Weaver

you very much,' Viv said heavily. She fixed her hat on her head; it was a small trilby. 'I'm glad somebody in this house treats me like an adult and not a criminal.'

'Just be careful, love.'

'Yes, yes.' Viv walked past Ernst, not even looking at him.

When she slammed the kitchen door behind her Ernst winced. He felt guilty; he felt that the kindness he had tried to show the girl when he had first been billeted here had somehow gone wrong, that she had at last become what her father had feared. But what else could he have done?

Heinz topped up Fred's glass.

Ernst crossed to the sink, and stood with Irma before the open window. As the English midsummer approached the days were long; it was after seven in the evening, but the sun was still above the horizon, the sky a deep but brilliant blue, the world green and full of birdsong. It often struck him how resilient nature was. It took only days for weeds to colonise a bomb site, far faster than any human agency could clear debris and rebuild. And some men did not recover at all. Look at Heinz. He had come back from his winter on the eastern front wounded in body and mind – come back aged.

Irma handed Ernst a glass of cold water. When she took a step her clogs clattered on the stone floor. The clogs were made by Fred from wood and a bit of old leather; shoes were another item the civilian population found ever harder to replace. 'You can't blame Viv. Poor girl! It's not much of a time to be growing up, is it? No wonder she goes after a bit of glamour. You can't blame her.'

He sipped his water. 'Any news of the boys today?'

She shook her head. It had been a month since they had had a letter from Alfie, now sixteen, who had been working on a bombed-out airfield in Kent. But now there were rumours that anybody who had been involved with the Hitler Jugend was to be drafted into the Volkssturm or even the British units of the Wehrmacht, and trained to fight the expected counter-invasion. As for Jack, three years after he had been taken as a POW, there had been no word at all of him for months and months, not even through the Red Cross.

'Fred always gets worse after the post comes. In a way he frets more about Alfie than about Viv, or even Jack. Alfie's so young, you see. He can probably barely remember a time before the Germans came. It might be hard for him to shake it all off, when the Americans come.' She glanced over. 'They're starting in on the vodka earlier every day.'

Ernst forced a smile. 'Well, Heinz says he lost the fingers of his right hand at Stalingrad, but came back with a bottle of vodka in his left.'

'I hope you ate well today, Herr Obergefreiter.' She stirred the watery stew. 'Potatoes and turnip again I'm afraid. Not even any whale meat tonight! They cut our ration again, the feldgendarmerie.'

'Heinz told me.'

'Fred's a war veteran. They can't expect him to take up arms against his own countrymen. You'd think they'd have the respect not even to ask. I know he's heading for trouble. I mean, the way he swears at them! Well, maybe the Americans will be here before it all comes to a head.'

'I am sure we will cope,' Ernst said vaguely, hoping to reassure her.

She smiled and pushed hair out of her eyes. She too had lost weight; the bones of her temples were prominent, her hair thinning. 'You're always so kind, Herr Obergefreiter. It's a strange thing – I never thought I'd feel this way in that time after the invasion – I miss those old days, ever so. When it was just you. I know Heinz is your friend, but with him here, and the other soldiers in the towns, you know…'

He understood. The movement of troops in anticipation of the counter-invasion had upset the web of obligations and compromises that had grown up among the local people and the troops stationed among them. He himself had been irritated to have Heinz foisted on his billet, after the business over Claudine. But Claudine was long dead, and Heinz was damaged by his own war; it didn't seem to matter any more. 'Heinz isn't so bad,' he said gently. 'There are worse.' Some of the men had been brutalised by their time in the east.

'Oh, I'm sure,' she said. 'In fact he's company for Fred, in a way.' But her voice was flat, a sign that she was hiding something from him, as she often did. She shooed him away so she could finish her cooking.

Ernst sat with the men and grudgingly accepted a small shot of vodka.

The television showed a newsreel, a Nazi grandee in a long leather coat touring an armaments factory. He could have been anywhere in Albion, as it seemed the whole protectorate was given over to such industries.

'Herr Goebbels,' Fred told Ernst. He pronounced the name the comical way Churchill did, 'Gobbles'. 'Poking his nose around Canterbury.'

'We are honoured,' Heinz said mockingly. He raised his glass. 'To the Reichsminister!'

'At least he's here,' Fred said. 'It's a bloody long time since Hitler showed up.'

'It is not Goebbels we need,' Heinz growled. 'Not him and his speeches and his slogans. It is tanks and guns and shells and bullets we need to face the Americans.'

'You've got reinforcements,' Fred said. 'You're a bloody reinforcement, man.'

Heinz laughed. 'Yes, and I still have one hand left that I can shoot with! God save the Fuhrer.'

But Ernst knew that Heinz's tanks and guns were unlikely to come any time soon. Despite the rumoured Allied build-up on the other side of the First Objective the Reich's resources were increasingly being diverted to the astonishing battles being fought out in the east.

Now Goebbels calmly watched a row of blindfolded auxiliaries being executed by firing squad. The music swelled to a brittle climax as the bodies shivered and fell.

'I will tell you one thing,' Heinz said. 'I would not want to be a British partisan in the hands of the SS. From the Fuhrer down, they are saying it's all your fault, you British, the troubles we are having.'

Fred laughed. 'What, even Stalingrad? Uncle Joe and his T-34 tanks might have had a bit to do with that.'

'Yes, but if you buggers had not been so stubborn, if you had made peace as any sensible person would have done, we would not have so many men tied down on this absurd little island.'

Buggers. Ernst suppressed a smile. Heinz had picked up a good deal of English from Fred. Fred said, 'And so those bloody SS thugs take it out on English children, while they hide from the Russians like the cowards they are.'

'You won't hear me defending the SS, that's for sure.'

Ernst stood, downed his vodka and picked up his jacket. 'I probably ought to pack before dinner. The truck's coming for me at midnight.'

'Where are you going now?' Heinz asked.

'I have a posting on the coast in Kent. Richborough. Five days.'

Heinz eyed Ernst. 'Is this your brother pulling strings again?' Even before his return from Stalingrad Heinz had always been a hugely suspicious soldier, endlessly perceiving favours done and postings manipulated. He got up unsteadily and lurched over to Irma at the range. 'Where's that blessed stew, woman?'

'Coming,' Irma said without emotion.

Seeing Ernst was leaving, Myrtle gurgled and raised her little arms to him. With his jacket slung over his shoulder, he squatted down. He picked up her Mickey Mouse gas-mask from where it sat on the floor and waggled it. When she grabbed for it he picked her up, his hands under her armpits. She laughed when he bounced her gently, and plucked at the buttons on his shirt. He could feel her ribs, her elbows and knees were lumps of bone, and he could make out the shape of her little skull as she smiled at him. He knew little about the development of children, but it seemed to him she was behind with her walking and talking. It was strange to think that this child had always been hungry, every minute of every day of her short life.

Heinz's shadow fell over him. And when he looked up, he saw Heinz's left hand, his good hand, rake upwards over Irma's hip and settle on her breast. She elbowed him away, with a nervous glance at Fred. Heinz just laughed and staggered back to the table.

Irma saw that Ernst had seen all this. She glanced again at Fred, and hissed, 'You won't tell him, will you? It's not what you think. I mean – it's just for the rations. Heinz brings me extra, you know, I need it for the child.'

He stood, keeping his face blank. 'I could have helped you. There was no need.'

She shook her head. 'I would never beg favours of you. I have my pride, Herr Obergefreiter.' She began to ladle out the stew.