Weaver

'Drool,' said Alfie. 'Lamb! I can't even remember what it tastes like.'

Fred snorted. 'You take away my bloody sheep, and now you give a bit back and expect me to be grateful. Rabbit will do for me.'

'Oh, that's enough, Fred,' Irma said. 'Look, Obergefreiter, you are very generous. If you can get it to me by four I'll have it in the oven. So is it a holiday for you too?'

'I'm planning a drive up to the First Objective.'

Fred grunted. 'A fan of pillboxes, are you?'

'My brother, who is a standartenfuhrer in the SS, has some business with the Halifax government. Prisoner repatriations and that sort of thing. I said I would accompany him; I would like to see the country again, where I fought.'

Viv clapped her hands. 'Oh, let me come with you.' She looked at her mother. 'I'm off school, aren't I? I could practise my German.'

Her father said, 'I've told you, in the stalag in the last lot we only needed four words of bloody German. Kartoffel. Arbeit. Geld. Verboten. Spud, work, money, forbidden.'

Viv ignored him. 'It's a lovely day. A ride in a car! I haven't been in a car since before the war. I could take a picnic. Mum-'

'No,' said Fred.

'Mum!'

Irma looked terribly tired. 'Oh, I can't be bothered fighting. It's up to the obergefreiter.'

Ernst felt he had no choice. 'Of course she can come.'

'Yes!' Viv clapped her hands again. 'I've got to work out what to wear…' She ran out of the room.

'Look.' Irma took her purse from a pocket of a coat which hung on the door. 'Take some money.'

'No, it won't be necessary-'

'Just in case.' She pressed a bundle of occupation marks into Ernst's hand.

Alfie was listening to the news from the wireless. 'Dad, what's "Operation Barbarossa?'

Fred didn't know, and Ernst had to admit that nor did he. They all listened to the wireless, and learned the almost unbelievable news that Hitler's Germany, in spite of a non-aggression pact, had, the previous day, invaded the Soviet Union.

II

When the car horns sounded Ernst and Viv hurried out of the farmhouse and down the muddy track to the road. It was a little after ten.

The army convoy was a queue of vehicles, two light armoured trucks topping and tailing a dozen staff cars. You always travelled in convoy. Nine months after Sea Lion, the resistance groups the English called 'the auxiliaries', spawned out of the Home Guard stay-behind units, were still capable of doing damage.

Josef was in the lead car, after the armoured vehicle. It was typical of him to drive himself. 'Brother!'

Ernst approached, with Viv holding his arm. Carrying a little picnic basket, she was wearing her mother's big sunglasses, her best shoes and a green crepe dress. Ernst knew how hard she and her mother worked to keep the flimsy material from creasing and tearing. The sun was behind Viv, and caught her pale red hair. As they walked the line of the convoy she was greeted by wolf-whistles and a few obscenities, not words Ernst had taught her in their occasional language classes. Though she smiled back, he could feel how tightly she clung to his arm.

Josef got out of his car, took her hand and kissed it. 'Fraulein, I am delighted.' Ernst saw her eyes widen. Josef's SS uniform, black and silver in the bright light of the summer's day, looked impossibly glamorous. Josef winked at Ernst.

Josef helped her into the back of his car, while Ernst sat up front. With a roar the convoy pulled away, raising dust from the track.

From the farm, two miles north of Battle, the convoy soon joined the main road north towards Tunbridge Wells, and drove steadily through the green heart of Sussex. They made rapid progress across country which had been such a scouring challenge for the advancing armies back in September. Now there were only the farmers busy on their land, and at this rate it would take the convoy only a couple of hours to get to the line before Guildford. But there were signs of the war. They passed fields scarred by bomb craters and heaps of wreckage that might once have been planes, and ruined vehicles hulked by the roadside, still lying where they had been shoved aside in those remote days of September, rusted after a winter's rain.

Josef glanced at Viv in his rear-view mirror. 'So,' he said. 'Good for you there is no room in the barracks. You struck lucky in your billet, you dog.'

'It's not like that,' Ernst said, colouring. 'She's only fifteen.'

Josef shrugged. 'Listen to me. In some of the coastal towns, in Hastings and Rye, you won't find a virgin over twelve, no matter how much you pay. It was the same in France. Oh, come on. Look, this wretched country will soon be empty of its young men. Those who weren't taken prisoner in the war are to be shipped off for labour. England is a country of old people, children, and women – and us, the only men. It is only natural that she, a blossoming beauty, should look at you.'

'I told you,' Ernst said hotly, 'it's not like that.'

Josef just laughed. 'So if you're not poking the daughter, how about the mother?'

'She's pregnant.'

'Really?'

'Nine months gone, nearly. She must have caught about the time of the invasion.'

Josef glanced sideways at him. 'Funny coincidence, that.'

An old English car approached them head-on, driving stubbornly on the left, in defiance of the occupation rule. Of course the German column did not deviate. At the last moment the English car veered away, and Ernst glimpsed a shocked face behind a stern handlebar moustache, before the car ended up ramming itself into a ditch. The German troops cheered mockingly, and made Churchill V-for-Victory signs at the crashed car.

Viv laughed prettily. 'What a lark!'

Ernst said, 'These English aren't like the French, are they? Defiant.'

'Well, the English haven't experienced occupation, not for a thousand years. It's all new to them.'

'Churchill's still a hero to them, even though he was forced to resign over the invasion.' He was thinking of Fred Miller and his 'Nar-zees'.

'We all cheered when that old warmonger was pushed out, after barely six months in office after a lifetime of waiting for it, ha! But it wasn't the shame of the invasion, you know, but pragmatism. There are necessary dealings between England and the protectorate. Churchill adamantly refused to discuss even such matters as prisoners and wounded with us. So he had to step aside for Halifax, an altogether more reasonable gentleman. Churchill's still stirring up feeling against us, though, especially in America. The sooner some collaborator puts a bullet through his thick skull the better.'

'Sometimes the whole business of occupation seems absurd,' Ernst admitted. 'I mean, what are we doing here, so far from home? Who are we to lord it over these people?'

Josef glared at him. 'You always have to think, don't you, Ernst? Look, let me give you a bit of advice. Don't go native. If you want a girl, fine. Just remember who you are.'

Ernst, as always irritated at being lectured at, changed the subject. 'It's the issue of the prisoners you are going to discuss at the Objective today, yes?'

'That among other things.' Josef theatrically stifled a yawn with his gloved hand. 'Face to face, me and some pompous British oaf, mediated by a gum-chewing American and a Swiss or two. I have to admit the Americans provide the best lunches, however. Of course it is all a distraction from my work for the Ahnenerbe. You must come visit my installation at Richborough.'

'Still hoping to seduce Himmler with this nonsense of manipulating history, are you?'

'We'll see if it's nonsense in due course,' Josef said, not offended.

'If your work's so important, what are you doing trailing all the way out here?'

'We're all stretched a bit thin these days, aren't we? Now that half the detachments stationed in Britain have been reassigned to the eastern front.'

'You know, I heard nothing about the war against Russia until this morning.'