'What?'
'The invasion.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Just looking around. Piecing bits together. I mean, the work we've been doing, you can see the logic.' He mimed an enclosure with his hands. 'You have this crust around the coast – tank blocks, barbed wire, ditches, mines. Then further back we've been building what they call the stop lines. Natural barriers like rivers and canals and forests, but reinforced with tank traps and pillboxes. Defence in depth. You can see it taking shape.'
'I don't think they'll come,' Hilda said. 'For one thing they haven't been able to knock out the RAF. Those Me109s of theirs are too short-range. The Hurricanes and Spits can always retreat to fields in the north of England. The Luftwaffe can't win.' That was the official line. But, Hilda had heard it said at work, all the Germans actually needed to do was to beat the RAF back from the skies of southern England, and achieve 'local air superiority'. And Hilda knew from her own experience that if they kept battering at the airfields and radar stations and sector stations of the south-east, the delicate system of command and control behind the RAF's operations could soon crumble. It would actually be better for Britain's prospects in the war if the Luftwaffe turned on London again. But she said firmly: 'No, they won't come. And all your digging will be for nothing!'
'So where's Gary now?'
'Well, he's recovered. He's been reposted, a lot of the BEF veterans have. Now he's to be with an international unit in the Twenty-ninth Brigade. He's due to join it on Friday.' She hesitated. 'They're stationed north of Eastbourne. I was hoping he'd be sent to the Twenty-first. A lot of the veterans are with them, north of London.'
'They're reserves up there, the Twenty-first?'
'Yes. But they're short of front-line troops.' Hilda had heard rumours about the troops in the field – eight divisions, something like a hundred and fifty thousand men, with another forty thousand north of the Thames. It might have been twice that if not for the loss of the BEF. It was thought the Germans could muster a force outnumbering the British by at least two to one. 'We shouldn't talk like this,' Hilda said. 'Spreading rumours.'
'But don't you feel the need to talk?' Ben said, and he laughed nervously. 'I'm cursed with an active brain, Hilda. I'm an academic, for pity's sake, I worked with Godel himself. Now they've got me digging a hole in the ground.' He made a spinning motion by his temple. 'I can't help thinking, thinking, working it all out.'
'Yes, and you yak and yak about it,' Tom said sensibly. 'My advice to you is to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.' He stuck his spade into the earth again.
Ben said, 'I think that was a hint. You said you had messages for me?'
'Can you come into town on Friday, in the morning? Meet us at the house. Gary's got something to say to you before he gets posted – we both have.'
Ben nodded. After the way he had helped Gary after the return from Dunkirk, the two of them had stayed close.
Hilda went on, 'And I know Mary Wooler has some material for you. History stuff.'
Ben's eyes gleamed. 'I expect the war effort can spare me for a couple of hours. I'll see you then, Hilda.'
'Good. All right-'
'Holy Mother of God.' Tom had stopped digging, and was staring south.
Over Hastings, one of the barrage balloons had been set alight. Subsiding gently, deforming, it was drifting down the sky, a brilliant teardrop.
IX
20 September
So they gathered, on a dull Friday morning, in the stuffy parlour of George Tanner's little terraced house in the Old Town of Hastings.
When Mary came downstairs, a sheaf of her research papers under her arm, she found George, Ben Kamen, Gary and Hilda standing side by side. They all held cups of tea in saucers, rather stiffly. The windows were taped, and buckets of sand stood in the corners. Everybody was in uniform save Mary, George in his copper's jacket, Gary and Hilda in the colours of the British Army and Air Force respectively, and even Ben Kamen, a bit crumpled, in the Army-like khaki of the Home Guard. It would have made a good group portrait, Mary reflected, thinking like a journalist.
Gary and Hilda hung back, shyly. 'Oh, a card came for you today, Mary.' George picked it off the mantelpiece and handed it to her. She glanced at it; it was a postcard, addressed to her in a round, unfamiliar handwriting.
Ben was eager to speak to Mary, and he stepped forward. 'Mary, Hilda said you found out something?'
Mary glanced at Gary and Hilda. 'We can talk about it later. But, briefly, I dug up a lot of stuff in Colchester, following the lead you gave me about Geoffrey Cotesford. Take a look at this.' She handed him her sheaf of documents, some copied from the archive she'd visited at Colchester, some her own notes.
Ben read hastily: 'Time's Tapestry: As mapped by myself; in which the long warp threads are the history of the whole world; and the wefts which run from selvedge to selvedge are distortions of that history, deflected by a Weaver unknown; be he human, divine or satanic… Oh, my.'
'This is getting very strange,' Mary said. 'We need to talk.'
'Yeah, but not right now, Mom, Jeez,' Gary said, breaking his silence at last. 'Look – we don't have much time. You know I'm being mobilised today. We want to give you time to get used to the idea before, well, before we all go off to our separate duties.'
George looked baffled. 'What idea?'
Gary hesitated, the silence stretching. Mary's heart pulsed with pride to see him standing there in his crisp uniform with his crimson-haired girl at his side, even if she ached to think of the damage this war had already done to him.
And Mary suddenly knew why she had been brought here. 'You've gone and done it, haven't you?'
Ben was grinning. 'Gary, you dog.'
George snapped, 'Done what? Will somebody tell me-'
Hilda lifted her left hand. The ring on her finger was a simple gold band. 'It was my mother's,' she said. She faced her father defiantly. 'Look, Dad, it was all a rush. We didn't even decide to do it until last Friday, when Gary's orders came through, and we knew we were running out of time. And then we went to the town hall, and found a registrar who was prepared to see to us on the spot-'
'See to you,' Ben said mockingly.
'Shut up, Ben,' Gary said mildly.
Hilda said, 'Dad, we wanted you there, of course we did. And you, Mary. But we didn't want to lose this chance before – you know. In case we didn't get another go. And besides-'
'And besides,' Mary said drily, 'you thought if you told us in advance we might have said no. Well, you're not the only wartime bride, are you?'
Gary looked at her uncertainly. 'Are you happy for us?'
'Oh, love, of course I am.' She crossed to him and hugged him, smelling the pungent scent of his new khaki uniform. 'It's a shock. But we live in a world of shocks, don't we?'
Hilda turned to her father. 'Dad? What about you?'
George's face was hard. 'Well, you haven't given me much choice in the matter, have you? Gary, you're a good boy, anybody can see that. But, Hilda – your mother's ring – and you didn't even tell me!'
Hilda's face was set. 'Yes, well, this is why, I knew how you'd be.'
As tempers soured, Ben shrank back, dismayed.
The telephone rang in the hall. It made George jump. It had only been installed a few weeks earlier, for his job; he hadn't owned a phone before. 'Excuse me.' He walked out stiffly, retreating into his role, more uniform than man.
'He'll come around,' Mary said.'
'Yes,' Ben said. 'It's just a shock, that's all. I'm shocked.'
Gary grinned. 'We'll do something about it when we get the time – after the war, if we have to wait that long.
