by Owen Sheers
The show had come as a welcome distraction for George. Over the past months his life had, within the confines of the occupation, reverted almost entirely to its prewar familiarity of farmwork and boredom. He was no longer an active member of the Auxiliary Units Special Duties Section. He was just his father’s son again, a local farm boy, twenty-one years old but looking seventeen. To make it worse he was also increasingly the butt of the odd angry aside or bitter joke. After all, what had he ever done? Wriggled his way out of conscription then never even joined the Home Guard. No girl would look at him. He’d done nothing in the face of the war other than work on the farm, that’s what they thought. Nothing. And yet George knew he would have given everything. He’d followed Atkins’s orders to the letter. For months after the German troops arrived he’d regularly visited the agreed fallback position of an old barn on a hill two miles from his home. This, Atkins had decided, would be where he and the others would meet should the network of messages be disrupted. George never knew who these others were. He didn’t need to and it was safer not to, that had been Atkins’s line. And he still didn’t. Despite his frequent visits he’d never found anyone or anything at the barn, other than bats in its eaves and, once, a sick ewe sheltering from the rain.
In the meantime he’d had to live and work under the eyes of the occupation troops while also witnessing a general slide towards mass collaboration. It seemed impossible for people not to. They had to eat, after all, and they had to earn money. The Germans, meanwhile, controlled the food supplies, handed out the ration tickets, and were the only ones with cash to spend. George had seen them walking through the streets of Abergavenny, cruising the local shops, jingling the loose change in their pockets. He’d watched the shopkeepers attend to them, eager-eyed and keen. He’d even seen his own sister laugh as she served a group of young recruits, joking with them over their bad English. “They’re no different from you,” she’d said when he’d told her she shouldn’t behave like that. “If we’d won, our boys,” (she didn’t say him, he noticed) “would be over there doin’ the same. They’re harmless, George, these ones. Just children really.”
But the Germans were not harmless, everyone knew that. London was a shell of a city. Gutted, starved, shattered, more of a ruin than a capital. St. Paul’s, the Palace of Westminster, the Royal Albert Hall, Westminster Cathedral, even Buckingham Palace. None of London’s landmarks had escaped the bombing and shelling of that long winter siege. Its population had halved, scattered or killed. Elsewhere tens of thousands of men of fighting age had already been deported. The German propaganda machine and William Joyce’s BBC were calling these deportations Britain’s contribution to “the rebuilding of a new United Europe,” but everyone knew it wasn’t as simple as that. And everyone knew about the Jews as well. Many escaped to Canada in those first chaotic weeks after the invasion, but now, under the veil of order, administration, and bureaucracy, the Nazis were paring the nation of any remaining Jewish families, assigning them for “resettlement” in the occupied Eastern territories.
Closer to home there had been waves of reprisals in response to the insurgency. George had heard of entire villages outside Hereford that now lay empty. Neat rows of pockmark bullet holes in the walls of village halls and churches were the only reminders of what had happened there. No, the Germans were not harmless.
There was, however, also hope. Not within the official channels of proclamations, speeches, and wireless reports, but in the unofficial currents of rumour, in quiet asides in country pubs before closing time; there you could hear the occasional whispers of an alternative future. These might be nothing more than reports of antifascist graffiti in the towns, painted over before most saw it, or old songs overheard in the street given new, antioccupation lyrics. Nothing more than seeds of discontent. But even these, George had to believe, could be enough. Alternative news also filtered in from abroad. American volunteers, many of them Jewish, were flocking over the border into Canada. The Canadian and Free British governments were mobilising an army of liberation. There were plans for an assault along Britain’s western coastline, and even talk of commando landings already here in Scotland and Cumbria. Everyone knew, meanwhile, that the German occupation forces were being weakened by the month. The Russian breakout from behind the Urals was draining the Wehrmacht in Britain of its most experienced and best regiments. Faced with a choice, it was thought Hitler would rather let Britain go than allow the communists to edge any closer from the east. George had even listened to the opinions of some who thought America could be convinced to reenter the war in Europe. They were still fighting with Japan, but if a Canadian and Free British assault could gain a foothold, then a shift in public opinion could well force the U.S. administration’s hand.
