'Oh. So he paid you.'
'It didn't mean anything. But then he was posted east, and off he went, bleating about his wife and two boys. I never heard from him again.'
'But you needed the money.'
'Another man came. A friend of the first. He said he had heard Hansie talk of me, and, well… That was how it started. All word of mouth, and all gentlemen, if I may say so. I think they cared for me, each in his way.'
'And then?'
'And then the resistance came. Bastards,' she said with sudden vehemence. 'What brave men they are, to target a woman alone. Much easier than fighting the Germans.'
'You were attacked?'
'They would have cut my face, if I hadn't got away. Well, the police came to me, and when they found out, you know, they passed me to the military authorities. After that it was all very smooth.' She looked at him. 'You're in the Wehrmacht. You know how it works. The army runs the houses. The girls are given their cards. I was checked for infection, and interviewed.' She laughed at that. 'Interviewed! They prefer respectable girls to whore for their soldiers. Well, I passed the test.'
'And you came to England?'
'The authorities are importing French whores for the men here. Think of that! The English are so cold they can't even prostitute themselves properly. Churchill should make a speech about it. And at least the resistance here are leaving the foreign girls alone.'
'So you came for the Wehrmacht,' he said. 'For work. Not for me.'
'No! Oh, Ernst, no. You are so straight in your thinking. It's either one thing or the other with you, isn't it? Nothing in between. Look, I wanted to see you. I still do.' She leaned forward. 'Why don't we get out of this place? We could go to the hostel.
He stood in a kind of panic, shoving back his chair. He tried to calm himself. He took his wallet, drew out some Reichsmarks, and put them on the table, under the wine bottle. 'Will you be able to get back by yourself?'
She looked confused. 'Yes – there are taxis – oh, Ernst, don't go.'
He looked down at her, so beautiful, her bright red lips still shining bright. 'I'm sorry.' He turned on his heel and walked away.
XVII
9 November
The prisoners were woken by bugle blasts.
They gathered for the morning appell. The Nazi flag and the flag of Albion snapped high on their poles, lifted by a chill breeze under a bright blue sky. Bundled in their shabby greatcoats, the men stamped their feet and blew on their hands.
The camp commander announced briskly that the regular Sunday work details would be suspended. Muffled cheers. Once again it was some kind of memorial day. But then Danny Adams announced the British troops would hold a parade and a minute's silence at eleven a.m.
'Oh, it's not just any old memorial, old chap,' said Willis Farjeon, standing beside Gary in the rank. 'This is Armistice Day, when we all down tools to remember our fathers who fell in the War to End Wars. Nice clean military memorial, the kind the Nazis embrace to their bony little hearts-'
'Put a sock in it, Farjeon,' murmured the SBO in his broad scouse. 'And besides, I suspect you and the other superior-breed types might not be spending the day with us after all.' He nodded over to where the commander and his senior aides had been joined by a couple of SS officers, who were, in the usual German fashion, consulting lists.
The men whistled at the SS officers, and called out obscenities in a variety of languages, and those nearby nudged Gary and Willis. The stalag standing joke was that all SS men were in fact raging faggots, and that the racial selection processes had actually been about looking for pretty boys. 'Don't worry, Wooler, I hear Himmler's pecker is even smaller than Hitler's. You won't feel a thing.'
Willis camped it up in response. Gary just stood there.
But it turned out it wasn't all the stalag Aryans who were asked for today. The SS party came over to the British group and spoke briefly to the SBO. He turned and beckoned to Gary. 'Just you, Wooler.'
Gary came out of the line. One of the SS officers stepped forward to meet him.
'Oh, Christ,' somebody groaned. 'It's the SS bird. It's not fair.'
From beneath a black peaked cap, a startlingly beautiful face smiled at Gary. 'So you're Corporal Wooler. I've been hearing about you – and your notorious mother, whom I actually met once. We have high hopes for you, Wooler. You're a significant figure. The American fighting for the British. The neutral who refuses a safe passage out of the stalag. You've made yourself prominent, among the Prominente!'
The accent was pure upper-class English. 'My God. What are you?'
Her smile broadened. 'I am SS-Unterscharfuhrer Fiveash. But you can call me Julia. We've quite a day ahead of us, Corporal. Come now.' And she turned and walked away.
Gary glanced at the SBO, who nodded.
Behind him the men, recovering their nerve, got into the catcalling. 'You lucky dog,' shouted Willis Farjeon. 'You lucky dog, Wooler!'
He was led to the gate, where he was briskly searched, first by an SS man and then by stalag guards. The guards, knowing the prisoners' tricks, were a lot more thorough, but he was spared the indignity of a strip search and a cavity inspection.
A small group of staff cars was waiting outside the stalag gate. Julia Fiveash sat in one of these, behind a Wehrmacht driver. The car door was open, and she patted the seat beside her. Gary joined her, bewildered.
The cars pulled away, and formed up into a small convoy. They were heading east, he saw from the angle of the sun, towards the coast. Gary reflexively considered the possibilities of escape. This was no steel-barred truck; this was an open car, and he could just hop over the side. But he had no doubt that weapons were trained on him.
Fiveash said, 'We don't have far to go – a couple of miles.'
'Where to?'
'You'll see.' Fiveash was watching him. 'So how do you feel? What are you thinking? Come, Corporal, I hope you won't cling to that name, rank and serial number routine; I do want us to get to know each other.'
How did he feel? He ran a fingertip along a seam of the leather seat cover. The car was gleaming inside and out, and the woman beside him was crisp and sharp in her jet-black uniform. It was a bright, fresh English fall day, and the car, bowling along, threw up a rooster-tail of leaves that smelled of wood smoke. 'I haven't been in any sort of vehicle outside of a steel-walled prison truck for a year. I feel grimy. Hell, I am grimy.'
'Well, you don't need to be grimy. Not any more.'
Soon they approached a cluster of buildings, gathered around a crossroads.Gary's first impression was of whitewashed concrete. It was nothing like the compact little villages of Kent; it looked new, alien, as if it had been dropped from the sky. And it didn't look like another prison, at least, though there was a fence of chicken-wire and barbed wire around it.
They stopped at a barrier, where an SS-schutze, a private, checked papers handed over by the drivers.
Gary studied the sign before the barrier. 'Nova Rutupiae." What the hell kind of name is that?'
'Latin,' said Fiveash. 'Or at least some Party scholar's idea of Latin. Rutupiae, you see, is the old Roman name for Richborough. So it seems appropriate. You know Richborough; you've been working there. I'm told that you will be able to see the invasion monument from the podium of Rutupiae's thingplatz.'
The barrier was raised. They were driven through into the fenced-off inner area, where they climbed out of the car.