‘She’s had a full tank since the beginning of the war,’ said Paget. ‘It’s the first time I’ve taken her out.’
Paget revved the engine and the sergeant, with a sharp drill movement, took his toes away. The soldiers were smirking. ‘Bloody snobs,’ muttered the sergeant when the car had gone. ‘Them and their posh voices. This war makes no difference to some.’
Half a mile back Paget took the side turning and drove through the tight lanes until he was able to join the climbing road again. Briefly the sun came out and touched the washed-out fields. The tops of the Quantock Hills were dabbed with white. They skirted a village pond with hunched ducks on the ice. Eventually they surmounted a hill, stopped the car, got out, and looked across the Bristol Channel. The enclosed harbour of Watchet lay beneath them. There were landing barges outlined against its walls and on the end of the jetty was a Bofors anti-aircraft gun. Out in the flat sea were two fishing boats. They could just see a shadow that was the coast of Wales.
‘Shall we eat the sandwiches?’ she said. ‘Leftover chicken. And there’s coffee in the Thermos.’ They leaned against the low, gleaming car and ate and drank, watching the dull, scarcely moving sea.
Up there, by themselves, they each stretched an arm around the other’s waist. Still looking out to the Bristol Channel Margaret said: ‘Martin, after the war is over I think we ought to marry each other.’
Paget said: ‘We could give it a try.’
Chapter Six
By that winter of 1943 it had already been a long and comfortless war for Cook Sergeant Frederick Weber of the German Army. He was grateful for the respite he was enjoying in the occupied English Channel Islands, although he could not help but wonder how long it would last.
That January day he had been fishing; it had been a fine winter’s morning with the sun hazy and the water like paper. With him in the small boat was Gino, the Italian chief steward of the German officers’ mess in Jersey, who before he came to the island had been a waiter in the Hotel Bristol, Berlin, and then at the Savoy, London.
They often fished together, the squat German and the elongated Italian, saying little out among the eddies, but enjoying the peace of the water and the weather. The catch would appear on the German Kommandant’s table that night, prepared as only Cook Sergeant Weber knew how, as his superior often boasted. It would be sole and bacon, Sohle und Speck. One good fish was kept privately aside for Fred and Gino to eat in the kitchen, after everyone had gone except the local Jersey women who did the washing-up.
About them, as they pottered that day, the islands lay languidly, as though without a care in the world at war. They could see calm beaches and tall cliffs and the placid roofs of houses, but they were aware that they were floating between two armies: north and west of the German defences on the French coast and south of the Allied troops massing to cross the Channel from England. But that morning nowhere seemed further from the front line. The islands had been abandoned, written off, by the British after their evacuation from Dunkirk in the summer of 1940, and claimed by a solitary Luftwaffe officer who landed unopposed and telephoned the governor to obtain the surrender. It was legend that the pilot had borrowed two pennies from a local man and made the call from a telephone box.
There was no resistance. An attempt to cut telephone wires inconvenienced only the island tradesmen. The people had no choice but to settle down alongside their occupiers. There grew friendships and liaisons. Children were born. As the years of war drifted on, it began to dawn on the inhabitants and their conquerors that they had been overlooked. The war had bypassed them. ‘Let them starve,’ Churchill had said, referring, as he later made clear, to the Germans. It was not until the final day, 5 May 1945, that they were liberated by which time civilians and German soldiers had become a community, united in starvation.
‘I don’t know what Hitler thinks he is doing,’ said Cook Sergeant Weber that fine January morning. Out there with the gulls and seals, they could talk. He surveyed the catch.
‘Not bad,’ said Gino. ‘Which one will we keep for us, Fred?’
‘Him,’ said the cook, pointing. ‘He has a smile on his face. Who is this big shot coming for dinner anyway? Only Luftwaffe, isn’t he? First sign of the Luftwaffe we’ve seen around here for a long time.’
As though someone might have heard him there came the lofty sound of an aeroplane. Weber stared guiltily. ‘The enemy, I expect,’ said Gino, trying to spot it in the pale blue sky.
‘Better get the flag out,’ said Weber.
