’ve heard. We’re not done yet, lad.’

  Harry Burdon was a round, sleek sort of man, tall and a bit overweight, with a full head of greying hair and a penchant for old-fashioned waistcoats and fob watches. He looked like a munificent businessman from Victorian times: competent, solid, successful in his modest way, willing to give something back through his elected office. And yet now, behind Harry’s unprepossessing figure, George glimpsed a shadow world of secret communications channels - covert phone lines, wireless sets tucked behind panelled walls. He was a man who knew who to trust. And he was a man who was preparing to accept the grim realities of his own new position, as hostage and servant of the new authority, and do what he believed was his duty.

  ‘Thanks, Harry,’ George said warmly.

  ‘Just keep your pecker up. Now come on, let’s get on with it.’

  Inside the town hall the Germans were already hard at work. They were appropriating offices and setting up their own trestle tables in the hallway.

  ‘Efficient, aren’t they?’ Burdon said.

  ‘This year the Germans have had plenty of practice at the art of occupation.’ It was Julia Fiveash, walking towards them. ‘And they seem to have an instinct for paperwork. Of course these particular fellows know this is a cushy job compared to fighting on the front line, and they’ll go at it the more enthusiastically for that ...’

  She was beautiful, you could never deny that, with that shock of blonde hair swept back from a fine face, and a smile like a film star. The crisp SS uniform on an athletic body only set off that beauty. She had an unhealthy appeal, George thought, a deadly allure. But, he reminded himself, she was English, an upper-crust over-privileged Englishwoman in that black Nazi uniform, here to lord it over her own people.

  George said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mayor, Unterscharfuhrer, I should report to my station—’

  ‘Oh, I think you should stay right where you are, Constable,’ Julia said evenly. ‘Standartenfuhrer Trojan specifically requested your presence. He liked you, I think.’

  George growled, ‘Why?’

  ‘For the way you did your job - and for that very lower-class English surliness.’ She laughed at him. ‘He believes you are a man with whom he can do business. Although he thinks you deserve a decent rank - sergeant, perhaps. I’m sure we can fix that for you. Marvellous, isn’t it, the way war opens up opportunities? Perhaps we should talk in your office, Mayor Burdon?’

  Harry Burdon led the way. Julia and George followed.

  Julia said, walking, ‘I need to impress on you both the importance of the work you will be doing here. The military commanders are not interested in running Hastings. They prefer to manage the town through you, through the appropriate local authority. Do you see? There is a great deal to be done; I’m sure you are aware of that. The first priority is to restore the harbour, such as it is. And to requisition the fishing fleet.’

  ‘For landing supplies,’ Burdon guessed.

  ‘That’s it. The estimate is that nine thousand tons a day will have to be imported from the continent in the first days of the occupation. Much of it will come through the larger ports, but Hastings will play a part too.’

  They had to be desperate if they were relying on a tiny port like Hastings. And as it happened George knew the fishermen along the Stade had already sabotaged th
e winches that hauled their boats up the sharply sloping beach.

  ‘After that we must consider the needs of the civilian population. The restoration of food supplies for one thing, accompanied by an appropriate system of rationing. Water, power, gas. We’re aware that many citizens who fled to the countryside will surely soon return. We must prepare for them. And so on.

  ‘The first step in all this is to gather information. That is the German way: everything orderly, everything thoroughly legal. Now. You hold census records here? And of course there is the identity card system. We will need a record of every inhabitant currently in situ in the town.’

  George glared at her. ‘What for? Work gangs? Looking for Jews, are you?’

  Harry snapped, ‘George.’

  Julia stopped and turned to George. ‘Josef was right. You really are a feisty one, aren’t you, Constable?’

  And she stepped closer to him, breaking an intangible boundary of separation. The polished buttons on her uniform brushed his chest, and he could smell her fresh breath, a smell like apples about her hair. He was almost trembling. He was twenty years older; he could have been her father; she was everything he despised, about the English as well as the Germans. But, by Christ, she caused a heat in his loins he hadn’t felt for a long time.

  She knew exactly what she was doing to him. She laughed in his face. ‘I think it’s going to be a pleasure working with you, Constable - George, is it? - I really do.’ She stepped back, mercifully. ‘But for now your duty is to fetch me a coffee.’

  There was a roar, and the building shook. George turned. An immense shadow passed the half-open door. Somewhere a German cheered. And then another shadow passed, another engine’s roar, and another.

  ‘It is the second wave,’ Julia said. ‘Landing all along the coast. Panzers, George! Panzers, on English soil. Now we will see some fun. Come, we have work to do. The first priority is to assemble work parties who will transport rubble from the town to fill craters in the airfield runways ...’ She stalked away.