Novel - Losing

Losing

Christopher Wharton was born in Guilford and educated at the universities of Sussex and London. He worked as a reporter for seven years and has written for the Sunday Telegraph, the Spectator and the Daily Mail, before in 1995 pursuing a varied career of fiction writing, moving furniture and painting and decorating. He then joined the emergency services in 2003 and now works as an emergency medical technician for the South East Coast Ambulance Service. He lives in Brighton with his partner and two children.

This only is denied to God; the power to change the past Agathon

In the summer and autumn of 1940 the German high command took two fateful decisions. The first was to refuse to commit their tank forces to an immediate attack on the town of Dunkirk, which saved the British Army; the second a few months later was to switch the Luftwaffe’s bombing effort against Great Britain from airfields to cities, which saved the RAF. This book is an attempt to imagine what would have happened had those two decisions been reversed…

THE WOMAN was the fourth to jump, but the first the guards noticed. She had landed awkwardly and broken both legs. She screamed out. They stopped the train immediately and dog teams went back down the line to search for the missing. Most of the guards stayed with the train. It was not surprising. Most of the closed and sealed carriages had prisoners of war inside them, men of fighting age – some wounded and some not - more able to resist than most and more closely guarded. The men were on their way to Germany and forced labour, who knew for how long? They had little to lose. The guards inside the carriages and on the roof focussed their attention on them. The major whose job it had been to supervise the train loading had made the mistake of loading the Jewish trucks at the back, where they were out of the guards’ line of sight. The trucks had been added almost as an afterthought. There had been only a few hundred Jews at the transit camp – not many to round up – and they had been crammed into two cattle trucks the major had found at the last moment. They had been imprisoned for forty eight hours now. But the trucks were old and decrepit, and some of the prisoners in the first one had found a weak spot on

one of the walls where the planking was rotten. By the second day they had managed to force a hole in the side through which some of the young and agile could force their way through. The elders had tried to stop them, but failed. Some of the elders now had no strength to say anything to anyone. Some were close to death. They had had no food or water since being loaded. The others debated where the best place to try their escape might be, but as no-one had a very good idea where they were by now one place seemed as good as another. They were only a mile from a tunnel, which might have saved them all. The train was stopped in a cutting sheltered from view by chalk cliffs to either side – a private place. The major in charge ordered the guards to redouble their attention to the prisoners of war, who at least had been given water through their journey and had food parcels from home. He need not have worried. The train had stopped innumerable times already – no-one was interested in another stop. The POW’s dozed on. The German officer was tall but stooped with exhaustion, deep bags under his eyes and his uniform crumpled and dirty. All the Germans looked the same – things were not going well for them. The officer went back to dozing with subordinates while the dog teams did their work. The woman who had jumped was questioned. She was barely concious lying by the track. Her left leg was misshapen and the shin of her right had snapped and was poking through the flesh. She moaned gently. She had black hair and was pretty.The men who questioned her casually did not try to help her in any way.

Within an hour the dogs were back with the escapees. The officer was summoned from his carriage. He conferred for a long time with several of the others. The soldiers seemed to be debating something. Eventually a decision was reached. The two Jewish coaches were disconected while the body of the train was driven on another mile to the far side of the tunnel. The doors of the cattle wagons were opened and the prisoners forced out in batches of ten. They were marched a mile down the cutting in the opposite direction to a point where the side fell away to form a small dip hidden from everywhere but the line itself. This was where it was done. The first batch were shot. The next batch were marched up, forced to carry the bodies off the track and into the bushes to the side, before they were shot in turn. The elderly were helped out by the young. The girl who had jumped was dragged up at the end unconcious. The entire process took not much more than an hour. Within another, the empty trucks had been re-attached to the main train and it was moving again and gone. Darkness fell over the pit beside the rail track, no sound was heard there, nothing moved. The train arrived at Kings Cross later that day.

Losing

1938 BRIGHTON looked up at the train crossing the viaduct above it and just for a moment its true face showed. In Finlay Derrington’s mind were piers, ice creams, hot summer days by the sea, sweat and sand. What he looked down on were grimy soot-stained roofs, damp streets and crumbling houses leaning up against each other in desperation. He felt somehow cheated. Welcome to Brighton. A short walk brought him to his new home. A house halfway up a row on Viaduct Road, a grimy, seedy structure twenty minutes from the station. Its white front had long ago faded to grey, giving a listless, shame-faced quality. There was little sign of life behind the drawn curtains in the January mist, but the answer to the tap on the door was prompt, as if she had been waiting. An elderly woman. She looked greyer than the house. "You'll be Mr Derrington. Finlay Derrington, isn’t it? Come in, come in. I'm Mrs Brockenbury." "Good morning."

The woman was…well, drunk. She wheezed and turned into the hallway, struggling for breath and lifting her chest with painful heaves, an arm pushing against the wall for support as she staggered. He had time to register a face lined with fine wrinkles as she moved away. Soft, downy hairs emanated from both cheeks and sad eyes stared unfocussed from below a thatch of grey hair. As he followed into the hallway, the noise of a dog sniffing came from under the door of the sitting room. The green carpet of the hallway met white walls which, in the dim light, looked as grimy as those outside. The house smelt of damp and cabbage. Another life. His room was large and open, looking out onto the street. He was surprised at its size. In one corner there was a battered wardrobe, in the other a desk, equally delapidated. The bed lay defeated in the corner. The walls seemed cleaner than those in the hallway, although it could have been a trick of the light. The carpet was dirtier. "How was your trip down, dear? " She spoke kindly, though without apparent interest, wheezing more heavily after the slow ascent of the stairs. At the top she had had to stop, alarmingly, to regain breath, and had looked like she might topple back down. But she was talking again before he could answer, rushing the words out as if they might be her last. "As I said in the letter, ten shillings a month, in advance." She took a shuddering breath. "That includes bills. Breakfast is at 7.30 except Sundays and there is a meal at the same time every evening if you want it." She took another breath. "You will let me know if you are not going to be in of an evening, won't

you?" Her eyes fixed themselves determinedly on his chest. "I'll show you the bathroom." He pulled the notes from his wallet as he followed her back down the hall to the bathroom. The reward was the beginnings of a shy smile. The eyes travelled up to his throat, but would go no further. She pocketed the money. "If you need anything more I shall be downstairs. The key is in the lock there. I like all my guests to be in by eleven o'clock, eleven thirty at the latest." The smile disappeared, and the eyes sank back back to his chest, exhausted. "And, of course... no guests." The last words spat with embarassment. "You'll like the room dear, I think. Let me know if you want anything. Supper in an hour." She was gone, back down the hallway to the stairs, grasping the rail firmly. He went into his bedroom to unpack. He joined the tenants for supper behind the door from which the sound of a dog had come earlier. It had taken him only minutes to unpack his suits, shirts, underclothes and books. He had lain on the bed, which was firm around the edges but collapsed towards the middle, and stared at the ceiling, his mind blank. Mrs Brockenbury ushered him to a chair at the table, in a room even more dim than the hallway, before wheezing off into the kitchen through an adjoining door. She did not introduce him to the two men already there. He nodded and sat down. There was silence. Eventually, one of the others spoke.

"You must be the new man upstairs. You have the best room in the house." He proffered a hand across the table. "Stephen Calvert. This here is Evans. Michael Evans. I gather you are joining us at the school this term." Finlay introduced himself. Calvert was thin, bony, in his early twenties, with dirty looking blonde hair, worn long, and an intense manner. His fingernails were bitten and, like Mrs Brockenbury, he seemed to have difficulty in meeting people's gaze. He spoke in a rush, stuttering, and swept his hair out of his eyes as if it were an annoying distraction. The other man was quieter, taller and thinner, with protruding, inquiring eyes below a shock of orange hair and a hawk nose. He was less animated than Calvert and his eyes met Finlay's steadily as they shook hands. Finlay explained that he was to teach history at their school - St John's - for one term only and would be looking for a position after that. It was his first post. "History eh? Good luck getting them to listen to that. When do you start?" "Day after tomorrow," said Finlay, slipping into Calvert's clipped style of speech, "What are the boys like?" "Awful, of course," said Calvert. "Quite awful." Calvert poured tea from a large brown pot in the general direction of a cup in front of him. Some of it went in - most didn't. His hand shook. "You have to watch them, but that's the same everywhere. I'm new to the business myself. I teach English. Evans here mathematics. What do you say, Michael?"

The three chatted stiffly on, led by Calvert, awaiting Mrs Brockenbury and supper. Evans' room was at the back of the house. Calvert was two floors above, in a room which had a low roof and an ill-fitting window through which rain and wind blew liberally. "Been on at her to get it fixed for weeks but I don't think she cares over much. Probably hasn't been up there for years. Forgotten she's got a third floor at all." Mrs Brockenbury made a wheezing entrance, and the three lapsed into silence. A large bowl of what might have been stew was set before them, with a bowl of potatoes alongside. Nothing else. "There. Remember George," she breathed. She was already turning to walk from the room. "George?" Finlay asked. "The dog. Don't think the bastard gets fed otherwise." Evans pecked at his food, chewing each mouthful at length, silent. Calvert attacked his like a madman, cramming great mouthfuls in, chewing noisily. Finlay watched, astonished, as pieces fell to the table. Calvert, oblivious, kept up a monologue on the teachers and pupils of St John's, aided only by the occasional question. He took twice as long to finish as the others.There was a silence, and Finlay stared out of the window. The rain had finally gone, blown away by a cold, brisk wind that also seemed to be making short work of the windows too, which rattled alarmingly. He was wondering whether to make for the seafront when Calvert whispered. "The antidote to Mrs Brockenbury's cooking is found in the pub. What do you say?"

The stew was awful. With a smile of relief, Finlay reached for his coat. The pub – a couple of hundred yards walk away – was tiny and already contained a healthy crowd, providing a hubbub of voices in the background. Finlay bought the first drinks. Calvert had whisky - to combat the cold in his room. Evans asked for beer. Finlay could think of little to say. The silence was filled mainly by Calvert, who for all his nervous demeanour seemed to have no difficulty in finding conversation. He was 21, a farmer's son from Sussex, in his first teaching job. Evans was a year older - like Finlay – also in his first post. The pub forgave everything. After the cold of the day and the weariness of travelling, Finlay felt a warmth growing in his stomach and the atmosphere becoming more comfortable. As his eyes scanned the crowd, they settled on two young women, unaccompanied. The woman with her back to him had long dark hair which fell down over her shoulders. She was the shorter of the two, and he could see only an oblique angle of her face. Both wore similar dark clothes. The other woman, facing her friend and therefore Finlay, held his eyes. She had long heavy auburn hair, which fell to frame an oval, almost childish face. The eyes offset any innocence. They were deep set, strong and serious, almost shadowed, and stared with a black intensity at her companion. As he watched, her expression changed from grave seriousness to shocked laughter at something her friend had said. Her eyes bulged and her mouth opened to reveal even, white teeth. As she laughed,

the black eyes glinted fiercely and colour rushed into her pale cheeks. Her body convulsed as animation overtook her. Calvert, returning from the bar, saw his gaze and followed it. "Ren and Jean. I'll bring them over." He put the drinks down and headed off. "Who are they?" Finlay asked. Evans cleared his throat. "Ren Amsden and Jean Derby. Ren teaches French and Jean mathematics. You seem to be meeting all your colleagues in the pub." Finlay’s gaze had rested on each a shade too long, but he did not look away. As Calvert lead them over, a look of amusement shot between the two women. He looked around to see if more chairs could be had. There was one behind him, so he stood up to retrieve it. He turned back to find himself staring directly into the black eyes of the woman who had laughed so convulsively - Ren - turned up to meet his and barely a foot away, presenting herself to him. The look in her eyes now was a mocking, conspiratorial amusement. She pushed a hand out towards him. "Ren Amsden. You are Mr Finlay Derrington and I am supposed to meet you, apparently." The sparkling eyes reinforced the joking tone of the voice. He found himself smiling as he took the proffered hand and introduced himself. Her hand was cool. Still with her hand in his, Ren turned to Evans. "Hello Michael," she said, producing each word with drawling emphasis. "How are we then?" Evans smiled gently and nodded. Ren's eyes had already shifted back to Finlay and her hand was still in his. "May I introduce Jean Derby?"

Finlay had an impression of dark, heavily madeup eyes above slightly protruding teeth and a shy, diffident manner. They shook hands. Calvert had found another chair and the two women sat down. Calvert sat next to Ren. "Derrington’s in that room you stayed in last term, Ren," he said eagerly, brushing hair from his eyes, as if she had conferred royal status upon it. Her presence seemed to make him even more nervous than before. Ren's eyes stared at Finlay, the amusement more pronounced than before. "Really? I hope I left no unsightly deposits." She laughed. It was impossible to tell if the voice mocked him, Calvert, or both of them and all the world besides. Finlay suspected the latter. The dark eyes switched back to Calvert. "And how are your boys, Stephen?" "Not so bad, although they did appallingly last week. At least they aren't playing up too much at the moment. Too frightened of their results, I suppose." "And what is your subject, Mr Derrington?" The eyes held his levelly, but still with a conspiratorial air. "History. Call me Finlay. Everyone else does." She looked taken aback. "I don't know about that we've hardly been introduced." There was a bark of nervous laughter, and the same shocked, openmouthed look, followed by a giggle. He smiled, sensing it would be a mistake to rise to the challenge and feeling more amused than disturbed by it. Evans broke in. "Ren likes to vet people, Finlay. Likes to wrongfoot people. She doesn't like people being able to disprove her outlandish theories. About politics and

that sort of thing. A socialist." He pronounced the word as if it were the most ludicrous thing in the world. "What he is trying to say is I am not a fascist. Like him." Her tongue poked out at Evans. Calvert broke in. "I'm sure Finlay is much more interested in finding out what a hell-hole St John's is." "Is it?" "No, of course not, although Ren is doing her best to ferment a revolutionary spirit in the place, if only the boys' parents knew." Jean broke her silence, diffidently. "Who interviewed you? Dr Whitworth? What did you think of him?" As she spoke, her eyelids fluttered and then closed as she addressed him. Finlay wondered if he made people nervous. Only Evans and Ren seemed able to look at him. The headmaster of St John's, Dr Michael Whitworth, had put him at ease straightaway. Finlay had been nervous, but Whitworth more nervous still, visibly shaking as he talked. He had something wrong with his eyes. Finlay had wondered how Whitworth coped with morning assemblies. Ren answered the unspoken question. "You should see him in assembly. You can hardly hear his voice for the rattling of the paper." "He seemed extremely pleasant to me." Ren flushed, caught his expression and smiled. Her Yorkshire accent seemed more pronounced. "All right! He is pleasant enough. In fact, he is lovely. The most wonderful man in all the world. All right?” Finlay smiled, sensing some sort of victory, and lit a cigarette. Jean and Ren took one as well. "What are

the other teachers like?" He assumed he had already heard all there was to know about them from Calvert, but he wanted an excuse to keep looking at Ren's animated face and it was the only question he could think of to ask. "Most are pretty easy. The boys are not overtaxed and Whitworth isn't the type for savage beatings. That's left to Maycock. You'll get to meet him soon enough." She stood up abruptly. "Who wants another drink? Stephen? Whisky?" As she went to the bar, walking through the crowd as if challenging anyone to stop her, he was surprised that a woman should be so forward. He wondered if he was what his mother would call "old-fashioned". She had certainly never bought drinks in her life before, he thought. Probably never been in a pub before. Certainly not without his father. Finlay’s eyes fell on Calvert, whose gaze was fixed intently on Ren's retreating back, and Finlay understood. The others at the table had fallen to discussing a teacher at St John's who had managed to lose five of his charges on an outing to a place called Devil's Dyke. The boys had eventually tramped back themselves, one with a broken ankle, long before their hapless teacher had arrived, panic-stricken. The story was a source of amusement. Ren returned from the bar, with a tray of drinks, the most natural thing in all the world. "Right," she said, burping loudly. "Who wants a game of dominoes?" The next morning – in his new home - Finlay woke late with a dry, aching head. The bed was

