“The artillery want to get their hands on this,” he blurted out. “Another one of those somewhere down here. Can you imagine it, with paths and cables and bunkers for the men. Not to mention the noise.” He held his hands over his ears. “It’s Major Ernst, you know.”
“What is?”
“The house. He wants to live here too.”
“But there’s no room. Not with you and the Captain and everyone.”
Everyone was Bohde, the island’s censor. Albert did not like Bohde ever since he had caught him in the fruit garden stuffing himself full of loganberries.
“He will try and get rid of one of us,” Lentsch explained. “Make me look not capable in administration, or the Captain’s security procedures, perhaps. Something like that. Still, for the Villa, for you and Marjorie, it might be for the best. That way, there would be no new battery. Of that you could be sure.”
Albert did not know what to say. Like Lentsch he saw himself as the Villa’s guardian rather than its occupier. Change, however, was never welcome. Lentsch tried to reassure him.
“Don’t worry. It might not come to it. But the lower part of the garden, after the roses, where we play the polo. This I think we should dig up and make for some potatoes and vegetables. That way the garden would not look so…” He searched for the correct word.
“English?” Albert ventured.
“Privileged,” Lentsch countered. “I’ll get Helmut to start as soon as he’s back on his feet.”
Lentsch turned and they started back to the house.
“It’s good to be back, Albert. Good to see Saints Bay again and the house. And you, of course.” He paused for a moment, unsure of how to continue. “Things back home are not so good. My mother and sister are very much afraid. Bombs, you know. We did not expect it in Germany.”
“No.”
“On homes and churches. We did not expect it.”
“No.”
“We call them Meier raids, on account of Goering’s boast. “If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, you can call me Meier!” We have Meier raids every day now. Not much of a joke, Albert. Not for my mother. Not for anyone.”
“No. I can see that. Still…”
“We only have ourselves to blame, you’re thinking?”
“Not you personally, Major. I’ve never thought that.”
“But as a people?”
“Well, I’d have to, wouldn’t I? We were all getting along fine before all this. Still, I don’t wish any harm on anybody.”
Lentsch was silent for a moment. That wasn’t true at all. Everyone wasn’t getting along fine before all this. There was a time when everything had been terrible. And then, the soul of a nation had been woken, practically overnight. It had been marvellous! How could he explain?
“And you,” he asked suddenly. “You are well? Have you heard from your daughter?”
Albert shook his head. “I was hoping I might have got a postcard through the Red Cross. Last week was the anniversary of Mum’s death.” He began to cough. Lentsch looked down in case the old man was trying to hide his tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not know.” Albert, shaking his head, dismissed his condolences.
“She would have hated to see the place as it is now. All the guns and barbed wire. But I do miss our girl, I still don’t know if I did the right thing, staying put while she left with the rest of the evacuees. She was late in our life, was Kitty. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.”
Lentsch was anxious to cheer him up. If there was going to be a party tonight he didn’t want Albert’s long face spoiling it.
“Course you will, my good chap,” he breezed, clapping him on the back. “The way things are going it might end quicker than any of us think.” Changing the subject, he added, “Has anything else happened while I was away? The Bloody Boiler behaving?”
“The Bloody Boiler’s been going since early this morning, Major.”
“Excellent. I shall go for a bathe, take a bath and, if the weather holds, maybe sketch for an hour.” He pointed to the Martello tower on the opposite side.
“Same view?” Albert asked.
“That’s just it, my friend. It is never the same.”
Albert waited as he disappeared into the house, emerging a few minutes later in civilian clothes with a towel under his arm. He watched as Lentsch ran down the path, his body hidden by the tall ferns. It was the one thing he could not understand about the Germans, this obsession with fitness and the outdoors. The Major had reached the shoreline and was walking along the rim of the bay in his bare feet, his shoes hanging round his neck. Climbing onto the jetty he stripped off and dived in. He might not be blond and six foot tall, but he was lean and fit and held himself like a man with strong blood in his veins.
A car spat up the drive, brakes, doors and horn sounding all at once. Albert recognized the mixture. Captain Zepernick, driving with the top down. “Only a plague of locusts, a forty-degree frost, or the certainty of sexual intercourse in broad daylight will make me put up the hood,” the Captain had once joked. From the hurried demand of his footsteps coming down the red-tiled hall, Albert could tell he was not joking now.
“He has returned?” he demanded, stepping out onto the veranda.
Albert pointed to the sea.
“Did he see?”
Albert nodded. The Captain cursed in German. It was not Donner or Blitzen or that other word which Miss Molly once whispered in his ear in front of the whole company trying to embarrass him, but it was a swear word nevertheless. Albert wished that one time one of them would say Donner und Blitzen, if only to satisfy himself that those words were real words used by real Germans in times of anger and frustration, but though he had cooked their meals, served their drinks, ironed their shirts and stood by their side for the past two years listening to them carrying on like spoilt little madams, he had never heard one of them say it, not even when the weather was there to give them their cue. It annoyed him that they should be so wilful and choose not to do what was required.
The Captain had reached the beach and was calling out to the Major as he tried to run over the shifting shingle.
“That’s right, me old china,” Albert said, looking down. “You tell him. Donner and Blitzen. Double donner and double blitzen, with the best porcelain whistling round your ears.”
Down on the jetty the two had met up. The Major stood quite still, his towel hanging limply at his side. He would be frozen when he got back. A hot bath with a glass of brandy on the side would be what was required. Albert turned back, shaking his head. Major or no Major, he could at least cover himself up.
Two
It had been warm that day, the first for weeks, but now the wind was getting up again, coming in from the north, with a chili in its heart that only an island feels. Inspector Ned Luscombe was waiting for the post when he heard George Poidevin heaving himself up to the office with another tale of woe weighing down his lumbering frame.
The police station had expanded in the last few years but it was still primitive compared with what he had been used to. On the ground floor stood the cramped reception area, with its counter and one long bench opposite and a picture of the old king hanging crookedly on the wall. Behind it was the Sergeant’s room and adjoining it, with a door leading to the washroom and the yard, an even smaller room where the police doctor used to examine the drunks. There was no cell. The prison was only forty yards away. Privacy was at a premium too. Before the war, whenever anybody was arrested, a crowd used to gather on the pavement outside to listen to what was being said. It was a foolish man who confessed his sins in Guernsey’s sole police station.