Gino fumbled in the locker and emerged with a flag, a red cross. Between them they draped it flat across the front of the boat. The whine of the plane faded.
Gino continued: ‘He’s famous, this Luftwaffe officer, Fred. He was the one who occupied this place single-handed in 1940.’
‘So?’ shrugged Weber. ‘Nobody stopped him. Nobody shot at him. What sort of hero is that?’
Gino began to row for the harbour of St Aubin. ‘I don’t know what Hitler thinks he is doing,’ repeated Weber. ‘He has no military mind.’
‘Once a corporal always a corporal,’ said Gino.
Out of habit Weber glanced about him, but there were only three seals, their inquisitive heads poking from the water. ‘I was a corporal when I was in Russia,’ he said. ‘God, that’s a cold place, Russia.’
‘You’ve mentioned it,’ said Gino. ‘A lot. Good job your boss had to be transferred here. I see he is still limping.’
‘He’s very brave for a general,’ said Weber who had also suffered frostbite and had only the middle finger on his right hand. Sometimes he used it to dip into a sauce for testing purposes. Now he raised his arm and with the solitary digit gave the Nazi salute: ‘Heil Hitler,’ he said.
The Cherbourg peninsula lay shadowed on the eastern horizon. Weber turned towards England. ‘Over there’, he said, ‘all their ships are waiting.’ He grimaced towards his companion. ‘It’s fine for you,’ he said. ‘You are from Italy, from Germany, and from England. All three. Who knows where. You only have to make sure you are on the right side on the last day.’
‘You’re a wise man Fred. I cannot believe that you’re only a cook.’
Weber tapped his ample nose and said: ‘Cooks die last.’
They eased the boat into St Aubin’s harbour entrance. The plop of the oars resounded in the grey stillness, gulls set up a frayed chorus. Weber threw a handful of fish pieces into the water.
‘Everybody is hungry,’ said Gino as the birds dived and screamed.
His friend surveyed the stone town. ‘When this war is finished,’ he said, ‘if we’re still alive, I think we ought to come here and open a restaurant.’
‘A good one,’ nodded the Italian. The boat bumped against the quay. Half a dozen women wrapped in hapless coats, their heads buried in scarves, two with pallid children crying against their skirts, waited with cooking pots. Weber put in a few fish. ‘Frederick the cook and Gino the head waiter, Fred and Gino’s Restaurant,’ went on Gino. ‘It is something to look forward to.’
*
A bottle of schnapps between them, they sat by the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen after the German officers had gone from their mess at the Royal Hotel that night. Immediately before the war Gino had been the head waiter there and it was he who knew of the little alcove where they kept the schnapps and anything else that they considered private, perhaps a spare cheese.
‘The Luftwaffe hero had some bad news,’ Gino had said when he came in from the dining-room. The local women who washed up, and took away concealed parcels of scraps, had gone back to their homes with an escort of German soldiers that night. Two slave workers from the prison island of Alderney had escaped. Two Poles, it had been reported; said to be desperate.
‘He had bad news?’ said Weber. ‘What other kind is there?’
‘The Luftwaffe colonel, the conqueror of Jersey,’ said Gino. ‘He liked the fish and bacon. He ate it all, every bone. He said there was no fish in Germany, even for a h
ero.’
Weber had filled both glasses from the schnapps bottle and Gino had drained his at one gulp and put it expectantly in place for a refill. The German obliged. ‘So what’s the bad news?’
‘The British have sunk your battleship, the Scharnhorst.’
Frederick’s glass was halfway to his mouth but he replaced it on the table. ‘It’s probably the last battleship. I don’t think we’ve got any more.’
‘The colonel was telling them at the table. They were down in the mouth. And he said that when she sank all her crew, two thousand men, stood on the deck singing.’
‘That’s a hell of a time to sing.’
‘Most of them drowned. They were singing a song called something like: “On a Sailor’s Grave, No Roses Bloom”. Some of the officers in the mess began to sing it. They were crying.’
‘It’s a very tearful song,’ shrugged Weber. ‘Especially when the ship is sinking under you.’ He began to sing thoughtfully.
‘Auf einem Seemannsgrab,
da blühen keine Rosen.’