uncomfortable - he had woken several times in the night. Evans and Calvert had already left for Lewes. He felt disorientated by sleep and his alien surroundings and the night before. He looked in the bathroom mirror and decided he could leave shaving until the next morning. Outside, he noticed a small oil painting, hanging unevenly across the hall at the top of the stairs, covered in a thick layer of dust that almost obscured the picture itself. A portrait of a man, with a strong angular face and black hair, brushed straight back. He wore a green tunic of some military cut, although no signs of rank were visible. His eyes stared coldly from the canvas. Finlay wondered who the man was. As he looked more closely at the picture frame, he saw a small panel cut into it at the bottom, completely obscured. He wiped a finger along to clear it and the inscription appeared: Major Henry Brockenbury. Royal Sussex Regiment. 1883-1916. He stared for a long time, then went back into his room to finish dressing. Downstairs, there was no sign of Mrs Brockenbury. The house felt abandoned, which only added to its air of miserable reproach. He stepped quietly out of the front door, trying to dispel the feeling of being an interloper in his new home. The morning was cold, crisp and bright. In the distance, he could hear the maniacal screaming of seagulls. He headed towards the sound. The walk to the seafront revealed a bustling market day. Traders screamed prices to housewives who ignored them and talked to one another. He found himself walking on the road more often than the pavement, to avoid the

crush. He stopped at a newsagents to buy cigarettes and a newspaper, tucking them under his arm as he walked on, thinking of the picture outside his room. His own father had died in 1916. He wondered if the man in the picture had known him. His mood lifted when he saw the sea, battering with futile intensity at the land not quite in its grasp. Blown by a strong, blustery wind, waves were getting up to a heavy swell before crashing onto the shore. The seafront and the beach were deserted. As he walked along the promenade towards the pier, his cigarette spat ash. On the pier, a few stalls selling souvenirs were setting up for a quiet, out-of-season day. Most were shut, awaiting the summer. He entered a cafe at the end of the pier to escape the wind and bought a mug of tea and a cheese roll. He was the only customer. The woman behind the counter, thin and pinched with hair pulled back in a severe bun, took his money with studied indifference, her face a mask of cheerless exhaustion. The newspaper was full of the talk of war, but his eyes were drawn to the rolling waves outside. He looked across to the horizon, the imagined coast of France, the beaches and green rolling fields. He had never been there, and he wondered again at the face of the man in the picture outside the bathroom at Mrs Brockenbury’s. The face mingled with that of his mother, so often pinched, with red-rimmed eyes, when as a young boy, he had surprised her by walking into a room unannounced. She would get up suddenly, blinking and wiping her eyes, with a forced smile on her face, suggesting some treat to forestall the question that she knew

would come. As he grew older, it had become a habit to listen at any closed door before opening it. More and more frequently, having listened to the sounds within, he would walk silently away. He finished his tea and got up to go. The waitress was polishing glasses behind the counter. As he said goodbye she looked up and her face broke into a smile of such extraordinary warmth he wanted to laugh. He smiled back. Walking back along the pier, he stopped to buy rock for his mother and sisters. It had their names shot through it, so one would see the name patterned into the rock, although it was almost impossible to make the letters out. He would give it to them when he saw them back in London. Back at the house, Mrs Brockenbury shot his chest an accusing look. "You weren't down for breakfast this morning." "I'm sorry. It was rather a long day yesterday, what with all the packing and travelling and everything..." His voice trailed off. Her look softened and she smiled as she opened the door to the dining room. "Not to worry. You'll be up tomorrow in good time, no doubt. I'll be making tea in a minute, if you want some." He nodded. As the door opened, a small brown and white terrier shot out of the door and made straight for him, eyes looking up at him brightly and tail wagging. "I don't think you've met George." Mrs Brockenbury's face had melted to a contented smile, about the first he had seen since he had arrived, when she looked at the dog. He reached down to pet

the animal, and it rolled shamelessly over on to its back. He laughed. "He seems to like you - must be a good sign. By the way, the others were looking for you. Calvert and Evans and the two ladies. Something about dinner they said they wouldn't be in tonight. I think they left a note. I'll get tea." Upstairs, he found a loose scrap of paper tacked to the door. Where are you, stranger? We’re in the Cricketers in the Lanes then on to Agnes and Roberts for supper. See you there at eight if you want to come. Ren. The note was written in a bold, round hand. The writing seemed to fit her. He could feel weight lifting from his shoulders, the isolation of the day leaving him. Evans and Calvert had mentioned the dinner last night - although he had caught only snatches of the conversation - and he realised he had been dreading the thought of supper alone. He wondered who Agnes and Robert were. He went down to tea with Mrs Brockenbury. The living room was furnished with a green sofa and armchairs, all of which looked to have seen better days, and a brown carpet. An enormous wireless inhabited one corner of the room, its silence menacing. A framed portrait of a man rested on the mantelshelf. The man had a strong, young face. Finlay could not tell if it was the same person as the portrait upstairs. Instead of retiring to the kitchen Mrs Brockenbury, placing a teapot and biscuits on the table in front of the sofa, took up a cup and saucer herself and sat down like a challenge.

The conversation was stiff. She asked him a few desultory questions about what he would be teaching at the school - St John's - and where he had come from. Finlay mentioned his childhood with his mother in London. He had the impression she noted the significance of 'mother', rather than 'parents'. Her eyes flickered briefly towards the picture. George settled down on a large cushion in the corner of the room. Finlay wondered how much time woman and dog must spend in this room like this, alone and silent. He had barely finished half the tea when she stood up again. "I'd better be getting on with supper, I should think. I take it you'll be out tonight with the others?" "Yes," he said apologetically. "I thought I might." For the first time since he arrived, her eyes met his. "That's all right, dear. You go and enjoy yourself," she smiled sadly. "I've got George here to keep me company. Remember not to stay out too late. Busy day tomorrow!” It had begun to rain again. A thin misty drizzle that settled on his shoulders like snow. He had to ask directions. Inside the pub, he was greeted by a thick hubbub of voices and a sea of unfamiliar faces. It seemed more crowded than the pub from the previous night, partly because it was more cramped and with a lower ceiling. Fox hunting scenes adorned the walls. He went to the bar and got himself a drink, then moved towards the crowded rear of the pub, searching for the others. He found them gathered around a small fire and spread across two small tables in an alcove. Ren sat on one side of the

fire, with Calvert and Jean either side of her. Evans sat on the other side, in between a young couple. Ren was the first to look up and spot him. Her eyes seemed no longer mocking, but open and friendly. "Hello!" The Yorkshire accent somehow more marked in just the single word. Calvert also looked up and smiled, Jean and Evans appeared to be deep in conversation. He was introduced to Agnes and Robert, recently married after meeting at St John's two years before. "Where’ve you been?" Ren asked. "We came to look for you but you’d disappeared. We wondered if you’d upped sticks and run back to London." The mocking look came back for a moment. "’Tale between your legs!“" "I went for a wonder around Brighton, to explore." Agnes and Robert smiled at him. Agnes had tight, curly hair and a youthful, clear complexion and must have been about his own age. Her husband seemed at least a decade older. His hair was thinning at the temples, and deep lines ridged the side of his face below the eyes. His tie was pulled down and his collar undone. The eyes that greeted Finlay had a weak, ingratiating smile. "Welcome to the mad house." Finlay sipped whisky, lit a cigarette and offered one to Robert. He looked across at Ren. She had joined in the intense conversation between Evans and Jean, which seemed to be growing more vociferous, as if politics were being discussed. He used the opportunity to look at her, her face a mask of animation.

Agnes and Robert lived in large and airy rooms in a Regency building in a square along the seafront. As the group of them walked along, Ren fell into step beside Finlay. She wore a dark, plain, almost shapeless dress underneath her coat, and her face was devoid of make-up apart from the bright red lipstick she seemed to favour. The rain still fell gently, and Finlay could hear the waves breaking on the shore across the road from them. Ren looked up at him. "So, Mr Derrington. The others were worried about you and your disappearing act earlier. What are you trying to do - create an air of mystery for yourself?" He laughed. She would be the one to burst any bubbles like that. "Is that what it looked like? I was wandering around Brighton trying to find something to do. Ended up going to see a film. Not funny - I wouldn't recommend it." Ren wrapped her coat more tightly around herself to keep out the cold. "Well, we mustn't let you get too depressed now, must we?" Finlay looked at her, wondering if she was playing with him or not. Her voice was more serious and she was looking away from him across to the sea. "Are you nervous? First day at school and all that?" "I suppose so." "Don't be. I was as well. But there's nothing to worry about. It's a nice place. Just a bit chaotic, that's all." They walked on, past the grand seafront hotels, the pier, past Montpellier Street, on into Hove. Finlay learnt that she was from Leeds. Her father was the

foreman of a factory in the city. When she mentioned him, it seemed in a voice of awe - hero worship - but when he looked down at her, the twinkle in her eyes had gone and they carried a look of something more like fear. She had a brother, just a baby. He could feel himself relax as he talked. He felt neither the desire to impress, nor to cover up the details of his own upbringing. He told her of his mother and his two sisters, both older than him and now esconced in marriages, and the father he had never seen, who had died far from home in 1916. "How did your mother cope?" He wanted to tell her everything. But in front of them, Calvert had broken off from the others and stopped to wait for them. He looked at them nervously. "You two. Get a move on. We’re getting hungry." They ate from a large table in a huge room with a balcony overlooking the pretty gardens of the square. Robert and Jean went out to buy beer and wine for the meal. Finlay gave Robert money to buy whisky as well. He found himself sitting between them at the table. He was surprised at how much people talked. Talked and drank. It was the turn of Ren and Evans this time, sitting opposite him. The argument - a familiar one - revolved around workers' rights in factories such as Ren's father's, and whether state control as in the Soviet Union was preferable to private ownership. Ren was for the former, Evans for the latter. While his sympathies lay with Evans, Finlay found the passion with which Ren spoke more attractive than the cold reasoning of his fellow boarder. The room split into two camps on the issue, with Ren

supported by Robert and Jean on the one hand, Evans supported by Finlay himself, although he said little. Calvert and Agnes were discussing St John's in less animated fashion. Agnes had a peculiarly blank countenance. Her expression rarely altered, holding Calvert's eyes steadily, and she never smiled. Finlay concentrated on eating and trying not to drink too much, with tomorrow in mind, as the conversation grew more heated. Evans seemed to have lost some of the reticence that was his natural state, while Ren had become quite flushed. Two small pink patches appeared on her usually pale cheeks and her eyes glinted more darkly than before. She refilled her glass frequently. They took their leave just before eleven o'clock. The next morning was bright with a new dawn, and the sun blotted out any darker memories of the night before. St John’s nestled comfortably in the rolling downs, twenty minutes from Brighton. The train passed through the rolling countryside Finlay remembered from childhood visits to an aunt. When it pulled in to the station, he, Calvert and Evans walked up the main street through Brighton. He could feel his pulse quickening and a tingle of anticipation in his stomach. Resting imperiously at the end of the High Street, St John's was a hybrid building; too large to be the imposing country house its drive and balconies suggested, not quite the castle that twin turrets at the front of the building seemed to indicate. A tall stone wall surrounded the main building and a variety of smaller ones around it, and sports fields to the rear backed directly on to the Downs.

The three went up to the common room on the first floor, reached by an imposing marble staircase which reinforced the suggestion of a substantial country dwelling. The hallways and common room seemed eerily quiet. Along one wall lay pigeon holes and lockers for the masters, and along the other a bookcase containing reference books. Armchairs were dotted about the room, around several knee-high and rather battered looking tables. A thick carpet contrasted with the cold stone passageway of the hallway and entrance downstairs. It looked more like the reading room of a small library or gentleman's club. The room was deserted except for one corner where a serving counter opened on to it, behind which a sternlooking middle-aged woman was busy putting out trays of biscuits and cakes for the morning break. In front of the counter with his back to it, in an armchair and a long academic gown, a man in his late fifties with grey hair sat reading the morning paper. As Finlay watched, the man absent-mindedly fingered his crotch leisurely. "Maycock," Calvert whispered. "Embarrassing arse. Doesn't approve of the school employing so many youngsters. And as for women. But Agnes is the headmaster's daughter - she brought him round to thinking females wouldn't be such a bad idea. Ren frightens the life out of him." Finlay sat down while Calvert went off to check his pigeon-hole and Evans went to get tea. His greeting was greeted by a growl. Maycock's eyes raised themselves reluctantly from his newspaper and surveyed Finlay with a jaundiced eye. "You the new man? Another bloody youngster you're all too soft! Discipline, that's the thing. Mmmm."

The man's lips continued to move for some time after he spoke, though with no sound. He did not look up from his paper again. Calvert had to go and collect books from his form room and to prepare a lesson, so he said goodbye. Evans and Finlay were left alone with Maycock's brooding presence. The tea had been brewed for hours. Finlay lit a cigarette, noticing with surprise that the palms of his hands were damp. After the cold of outdoors and the hallway downstairs, the common room seemed stifflingly. Evans clapped a hand on his knee. "Well, old man, I'm afraid I'll have to leave you as well. Whitworth will be along in a moment - he'll look after you. We'll see you in morning assembly - that's where you'll get introduced to the rest of the school. He'll probably get your name wrong. Usually does. See you." Finlay was left alone with his thoughts. Maycock in the corner doggedly carried on with his paper, muttering indistinctly. The silence was like mist. Outside, he could at last hear the faint hubbub of boys shouting in the quadrangle. He looked at his watch. The common room door opened with a crash to reveal Dr Whitworth, the school's headmaster. Finlay himself was nearly six foot, but Whitworth towered over him by at least four inches. An enormous stomach, encased in a striped shirt, threatened to break loose at any moment. Whitworth was dressed in a thick tweed suit, sporting a bright green bow tie and gown. In his fifties, he had a large meaty face from which two small, watery eyes poured out tears almost continuously. He had to wipe them away as he spoke. His voice, unlike his frame, was quiet and hesitant.

"Good morning Derrington. How are you settling in?" Finlay shook the proffered hand. His grip was weak and clammy, and Finlay remembered how Whitworth's nervousness had so much put him at ease when they had first met. The same thing was happening now. "Come along to my office and I'll get the register for your class. Then you can meet the boys in assembly. Morning Maycock." With a blur, he was gone, leaving Finlay to follow. Whitworth spoke to him over his shoulder. "Sorry I'm in such a rush. How are you settling in? Got nice lodgings have you? I gather you're in with Calvert and Evans." He ushered Finlay into a comfortable office that looked even more like a drawing room in a private house than the common room upstairs. A roaring fire glowed in the grate and oil paintings hung from the walls in between book-lined shelfs. There was a thick carpet underneath handsome leather settees. By the window, a desk stood bathed in light. There were piles of paper unsteadily stacked on the desk. Whitworth dived behind it and extracted a thin blue cardboard folder from one of the piles. In the corner, Agnes sat reading quietly. "That," Whitworth said, pointing at her with some disquiet, "is my daughter". Agnes looked up and smiled at him. "We've already met, Daddy." Whitworth ignored her. "You have the timetable I sent you, haven't you? Good. And I take it you have some classes prepared to be getting on with? Good.

