Mary turned to her driver. 'That's the clean-up. Right?'
He looked at her nervously.
'No English, huh? You didn't get your timing quite right, did you? If I'd been a bit further away, if I hadn't actually heard the gunfire, I mightn't have put it all together. I'm not as smart as poor Hilda, am I? And I'm not used to this sort of war. Well, don't worry, Fritz, I'm not going to make trouble for you. Just go ahead. I'll hold it together, you'll see.'
And she did. She held it together until they got to Hurst Green, another deserted little village, where, remarkably, a green-painted bus was waiting for her. The driver, a British soldier, actually saluted his German counterpart. The British seemed surprised to see her alone, but Mary just climbed on the bus and snapped, 'Don't talk. Just drive. And when you get me to Tunbridge Wells, find me a fucking phone.'
XXX
25 September
'Morning, ladies.' Unteroffizier Fischer came stomping through the lounge bar, his boots clattering on the pub's straw-strewn stone floor. He yanked open curtains with his gloved hands, pulling one so hard it came away from its hooks. The window was a rectangle of blue-grey. 'It's Wednesday morning, and you're still in England.'
The men under their army blankets stirred, like huge slugs. Their boots and rifles were stacked against the bar walls.
Ernst glanced at the big railway clock on the wall. Five in the morning, English time. He groaned. He heard a distant rumble, like thunder. Chances were it wasn't a storm. He sat up, rubbing his face. 'Today's the day, is it, Unteroffizier? The break-out.'
'That's the idea, Trojan. You pretty boys will have the privilege of following Seventh Panzer out of here, all the way from Uckfield to Guildford.'
'Where on God's earth is Guildford?'
'I don't even know where Uckfield is.'
'I'll tell you where Guildford is, Kieser. It's on OKH Objective One, our first operational objective. And if, when, we reach it today, we'll have achieved in five days what the Fuhrer's plan called for in ten. And then we will be out of this hedgehog country where there's a partisan in every piss-pot, and we will let the Panzers loose and it will be like France all over again.'
'We'll all get medals,' said Kieser.
'I'll pin yours on myself. Personally I would like to see Oxford. Now shift your pretty arses, we form up in half an hour.' He stomped out.
The men stirred, sitting up and pushing back their blankets. The rotting-feet stink and stale farts that had been trapped under the blankets filled the air. Kieser waved a hand. 'By Christ, lads. Fuhrer directive forty-seven. Soldiers of the Twenty-sixth Division shouldn't light a fag in the mornings.'
The men moved slowly. They all knew Fischer was a bit soft, and you could grab a few more minutes' kip with impunity.
Ernst got to his feet. He was in his shorts and vest and socks, and he picked up a kit bag containing his razor and a bit of soap. He stepped over the bodies of the stirring men, making for the door. The floor was sticky with stale beer. This pub, in this place called Uckfield, had been a big disappointment to the men billeted here. Some English bastard had stolen all the spirits and taken an axe to the barrels behind the bar. 'These English partisans fight dirty,' Unteroffizier Fischer had said.
Ernst pushed out of the bar room into fresh, cold air. There was already a queue outside the lavatory, four or five men in their grubby underwear with towels around their necks, rubbing their arms to get warm. The paving stones were slick with dew, and Ernst took off his woollen socks and tucked them into the elastic waist of his pants. Better wet feet than wet socks.
He heard a distant explosion. It came from his right, the south, back towards the coast. When he looked that way there was a fading glow.
'That was a big one,' somebody grumbled. 'Must be fifteen miles away.'
Ernst heard a rumble of engines. Looking up he saw planes crossing the sky, very high, without lights, just silhouettes against the steel grey, like cardboard cut-outs, flying north to south.
'Old Goering will swat those fuckers like flies,' somebody said, yawning.
'But he was supposed to have got rid of the RAF by now.'
'Nothing to do with us, lads,' said the man at the head of the queue. He hammered on the toilet door. 'What are you doing in there, Wilhelm? We're freezing our balls off.'
More planes swept over, all of them coming from the north, wave after wave of them, without a challenge from any Luftwaffe planes, or a single anti-aircraft shot being fired.
XXXI
As Gary entered the ops room he was met by a barrage of popping flashbulbs and calls, some of them in American twangs. 'This way, Gary!' 'Over here, Corporal Wooler!' 'Gary! Smile for the folks back home, Gary!'
He stood there, uncertain, reluctant, the staff officer who'd escorted him at his side. They were behind the British lines here, in Alton, a few miles from the Petersfield to Farnborough line where Gary's own division was concentrated.
Beyond the blizzard of light the work of the ops room continued. Gary looked down on the great map table in the pit below him. The map showed southern England, a fat green peninsula pinned by the grey mass of London on the northern edge, and bounded by the pale blue of ocean to the south. This very old country was crowded with towns and villages, and by the traceries of roads that snaked around the lumpy brown of ranges of hills. But now it was disfigured by the bold red slashes of defensive lines, and harsh black scribbles that must be the perimeters of the occupied territories. Coloured blocks littered the map, representing units of men and armour, shoved across the map by Wrens with long-handled wooden shovels, like croupiers in some immense game of roulette. Along the coast from Brighton to Dover there was a cloud of toy aircraft, while little ships pushed through the Channel.
The Wrens wore headsets, and talked constantly. Telephones and radio receiving stations were set up around the walls. Officers in the uniforms of all the services watched from railed balconies, with a few civilians, ministers perhaps, puffing cigars. Still the flashbulbs popped.
None of this seemed real to Gary. The pit of light, the controlled murmur of voices, the flashing bulbs, the smell of cigar smoke, made it all dreamlike. He wasn't sure how he had kept functioning, in fact, since his mother had got through to him two days ago with the news about Hilda. He was going through the motions of his duties. But he felt as if he were neither asleep nor awake.
An officer, Royal Navy from his uniform, marched towards Gary. Maybe forty, he looked sharp, intelligent, his face lean and ruddy, an outdoors look, and he wore a precisely clipped black moustache. 'Corporal Wooler? I'm Captain Mackie, RN – Tom Mackie, MI-14. Look, I'm sorry for this charade. I know you'd rather be with your unit.'
'Yes, sir-'
'But in this bloody war, image and news presentation are assets just as significant as boots and guns on the ground. Let's get it over with and kick this shower of hacks and bulb-wasters out of our ops room, shall we?' He grasped Gary's hand and turned to the cameras, which flashed even more furiously. Through a fixed grin, Mackie said, 'Of course we're proud you've chosen to wear the uniform of the British Army. But it's a shame you don't look a bit more American, if you know what I mean.'
'I should have worn spurs and a cowboy hat.'
'That's the spirit! Look, General Brooke hoped to be here himself to meet you.'
'General Brooke?'