Such threads of hope were fragile, however, and the ache for peace, the desire for anything other than war, was growing stronger. The British administration in Harrogate had given its support to regional commissioners who were now actively assisting the Germans in locating and destroying any remaining insurgency cells. The Herefordshire Gestapo office had, George knew, been receiving a steady trickle of anonymous tip-offs about suspected insurgent activity. And hadn’t he, George Bowen, already reneged on his duties? Not those given to him by Atkins, to whom he felt he’d been nothing but faithful, but the duties he’d accepted from the other man who’d visited him that summer four years ago. The other man from British Intelligence, who had brought him the rifle he held against his shoulder now, lying at the edge of a coppice, the morning sun warming his back and his neck.
The man had never told George his name, never even gave himself a sobriquet like “Tommy Atkins,” so George had always thought of him simply as “the man”; dark hair, short, stocky, with stern, serious features and a neat moustache. He’d first approached George in 1940, two weeks after Atkins had strolled across that field, the fishing flies on his hat winking in the sun. George was driving the new Ministry-issue tractor down the lane, taking a pile of hurdles and pallets from the top field to the yard. The man had been leaning against a gatepost so George had only seen him when he stepped out from the hedge and flagged him down.
The next time they met was in the wood beside the same old barn Atkins had chosen as the fallback position for their communications cell. It was in that wood that the man had told George what he wanted him to do.
“Seems like you’re a sought-after lad,” he’d said, referring to Atkins’s previous visits. “Not surprised really. Wheels within wheels at the moment, and all of them in motion. We’re bound to land on the same chap now and then.”
It was best for George, for everyone, the man explained, if he didn’t tell Atkins anything about this. Nothing at all. “This” was a long, narrow wooden case lying on a tree stump between them with an adapted Enfield Mark IV sniper rifle and telescopic sight inside it. “Designed up at Coleshill,” the man said as he’d lifted it out and fitted the thick, dark silencer.
Had George ever fired a gun before? Shotguns? Good. The man spoke with the same directness as Atkins, but never broke it with a smile like Atkins did. Everything he said seemed carved from the air. Precise and exact. He’d brought a bag of apples on which he’d asked George to practise, balancing them on fallen trunks and the lower branches of the trees.
“One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, and …” The rifle had bruised George’s shoulder that first time. It was, however, as the man had promised, almost totally silent. Just a sharp rush of air and then an apple bursting in the distance when he hit, or white sparks of wood spinning off a branch when he missed.
“I know this is a heavy duty,” the man had said to George as he’d dismantled the rifle and packed it away in the case. “But I’m convinced you can handle it. It’s vital, after all, that the local population understand. Collaboration is simply not an option.” He’d paused slightly, clicking the lid of the case shut, and looked up at George. “It will not, in any circumstances, be tolerated.”
G
eorge never saw the man again, but what he’d said in the wood that day had stayed with him ever since. He’d practised with the rifle regularly, just as the man had told him to, aiming at the pencil dot on his bedroom wall and counting in his head up to the squeeze of the trigger. But then when the invasion finally came, four years later than when Atkins and the man had told him it would, they’d been occupied and it had got too dangerous. After he’d seen his mother sitting on the trough in the yard, weeping, his father’s hand on her shoulder, he’d hidden the rifle under the manure heap and the man’s words under his fear. By the time he’d gained the courage to confront them again, he didn’t know where to begin. There was collaboration of a kind everywhere. Should he shoot his own sister? His father for selling the Germans food? The policeman who’d replaced Constable Evans, who went on his rounds accompanied by a pair of Wehrmacht privates? The man’s words, however, never left him, and because of them George knew he was “perishing in the common ruin” rather than accepting his duty. He had abandoned the position that had been his to hold. But it was not too late. If the rumours, however fragile, of a Canadian and Free British assault were true, if the occupation might be overthrown, then he could still contribute. He could still play his part, however small. And that’s why, after what he’d seen at the show in Llanthony yesterday, he’d woken before dawn this morning and dug out the rifle from the manure heap. And why he’d then cycled to the edge of the Olchon before walking up to here, a coppice high on the valley’s eastern wall overlooking Maggie’s farm on the opposite slopes below him.
