'And all this shapes your thinking about our options.'
'Quite. We must avoid provoking the military government in the protectorate overmuch; we may after all choose to sign that armistice. And on the other hand we have to try to keep the Americans onside. It's dashed tricky all round. We must be discreet. No parties must be overly alarmed. It will have to be a covert operation, put down to a random act by the auxiliaries, perhaps. We may even be disowned by the government if we get caught.' Even as he spoke he was still doodling on his pad. 'But look, as I say, this is all speculative unless I can get backing from my highers-up, and for that we need some clear proof that this material came from the present – proof that we aren't the subject of some hoax, or misunderstanding. I have to tell you that not all the experts I've consulted are finding in our favour.' He dug a scrap of paper out of his pocket. 'Thought you might like to see this.'
It was a letter written in a neat but wavering hand. She read, 'Like Mr Dunne, I fear you have taken my playful description of duration as a dimension of space far too seriously…'
'I did hope the old boy would be a bit more supportive; he still has an audience in the government.' His eyes were unfocused, his thoughts chasing.
Mary was mystified. 'Who?'
Mackie came back to himself. 'Oh! Sorry. H.G. Wells. Wrote to him; thought he was worth a try. What we need is proof, just a grain of it.'
'What is it you're scribbling?'
'I'm just intrigued by what you said about acrostics. This Menologium is a lot more complete than the Nectovelin prophecy, and I wondered if I could make something of it.'
'I tried that. Actually it works with the epilogue.' She took a pencil and wrote down:
AMEN
'Why, so it does.' He smiled.
'But I can't make sense of the rest of it.'
'Let's have another crack. I rather enjoy ciphers and such. Got me into Bletchley for my sins.' Still walking, he wrote down the leading letters of the verses, omitting the prologue and epilogue:
'Nothing,' she said. 'Told you.'
'Yes, but look – there's some redundancy here.'
'Redundancy?'
'A coder's term. Repeated letters. Each verse, save the last, begins and ends with the same letters, T and N. If you were encrypting this lot for transmission you'd put in some kind of summary cipher and cross the lot out. Suppose I try that.' He took an eraser and went through the line, removing the first and last letters each time:
Mary considered this. 'Is that another AMEN at the end?'
'No,' he said softly. 'Look – if you group the letters differently – ' He wrote out the line again.
'Ben Kamen,' she said 'Oh my.'
'He's sent us a message,' Mackie said. 'A message through history. Clever boy, clever boy indeed. This will do the trick, I think. I must call Lindemann.' He turned on his heel and trotted back towards the farmhouse.
She followed more slowly.
She admired Mackie's pragmatism, his determination to deal with this extraordinary problem, his ability to absorb this astounding new development and act on it decisively. But she felt only profound shock at this latest discovery. Could it really be true that this message from Ben Kamen had been waiting, embedded in a document from the fifth century, written down in whatever original had existed and then transcribed into copy after copy – waiting for her to detect it, on this fall day in England?
She shivered, and hurried after Mackie, not wanting to be alone.
XIV
21 October
The convoy bowled along the Hastings road.
Heinz Kieser was driving the staff car. He was relaxed, the top buttons of his uniform open, but Ernst thought he was pushing up too close to the truck ahead of them. And he insisted on having the top down, although the day was blustery and overcast. Viv had her scarf tied tightly over her head, to try to keep her hair from blowing all over the place.
Beside his sister in the back seat, Alfie leaned forward. 'Can't this old bucket go any faster, Ernst?'
Heinz snapped at him, 'You shut your mouth. And speak respectfully to the officer.'
Alfie flinched back, shocked. He looked small and very young in his Jugend uniform. But he said bravely enough, 'He's not an officer. He's an obergefreiter, and so are you.'
Heinz, barely understanding, scowled at Ernst. 'What?… Just shut up, boy, or-'
Ernst said, 'Enough. Sit quiet, Alfie.'
'Yes, Ernst.'
Heinz shook his head, and said in German, 'Wretched little kid.'
'There's no need to speak to them like that, Heinz. Not these two.'
'Are you joking? We're an occupying army, not kindergarten teachers!'
'Look, Alfie has joined the Jugend and Vivien is learning the language, and they've both been given a Tuesday off school for Trafalgar Day. I mean, what more can you ask of them? We're building an empire here. We must win the hearts of the next generation. And the way to do that isn't by bullying kids.'
'"Win the hearts."' Heinz laughed. 'You do talk some shit, Ernst.' He grinned and glanced at Viv in his mirror. 'You know the talk is still that you're giving that little sweetie lessons in more than German. Oh, come on, Ernst, you must see how it looks. All the lads are saying it.'
'All the lads are wrong, then, aren't they?'
'Look, we all make this sort of arrangement. I, for example, have an agreement with a lady in Rye. Her husband is a "conchy, as the English say, a conscientious objector. He ended up in prison, up in London, and that's where he still is as far as my friend knows. Let's call her "Mrs X.'
'Let's!'
'Now she has a bad time of it. The English being the English, they despise her for her husband's cowardice far more than they despise us. So they won't help her in all the small give-and-take ways that make life bearable. Not just the black market – nobody will dig her potatoes for her in return for her baking a cake, that sort of thing. And she has a kid, a boy of about ten. Hungry all the time! So it's hard for her.'
Ernst had heard something of this; not all the barracks gossip was about him. 'So you exploit her.'
'No, not at all. I help her out with the ration. Sometimes a bit of chocolate for the kid, that sort of thing. I tell the lads to go easy when they come requisitioning from her little ploughed-up garden.'
'And in return?'
He grinned. 'Let me tell you about Mrs X. She's older than us, Ernst. Late thirties. But she's a strong-looking woman, tall, with a rangy frame. Dark hair, dark eyes. A certain quality, a sad autumnal beauty. And deep, heavy breasts.' He took his hands off the wheel to mime this.
Ernst glanced back uneasily at the children. Cowed, they looked away.
Heinz said, 'We all do it. And I mean, if not for that, why do you stay with these people in their miserable farmhouse? Look, I'm not mocking you, Ernst. I really want to know.'
'I feel responsible, Heinz. It's something like that.'
Heinz laughed. 'Responsible for what? You didn't order Sea Lion.'
'No. But that wretched family has been torn apart. They wouldn't be if we weren't here, would they?'
'These two seem to be embracing the occupation readily enough.'
'I think they're looking for stability,' Ernst said. 'Their mother and father are barely speaking, and the baby- let's just say, I think these two look to me as a pole of order.'
'Ha! There you go again. You take yourself too seriously, you know, Ernst. Obergefreiter Trojan, the successor to Nietzsche! Come on. Stop thinking so hard, and just give the girl a seeing-to. I can see she's longing for it. And probably you are too.'
But there, at least, Heinz was wrong, Ernst thought. He had the latest letter from Claudine in his jacket pocket. He could feel its sharp corners pressing through his shirt to his skin, this little artefact that had been sent from her hands to his. And after the celebrations were done for Trafalgar Day, the latest in the military government's endless stream of 'morale-boosting' memorial days, he had every hope that he would be able to fulfil the arrangement he had made with her, to slip away before the curfew and-