They drank the schnapps dismally until Weber said: ‘It’s good they gave an escort to the washing-up women. Those men from Alderney, Poles or whatever they are, Spaniards even, are all mad. Not enough food, no booze, no women, stuck behind barbed wire. Going for a shit must be a nice change.’ He glanced at his friend. ‘That blonde washer-up likes you, Gino,’ he said. ‘I’ve noticed. She’s a bit thin, but who isn’t.’
Gino grunted. ‘She worked in this hotel before the war. Cocktail waitress. I liked her then but she went off and married someone, a Frenchman, I think. Now all she wants me for is a bowl of pasta.’
‘My superior may be posted soon,’ mentioned Weber. He poured two more glasses from the bottle and put his single finger to his lips. ‘So I understand.’
Gino became desolate. ‘He’ll take you with him, Fred.’
The German said: ‘He likes the way I cook. As long as it’s not back to freezing, fucking Russia.’
‘They won’t post him there again. He’s still wounded.’
‘No, I don’t think it will be so far. Just across the water. Northern France. To wait for the day, for the invasion.’
‘No more fishing,’ said Gino sorrowfully.
Weber picked up the bottle and turned it upside down, just in case, before tossing it the length of the room accurately into a metal bin. Unsteadily the two men made their way out of the kitchen, tiptoeing through the officers’ empty mess and, first collecting overcoats, went out into the starry night. They staggered a little, close together for support. Gino had acquired a Wehrmacht coat. ‘Everything is so peaceful,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe they have finished the war.’
A patrol of soldiers appeared through the dark of the sloping town, their rifles and their boots noisy, their faces only shadows. The helmet of one of them fell forward over his eyes and his sergeant cursed him before turning on Gino and Weber. ‘Hands up!’ he ordered.
Prudently they obeyed. ‘Where are you going? Who are you?’ demanded the sergeant. He was old for a soldier and so were the others.
‘You must be new,’ said Weber. ‘I am the Kommandant’s cook.’
‘Oh, for certain. And I’m Hitler’s mother.’
‘That is possible, but I am still the Kommandant’s cook.’
The sergeant took in Gino. ‘And this one?’ he said, still addressing Weber. ‘This one in an army coat and underneath no uniform.’ Decisively he stepped forward. ‘You will come with us. Two prisoners have escaped.’
Gino said: ‘We have our papers.’
Both he and Weber made for their pockets but the sergeant pointed his pistol in alarm first at one, then the other. ‘Put your hands on your heads,’ he said. ‘And walk.’
They began to walk. Weber started singing gently:
‘Auf einem Seemannsgrab,
da blühen keine Rosen …’
The sergeant emitted a squeak. ‘No singing! You are drunk! You will be shot!’
‘Don’t upset him, Fred,’ warned Gino.
‘Bollocks,’ said Weber. ‘This old dolt couldn’t shoot straight even from there.’
‘Not so much of the old,’ snapped the sergeant.
‘You’re all old,’ said Weber surveying his countrymen. ‘They only send old soldiers here.’
The sergeant was beginning to have doubts. ‘Even if you are not escaped I am taking you in. You’re both drunk.’
‘Schnapps,’ confirmed Weber.
There was a trudging step from the shadows and a British policeman, his helmet like a dome, trod towards them. ‘Trouble?’ he asked the sergeant.
‘This pair are drunk, and they may be escaped Todt men.’
‘Oh, those.’ He seemed unimpressed. But then he drew himself up importantly to deliver his own news. ‘Well, I thought I heard a cat meowing.’
The Germans all looked at each other. ‘Are you going to report this cat?’ asked Weber in an interested way.
‘It’s very unusual,’ said the British constable. ‘All dogs and cats were destroyed years ago.’
‘This conversation is stupid. Come on, get moving,’ said the sergeant. He attempted to look threatening with his pistol and the other soldiers lifted the muzzles of their rifles. First Weber, then Gino, replaced their hands on their heads and the group headed towards the police station, with the constable carefully leading the way.
A British police sergeant was slouched at the desk. In the background were two cells, each occupied by a drunk snarling at the man in the next cell. ‘One from Guernsey and the other from Jersey,’ said the policeman at the desk with a yawn.