A brief flash of sun from the farmhouse focused George’s attention. Shutting one eye he peered through the sight again. Nothing. A window was open on the upper floor of the house, catching the sun as it swung in the breeze, but nothing else. His eyes were grainy with tiredness. The birds sang in the trees above him. A jay landed on a nearby branch, stripes of electric blue streaking each wing. It looked at him for a moment, then flew on again. The twigs and undergrowth below him dug into his stomach and forearms. He wished he’d had something to eat before he left.
Half an hour later George finally saw someone moving in the yard of the farm. No more than a shifting of shadows, but somebody was certainly down there. He looked through the sight once more and traced Maggie through them as she led the yearling colt out of the yard and through the small orchard of apple and pear trees. It was certainly her, and the horse, which still had one of its hind legs bandaged, was definitely the same yearling he’d seen run at the show ground yesterday.
George had watched Maggie and Alex descend the Hatterall ridge from where he’d been sitting on one of the priory’s ruined walls overlooking the show. It was the yearling’s red bandages that had first caught his eye, as clear as autumn hawthorn berries against the green and beige of the summer hillside. Had it not been for his encounter with Albrecht when he’d tried to deliver those letters to the Olchon several months earlier, George would have thought little more of it. But those returned letters with those words written across their addresses had been hard to forget; as had the offhand way the officer had told George, “There is no one left in that valley.” And yet now here was a woman and man bringing a horse over the Hatterall, the angle of their arrival suggesting they could have come from nowhere else but the Olchon.
George watched them make their way down through the lower fields, over the stream, and then past him towards the show ground. They stopped before they reached the outer tents, and the woman dismounted, handing the reins of her mare to the man, then leaving him with the horses while she walked on towards the secretary’s tent. By then, however, it had been just the man George was watching. He was certain he’d seen him before. He couldn’t think where exactly, but there was definitely something about him that snagged in his memory. The way he carried his head, his height, the prominent jaw, the impassive expression of his angular face, even his nervous blinking. George dropped off the wall and moved a little closer, walking up the slope behind him so as not to draw attention to himself. Had he seen him at the station, perhaps? Or at the market in Abergavenny or the sheep sale in Longtown? Then he remembered. The staff car with markings he didn’t recognise back last November, shrapnel damage denting its left wheel arch. He’d seen it driving through Pandy, two or three weeks after the first troops arrived. This man had been the driver of that car. His hair was longer now and he wore a farmer’s jacket and cap instead of a soldier’s tunic and helmet, but George was sure of it. This was the same man. He moved nearer again, trying to see his face as he stood between the two horses, looking over the show ground. A steady stream of people were coming through the main entrance, others were milling about the newly erected stalls and tents, but up here beside the priory, there was no one else around.
Suddenly the Tannoy system crackled into life. “Testing, testing. Good morning everyone. One, two, three …” The yearling colt reared its head and spun away from the man, pulling the lead rope out of his grip. Grabbing at the trailing rope, he’d pulled it tight, bringing the young horse back to him while still holding the reins of the mare. “Shhh,” he’d said, bringing the same hand up to the yearling’s withers and stroking him under the mane. “Sshhh, halt schon ruhig, halt schon ruhig.”