You'll be in Room Four. That's just along the corridor from the common room upstairs. You cannot miss it." Whitworth drew himself up and let out a long breath. The look in his eyes was one of wild desperation. "Right. Let's go and introduce you to everyone." Finlay followed him out of the office and across the now deserted quadrangle to the far wing of the building. On his left, the imposing facade of the main block stared down at them. On the right, the playing fields gave way to a view of the downs that stretched to the horizon. The assembly was held in a hall that filled the entire west wing of the building. As they walked through the double doors he was greeted by the sight of rows of heads facing the front of the hall. Down a corridor cutting through the ranks of pupils, he could see a raised stage on which a line of seats were placed. All but two in the middle were filled. In front of them stood a podium. As he and Whitworth entered, the boys stood up. The sound of Whitworth's heavy tread seemed to fill the whole room. Finlay looked up to the stage and saw the faces of Evans and Calvert looking at him. He tried not to smile. Further along, Ren broke off from whispering something to Jean. At the end of the line, Robert gave him a grave nod. Whitworth led him to the front of the stage, then round to steps to the right of it. He ushered him to his seat and then walked up to the podium. The piece of paper with the day's notices shook in his hand. He cleared his throat nervously and grasped the podium to steady himself.

"Good morning boys. We have a new master joining us just for this term who you will all be getting to know. Mr Finlay Derringer. He will be teaching history. I'd like you to give him a proper St John's welcome and make his stay with us as memorable as possible. For all the right reasons of course." There was a small, embarrassed round of applause. Not knowing what to do, Finlay stood up briefly and smiled, then sat down again. Whitworth read the notices, in a nervous, halting voice that continually mis-read words and had to start again at the beginning. Maycock, to his right, looked out over the sea of faces with loathing. After the morning's hymn and prayers, the masters filed off the stage and through a side door out into the quadrangle as the boys stood to attention. Calvert took his arm. "We've got a minute. Come up to the common room and I'll introduce you to the others." Ren, her long hair tied back and wearing a dark suit of some serge material, was waiting for them across the quadrangle. Her arms were folded across her chest and she wore the familiar, quizzical expression allied to her mocking voice. "Good morning Mr Calvert, Mr Derrington. How are you this morning?" "Just off to introduce him to the others. Then he goes to the lions." "Jolly good luck." She left them and walked across the quadrangle to the far wing. She walked with a busy step, keeping both arms folded across her chest as she went. Both men watched her go.

Upstairs, he was introduced to the rest of St John's faculty, collecting papers and books before lessons began. Frank Cobden, a thin, bespectacled man who could have been any age between 30 and 50 taught biology; Edward Nash, a plump, ruddy-cheeked man running to fat and with a balding head, taught geography. He looked at Finlay with tired eyes as they were introduced. The classics master, Ogilvy, was immensely tall and thin, with thick glasses behind which there were two small, quite humourless eyes. As they shook hands Ogilvy surveyed the top of Finlay's head gravely, but said nothing. The only other master not already at lessons was Mr Laidlaw. Finlay guessed he was about 30, although prematurely balding. Only a band of hair round the back and sides of his head survived, matched by an equally thin moustache. Laidlaw taught physics and shook Finlay rather too warmly by the hand when they were introduced. As they did so, the bell announcing lessons rang. As Finlay gathered his books together, Laidlaw took his arm. "You're in room four, aren't you? I'm next door. I'll show you the way." Finlay felt caught in a rush of events beyond his control. The feeling was not entirely unpleasant. Outside room four, Laidlaw wished him good luck, and walked on up the corridor to his own room, plainly terrified. Finlay paused for a second outside his own room. He was surprised to find no sound emanating from within. Was this how it was supposed to be? He opened the door as firmly as he could, and went inside.

One floor down, Ren sat at her desk only half listening to the slow, faltering voices as her boys took turns to murder the French language. Her head ached with a dull throbbing persistence, although she had done her best to hide it from the other masters and her class. That morning, at the kitchen table, Jean had handed her a letter with a Leeds postmark and James' familiar, jagged handwriting on the envelope. The two women shared rooms on the second floor of a cramped building above shops in the Kemp Town district of Brighton. They had sat together in comfortable silence. Jean was not a great talker at the best of times, especially in the early morning. Ren had sipped tea and read James' letter. It was full of the usual platitudes, news of friends from her life before, and details of his progress as an articled clerk for a legal firm in Leeds. They had been friends since meeting at a dance two years before. Reading his gentle news of home, she felt a curious sense of dissatisfaction. She was shocked to realise the letter evoked memories and longing for her home, but not for James himself. The realisation was almost a physical sensation itself. She had wondered countless times before why she had not stayed in Leeds and settled down to cosy domesticity with a man her parents made no secret they regarded as an eminently suitable match. Ren had sufficient self knowledge to know her move to a school in the remote south of England had been a rebellion against a domineering and violent father. It had also been to test James, to

see how far his pacific good nature would go. She was disappointed he had accepted her leaving so easily. At lunchtime she went to a cafe in the centre of Lewes. She lit a cigarette and stared out past the cafe's pretty flowered curtains and across the street. James' letter lay on the table in front of her, ignored. On the opposite side of the road, heading down the hill, she saw Calvert and the new master, Derrington. Stephen was probably buying him a drink to celebrate his first morning, although masters going to a public house at lunch-time was frowned upon. As she watched them, she saw that Calvert was talking animatedly, as usual, while Derrington nodded his head seriously but said nothing. The two could hardly have looked more different. Calvert's thin and wiry body was rarely not in the middle of some gesture or movement made to illustrate a point he was making. A puppet with strings pulled by someone else. She smiled. She was fond of him, fond of his silly jokes and his vulnerability, fond of his lack of reserve. The new master, Derrington, was different. His manner was the essence of formal, polite reserve. He had a falsely relaxed way of walking, hands in pockets, long legs taking slow measured steps, as he stared thoughtfully at the pavement and listened to Calvert speak. But everything else of him spoke of tension and suppressed action. From their initial meeting, and then the meal at Agnes and Robert's, she sensed the reserve was not shyness, so much as a natural state of caution, observing people, never taking reactions for granted. Even when he had spoken of his father, she remembered, the eyes that had looked at her seemed shielded, observant, unsure

of her reaction. They had had something of the vulnerability of Calvert's eyes, she thought, but with strength alongside. She had seen the front crack only once, she thought. When she had made the joke about him disappearing the day before. She had sensed a sense of self-mockery as his eyes creased up in amusement. On an impulse, she stubbed out her cigarette and folded James' letter back into her purse. She would see if she could find them. She never usually drank at lunch-time, not wanting to disturb even more eyebrows in the common room, but today she felt like making an exception. Calvert and Finlay had settled into a quiet corner of a small dimly-lit pub across the road from the station, each with a pint of beer and a sandwich. The pub had two bars, and sofas and armchairs around an open fire. Only two other customers were drinking that lunchtime, both old men. Finlay sipped the beer and lit a cigarette. He didn't feel much like the sandwich. He felt tired and a little shell-shocked, but not displeased by how the morning had gone. He had had the notion, as a 22-year old, that his rightful place should have been sitting down in the class himself, waiting for the real master to arrive. He had had to keep clearing his throat. And he had never realised what a strain it was to have to keep talking all the time! But his pupils had been attentive and the lessons he had slaved over for so many nights in London seemed to have held their interest to an acceptable extent. By the end of the morning, he was having to concentrate just to recapture the sense of wonder he had first felt

on standing in front of a classroom, listening to his own voice. Calvert was recounting the story of his own first day at St John's. He had typically lost all his notes just a few days before the start of the term, then tripped up as he entered his first class. He ranged freely over his childhood in a small market town in Sussex. His father was a farmer and he had two younger sisters still at school. As he spoke of them, his nervousness decreased. "What about your family, if you don't mind my asking?" he asked. "My father died in1916." Talk of his father Finlay found difficult. Stephen nodded. "My father got it in the leg at Mons, right at the start. Invalided out. Never talks about it. Most of them don't, do they? Anyway, it looks as if we are going to have to do it all over again soon enough. Evans lost his father as well. In 1917, I think. Never talks about it either. Mentioned it when I first met him. Nothing since. I don't ask." He paused. "If it came to another one, would you join up? You know, to fight?" "Yes, of course. Wouldn't you?" "I suppose so. Though I don't really hate the Germans, I suppose. Don't have the same reasons to that you and Evans have." Finlay thought for a moment. "I don't think that's why I would join up, either. More from a sense of... I don't know. Belonging, I suppose. I'm not sure the morals of it or the reasons for it are that important."

Ren entered the bar, scanning the few faces before spotting them. She waved and came over. "Hello," she said, looking at Finlay. "How did it go?" He got up to make room for her to sit down, and offered to buy her a drink. She asked for a gin and orange and Calvert a half of bitter. As he went to get the drinks, she sat down next to Calvert. When he returned, she was already deep in conversation with him. She had been asked to take another class on Wednesday evenings, but would only get an hour off on Friday evening to compensate. She seemed to view the arrangement with a sense of burning injustice that was out of proportion. "I mean," she said as he sat down, "they just throw you around and if you kick up any sort of fuss Whitworth retreats into his shell and ignores you completely." Calvert was trying to placate her with soothing comments. Finlay noticed the two familiar spots of pink spreading out from Ren's pale cheeks. "But at least you get Friday's off early, don't you?" Ren ran a hand through her hair. "That's beside the point. They are treating me awfully and there is nothing I can do about it. Just like you men to look on the bright side. You get treated properly. " "Perhaps you could suggest to Whitworth that I take the class in return for you doing one of mine?" Finlay suggested. "Do you speak French?" "Not a word." She let out a bark of laughter. Finlay was fascinated by her ability to switch moods, from anger

to laughter, from laughter to serious discussion, within an instant. "Well I could certainly give your boys a more interesting lesson than the turgid drivel you’re probably filling their heads with. Perhaps I will." She downed her drink in one. "It's time we were getting back. You wouldn't want a black mark against your name on your first day, now would you?" Finlay found the more lessons he taught, the more he could relax and enjoy them. There was a sense of achievement in making the class understand him. He found he could afford to indulge a taste for the unconventional in his teaching methods; it got the pupils more interested than they otherwise would have been. When they grew restive, which was often, he set them an essay, offering a half crown prize for the longest one submitted, irrespective of any possible quality. It seemed to work. Finlay noticed that Maycock's attitude to him had grown even frostier than before. He feared Whitworth's attitude might follow suit, but his fears were dispelled when he was called in to the headmaster's office one evening after classes towards the end of his third week. The invitation had come in a simple, handwritten note left in his pigeon-hole. Whitworth's comfortable office on the ground floor, aided by the roaring open fire, was hot compared with the icy corridor outside. Finlay knocked and waited to be called in, uncertain of the meeting's purpose, trying not to shiver in the cold, dank February mist that had settled over the school. The playing fields were

shrouded in it and the Downs behind them were obscured completely. Whitworth ushered him in. "Take a seat, Derrington. Sit down, sit down." He pointed to a plush leather armchair, one of two sitting facing the roaring hearth. Finlay sat down and, to his surprise, was offered a drink. Whitworth had opened a cabinet behind his desk, to reveal a plethora of bottles and glasses. He declined. "Well. If you are sure," Whitworth said. He seemed calmer and less nervous than before, and poured himself an entire glass full of neat whisky. He seemed disinclined to break the silence in the room, which was emphasised by the crackling of the fire. Finlay began to regret not accepting a drink. Eventually Whitworth came and sat in the other armchair. He spoke gently. "Well. Here we are. Just wanted to have a quick chat to see how you are getting on. Any problems? Anything I can do for you? That sort of thing." He stared into the fire. Finlay was not sure if he had something specific in mind of which he - Finlay - was not aware, or whether the question was meant as a general one. "I think everything is all right, thank you." "Good, good, good. Thought it probably was. Just like to have a chat with people. See that they are settling in all right." He nodded into the fire. "No, the reports I have been hearing are all good - you seem to be getting on well. Enjoying it?" "I think so." "Yes." Whitworth laughed lightly. "Good answer."

His voice petered out as he stared into the fire. He seemed transfixed by it, and the silence deepened. Finlay stole a look at his face. Whitworth's eyes watered constantly - but the fire seemed to exacerbate them, and now two tears broke and coursed down his cheeks slowly. It seemed to break his reverie, and he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket with embarrassment and wiped his eyes. "Sorry," he said, smiling at Finlay before turning back to the fire. "Gas. Eyes water all the time. Even now. Frightful. Was your father in France?" "He died in 1916." "Yes, I see. Sorry. A lot of good men died out there. An awful lot. Saw a few of them myself." The observation seemed to send Whitworth back into his reverie. He stared deeply into the fire, lost in concentration. Two more tears began their steady progress down his cheeks. He did not bother to wipe them away. "Is there anything else, sir?" Finlay asked as gently as he could. "It's just that I have some marking to do before tomorrow." Whitworth continued to stare into the fire. "No, that's all right. Just wanted to check you were getting on well. We'll see you tomorrow." As Finlay let himself out, Whitworth still stared into the fire, nodding gently, utterly lost, the whisky already finished. Finlay crept away as softly as he could. The calm progress of this existence was broken on his fourth Saturday morning. At a suggestion greeted with delight by Mrs Brockenbury he had set off with the dog George on a

lead, heading for the park away from the centre of town, the animal by his side. The dog panted with excitement and pulled forward on the lead with such strength it nearly rendered itself unconcious. Periodically it would retch violently. He turned his collar up against the bitter morning wind. Even here, miles from the sea, he imagined he could taste the salt in the air. It had begun to rain slightly. The park formed a sort of natural amphitheatre, surrounded on one side by rising and neatly ordered flowerbeds, bare at this time of year, and on the other by the main road to London. As he watched, a Post Office van chugged slowly along it, making its way into town. He managed to distract the dog's attention for long enough to pick a stick up and throw it. The dog seemed never to tire of the game. When he returned from the park, it was to find Ren in the sitting room alone with Mrs Brockenbury, pulling a dark cardigan around her shoulders and shivering despite the warmth in the room. The cardigan seemed much too big for her and her face was ashen grey. There were dark smudges under her eyes and they were red from crying. "What's happened?" Her voice had an unnatural calm. "We had a fire. This morning. Jean and me. I think I caused it." "Is Jean all right?" "Yes. She’s had to go to the police station to give them details and things. I just didn't know what to do with myself." "How did it happen?"

"That's just the awful thing. I think I started it. I was smoking. And then I went to the bathroom to run a bath. When I came back the whole bloody bedroom was alight. We couldn't put it out. And then everything just went up. It was awful - just awful." Her voice was beginning to break up and Mrs Brockenbury got up from the sofa. "I'll go and make us some tea. That's the best thing."" Ren's eyes were brimming with tears again and she was starting to shake uncontrollably. "It's just so awful, so bloody awful. I loved that house. It was my home." Finlay felt useless looking at her. He sat down on the arm of her chair and, awkwardly, put an arm around her shoulders. Their softness moved under his fingers. Seeing her like this, so used to her laughter, made him breathless. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her, squeezing her shoulders and trying to calm her. On an impulse, he bent to kiss the top of her head. Her hair was warm to his lips. He could smell the smoke in it, and some undefined perfume. She sobbed uncontrollably. "You don't understand. It was everything to me. The only bloody place I could feel secure, be at home, where nobody could hurt me. The only place!" After a while, she began to quieten. He held her still, and let her cry herself out. As she calmed, he could feel in himself an extraordinary peace descend. Even though he was seated awkwardly, with his torso twisted to hold her, he knew he could hold the position for ever.

