‘Where will we be in two days’ time, then?’
‘We will have moved on. To the next town. Les will be worried about keeping me alive . . .’
Les snorted, and mumbled, ‘Don’t count on that.’ Then he started snoring lightly again.
‘. . . and you will be closer to your pretty lady. Is she pretty, by the way?’
‘Sometimes. There’s something special about her: like an It girl.’
When I had opened my eyes James was still asleep. He had joined us, and was slumped sideways, his head resting on Les’s shoulder. When he sat up I asked him, ‘What are you going to do about Kilduff?’
James yawned. Les and I copied him. It’s catching: I just yawned again as I wrote that.
‘See if he tells us who wants you chopped, if he knows, and then I suppose it’s old Hammurabi’s Hypothesis. Have you heard of that, Charlie?’
‘I heard all this cock before,’ Les said to neither of us in particular. ‘All it means is that we’re going to have to kill the beggars.’
That seemed sad, this close to the end of the war. It was another of the things you didn’t say.
They must have been waiting to hear us stir. Mrs Bürgermeister busied in with something approximating breakfast. It was potato soup, and potato bread. When we finished James gave the Bürgermeister a form he had filled in for him. It came from a small loose-leafed pad, and the Bürgermeister had to sign it as well. James kept a carbon copy. Then he took the Bürgermeister outside. They walked up and down in animated private conversation.
Les said to me, ‘The Major has just given him his appointment as a military-approved Mayor. It will probably last until they get round to proper elections; could be a couple of years. It’s a very important piece of paper. It means that he stays top dog. If he’s a good man we benefit from that.’
‘Is he a good man?’
‘Fuck knows. He must have been a Nazi to have held down the job in the first place. Don’t worry: we’ve been dealing with Nazi Froggies and Cloggies for the last few months. The bottom line is we only appoint the ones who know how to run things. I’m going to give Kate the once-over.’
I stowed the radio. While I was doing it the boy came in and sat at the table and watched me with his owlish eyes. I noticed for the first time that his spectacles had been broken at the bridge, and repaired with copper wire wrapped in a tiny coil.
He said, ‘It was an honour to meet you, Mister Charlie.’
‘It has been my honour, too.’ I decided to try something. ‘Not long ago we heard that Jewish people were being rounded up and placed into camps. Is that true?’
‘Yes. My mother was one. The Bürgermeister saved me from the camp. My family were there.’
‘Where was that?’
‘Here. Just outside of the town. It’s empty now.’
‘Are there many camps?’
Maybe I’d learned a thing or two from the Major after all. I began to sense that my single questions were wearing him down; showing me something under the skin. He looked at the table. His fists clenched and unclenched. I did it again.
‘Are there many camps?’
‘Yes, many. Every town this size has a camp. There are more than a thousand of them.’
‘That means . . .’
‘Yes, sir . . . tens of thousands of Jews; hundreds of thousands . . . maybe millions. And not only Jews . . .’
‘I wasn’t sure I could believe what was in the newspapers.’
‘You may believe,’ he told me, and looked up. The eye contact scalded me. ‘You have our permission.’
‘Why did they take you in?’ I asked him a little later.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask them.’
When I recounted the conversation to Les he said, ‘Effing obvious isn’t it? Effing insurance policy.’
*
That depressed me. Les’s occasional cynicism sometimes got to you that way. Kate was parked about twenty yards along the road, on the Greater Germany side of town. We were all stowed and ready to go. The boy was standing on the passenger-side running board, set to guide us out through the ruined streets. Time for goodbyes. I felt strangely older than when I’d arrived, and couldn’t get used to the idea that that was less than two days ago. We stood near to the heavy pavement door to Kilduff’s cellar. Mrs Bürgermeister gave me a hug: women have always found it easy to hug me – it’s because I’m small, I think. Her husband shook my hand; firmly, but for too long. Les and the Major had already been through the formalities.
Les then grinned at us, and taking the woman’s arm walked her to the cellar door. He handed her something. I didn’t see what. Then he bent and lifted the door about a foot. I heard Kilduff immediately. He must have regained his cockiness, because whatever he said ended in fucker. The Bürgermeister’s wife had two small American Mills bombs in her hands. It was what Les must have given to her to hold. Women don’t waste time when something unpleasant has to be done: have you noticed that? She didn’t give Les the grenades back: she pulled the pins on both of them, and dropped them in. Les dropped the big trapdoor with a bang. The woman turned and smiled at us, as if she had done something very naughty. We hot-footed it to the other side of the road, Les dragging the woman behind him.
There are two things from the Forties that I will remember all my life. One is burning Lancaster bombers at night. I have seen those at every firework display I have ever attended: I try to avoid them these days. The other is the noise that Kilduff made then. Even though I can remember it exactly, I still can’t tell if it