George didn’t have to tell many people what he’d heard for the word to spread. Although he’d yet to discover any organised civilian resistance in the area, he still knew which men and women harboured nothing but resentment for the German occupation. There were some who had become more ambivalent, who secretly welcomed what the Germans had brought: a promise of peace and a chance to get back to their prewar lives. But even among these people, there were levels of tolerance. And then there were those few at the other end of the scale who took it upon themselves to openly challenge the occupiers, within the bounds of safety, whenever they could. The chief judge in the cob ring was one of these men. A well-heeled farmer originally from up near Penderyn, he’d taken the cases of his workers and their families to the local commandant’s office and fought hard for their rights on several occasions. And there were others too, in the crowd, at the edges, to whom just a nod and a whisper had been all that was needed, so that an hour later, at the end of the yearling cob class, George was able to watch with fascination as Maggie Jones led her colt out of the ring in last place and almost total silence.
Shifting himself a little higher up the ridge he lay against, George lowered his head to the eyepiece of the sight. His whole body felt transparent with lightness, the pulse of his blood heavy in his veins. The circular view of the sight wavered and trembled, eclipsed by thin crescents of darkness at either side, as he watched Maggie reach the end of the orchard and undo the latch of the gate to lead the colt through into the long-grassed meadow. There were tall thistles at the field’s edge, between which a charm of goldfinches flitted and sparked. As the colt came into the meadow, he whinnied to the mare grazing in the field beyond. Maggie slipped off his head collar, then watched as he trotted away to nose with his mother over the hedge. Excited by the sudden space of the field after his night in the stable, the colt cantered down and up the slope, eventually coming to a stop near Maggie, where, after sniffing at the grass, he dropped to the ground to roll, shifting himself from one side to the other with grunts and snorts through his nostrils. When he stood again he began to graze, letting Maggie walk up and stroke his neck and flanks as he did.
George could see Maggie’s lips moving. She was talking to the horse as she brushed her hand over his mane. He tried to control his breathing, which had become rapid and shallow. The trigger felt cold as his finger touched it, making the crosshairs shiver over Maggie and the yearling. “Simply not an option. Will not, in any circumstances, be tolerated.” He heard the man’s voice in his ear again, steady and sure. Then he thought of the empty villages outside Hereford (one thousand), of his mother, weeping on the trough (two thousand), of the young lieutenant barking questions into his face (three thousand), of loose change jangling in the pockets of so
ldiers (four thousand), of his sister, laughing.
Maggie was looking up at the Hatterall ridge trying to see where the flock were grazing when she heard the bullet’s whine followed immediately by the soft thud of its impact. When she turned round Glyndwr was still standing, a dark pearl of blood welling in his right ear. But then he began to fall, slowly at first, tilting up the slope, his legs buckling until he collapsed to the ground with the sound of a woolsack, full to straining, thrown from the back of a wagon. Only then, when he lay at her feet, did Maggie see the horse’s left eye, exploded into a purple and red pulp, like an overripe damson undone by the beaks of hungry birds.
Albrecht was shaving from a bowl of warm water that Steiner had brought him when Maggie arrived at The Court. He stood opposite her in the front room just as he had on that first morning she’d called, wiping the soap from his face with a towel, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows. Maggie, however, looked like a different woman from the one who’d challenged him so defiantly in that same room seven months before. Her skin was ashen, her eyes unfocused, and her speech hesitant. “She’s in shock,” Sebald said, guiding her into a chair with his hands on her shoulders. “Alex, get me a blanket.”
Albrecht hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Ever since Alex came back yesterday and told him what happened at the show, his mind had been racing, playing out the configurations, trying to second-guess what would happen next. He’d placed the men on double guard duty then retired to his room early, so he could think. While he’d expected a reaction, a consequence of some kind, he was still shocked by what Maggie told him, at the swiftness of the retribution. He sat opposite her, his head bowed, trying to gauge what this meant and how much time he might have. Had their husbands done this? Had they been watching them all along, waiting? No, he didn’t think so. They would never operate in the area of their own homes. But then, why shouldn’t they? Perhaps they thought they had nothing to lose now, and there were, after all, no rules. Had he really forgotten that so quickly? No rules and no boundaries, he knew that.