Mrs Brockenbury came in with a tray bearing cups and a teapot. "Do you know where Calvert and Evans are, Mrs Brockenbury?" "They went into town about half an hour ago. They were going to do some shopping for me. They shouldn't be long now." She set the tray down and poured tea into three cups. She added lumps of sugar to one and handed it to Ren, who took it with a shaking hand. She seemed to have cried herself to a dejected calm. She sipped the tea hesitantly. Finlay still could not quite grasp what had happened. He himself was feeling some small fraction of the shock she must have felt. "How badly are the rooms damaged?" Ren shook her head for a long time before answering. "I don't know. The men wouldn't let us go near it. They said it was too dangerous." She shuddered. "It looked terrible. And all our things. All gone. What are we going to do?" Finlay squeezed her shoulders again but could think of nothing to say. Instead Mrs Brockenbury, sitting quietly on the sofa, spoke in a firm voice. "What you'll do, my love, is stay here until we can sort things out. At least until you can find new lodgings. And don't mention smoking to anyone else. Best to forget things like that. The room next to mine down here is free. I use it as a store room but it has a bed and I can clear it out right now." Finlay looked at her with gratitude, a little surprised at her mention of smoking. He had not thought her so worldly-wise. She was staring at him severely, not at Ren. He smiled at her.

"There you are. Problem solved," he said. "Well, part of it at least. And perhaps Jean could stay with Robert and Agnes. It looked like they might have space." He knew he was pleased with the proposed arrangements for his own sake, and not just for Ren's, but he put the thought from his mind. Ren managed a watery smile. "It's kind of you, Mrs Brockenbury. Are you sure?" "Of course I'm sure," she said, struggling to her feet. "I'll go and clear it now." Feeling guilt at his uselessness, Finlay offered to help, but was refused. He had the impression she did not want him to see its contents. Ren was staring down at her feet, lost in thought. He stayed quiet, but continued to keep a hand on her shoulders. Eventually she spoke in a level, emotionless voice. "You cannot know what it meant to me, that house. It was the first place I could call my own. The first place I could relax." He stared at her. She went on speaking, in the same level voice, staring at the floor. "My father, you see. He's violent. He beats my mother up, hits her all the time. I had to get away. It's gone on for as long as I can remember. Since I was a child." He stared at her, dumbstruck. She looked up at him and smiled sadly. Her eyes sparkled but this time only with the tears brimming there. He could see the tracks of them down her cheeks. "That's why I left, you see? Why I came down here. I had to get out. Just couldn't put up with it anymore.” She looked away again. Finlay could not speak. He closed his eyes and bent his head and buried his

face in her hair. She made no move to stop him, or to get up, and they stayed like that until Calvert and Evans returned. The rooms shared by Ren and Jean were on St James' Street near the seafront, half an hour away. The walk seemed to calm Ren more than anything else. When they got there, there was at first little indication anything untoward had happened. The grocer's shop underneath the rooms was open and trading as usual, and the street was a scene of bustling Saturday morning activity. There was no sign of firemen. Only when Ren unlocked the door did the three men notice the overpowering smell of smoke. Inside, the water added a damp, dank clamminess to the atmosphere. At the foot of the stairs she hesitated. "Do you want to stay here?" Calvert asked, taking her arm. She took a long breath but did not answer. Instead she started to walk up the stairs. He pulled her back. "Wait. It might not be safe. The floorboards and things." She shook her head dumbly. "No. The firemen said it would be all right." The four of them went up. Apart from the smell and the filthy water on the floor, the landing seemed to have survived intact. Only the ceiling outside the doorway to the front room, facing onto the street, was blackened. Ren's and Jean's bedrooms were off the sitting room in front of them. On the other side of the hall, Finlay had stolen a look into the kitchen to see

that it, too, appeared undamaged, as did the bathroom beyond. The sitting room was different. The three men walked into it. Ren stayed outside, a look of child-like fear on her face. The room was ruined. A sofa and two armchairs had been burnt to their metal skeletons, and where the walls were not blackened completely, strips of wallpaper hung off them. Some of the floorboards were intact, although most had either burnt or been torn up by firemen to ensure they were not smouldering. In the middle of the floor was a pile of assorted ashes in which could be seen half charred books, clothing and other objects. The room Finlay guessed had been hers was as badly damaged. A bed stood in the corner, like the sofa now reduced to its metal frame. The floor was strewn with blackened ashes and bits of cloth, and the door, intact in the middle but burnt at top and bottom, hung off its hinges morosely. Jean's room had faired better. The door was blackened and burnt like Ren's, and the carpet near it either burnt or reduced to a sodden filthy mess, but a bed in the far corner of the room looked undamaged. He was no expert, but the fire looked to have started in Ren's room or on the side of the sitting room closest to it. "How long before Jean noticed the fire?" "She didn't. She'd gone downstairs to buy milk." Ren was still in the hallway outside, peering fearfully through the doorway. But now, he was glad to see, her expression was more curious than before.

It was obvious their trip was redundant. There was little of Ren's to save. Only a few of her clothes she had kept in a wardrobe in Jean's room had survived. Walking back, a bundle of clothes under his arm, Finlay thought of a poem his mother had taught him years before. For some reason it had stayed with him. It was by a woman called Dickinson, or something like that, he remembered. Seeing the ruined sitting room, and hearing Ren's words earlier, the poem had come back to him. Sweet hours have perished here, This is a mighty room Within its precincts hopes have played, Now shadows in a tomb. He smiled at his foolishness and walked on. Ren moved into Mrs Brockenbury's for that week, and her offer to pay rent was gallantly refused. Robert and Agnes, as Finlay had predicted, offered to put both women up if they were willing to share a bedroom, but Ren decided in the end to take up Mrs Brockenbury's offer until lodgings could be found. Both women had left their books and work at St John's. Finlay suggested to Calvert and Evans they club together to buy Ren new clothes. He had noticed in Calvert a change in his attitude towards him. Whereas before his friend's nervous demeanour had decreased in Finlay's presence, now it had returned. There was no sign of animosity towards him, more a sign of fear. It stemmed from when Calvert had returned to find Finlay alone with Ren in the sitting room at Viaduct Road, after the fire. His own unfocussed anger at Ren's revelation had settled to a dull impotent hatred for a man he did not know, nor

had ever met. It was a peculiar feeling, made more so by his inability to bring the subject up with Ren afterwards. He felt he had been let in on a secret when she was at her most vulnerable, and he felt shame in the pleasure he took in a confidence given under such circumstances. At St John's Dr Whitworth was the model of sympathy, offering both women advances on their salaries to buy clothes and asking Ren if she would like two days off to return to Leeds to pick up belongings left there. Ren refused both offers. Instead both went to work as normal on Monday morning, Jean travelling in with Robert and Agnes, Ren catching the morning train with Finlay, Calvert and Evans. Within days, he had got used to seeing Ren's face at the breakfast and dinner table. It was not long before he could not imagine a time when she had not been with them. He was ashamed at his own feelings. He was glad at her misfortune, for it meant she was here now, near him. He tried to convince himself otherwise, but as the smile hesitantly returned to her face, the feeling became too strong to ignore. He found himself picturing that face more and more often, in the times at school or at night when he could not see it in the flesh. He wondered at the morality of his feelings. He wondered if Calvert shared his dilemma. And most of all he wondered what was happening to him. ‘

Towards the end of the week, Finlay lay soaking in the tepid bathwater that was all the house seemed able to provide. Ren had gone to see Jean, while Evans and Calvert had gone into town. He felt an increasing need to be by himself, to gather thoughts that spun faster and faster in his mind, always of Ren. He had wondered previously if Calvert might have been in love with her; now he wondered more if that might not apply to him. He could not fathom his feelings at all, for he had little experience in such matters. He dressed, pulling a thick jumper over his wet hair. The house seemed even colder than usual. Outside, it had turned bitter. He knocked at the sitting room door and pushed his head around it to say goodnight to Mrs Brockenbury. She was sitting on the settee, George curled up next to her, staring across at the opposite wall. The wireless was off, and there was no book beside her. "Good night, Edith. I'm off to meet Evans and Calvert for a nightcap." She continued to stare fixedly at the wall. "Yes, dear. Good night." "Why don't you come down and have one yourself?" he said on impulse. "Let me buy you a drink." She smiled sadly and turned her face halfway towards him. But her eyes still stared at the wall. "No dear, thank you very much, I don't. You go and have a drink with your friends." She wheezed as she spoke. "If you are sure?" "Quite sure."

Finlay closed the door behind him softly. Walking to the pub, he felt Ren slip from his mind. The look on Mrs Brockenbury's face was one he knew too well. Even her position - a sort of quiet expectation - was familiar. It was how he had found his mother so many times, the times when she had not been interrupted in her crying. He knew now that it was her son in the picture outside the bathroom. Calvert and Evans were sitting on stools at the bar when he reached the pub. It was crowded again. On Evans' right, also at the bar, sat a girl with long black hair and a face that was angular in feature but oval in shape. It was a shuttered face, with dark marks under black, blank eyes that smiled watchfully. Evans introduced him. The woman was called Hillary and she worked in the pub, although this was her night off. "She's the one who serves us here, so you had better keep on the right side of her," Evans said. There was a sour note in his voice. "Which side that is we'll leave you to judge," said Calvert, laughing nervously. Hillary stared at Finlay in cool appraisal. Her eyes seemed dead and the pale, white skin of her face drawn too tightly across the angular bones. She could have been any age between 20 and 40, he thought, although the clear skin of her unmarked neck, above a plain white blouse, seemed to indicate the lower figure. "How long have you worked here?" he said, to make conversation. "Getting on for two years. So you're another teacher are you?"

"I suppose I am just finding that out," he said. "I just started." Hillary's face broke into a cold smile. "Well, I hope you find out soon." An awkward silence followed, broken by Calvert. "Hillary is taking us to a party tomorrow night. Trust a girl who works in a pub to know where the action is." "Why don't you come along too?" Hillary said to Finlay. "After your game." Game? Calvert nodded. "Forgot to mention it. Some of us get together for a cricket match on Saturday afternoons. Between us and Brighton college we can usually muster two teams but it's sometimes difficult to make up the numbers. Do you play?" Finlay didn't but accepted nevertheless. He did not want too much spare time over the weekend. He hoped the standard was not too high. "You can work off all that exercise with some serious drinking afterwards," Hillary said. As she spoke, her gaze swung across the room, checking faces off, before returning to Finlay. "You look like you need it." Something in her direct stare unnerved him. It had a brazen, challenging quality. Like Ren's, although colder and without humour. Then it had left him, and was once again drifting around the pub, checking off faces one by one. It settled on a group of men by the far end of the bar, dressed in suits that had a slightly too sharp quality about them. The men were laughing loudly at some joke. One of them saw her and beckoned her over in eager recognition. His face was

red with drink. She raised a hand at him without smiling and got off her stool. "I'd better go and circulate. See you tomorrow then." The next morning he rose late. He went up the stairs to see if Calvert or Evans were about. The hallway, which he had not seen before, was dark and uninviting. Three doors gave on to it. The front one he guessed was Calvert's, while either of the other two might have been Evans'. He knocked on all three, but got no response. Downstairs, there was no sign of Mrs Brockenbury or George. And no sign of Ren, either. At a loss, he decided to walk up to the barbers he had seen on his arrival and get a haircut. The walk, if not the haircut, might clear his head. He had to wait his turn behind two men. He sat at the back of the room on a long bench, smoking and reading a magazine. The barber was an old shuffling figure, with a pair of scissors and a razor hanging from a loop on his belt. He spoke to his customers only infrequently, in a guttural accent Finlay could not fathom. He had learnt his trade at a military depot in London, a training that seemed reflected in the alarmingly short haircut Finlay was left with. He walked through the Lanes to the seafront. He enjoyed the cramped backstreets, with their esoteric collection of pubs, antique dealers, book and cake shops. On a Saturday morning there were crowds of people milling down every passage. Locals looking for bargains, and the first of the day-trippers who still seemed to come in the depth of winter. Down on the

seafront, the cries of the seagulls seemed more maniacal than ever, with the prospect of food discarded by those walking along the front. Finlay wondered whether to go back to the cafe with the severe-looking waitress he had visited on his first morning, but decided against it and cut back into the Lanes instead. He found a cafe with “Finlay’s” in bold black lettering across the windows and went in and ordered a fried breakfast. He was the only customer. The man behind the counter was hugely fat with a stomach bursting out of a grimy vest, and a swarthy, Balkan complexion. While he waited for the food, Finlay lit a cigarette. The back of his head felt strange, the hair spiky and unfamiliar. When it came, the food was greasy but filling and he ate gratefully. When he had mopped up the last of the grease and egg from the plate with a piece of bread and butter, he lit another cigarette and stared out of the window at the passersby. Most seemed to be families. The men would stride busily onwards, their faces wearing a look of some vague anxiety. The womens' progress was slower, distracted by children or shop windows and their displays. He noticed also a young couple, deep in laughing conversation, who appeared distracted by nothing except each other. Behind them, walking alone, was Ren. She wore the black, knee-length coat he had seen before, buttoned to the throat, and she carried a small bag in her hand. Instead of starting up immediately, Finlay found himself staring at her face. Instead of the usual mocking smile, her expression combined seriousness and an innocent childlike intensity as she

looked at the shop windows she passed, unaware of his gaze upon her. She stopped briefly outside a shop that sold cards and books, and frowned with concentration as she surveyed something in the window. He could see her lips move as she mouthed something to herself. As she passed feet from him on the other side of the glass, he felt transfixed. Something in him stopped the natural impulse to knock on the glass and attract her attention. It was not so much shyness, more a guilt at having watched her without revealing his presence, at having revelled to see her unknowing, innocent face. He felt ashamed. He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one. He felt angry and frustrated with himself - why had he not called to her? He was left with a sinking feeling in his stomach, like fear, that he could not explain. He got up from the table, paid the bill, and left. He walked on and stared at the shop windows as he passed, with a tightness in his throat and stomach that had not been there before, as he followed the path Ren had taken. Perhaps because he knew he was half-hoping to do so, when he did bump into her, it was even more unexpected. From behind him he heard her unmistakeable accent calling his name. When he turned, it was to find her staring up at him, smiling warmly. He felt his own face grow warm and wondered, with dread, whether he was actually blushing. He noticed that she had come out of a clothing shop, and carried another, larger bag in her hand alongside the smaller one. "Ren. How are you?"

"I'm very, very well, thank you. Girls always are when they are shopping. Our favourite activity, Mr Derrington. Didn't you know that?" He envied her ability to find easy, light conversation. "What have you bought?" "Have a look. See if you like it." She pulled out a pale blue jumper of soft wool. "Very nice." "So what have you been up to, Finlay? Prowling around the back streets, eh?" She leaned closer as if to pass on some confidence. "And getting that ludicrous haircut, I see!" She let out a burst of laughter and reeled away from him. He laughed himself. "I've just been having breakfast. I'm supposed to be playing cricket later, although I don't know where." She did not seem to notice his discomfort. "Oh yes, with Calvert and Evans. They play every Saturday. Frightfully dull." "And there is a party tonight. A girl who works in the pub is taking us to it. Hillary, I think she is called." "Oh, yes. Her." Her voice suggested she did not like the girl very much. As quickly as the mood had come, it vanished. "Right. Well, while you are here, you can come and help me choose some shoes. I've been saving up for ages and now is the time to have a bit of fun." She smiled at him broadly. He felt off balance, unable to keep up with her mood swings. They walked off together through the Lanes, heading for a shop Ren knew nearby. After a minute, she put her arm

through his in an unconcious gesture that for her probably seemed the most natural thing in the world. She did not seem to notice him stiffen in response. To touch her produced a sensation like an electric shock through his body. The silence crucified him. And again he could think of no way to fill it. But of course, she could. She talked brightly of the new rooms she and Jean had looked at near the station and how she should be spending money on less frivolous items like cutlery or the saucepans they needed. As they walked, he at last began to relax, and even to adopt her own mocking banter. By the time they reached the shop, there was an informality between them which was much more comfortable. He revelled in it. He had never been inside a ladies' shoe shop before. It seemed from the outside much like its male equivalent, but immediately he entered he felt an interloper. The shop assistant, a matronly lady in her 50s, took them for husband and wife and smiled benevolently. Ren was in her element. She selected different styles and tried them all on with obvious enjoyment - each time asking his opinion. He had the feeling she knew only too well what the assistant was thinking, and what that made him feel. She seemed to be playing a role for the assistant's benefit, and stared at him with amusement. He in turn gave studied and lengthy opinions, glad to be able to share the mood and have something to talk about at the same time. At last Ren selected a pair she liked. "And will you be paying, madame, or your husband?" asked the assistant, ignoring Ren's ringless fingers.

