She pulled off her gas-mask and rucksack, and dumped the felt hat and green WVS jacket she had been loaned. She made straight for the bathroom. Like the other WVS ladies, with embarrassed averted gazes or sometimes a giggle, she had been relieving herself behind heaps of rubble, in the smashed-up ruins of what had so recently been homes. The toilet flushed, but she could hear the cistern wasn't refilling. She wasn't surprised. Even as the raids continued she had seen teams of workers trying to patch up water mains, gas pipes, electric cables.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was a mask of greasy sweat and soot, her cheeks and forehead smeared where she had rubbed them with the backs of her hands.
Nothing came out of the taps, but the water she had poured out on Friday stood in the sink, covered by a skim of plaster dust. She scraped the dust off with her palm and bent to soak her face. The water stung her hands. She saw that under the dirt she had blisters, burned patches. But the dirt floated off easily, and the cold of the water revived her a bit. She longed for a bath, and to wash her hair properly.
She made her way to the kitchen. More in hope than in expectation she tried the gas ring on the cooker, but that didn't work either. A cup of tea was off the menu, then, unless she built a fire in the living room and used the iron stand. It seemed a lengthy project, getting the coal, finding matches and a bit of paper and kindling, building the fire – she decided she couldn't face it. Anyhow there was some milk, and more scummy water, and she knew there was a bit of bread; she could make a sandwich.
She heard a clatter from the front door, a muffled curse. It was George. She walked back to the hall.
He was experimenting with the door, which wouldn't fit back in its frame. His uniform was dust-smeared and the left knee was torn badly. His face was black with dust and dirt and soot, as hers had been. He glanced at her. 'Thought you'd still be around. The door – can you see, the whole frame is distorted? It'll be a nightmare to get hold of a builder. Bloody Goering. Are you all right? You look done in.'
'No worse than you,' she said defiantly.
'What happened to your hands?' He took her hands and turned them over; his own hands were caked in dirt. 'You need to do something about these blisters. We've got a bit of ointment somewhere.'
'Do you want a cup of tea?'
He followed her back towards the kitchen. 'Is the gas on, then?'
'No. But I was thinking of building a fire.'
He shook his head. 'No time for that. Look, let's just have something quick. I need to get back to work. And you need to get out of here. Out of town, I mean.' In the kitchen he put his helmet and gas-mask on the wooden table, opened a few buttons of his uniform jacket, and washed his hands in the sink.
They began to make a rough breakfast together, glasses of milk, slices of bread with a pale scrape of margarine and elderly cheese.
She said, 'The Germans, I suppose.'
'Well, they've landed at Pevensey and near Bexhill, and to the east between Hastings and Rye. Actually they're all along the south coast. Today they'll be trying to get more troops across, I should think, and supplies, although the bulk of the second echelon will come over tonight. And those already landed will be consolidating.'
'And coming here.'
'That's the best guess. We're supposed to evacuate what's left of the civilian population. Let's see if we can get a bit of news.'
He went off to the parlour, and came back with his home-made wireless in its shoe box. He set it on the table, held up an earpiece scavenged from an old telephone, and began to fiddle with the settings. This home-made crystal set, by some process which non-scientific Mary regarded as a miracle, didn't need any power.
'Ah,' he said. 'There's Alvar Lidell. I wonder where he is now. They were talking about moving the BBC out from London to Bristol…' His voice trailed off as he listened. He sat at the table, chewing his bit of bread, his face emptying, the old phone earpiece clamped to his head. Mary sat with him and waited.
'Well, there we are,' he said. "'The Germans have invaded Great Britain. In due course they will be driven out by our Navy, our Army and our Air Force. The Prime Minister, Mr Churchill, has emphasised that the ordinary men and women of the civilian population will have their part to play…' He listened further. 'Sounds like they're panicking a bit in London. They're moving the civil servants out to Lancashire and Wales. The government is talking to the Americans about "increased cooperation, whatever that means. We could do with a few tanks and guns, never mind cooperation.'
'Maybe they're doing deals,' Mary said.
'Your ambassador Kennedy thinks we should surrender.'
'Yeah, but we don't all agree with him. The US has no interest in seeing Britain fall to the Nazis. I know Churchill exchanged military bases in Newfoundland and the West Indies for a pack of old destroyers. Maybe they're working on something like that.'
George grunted. 'Nothing comes free with you lot, does it? Oh. The King is moving out of London, and his family. That's a bit of a blow to morale.' He put the earpiece down. 'Well, that's that. Look, Mary, just clear off. The trains are out. If you can, head out of town along the A-ROAD towards Battle. The police are organising convoys there, to be driven up towards London and the north.'
'I was thinking of sleeping a bit.'
'Sleep. God, I could do with a bit of that. Not just now. The next hours are critical.'
She nodded reluctantly. 'All right, George. Look – the others, Hilda and Gary-'
'I haven't heard from them since Friday. Seems like years ago.'
'I left a note in the Anderson shelter. Said we should meet at Battle, if the opportunity arises.'
He nodded. 'Not a bad idea.'
'What about you?'
'It's my job to stay here, Mary. I'm a copper.'
'Your German is lousy.'
'I'll be fine. And so will you.' He took her hand, carefully avoiding her burns. 'You're brave. If you're an example of what Americans can do, the sooner you're in this war the better.'
'Brave? I think I'm just numb. I'll pay for all this one day.'
'Well, so will Hitler.' He'd finished his bread and cheese. He glanced down at his crystal set. 'Of course I can't take this.' He slipped off his boot, and without hesitation brought it crashing down like a hammer on the components of the set. 'Right, that's done. Come on, Mary, let's find you that ointment.'
XIX
Leutnant Strohmeyer had a map. He spread it out on Pevensey's dewy ground. Strohmeyer was a tough, humourless soldier who had served the Reich's armies across Europe, from Poland to France. And now here he was sitting before a camp fire in the ruins of this ancient fort in England itself. When one of the lads dared to make a comment on this, Strohmeyer said only, 'Funny old world, isn't it? Now shut up and listen.' He began to outline the day's objectives, Day S Plus One, for these elements of the Twenty-sixth Division.
It was another filthy, drizzling morning. Ernst, wrapped in his blanket, cradling the rifle he had been cleaning since dawn, tried to focus on what Strohmeyer was saying.
He never would have believed he would sleep so well, tucked up in a corner of this dismal old fort under no more cover than a tarpaulin. Yesterday, the day of the crossing, had been a vivid, unreal day, a day of a kind he imagined he would never experience again, no matter how long his war lasted. He supposed the raw tension of it had carried him through. But he had woken this morning to find that he was still here, he really was in England, and now he had to get through the first of what might be many days of combat. He felt drained, exhausted, even shivery; he woke with no energy. Even the men with him were strangers; in the turmoil of the landing he had become separated from the men he had trained with in France, and he knew nobody here.
He kept thinking of Claudine. He longed to be lying with her in her apartment in Boulogne, her long limbs beside him in the bed, so that she could soothe away the aches of his body and the trauma of his bruised mind.