‘Ach, so.’
‘They don’t get on,’ the police sergeant said as the men began to spit at each other. ‘The Guernsey man calls the Jersey man a crapaud, a toad.’
The German sergeant said: ‘That’s a terrible thing.’
‘Can we go home?’ interjected Weber. ‘I have to be up to get the general’s breakfast.’ He beamed at the British man behind the desk. ‘I am his cook.’
‘Well, you’re not the blokes who escaped. They’ve been cornered at Trinity. Stealing apples.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll still have to file a report, though, since you’ve been brought in.’ Wearily he took up a pen. ‘Name and rank?’
‘I am a member of the occupying forces,’ sniffed Weber.
‘It’s the occupying forces who make us do the report. Everything at night has to be entered in the book, no matter what.’
The German patrol, with a collective scowl at Weber and Gino, filed out after their sergeant into the chilly night. The British policeman lingered.
Gino said: ‘He has something to report.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Weber. ‘He heard a cat.’
Chapter Seven
Once, years ago, on Salisbury Plain the grass could be heard blowing. Before the soldiers came the chalky hills were wandered by sheep; a handful of hamlets concealed themselves in its folds. It was a strange land known mostly to shepherds. The air then was bright and bursting with birdsong but there are no larks at Larkhill now, for it is the main artillery range; tanks trundle over the bald uplands, and infantry train for battle. Regimental badges carved shallowly in the chalk are souvenirs, and memorials, of troops long gone into action. For more than a century it has been the domain of the fighting soldier; villages have vanished except for the ghostly Imber, and another place built oddly like a German hamlet, both used for perfecting house-to-house fighting. Few of the soldiers who have manoeuvred there in peace or wartime have come to love it.
‘This fucking hole!’ said Gunner Blackie as he entered the billet for the first time. The twenty members of the squad filed in and shuffled around dismally. They were mainly young men, with a couple of older soldiers; Blackie, Treadwell, Lance-bombardier Jock Gordon, Gannick who at twenty sucked on a pipe (generally empty), Peters, Brown, Hinchcliffe, Chaffey, Cloony the Paddy, and the others. May and Foster were the older men. They had seen it all.
‘Indian troops was in here,’ said Treadwell peering through his rimless army glasses. ‘You can niff the curry.’ He had put in for a transfer to the Pay Corps on account of poor eyesight, a disadvantage in an artillery man.
‘It’s freezing,’ said Gannick.
Sergeant Harris, the section NCO, was framed by the door. ‘There’s one bucket of coke per night, per hut, he said.’
‘That’s no’ going to warm us for long,’ said Gordon.
‘Rub your hands together and sleep in your great-coats,’ said the sergeant. ‘In the meantime you could sit around that contraption …’ He indicated the iron stove in the middle of the billet. ‘… and pretend it’s hot’
Three other men came into the hut, Warren, Rayley and Bond, nondescript as ordinary soldiers become, their kitbags pulled behind them like heavy dogs on leads. ‘Find a bed,’ said Harris. ‘And get yourselves down to the cookhouse before it’s dark. You can see what you’re eating then.’
A small, exhausted-looking officer appeared in the doorway. ‘Attention!’ snapped the sergeant and the men obeyed in their various ways. Blackie hardly shuffled his feet together. ‘Just getting them settled down, sir,’ said Harris. ‘We’re short of coke for the stove. The supplies haven’t turned up.’
Lieutenant Wilson said: ‘Oh, dear. You’ll have to stamp your feet.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Wilson said: ‘All right. Carry on. Now I’ve got to find where I sleep. Being pushed around like this is a damned nuisance. We’ve only come three miles. I suppose there may be some major plan behind it.’ He went out into the dimming afternoon. ‘But I doubt it.’
Blackie remembered one of the three men who had come in after the sergeant. Harris looked about as though he might somehow improve the billet but then shrugged and, pushing the blackout curtain, went out. Blackie pointed to the man he recognised. ‘You’re that bloke Warren,’ he said. ‘We was on the train back at Christmas.’
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