Ren looked at him with barely suppressed laughter. "Oh, I'll be paying thank you very much." Even as Finlay stiffened, he felt an absurd pleasure that she had not sought to correct the woman's impression, though he could imagine how awkward it would have sounded. Outside the shop, Ren burst into laughter. "That woman. Can you imagine the look on her face - He's not my husband - he just buys me clothes from time to time. Think of my reputation!" Even as he laughed, he could feel his mood slipping away. He felt embarrassed for the pleasure he had taken in the assistant's mistake. "I ought to be getting back for this cricket. You don't by any chance know where they play, do you?" She did not seem to notice his change in mood. "Usually on the Level, up from the Old Steine. It is just on your right if you go to the top of Viaduct Road. You'd better hurry up. I've got to go and meet Jean at the Pavilion. Then we might wonder back up and have a look at you. Are you any good?" "Not really." She smiled up at him. "Well goodbye then, husband. And thanks for your valuable assistance." She placed one hand on his arm as she spoke, then leant forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek. And then she had turned away from him and was walking down towards the seafront, without looking back. He stared after for a long time. They played cricket for nearly three hours, and Finlay found to his relief he was not the worst player

on the field. Calvert was, by a mile. After some food and a change of clothes, he retired to the pub with Calvert and Evans, and some of the others. Since coming to Brighton, he had spent more time in public houses than ever in his life before. There was no sign of Hillary, or of Ren. "She'll be along later," said Evans. "Even if she isn't she's given me the address." "We cannot turn up without her, surely?" "Of course we can," said Calvert breezily. "This is the 1930s you know." As the five men drank, the conversation turned predictably - to cricket. Finlay had no knowledge or interest in it as a spectator sport, so took little part. Instead his eyes drifted around the pub. The old man was in his usual seat by the bar. Elsewhere the pub had divided into groups of two, three or four people, in private, intense conversation, oblivious of their surroundings. People came to a pub for the warmth and companionship, but then spent their time in insular groups, impervious to those around them. He wondered at the paradoxical nature of it. As his eye settled back on the bar, he noticed Hillary had appeared, dressed in dark clothes, and was staring at him blankly. His welcoming smile was met only by a curt nod. Her companion, to whom she turned to address some remark then looked across at Finlay's group. She was shorter, with a long, plain face and long, dark, straight hair. The two women ordered fresh drinks and made their way over to him. Hillary said nothing, but walked up behind Evans and Calvert and stood silently, waiting. It was left to Finlay to point them out.

Calvert was the first to react. Hillary's companion was, confusingly, also called Hillary. There was an air of informality between the first Hillary and Evans which seemed to confirm some unsaid relationship between them. But the coolness also there seemed to suggest it had been in the past. They set off. Finlay, whose legs were already beginning to stiffen, was grateful it was only a few minutes away. Evans had gone to the bar to buy beer to take with him. When they passed an off-license, the others waited for Finlay as he went to buy whisky. He worried about the money he was spending - principally on alcohol. But he bought half a bottle of the cheapest anyway. The party was in a shabby-looking terraced house just off the road out of Brighton towards Lewes. The two Hillarys knocked at the front door, which was opened by a thin-faced man with short dark hair. He grinned at Hillary and stepped back to let her and the rest of them pass. Still grinning, he nodded at Finlay. He was already drunk. The house had grubby-looking whitewashed walls and a grey carpet, although Finlay could only catch glimpses of either past the crush of bodies in the house. The air was thick with music, voices and cigarette smoke, and only the hallway seemed to have any proper lighting. Finlay shivered despite the warmth, and went off in search of a kitchen and a glass. He found them at the end of the stairway, to the back of the house. It was as crowded as the front room, and he nodded self-conciously at the people standing around the room, trying to be heard above the voices and the music. Most ignored him. The party

seemed to have been in full swing for some time, judging by the number of raised voices. Eventually, he managed to find a grimy cup which he rinsed under the tap before returning to the front room. Evans and Calvert were standing in the middle with the other two cricketers, trying to make themselves heard above the jazz bellowing out of a gramaphone in the corner. The men stood in a circle, facing inwards, their eyes looking out to spot a familiar face. The two Hillarys were nowhere to be seen. He took a large gulp of whisky and lit a cigarette. The party followed the same pattern as the pub, with the same groups of people - more raucous this time - in the same isolated groups, oblivious of their surroundings. Only Finlay's group seemed at all receptive to the outside world. On the sofa, two girls were laughing uproariously at something said by the drunken man who had let them in. It was obviously the man's house, and he sat between them with a proprietorial air. Finlay sat down on the shelf by the fireplace, abandoning the group in the middle of the room. The aching in his legs had overcome his desire to talk. Everyone else seemed to know someone at the party and even Calvert and Evans were now deep in conversation with someone from the kitchen. Part of him did not wish to break into a conversation he had not begun, while another did not wish to leave the warmth of the fireplace. It was Hillary, now devoid of her companion and namesake, who rescued him. She came and sat down next to him. "Being the dispassionate observer, are you?" she said. The same hard, unsmiling gaze studied him. "Just resting my legs for a while."

"So you’re one of the cricketers like Michael. Does that mean you don't talk about anything else?" "I can. Is there something between you and he?" He had not meant either the directness of the question or the interest it implied, but the drink had made him careless. She raised her eyebrows and seemed to soften slightly. "You're very direct. Does it show that much? We were seeing each other for a while. It didn't work out." "Sorry. I just wondered," Finlay said, lighting a fresh cigarette from the old one. "Forgive the intrusion." "Don't apologise. It was some time ago. Could I have one of those?" Finlay gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. "So are you enjoying it - the teaching?" "I haven't really had time to make up my mind yet." Her voice had an edge, only partly of amusement. "It didn't seem to take you that long to make up your mind about me and Michael." "Just an impression. You seemed quite..." He couldn't think of the right word and was already regretting the observation. "...familiar together, I suppose." She was still staring at him, her eyes hard and without amusement. "And just what sort of impressions might you be getting now?" "Nothing as yet. I'll let you know if anything occurs to me." Hillary stood up and looked at him. Her expression was not angry, but coldly challenging. It

was followed by a smile. "You make sure you do that." She stubbed out her cigarette and made off through the crowd. Finlay took another gulp of his drink as Calvert dislodged himself from the crowd in the centre of the room and made his way over to sit where Hillary had. He seemed quite drunk already and slurred his speech. His naturally nervous state had disappeared. "So that's Hillary for you. What do you think?" The tone of the question suggested a meaning Finlay could not fathom. "She seems a bit serious." Calvert nodded vigorously and stared glassily across the room. "Oh, she's serious all right." He seemed to ponder something for a while, then dismissed it. "So anyway, old man. Glad you came?" Finlay looked at his drunken friend. "To the party?" "No. To Brighton, for Christ's sake." "Yes," he said. "I rather think I am." "Good," said Calvert, nodding his head emphatically. His eyes seemed to have glazed over entirely. By midnight Finlay was ready to go home. Calvert was asleep on the sofa, while Smith and Laidlaw - two of the cricketers - were in the kitchen talking loudly with people Finlay had not been introduced to. Evans had already left, having not appeared comfortable for most of the evening, and Finlay was beginning to regret not going with him. He walked over to the sofa

and tried to rouse Calvert's sleeping figure. The thinfaced man waved him away. "Leave him. If you wake him up he'll only be sick or something." It took Finlay a moment to realise that something was pulling on his jacket. He turned to find Hillary. "If you are looking for someone to walk home, how about me?" He looked at her. There seemed a paradox between the vulnerability of her words and the manner in which they were delivered. She seemed coldly sober. "Yes, of course.” He found his overcoat hanging from hooks by the front door and put it on. "Where's your friend?" he asked. "The other Hillary? I didn't see her." Hillary hugged her coat around her and stared out into the street. "She went home early. She doesn't enjoy these things much." They stepped out into the cold and walked through the darkened streets towards the pub above which Hillary had lodgings. He was content to walk in silence, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. The alcohol in his body seemed to enure him to the cold. He had expected to feel tired, but the situation - walking the darkened streets with a woman he barely knew - had put paid to that. As they reached the strip of green that formed the Level, he became aware that she had stopped. He turned to face her. There was a smile on her lips. She touched his cheek. "Do you always walk so bloody fast? I cannot keep up."

He apologised. When they at last got to the pub, having walked in silence the rest of the way, she stopped outside the side door to the building and fished in her handbag for keys. The atmosphere was now heavy. Hillary broke it. "Well, Mr Derrington. Thank you for walking me home in such a gentlemanly fashion." She stared at him in the darkness and the silence. Finlay hugged his coat around him, trying to summon the willpower to leave, but the instinct was too strong. She stared at him. "Aren't you even going to ask?" "Ask what?" he said. She put both her hands around the back of his head and pulled his face to hers, kissing him on the mouth. Before he could react, he felt her mouth open and her tongue push forward, forcing his own mouth open in response. He felt stunned but it did not stop the natural, automatic reaction. He put his arms inside her coat and around her waist and pulled her against him. Even under the layers of clothing, even after all the whisky, he could feel himself grow against her. The kiss seemed to go on and on. He tried to overcome his shock and push his tongue into her mouth, but she broke away. He did not know what to do next. He wondered if she would wish him good night. "You can come in and have a drink," she said instead. "But you'll have to be quiet." She let them through the door and inside. He was dimly aware of the empty pub, dark and deserted and unfamiliar, its silence as palpable as their own had been. She took his hand without a word and led him past the bar to the passageway beyond and on up the

stairs. He wondered vaguely what would happen if the landlord were to discover them. She led him on up the stairs to a large room on the second floor. He was aware of the sound of their footsteps even past the rushing of blood that seemed to make his ears hiss. From the window of the room he could see Viaduct Road. Mrs Brockenbury's was only just out of view. She crossed the room in silence as Finlay stood by the door motionless and drew the curtains. The room was sparsely furnished and cold, without even pictures on the wall. There was only a medium-sized bed with a dark covering, and an armchair invisible under a mountain of discarded clothes. Hillary took off her coat and came back across the room to stand in front of him. The look in her eyes still hard and unsmiling. She put her arms around his neck again and pulled his face towards hers. "Sorry about that drink.” Afterwards, he stared out of the window at the rain and the only face he could see was not that of Hillary. It was wrong. All wrong. He felt an overpowering desire to be out in the cold and the rain, alone. He looked down at his discarded clothes and felt a physical aching inside. He could not look at Hillary beside him. The silence between them seemed to grow and grow, as it had before, but this time he knew it and did not care. Eventually, Hillary stirred beside him. "You cannot stay. I'm not supposed to have anyone to stay here. You'll have to leave," she said. He was surprised at how cool and detached her voice sounded. But grateful as he was, he did not

argue, swinging his legs off the bed and reaching for his trousers. The clammy wetness around his groin made him shudder. He could feel a dull ache in his head starting already. His watch said 1.15am. She held the covers around her, as if to shield her body from him again. "Do you think you could find your own way out? I'm not exactly dressed for showing you." She yawned and looked away. He pulled his jacket on, cramming his tie into a side pocket. There seemed little tension between them, both realising there was little to say. She did not invite him to kiss her, turning away from him and settling under the covers. He turned the light out and closed the door behind him. Even in the dark, in a strange house, he felt the relief of separation. He had to find his way by touch to the head of the stairs. At one point he became disorientated and almost panicked. The idea of returning was unbearable. But then he felt the hard flooring of the stairway beneath his feet and remembered it from before. He crept down the stairs and let himself out. The door gave a loud click as he pulled it to. He let himself in to Mrs Brockenbury's as quietly as he could, anxious not to wake the dog and therefore, no doubt, everyone else. His desire to be outside had dissolved rapidly in the freezing rain and he could feel himself shaking as he fumbled with his key. He wanted to sleep, to rid himself of the images of the past few hours and the misery they had so unexpectedly provoked. Eventually, he slept.

He was woken the next morning by a light tapping at the door. He struggled into a confused conciousness. He felt dazed, but the headache of the previous evening had disappeared. His watch said 11.15. The knocking was Evans, as ever smiling gently. "Did I wake you? Sorry. Came to see if you had got back alive. I'm afraid I cannot rouse Calvert at all." Finlay felt embarrassment add to his confusion. He felt the knowledge of what had taken place the previous evening must show on his face. "I left him fast asleep on a sofa. I was advised that waking him would be unwise." "I see," said Evans, still with his calmly gentle smile. "Drunk again. Why don't you put some different clothes on and help me to go and find him? If your head is up to it, that is." He nodded at Finlay's trousers. Finlay looked down and realised he had slept with them on all night. He must have been more drunk than he had realised. "Give me five minutes." When he had changed, washed perfunctorily and cleaned his teeth, he met Evans downstairs. He felt disorientated by the weight of the knowledge he carried with him unspoken. They set off through a cold, bright morning, Evans' hands buried deep in the pockets of his long coat. "When did you get back?" he asked. "As far as I can remember, about 1.00 in the morning," Finlay said. "Why did you leave so early?" Evans stared into the distance. "I wasn't really in the mood. Some of Hillary's friends I find rather annoying." The two walked on in silence. Finlay tried to

push the thought of Ren, and of what he had done the night before, from his mind. The scene he had immediately begun to dread meeting Hillary again - came sooner than he had expected, that evening. He and Evans had picked up the seemingly irrepressible Calvert - unaffected by the night before and walked back to Mrs Brockenbury's via the seafront. Finlay had gone up to his room to mark the exercises he had set his class on Friday, but had found his attention wandering. Images from the night before invaded his thoughts, despite all attempts to banish them. The faces of Hillary, Calvert, Evans and the rest flitted in and out of his mind. And always the face of Ren. After two hours, he had made sufficient headway to contemplate having a sleep to clear his head. He had taken care of the marking he would need to have done for Monday and Tuesday. But when he lay on the bed and stared at the darkening ceiling, its detail disappearing in the fading light from outside, his mind began to race even faster than before. There was a knock at the door. It was Calvert, embarrassed. Behind him was Evans and Ren, the latter's expression blank. "We're going down to the Rose Hill for a quick one, to get away from marking. Do you fancy it?" His tone made it obvious it was already common knowledge what had happened the evening before. "I think Hillary will be working tonight," he said. Finlay had been on the point of making an excuse. But Calvert's last comment highlighted the futility of any

such course. The situation would have to be faced and it was best to get it over with. On the walk to the pub, he had the same feeling he had experienced before facing his first class. As if events were accelerating just at the point when he was losing control over them. He did not speak to Ren. It was easier than he thought it was going to be, even as he realised on entering the pub that it was nearly empty, with only a couple of Sunday evening customers by the fire. He saw Hillary behind the bar, and immediately asked the others what they wanted to drink. They seemed to understand, and headed for a table at the far corner of the room. Hillary stared at him. "Did you get back all right?" Finlay smiled. "Yes thanks." There was a pause. He was about to say something - anything - when she saw him open his mouth and beat him to it. "Last night was a mistake. You do realise that, don't you? It isn't going to happen again." Her voice was still cool and level, but there was a hint of pleading in it that had not been there before. "Quite." "It's not as if I make a habit of it, after all." He let out a breath between his teeth, loosening some of the tension that had been building within him. "Neither do I, as a matter of fact." He had planned to restrict himself to beer, but ordered a whisky instead. Hillary declined his offer of a drink.

That evening, as he was preparing for bed, there was a quiet tap on the door. It was Ren. "Hello," she said, managing even to whisper in a Yorkshire accent as she poked her nose around the door. "Are you awake?" "It would appear so.” She was still fully dressed, but clad also in a dressing gown, which looked new and had presumably been bought to replace the old one. "I just wondered if I could borrow some cigarettes. I forgot to get some earlier." Finlay looked to see if he had any on the table. Ren was looking past him into his room with frank curiosity. As he went into the room, she followed. She was obviously disinclined to sleep, and sat down in the chair by the table, gazing about. "That Hillary's a beast," she said. The tone was conversational this time, without anger. Finlay concentrated on searching for cigarettes and trying to stop the hammering that had started in his chest. He did not answer but sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor. He did not look up. His voice sounded strange to him. "She and I ended up back at the pub. After the party the friend of hers gave. The one Michael and Stephen went to. Last night." "Oh." "It was a mistake." "I see." They sat for a while, Finlay still staring at the floor. Eventually, Ren broke the silence. "Hey. Why the long face? We all make them."

He was aware of feeling shame, but also, oddly, the criminal's relief in confession. "Do you think so?" "Oh yes." This time it was her turn to look pensive. "There's someone in my home town. He wants me to marry him - I think. That would be a mistake. Only I haven't made it yet." "Why would it be a mistake?" "Because I don't love him." "And that's important?" She stared at him directly. "Of course." They stayed like that for some time, neither speaking. Finlay stared out of the window while Ren stared at him, the silence heavy between them. Eventually, she got up. "Well, I'll say goodnight, Finlay," she said softly. "Good night." Only afterwards did he realise he had forgotten to give her cigarettes. He did not realise that was not why she had come. ‘ Ren and Jean were recommended to a friend of Dr Whitworth's - who owned a large house at the top of a hill near the centre of Brighton - who could let them have self-contained rooms. It was agreed they would move the following Saturday. It would mean them staying a further week. On the Saturday morning, Finlay was joined in his now regular walks with the dog by Ren, Calvert and Evans. George seemed already to have grown accustomed to the excursions, but still strangled himself as he strained to bound ahead.

At Ren's suggestion, they packed a rudimentary picnic and took the train to Lewes, before heading over the Downs behind the school. The morning was the brightest and clearest Finlay could remember. The trains were infrequent on a Saturday morning, and they had to wait nearly half an hour. On the platform, the sun warmed them before the train arrived. They were virtually the only passengers. Evans and Calvert were talking about cricket again. Finlay stared out of the window. When they reached the Downs, the wind off the coast hit them. The dog was now out of control. Finlay let him off as quickly as he could, and the animal streaked up the hill ahead of them. Ren let out a whoop and took off after him. Her stocky body ran in an ungainly fashion, leaping from side to side, her black coat flying unbuttoned behind her, hair billowing out. Calvert shouted for her to hold on and he took off too, running much faster and catching her up easily. George was already approaching the summit of the hill. Finlay and Evans watched the unlikely trio. Evans was smiling in his detached way. "Now I really have seen everything. You've made Ren take some exercise. Quite an achievement." "She's not much of a runner then?" "Couldn't run a bath." He looked at Finlay. "You seem to be making quite a hit there." Finlay froze at the expression of what he himself had not even dared hope. Evans was already heading off up the hill to join the others. Finlay set off after him, picking up a stick for the dog as he went. The view over the rolling Sussex countryside was magnificent. Ren and Calvert were both sitting on the wet grass,

breathing heavily. Ren's cheeks were puffing and glowing pink and her eyes sparkled. "Quick. Give me a cigarette. I'm dying here," she laughed. Finlay lit two cigarettes with difficulty. George had returned from exploring the other side of the hill and spotted Finlay's stick. He leapt up to grab it and clamped his jaws around it, hanging there and resisting all efforts to shake him off. Finlay found that if he swung the stick in a circle, the dog held on grimly, still growling, like some berserk imitation of a horse in a merry-go-round. The others laughed. Eventually, the dog's jaw opened, and it fell away to land in a heap. When Finlay threw the stick, it shot off after it. "You and that dog should join a circus," said Evans. "We might at that." Ren sat with her legs out before her and her arms propping her up, oblivious. She stared across the Downs towards the coast. "Isn't it beautiful up here?" It was. Below and far away in the distance, Finlay could just make out the beginning of what looked like Brighton itself - a smudge on the horizon before the land met the sea. He tried to imagine how many people, their lives a mystery to him, bustled around down there. It felt like home. Time passed faster than Finlay had ever known. Two weeks before the end of term - two weeks before his time in Brighton would be over - it was

Ren's twenty-fourth birthday. She planned a party at the new rooms with Jean. After her departure from Viaduct Road, Finlay felt a keen sense of anticipation at seeing her again outside school and a dry-throated sense of possibilities unimagined and unimaginable. Beneath that, he felt a growing sadness his time here was nearly over. He felt dread at the thought of his old life, which now seemed to signify only depression and inertia, back in London. He could disguise the feeling when at the school, for he was kept busy, but not when out of it. On the Saturday morning the feeling was so strong he made an excuse not to go with Calvert and Evans into town to buy something for Ren, but pleaded work and said he would go later. Immediately they left, staying in the cold dark house seemed unbearable. He gathered up his coat and walked off into town towards the sea. The sights and sounds that had previously been a pleasure, the market traders and street sellers, the families out shopping, even the occasional pupil from St John's, all seemed now to mock him with his own transience. He could view none of them without the realisation these scenes would carry on without him when he left, as if nothing had happened. He had expected to find it difficult to find something suitable for Ren. But in a second-hand store in the Laines his eye was caught by a velvet stand with medallions and crucifixes resting on it. A silver oval no bigger than a thumb nail held his attention. On it was the figure of a woman, with a child sitting on her shoulders. In one hand she carried a shepherd's staff, the other was

reaching to balance the child on her shoulders. Behind her, waves crashed on to a silver shore. St Christopher Protect Us was engraved around the edge of the pendant. He was surprised at his own certainty. He went into the shop and handed over the three pounds the old man behind the counter demanded. Three pounds was almost half his week's wages at St John's, but he did not think about it. Instead he had the present wrapped in soft blue paper and put in a black jewellery box. He left the shop with the box in his pocket and wondered aimlessly towards the sea. The present had lifted some of the gloom which had sunk over him. He met Calvert and Evans in a pub a few minutes up from the seafront. Robert, Agnes and Laidlaw were there, and others Finlay did not recognise. The pub was crowded. It had started to rain outside, but inside that only seemed to add to the warm fug between the packed bodies. Agnes was alongside him. "How have you been enjoying yourself?" The question only reminded him his time was drawing to a close. "It's been an education. Rather more for me than anyone I have taught, I should imagine." Agnes' level gaze did not alter or smile. "That's not what I hear from my father. He said he would like to offer you a position." Finlay's heart jumped. "But old Maynard is coming back after his operation next term, so he cannot. Unfortunately. So you will be looking for a position somewhere else. Anywhere in mind?" "No," Finlay said, draining his glass at a gulp.

They got to the house just past nine o'clock, to find the cramped rooms even more crowded than the pub. Ren opened the door to them. She wore a long dark evening dress, hair piled up and fastened on her head, deep red lipstick on her mouth. The flush of alcohol was already on her normally pale cheeks, and her eyes sparkled. Her dress was low-cut and showed off a deep cleavage. Finlay could feel his chest contract as she looked at him. She kissed Calvert and Evans as they entered. As he passed, he bent to kiss her cheek. Her skin felt warm and soft to his lips. With a jolt, he remembered the smell of her. "Good evening, darling. So nice of you to grace us with your presence." She appeared to be drunk already as she ushered them in. The room was dimly lit, and dance music was playing loudly out of a wireless in the corner of the room. There was a thick cloud of smoke, and bottles and glasses and ashtrays already littered the floor. The party had been going on for some time already, and he was annoyed at the thought of time wasted in the pub. He recognised about half of the dozen or so faces in the room. Some of the older masters from St John's were there, surprisingly, and some of the people who had been at the party in Pevensey Road, although there was no sign of Hillary. He went through to the tiny kitchen to find a glass. Robert, already merry from the pub, was attempting to persuade Agnes to dance in the few feet available in the middle of the sitting room. As he poured himself a drink, Ren came up behind him.

"Do you think I could have some of that whisky? I might as well get the most out of you since you'll be leaving us soon enough." He poured out some of the drink for her as she went on. "You'd better promise to come back and see us." The face still smiled, and the eyes still sparkled, but there seemed another, more serious look, beseeching. He wondered if, wishing to see it there, he was imagining it. "I can do better than that," he said, taking the box with the pendant from his pocket. "Happy birthday." She took it silently, opened it, and unwrapped the pendant inside. Before she could say anything, he spoke to hide his embarrassment. "It's a St Christopher. The patron saint of travellers. To protect them when they go away." He swallowed. "And when they return." She held the pendant in her hands, looking at it silently. She turned it over, then turned it back to pass a finger over the engraved inscription. He saw her lips make out the words like a child learning to read, though no sound came, just as she had done when he had looked through the cafe window at her weeks before. The silence went on so long he thought she might be about to make a joke. But then she was looking up at him, eyes more intent than before. "It's beautiful." She kissed him on the mouth hard and walked quickly away out into the sitting room. The party lasted for several hours. Finlay found himself dancing clumsily with Jean, a very drunk Calvert and a woman called Grace who

worked in a restaurant in Brighton. They danced to jazz music playing at a volume that made Finlay wonder what the landlord would be thinking. Eventually, people started to drift off. Finlay and Jean were sitting on the bed by the window. He felt rather drunk, while Jean appeared quite sober as they talked. He could tell there was a quietening in the room as people began to leave. Ren came into the room from the hallway outside, trying to control helpless laughter. "He's been sick! Stephen. Again. He's been in the lavatory for the last half an hour, throwing up." Her laughter began to subside. "He never could hold his booze, the poor thing. Michael's taken him home." She went to sit down on the bed next to Jean, but Agnes and Robert came over to announce they were going as well. Agnes was now visibly having to hold Robert up. They said their goodbyes and Ren showed them to the door. Finlay broke off from talking to Jean to look around the room. By now everyone had gone bar him. The party appeared to be over. Instantly the mist of alcohol disappeared and he felt awake and sober. Ren came and sat down on the bed, this time next to him. She was still holding a drink in her hand. Jean leant forward to look past him. "Will Agnes get him home all right?" "Yes, I should think so. She's had a bit of practise, hasn't she?" Ren leant back against the wall and closed her eyes. She let out a deep sigh. "Happy birthday, Ren," said Jean. "Did you enjoy it?" "Oh yes," Ren said.

A silence settled down in the room and Finlay stared at the far wall. He could feel Ren's shoulder against his own, and his heart begin to beat a steady, thumping rythm in his chest. As he became aware of it, he could also hear it, past the rushing in his ears. The silence in the room grew thick. Jean got up from the bed wordlessly and, putting her glass on the floor, walked across the room to her bedroom. She went in and closed the door softly behind her. Then the silence became tangible, a presence in the air all around them. Finlay felt his heart beginning to throb. It seemed to be hammering its way out of his chest. Ren still lay back against the wall, her eyes closed. Even though the silence was deafening, he was sure that if he tried to speak, the words would not have come. His throat seemed suddenly parchment dry, and time seemed to have slowed down. He wanted it to stop altogether, to give himself time to think, to freeze the moment. He sat transfixed by fear. He knew suddenly, with perfect clarity and a stabbing in his heart, that he had allowed his feelings for her to advance so far that rejection now would be unbearable. If she refused him, he knew he would not see her again, and that thought he could not live with. Anything - never to have tried at all - would be better than that. And then he knew what he would have to do, and he thought his heart would break. He heard his voice finally speak, the silence smashed like glass. The words seemed to come from some other world. "I'd better be going as well."

He wondered – hoped - she might have fallen asleep. Then he could have tried to control his fear, and banished the shame of what had happened with Hillary. But she spoke slowly and quietly, without opening her eyes, in the clear voice of one awake. "All right." And the moment had gone. Ren leant back against the wall, eyes closed, not even appearing to breath. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. His heart had stopped its pounding now, and in its place there was only an ache so strong it made him breathless. As he got up and crossed the room, there was the same rushing in his ears that made him think of the sea just down the hill. He managed to force himself to turn and look at her. She remained as she had been before. How could something so important – so awful happen so quickly, with so little warning? How could it be? He knew he would remember this night. He walked to the door, closing it behind him, and went on into the night. He walked down the hill towards the sea. He wanted to see waves on the shore. He had been too frightened to grasp what he desired, and now it was too late. The chance had gone.

1940

DUNKIRK had been a massacre – less than 30,000 taken off the beaches - then the RAF and the Royal Navy had been smashed over the summer. The “black summer”, people called it. Now the last act would begin... There was a break in the rain now, though the September clouds were still black, and wind sweeping up from the sea whistled as it made its sinuous progress through the pillbox's open firing ports and

around the cold concrete inside. Either side along the coast, the Downs of Sussex were wreathed in mist as they came down to the cliffs and the sea. A mile east, the cliffs got lower and lower until they disappeared as the shore curled around into the port. The seagulls wheeled over Brighton, and would only return to the cliffs under the pillbox that night. Albert Miller sat on an upturned beer crate inside the pillbox and stared after a gull that had flown past, startling him, over the cliff in front. He liked the birds. The way their lives seemed an imitation of the human treadmill he had left behind. Out to work during the day, back to the nest in the cliffs at night. It was a reminder of a normal life. He lit another cigarette and cursed the weather for the umpteenth time, as he had been doing for weeks. The fingers of his right hand rubbed the surface of the shin of his leg through the coarse material of his battledress trousers – a shrapnel fragment outside Dunkirk. He was only a young man - 23 - but he felt old, full of aches and pains and a stiffness that never seemed to leave him. He drew heavily on the cigarette and waited for Dixon to come back from the clump of woodland behind the pillbox, where he had gone to piss. Like Miller, Dixon was a private in what was left of the 2nd Middlesex. Two years younger than Miller and lucky enough still to be in basic training during Dunkirk, he was thin and lanky, with watery eyes, the opposite of the short and squat Miller. He irritated the older man by always speaking to him as if he were a corporal which, with his age and experience, Miller knew he should have been.

He shivered again as he looked out of the pillbox window to the sea beyond. When Dixon came back he would have him make a brew. That would help. He sat and stared out at the waves. It was all he seemed to do nowadays. The pillbox was one of hundreds along the south and east coasts, erected in a mad scramble throughout the summer and autumn. The entrance was a narrow door away from the sea, shielded by the box's central pillar, around which ran a narrow passage - no wider than a man's shoulders - where Miller and Dixon spent most of their day. The pillbox lay on the highest part of the cliff for observation, overlooking the pebble beaches below. A track ran inland for a few hundred yards to the coastal road that led along the cliffs between Newhaven and Brighton, ten miles away. Miller stood up and shivered. The pillbox's firing ports could not be closed, and provided no protection from the cold winds outside. It reminded him of a tomb. He decided not to wait for Dixon and squatted down to work the small primus stove they used for tea and rations. It was difficult to get a match to stay alight, even in the pillbox. After lighting three, he heard Dixon's approach. "Got the tea on then?" The younger man was still tucking his tunic into the waistband of his trousers. "Fuck off. Anything over the radio?" Miller shook his head. The radio stood on the floor at his feet, next to the stove. It was their only contact with battalion headquarters in Brighton for 12 hours at a stretch.

They were supposed to call in every two hours (there was never anything to report) but in the meantime the radio stayed on the floor, turned on but emitting no sound. As often as not it was not working for some reason. Miller wondered if it would work properly when the time came. He poured water into two enamelled mugs, added dried milk and a few tiny lumps of precious sugar. The tea was as soldiers always had it scalding hot and strong. The two tried to shelter from the wind. The rain had started up again. Miller found if he squatted too long his legs seized up completely. He sipped the steaming liquid and stared at the concrete wall two feet in front of his face. The noise of Dixon hawking up and spitting into the corner of the pillbox broke him out of his reverie. He shook his head to clear it. Dixon was looking at him nervously. "You miles away, again?" The younger man's voice had a mystified sympathy. Dixon had not been in France, so he did not understand, could not have comprehended, the things Miller had seen there. The two spent a lot of time like this, knowing each other well enough to be comfortable with the silence, content to drink their tea with their own thoughts. Miller would sometimes steal a glance at Dixon's pale face and blinking eyes and wonder what thoughts went through his mind, if any. Neither man mentioned the reason for them being there, staring all day at the waves and the sea and what lay beyond. The silence was broken by the sound of a car approaching.

Miller put down his cup and went out into the rain, which was getting heavier. Fat drops hit the flat roof of the concrete shelter, sending explosions of water in an arc. A small dirty black car - requisitioned - had turned off the road and was crunching down the track towards him. The engine noise spluttered and coughed and was almost drowned by the sound of the wind coming up from the beach. An old Morris, fifteen years old by the look of it. The single windscreen wiper was having trouble coping with the downpour and the headlamps invisible under the blackout covers in the gloom. The car stopped ten yards away and the engine died with of relief. It was probably running on low grade petrol a result of the rationing of proper quality petrol. Miller wondered what on earth a civilian was doing up here and how he had managed to get through the road blocks. If it was one of the officer patrols, he would have recognised the car. An officer - a lieutenant - dressed in battledress with Middlesex stripes came towards him. Miller did not recognise him from battalion headquarters down in Newhaven. He must have just joined. This one did not look like the other fresh-faced idiots from London, he thought. He was tall, around the same height as Dixon, but heavier and with longer hair swept back. He wore no hat. He had a square solid face, with a prominent nose. There were lines across his forehead which indicated age and shadows under the eyes. He seemed indifferent to the rain that fell on his head. Miller saluted and wished him good evening. The voice that answered was gentle, with an undercurrent of weary irony even in the first words. "Good evening, private. How are you?"

Miller was as mystified by the question as by the man asking it. It was not the way officers behaved. "Fine sir. I think." The lieutenant's face broke into a smile. "I should explain. I've just joined from London. Thought I'd familiarise myself with the section of coast we're allotted." Miller nodded, surprised at the apologetic tone of the officer's voice. "Very good sir. Fancy a cup of tea?" Miller felt an instinctive warmth. There was something vaguely familiar about him, now that he put his mind to it. Perhaps he’d seen him in France. "Tea would be lovely." The lieutenant made no move to get in out of the rain, staring thoughtfully out to sea. He seemed distracted. Eventually he spoke. "What's your name?" "Miller, sir. Private First Class." "Well a cup of tea would about hit the spot now, I think." Miller beckoned him into the pillbox. It was impossible for Dixon to stand properly to salute in the cramped passageway. He stood up as best he could and gave a half-hearted attempt to do so, scraping his hand on the concrete wall of the building. The lieutenant held up a hand. "Don't bother. You can be at ease in here of all places." Dixon stammered as he always did when nervous. The officer's detached manner seemed to make the younger man even more nervous than he usually was.

"Thank you, sir." Dixon continued to crouch, uncertain whether to sit or stand, while Miller lit the stove again. The lieutenant looked out of the firing port facing the sea, then appeared to notice Dixon's dilemma. "Well sit down, man. You're making me nervous." Dixon sank onto the beer crate gratefully. The lieutenant went back to looking through the firing port. Miller watched him as he waited for the water to boil. The officer's jaw flexed continually, as if the muscle was permanently clenched, and he stared out with a peculiar intensity, as if trying to make something out. Miller wondered if it was fear, like with most of the new ones. This one didn't seem new, and didn't seem nervous. "Any news, sir?" The officer shook his head, still staring out to sea. "No. Another big raid last night when the weather cleared. Dover and Brighton got it. You probably heard. But no news." He continued to stare out to sea. Miller found his intensity worrying. "Weather’s the only thing stopping ‘em at the moment. We seem to be having some luck at last. But it’ll only take a couple of days of calm for that to change. Just a couple of days." Miller poured water into three cups. He noticed his hand shook as it did so, and he felt embarrassed. But the lieutenant still gazed out at the sea. "How long before they come, sir? If the weather clears?" He regretted the pleading tone of the question even before the words were out. The lieutenant finally

broke his gaze to look down at him with the same slow, sad smile. "Who knows? They'll come when they’re ready. You can be sure of that. Very organised, the Germans, very organised. Perhaps you know that already?" Miller nodded. "Saw a bit of it at Dunkirk." The officer's smile disappeared. "Yes. Didn't we all?"‘ Driving the little car back along the coast towards Newhaven, Finlay found it more and more difficult to see the road in front of him. The weather was getting worse; rain crashing onto the windscreen. The wiper provided a split second of tunnel vision ahead, before the deluge came down again. The car would still do nearly fifty miles an hour, despite its age, but with visibility so bad and the blackout covers on the headlamps he could manage little more than twenty on the unfamiliar road. After the last of the coastal road blocks, the car crested the hill and began its descent on the winding road down into the port. Like everywhere along the south coast, Newhaven had become a garrison town. In snatches through the mist and the rain, he could make out the Nissan huts and tents outside the entrance to Newhaven fort up on the cliffs to his right as he wound down into Brighton. It was already dark, and he had made it back only just in time. He found it difficult to get his bearings in the unfamiliar streets. He had only been in Brighton for three days and was not yet used to the rows of terraced houses that ran along the side of the estuary.

But the car carried on gamely enough. It had been requisitioned from an old lady in Brighton. It had been assigned to Finlay so he could complete a tour of the coastal defences to familiarise himself with the sector he would defend. Eventually he found the street Meeching Road - he was looking for. The house at the end had been flattened a week before. Finlay had been assigned a billet in a private house abandoned by its owners. He was sharing with two brothers, Peter and Philip Newbury, and a captain named Gray. The brothers - both lieutenants, like him were originally from Weymouth, and their presence 100 miles along the coast from their family was a constant source of annoyance to them. Weymouth had initially escaped lightly in the bombing of the summer, but as the German air offensive had begun to concentrate on possible landing sites for an invasion, sources of opposition to any landing had suffered. The naval base at Portland had been annihilated. Post was rare and the brothers waited for news from home. Finlay drew up in the dark and switched off the car's labouring engine. With the rain there were no bombers over tonight and the silence was complete. He realised how exhausted he felt. He had had eight hours sleep in the last three days. With overseeing the deployment of his unit around Newhaven and the requisitioning of supplies, as well as the bombing, there had been no time. He looked out of the window at the street outside, distorted by the rain. Despite the car's leaking roof and lack of a heater, he had to fight the urge to let his head roll back and sleep. He could dimly make out the shape of the monument across the street, dedicated to the fallen of the Great War, his

father among them, 20 years before. He could not make out the words, but he knew them anyway. "For King and Country", above the dates 1914-1919. Perhaps another monument would one day be erected alongside it, for the dead to come. How many names would adorn that one? He was falling asleep. He shook himself, shuddered, and got out of the car into the rain and wind. He remembered only as an afterthought to open the bonnet of the car and remove the distributer cap, and take it with him to the house. There were heavy fines for civilians, never mind soldiers, who left transport around that could be used by an enemy. He had an hour to spare before dinner at 7 o'clock, then he would go up to the fort to inspect the men and check on the guard. The constant weeks of invasion alert had sapped the men's watchfulness, and the bad weather only made them more lax. The house was a small terrace, in an identical row originally built for dock workers, with a small garden at the back, and a tiny kitchen and sitting room on the ground floor. Inside, it was dark and silent. There was no sign of the Newbury brothers or Captain Gray. The sitting room windows looked out past their crosses of masking tape to the estuary of Newhaven below. There was no clue as to who had once owned the house. There were no pictures on the walls, and only the barest essentials for furniture. Everything else had been moved out by the owners, presumably when the requisition order had been served months ago. He found the emptiness depressing. The house reminded him of the rootless impermanence of his own

existence. He wondered who would be staying here in a year's time, or if the house would still be standing at all. His room was at the back of the second floor. It contained nothing but a bed with rough army blankets and a small cupboard. As he climbed the stairs, he was struck by the absence of noise, either from within the house or outside. His footsteps on the bare floorboards seemed unaturally loud. The sounds of overflying German bombers on their runs north to hit the airfields as the coastal batteries attempted to engage them had become a part of his sub-concious; now he noticed only their absence. Tonight was too cloudy. With luck, they might be in for a quiet night. Only in the distance could he hear the faint resonating boom of a shell being fired from one of the German destroyers that now roamed the Channel with impunity. In his room, he was too tired to remove his boots or his battledress, now soaked again. Instead he collapsed on the bed. It was impossible to relax and be taken by sleep, but he knew that if he lay and stared at the ceiling long enough, it would come. What he was frightened of was the feeling of panic and falling that always seemed to wrench him out of sleep just as he dozed off. It had been happening more and more often. He was woken by a crashing at the door. He had no idea where he was. The first minutes of sleep were always the worst to wake from. He was too dazed and tired to remember, and he wondered what the noise had been. As he looked around the unfamiliar room, it

provided no clue as to the new existence in which he found himself, except for the stuffed army duffel bag on the floor. The door opened to reveal Captain Gray. He was dressed in battledress uniform, although his head was bare and his black, thinning hair was wet and uncombed. He looked down at Finlay with bloodshot eyes and the dark smudges under them were black against the pale of his thin face. The voice that was usually halting and gentle had been rendered a monotone by fatigue. "Get a move on, Derrington. In the old days you got shot for sleeping on duty. Dinner's on the table." Finlay swung his legs to the floor, smoothing his hair and trying to unscramble his dazed mind. His uniform blouse and trousers were still wet and gave off a rich, musty odour. They had not been washed for weeks. He went downstairs to find the Newbury brothers and Gray already seated at the dining room table. Dinner was a canteen of watery stew delivered from the building acting as the officer's mess two streets away. Gray was cutting slices from a loaf of bread he had managed to acquire. Finlay knew it would not have come with the rations. The stew was thickened only with potatoes - the meat it contained was stringy, tasteless, and of uncertain origin. Rationing had helped to prevent shortages at first, but the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic over the summer had prevented all but the most important military supplies from crossing the ocean. Equipment to replace crucial farming machinery was not available,

and the country's ability to feed itself was grinding to a halt. Peter Newbury poured tea from a battered kettle into four tin mugs. Like all of them, he looked exhausted. "Evening, Derrington. D'you get some sleep?" "A bit. It seems to have made me even more tired than before. As usual." Peter Newbury was only barely six months older than him, but deep lines of fatigue ran down his cheeks, making him look a decade older than his 27 years. Finlay wondered what his own face must look like. The house contained no mirror. "The grub is of the usual standard, I'm afraid gentlemen," said Gray, ladling it out into four tin bowls. "But the bread is excellent. I got it myself this morning." Gray spooned some of the stew to his mouth, and with the other hand smoothed back his unkempt hair. His features were delicate, with thin lips and pale skin. Although he did not look like it, he was a career soldier, joining the regiment eight years before the outbreak of war. The destruction of the army at Dunkirk, and the annihilation of his own regiment there, had affected him badly. "How are things in your sectors, gentlemen?" "The men are all right," said Finlay. "But no more than that. They need more food and more ammunition. What they have won't last an hour in any fight. Morale is... reasonable." He detested the habit of many of his fellow officers. They had started to adopt poses of insane optimisim in which all problems, even their men's

comfort, were ignored. It was a kind of hysteria. Gray nodded and swallowed. "Well, when we get more supplies, they can have them. But morale is all right, you say?" "Better than could be expected. They don't like the waiting. But which of us does?" "What's the weather report, sir?" Philip Newbury asked. Alongside hysterical optimism, the weather had become an obsession. "More of the same, thank God. They are saying the storms could go on for another week. Perhaps they are just trying to cheer us up. Don't blame them." Gray sipped the tea and grimaced. "Anyway, maybe another week, maybe less. After that, who knows?" The four of them ate for a moment in silence. Above the noise of the rain, Finlay could hear the boom of one of the coastal ack-ack batteries opening up, although whether at a bomber overhead or a destroyer out to sea it was impossible to tell. There was a muffled crash as a shell from one of the German ships landed somewhere towards the other side of Brighton. Nobody remarked upon it - the sound was quite usual. When he had finished eating Gray sat back in his chair with a deep sigh. Then, before his body could adjust to the relaxed position, he was on his feet and heading for the door. "I'm off up to the fort. I suggest you get some rest while you can. I'll see you up there at 22.00 sharp." The three of them barely had time to get to their feet before he was gone. Philip Newbury collapsed back onto his chair with a sigh.

"Rest? Chance would be a fine thing," he said bitterly as the front door slammed. "Anybody got anything to drink?" Finlay went upstairs to fetch the whisky bottle. Technically, they were not allowed to drink while on duty, and were on permanent alert 24 hours a day, but nobody bothered about such things now. He poured the liquid into three of the tea mugs and sat down. Philip Newbury drained his at a gulp. "Well, he doesn't seem too bad today. Almost cheerful, in fact. Makes a change." The whisky brought a flush to his cheeks and made his eyes water. Along with the weather, the two brothers shared an obsession with the perceived mental state of their commanding officer. As the senior officer present, he would know more than they about the latest intelligence reports of interrupted radio traffic between the differing parts of the German invasion fleet, mustering across the water, as well as the weather projections that were now being sent down from London every hour. If and when the weather cleared and stripped them of their last protection, Gray would hear of it before they did. Finlay felt removed from their concerns. Ever since France, he had felt a sense of unreality at what was happening - the shock of Dunkirk; the inevitability of the disasters to follow as airfields and radar stations were destroyed one by one; the Navy bombed out of the Channel by the victorious Luftwaffe. It was as if a German landing was now the only way of keeping the dreamlike quality of their situation intact. He poured more whisky. His legs were beginning to ache again. The brothers fell to discussing a letter

from their mother, posted two weeks ago, which she had managed to get to them via the battalion headquarters. The brothers pored over the letter, analysing every last detail and fragment. Finlay listened to them and stared at the table in front of him. His own mother had died in the bombing. The house had been flattened by a direct hit. He had seen his sisters at the funeral, but they had already been distracted by the pressing needs of evacuation, and his uniform somehow separated him from them in the acceptance of their mother's passing. It was as if they cast him out, as something separate - part of the war which they only now began to regard as impinging on their own lives. Since the funeral there had been no contact. He had tried to write, but could find nothing to say. He had known that he was finally, absolutely alone, and he had waited for the Germans to come. The brothers had finished their analysis of the letter, and Peter Newbury offered him a cigarette, which he accepted. Philip was staring at the window, although any view of outside was obscured by the blackout screens. "Why don't we go for a drink in Brighton before the night briefing? It's not till ten o'clock." All officers in Brighton were called together every morning and evening for the daily intelligence briefing, although there was often little to impart. Part of the anxiety of the senior officers was that they had no idea where an invasion would come. It was presumed landings would take place somewhere between Lyme Regis and Ramsgate, but that left the remnants of the army with over 200 miles of coastline

to defend. The task would have been impossible even if weapons and equipment had been adequate, which they were not. Finlay stubbed out his cigarette. He felt an overpowering desire for the warmth of one of the pubs still open and operating in Brighton. The three of them set off through the black, rainy streets, using a pencil torch to see their way through the blacked-out streets. The pub was almost buried in sandbags when they got there, and for a while it was difficult to see where the entrance was. A house a few yards away had had most of its windows blown out by a shell, but the pub itself appeared undamaged. It was very crowded, almost exclusively with soldiers from Finlay's own and other regiments - there were few civilians left in Brighton. The air was thick with the musty smell of damp, unwashed army clothing, together with beer and cigarettes. There was only beer available from the tired barmaid who served him. He bought three pints and went to stand with the brothers in the corner of the room. "So what's the news from your home?" He had to shout to make himself heard above the din. He knew the brothers were angry at their mother for refusing to leave her home near the coast, which would presumably be at the centre of the fighting when the time came. He had not mentioned in their three days together the circumstances of his own family. He thought for a moment. Faces and images flitted through his mind, his mother's tired countenance, the house in a quiet faded suburb of south London, now no more. But only one face stuck in his mind.

He had seen Ren only in passing in the weeks between her birthday party and his departure from Brighton at the end of his posting there. On none of the occasions had they spoken except in a formal, cordial exchange that masked any true feeling. Calvert and Evans had hosted a get-together in the Rose Hill Tavern for him. She had not come. He had felt a door which had opened for him was now closed forever, and he had no knowledge of how to go back. When he got back to London, he had settled down without enthusiasm to the task of writing letters to schools up and down the country, looking for a position, armed with references from Dr Whitworth. Only when he had received interest from a school in Edinburgh had he realised that his interest in teaching had gone cold in him. He could summon no enthusiam for the task in a school so far away. In a curious way, it felt disloyal. If he could not see her again, he could at least be loyal to an idea of her which he kept in his mind. He knew his behaviour was foolish and irrational, but he could see no other way forward. After a time, his search for a position stopped. He wrote regularly to Stephen, and through him received news of everyone's progress, including Ren's. The last letter had been a year ago. Stephen and Mark had joined the Local Defence Volunteers. Of Ren there had been no mention. Then a man named Baker from his father's old regiment had come to visit his mother. The man clearly had designs to court her, and was kind and gentle, but was rebuffed. Before he had given up the chase, he had introduced Finlay to several serving officers,

presumably hoping the connection established through the son might result in a more accomodating reception from the mother. It had set Finlay thinking. The prospect of a commission in his father's regiment appealed to him, though not to his mother or sisters, and anything seemed better than the slow, disabling inactivity of staying at his mother's now deserted home in London. If there was to be another war, and he thought it likely, the thought of being involved from the outset appealed to the frustration in his mind. He remembered another evening when he was a boy. A man had come to the house. This time it was a private soldier who had known his father. It must have been just after the armistice. The man was nervous at meeting his officer's widow, and plainly had no real idea why he had come to the house. But his mother had been gentle and kind, and had offered the man a drink. And the man had drunk more and more, and Finlay's mother had ushered him from the room, but Finlay had waited outside, and listened through the keyhole to the man's rambling conversation. And he had learnt, in uncomprehending childhood wonder, of the shell that had taken his father and four others, leaving a crater 10 feet deep and 20 across, with no trace that the five men it had taken had ever existed at all. He had thought; this is the way I can know my father, to know what he did, what it was like for him and how it ended. From there, it had proved remarkably easy. The drive to re-arm was beginning, and training standards were low. He had found the incessant activity combined with the undercurrent of violence in army life

soothed him. Few people had understood his rejection of teaching as a profession, but he did not regret it. The pain of the memory of Ren did not leave him, but some instinct in him for self-preservation had found a way to push it to the back of his mind. Only afterwards had he fully realised how disastrous the evening at Ren's had been. It had been a one-time thing, requiring from him a leap into the dark which some confluence of factors in his past made it impossible for him to make. He knew enough of himself to realise it had not been only fear of rejection and the loss of her friendship which had stopped him that night. There had been something else; a retreat into dreams, a fear of realising them should the reality not match up to the imagined. Only later had he known that in playing safe, he had lost everything. The three joined the procession of officers making for the fort on the east bank of the estuary. High on the cliff face, it commanded a view miles out to sea in good weather. The administrative headquarters for an area from Brighton to Eastbourne up and down the coast, it was ringed by gun emplacements, trenches and the first of the pillboxes that stretched off along the coast, one every mile. The flat ground outside had been turned into a barracks complex, with row after row of Nissan huts joined by walkways. A complex of tunnels cut through the cliffs underneath, to assist in movement underground and provide shelters when the bombers came. The fort had been built in the previous century - to deter invasion from a different quarter to that expected now.

The Nissan huts were eerily quiet as they passed. The men inside were sleeping the sleep of the dead, exhausted by hours of patrolling clifftops and in the seafront trenches. While their comrades kept watch, they would rest. The briefing was in a low, cavernous hall hacked out of the chalk under the fort. The room, which was really a huge cave, smelt strongly of the bodies that were crammed into it, shoulder to shoulder. The regimental commander, Colonel Moore, was a heavy set man with a ruddy farmer's complexion, his profession before the war. He stood at the far end of the room, clasping the back of a wooden chair in front of him. He spoke through a thick, drooping moustache. Most officers stood at ease, and some smoked. Moore cleared his throat and held a hand up for silence. Finlay could see Captain Gray standing behind him, looking at him with keen eyes. Moore spoke with the air of one getting down to business. "There's not much in the way of intelligence tonight, gentlemen. We have reports of intensified naval activity around Boulogne. Could mean nothing, could mean everything. General staff are holding to the view landings will be in three sectors, between Folkestone and Brighton. Where those sectors will be buggered if we know." The ripple of tired laughter was quelled by Moore. "Brigade intelligence say there has been another submarine landing near Cooden Beach, so we must presume that's another landing site the Germans are investigating. I must restate the importance of drumming into the men these landings have got to be discovered and interrupted, before they have a chance to report back. I know they're not

coming ashore with a pipe band, but if we can stop them gathering proper intelligence it could be crucial." Finlay looked at the intent faces of his fellow officers. What they were hearing was not new, although the increasing number of commando landings by submarine only emphasised preparations for an invasion were advanced. Moore cleared his throat again and continued. "There is one thing - some of the intelligence boys think it may be significant. So far the Germans have avoided hitting St Paul's Cathedral in London - they've bombed all around it flat but they haven't touched the Cathedral. Some bright spark suggested they are leaving it deliberately because it's such a good marker for their bomber pilots to get their bearings over London. Be that as it may, they appear to think they are not going to need it much longer. They bombed it flat last night." There was a silence in the room as his words were taken in. "As I said, could mean nothing, could mean everything. There's not a lot more to inform you of. The weather report is good - that is to say, bad - over the weekend and into next week, but after that..." He paused for a moment, hesitating, before going on "I have been told on good authority that of one hundred and twenty two destroyers, cruisers and battleships in home waters, nearly two thirds have now been sunk by air attack or torpedo, and ten more are out of action. I need hardly remind you that with that, and our colleagues in the RAF out of it, when the weather clears we will be moving to a state of invasion imminent."

Moore surveyed the ranks of tired faces. "Any questions, gentlemen?" Nobody spoke. Everyone knew there was no RAF left. Everyone knew there was no Navy left. There was nothing to ask. Moore waited a while, as if hoping for some interest from his audience, then gave up. "In that case, gentlemen, goodnight. You are dismissed." The meeting broke up with a murmer of low voices. Finlay walked through the rain to the Nissan huts that contained the men in his company not up on the cliff tops or down in the trenches on the seafront. The passageway between the huts was paved by wooden duckboards to stop the path turning into a muddy morass under the pressure of rain and countless feet. They reminded him of the trenches in the first war. The duckboards had been inadequate then, and they were now. Mud oozed out through the wooden slats. The only light was cast by low wattage bulbs outside the huts, shielded from aircraft overhead by shades that meant they only illuminated the ground under them for a few inches, giving off a residual glow. When he got to the huts he opened the door of the first as quietly as he could. The two sergeants, intelligent, lugubrious men called Ballater and Howard, were playing a card game in the light of a single candle stuck on to the wooden surface of a table in a small room between the main sleeping quarters and the door to the outside. Apart from the sound of snoring, there was no sign of life. Finlay wondered again when the two men ever slept. Both made to get to their feet to stand to attention, but he waved them back. Ballater

spoke in a thick Grampian accent that Finlay still had problems understanding. His Highland regiment had been wiped out in France, and he had wound up in the Middlesex in the chaos. "Anything interesting at the fort?" "Just more of the same. Men all right?" "Oh aye." Ballater managed a smile. He did not seem to exhibit the tiredness they all felt. "Did you hear the news from Brighton?" Howard asked. "What?" "Ack-ack think they got the ship that was shelling us earlier. Bloody great explosion about two miles out and they ain't heard from it since. If it ain't sunk it's buggered off with its tail between its legs." Howard's words exhibited a bitter triumphalism. "One down. Just a few hundred to go." He said goodnight, then set off back into the rain, down into Brighton. With no bombers overhead for once, Brighton was eerily quiet. No-one wished to be out in the darkness when warm rooms or the pubs still open were inviting. Finlay looked at his watch. The curfew for the few civilians left in Brighton would begin shortly - in a rare moment of foresight the military command of the area had coincided it with pub closing time. He walked past a row of houses, all with windows darkened and taped against blast. In recent weeks the German bombing had begun to concentrate heavily on the harbour area and most of the houses nearby had at least one or two windows blown out. He walked past one house that had been demolished by a 1,000lb bomb. He knew from training the bomb was designed to go through the

roof and upper storeys of a house before exploding, so the house was demolished from within. Only a pile of fenced-off rubble remained. He found himself walking away from Meeching Road and down towards the harbour and seafront. He had to feel his way with a blackout stick - he did not have a pencil torch like Peter Newbury. He would be back on duty in three hours, but did not feel like returning to the cold, bare austerity of his room. Near the harbour it was busier. As well as the gun emplacements and the sentries, several pubs were still open, flouting both blackout and licensing laws. Nobody bothered anymore. He went back to the pub near the seafront. It was quieter now, though still crowded with officers. One group were around a piano in the corner, singing loudly and out of tune, their faces red and sweaty with drink and the fug of bodies in the room. He managed to get himself a pint of beer and stood near them, grateful for the noise they made, which drowned out thought. He was standing there, comfortable with his solitude, when a woman came through from the other bar. She surveyed the room with a practised eye through the haze of smoke, and spotted the men, like Finlay, alone and not part of a group. There were not many. She came straight up to him and asked for a cigarette. She was heavily made up, with short black hair swept back from a high forehead and thick red lipstick. She looked about forty. She wore a long dark coat, which looked strange in such a crowded pub - she did

not look like she had just come in from the wet and the cold. He lit her cigarette for her and lit one himself. "You on your own too?" she asked with a tired smile which sent wrinkles fanning out from the corners of both eyes. "Yes." He wasn't sure whether to feel flattered or not. If she was one of the prostitutes now tolerated, if not encouraged, by the military in the restricted areas near the coast, perhaps she just thought he looked more desperate than the others. "Do you want to go somewhere?" The question was direct, but asked in a soft voice which at least attempted intimacy, rather than business. Finlay stared at the pale, weary face behind the cheap make-up. "In a minute. Let's have a drink first." When he had got back from the bar, she had finished the cigarette but still made no move to take off her coat. "What's your name?" "Finlay. Yours?" "Alice, like in Wonderland." She smiled. Finlay offered his hand. He was still unsure she was a prostitute. There were now hundreds in all the coastal ports, driven there by the concentrations of men and the shortages. Then again, the imminence of invasion had done strange things to the way people behaved. She demanded another cigarette and smoked it in short gasps, looking anxiously around the room. "What er... regiment are you in?" she asked eventually, stubbing the cigarette out half-finished. "Middlesex." "Are all this lot in the same one?"

"Only some of them. Though I don't know them. I've only been in Newhaven a few days." "Oh. Where were you before that?" "In London for a while. Dover before that." "I've been to Dover before, but not to London. What were you doing there?" He was reluctant to tell her. His legs had started to ache again and he wanted to sit down. "So you were over in France, were you? One of the ones that got back?" It was said without apparent interest. "Yes," he said. "One of the ones who got back. Do you want another?" She shook her head. "No." This time the voice was businesslike. "Let's go." He drained his glass and followed her out of the pub into the rain. The guns had started up along the coast again, and there was the crashing of an incoming shell from one of the dozens of German battleships in the Channel, although there was no sign of bombers and the air raid sirens were silent. She pulled her coat around her and shivered, and took his arm and pulled him near. He was happy to walk in silence, and they continued along the side of the harbour. The only light was from flares and tracer shells on the far side of town. He wondered if they could even see the ships they were trying to hit. Ammunition was too short for target practise. They walked past a sentry who, seeing Finlay was with a woman, did not bother to salute. Then she pulled at his arm to turn up a side street. "Here. I have a room."

She let them in with a jangle of keys, and they were in a small courtyard, open to the sky, from which led a black iron staircase to a small platform and doorway on the first floor. He could hardly see and had to feel his way along the wall to the first step. She was more used to walking here in the dark, and went up without trouble. On the iron platform, she opened the doorway and turned on a dim electric light. There was a small hallway which gave on to a kitchen, a washroom and a sitting room with a bed in the far corner. The rooms were dark and cold. She went back from the sitting room to the kitchen, passing him as she did so. She still kept her coat on. "There’s nothing to drink. Sorry." "Fine." He had drunk enough already. He could feel a growing tightness in his chest. He had not been here for a long time. She came back into the sitting room with its bed in the corner and removed her coat, throwing it carelessly over a threadbare armchair in the far corner. She wore a plain black skirt underneath, and a white shirt so thin he could see the straps of her brassiere through it. When she turned to face him, she caught him staring at her, and the knowing look on her face was unmistakable. "It's ten shillings." He nodded, but did not speak. She took his silence for agreement and began to undress in front of him, taking off her shirt and skirt with ease. He could see the pale flesh of her only faintly in the dim light from the hallway. He could feel himself responding physically to the sight of her and the desire it represented. But the tightness in his chest and the

sadness grew. He could look at her no longer and stared at the floor. His mind was filled with images of a past life. He did not really care what she thought. His mind was elsewhere, roaming freely in areas previously denied to it. He could not put the face of Ren from his mind. She mistook his reaction, not dissimilar from that of many of the frightened younger soldiers who only wanted their mums. She came towards him, and taking his hands, put them on her breasts. He could feel the heavy warmth through the material. But as the physical desire mounted in him, so did the remorse and the longing, and the sadness that chilled everything. He pulled his hands away and turned his back on her. "Sorry. I cannot do this." Normally she would have tried to persuade him. But with this one, she sensed, it was something else. There were a few like that, even now. "Someone else?" He did not answer for a while, although she could tell his shoulders were hunched in tension and some emotion she could not recognise. Eventually he spoke in a flat monotone. "Something like that." There was a short silence before he spoke again. "I'll see myself out." "Wait." She came forward, acting with instinct beyond comprehension, and came around to stand in front of him again. He could not look at her but instead stared at the wall with downcast eyes that were distant, in

some far away place. He was still aroused, though he did not appear to notice. She understood. "You don't have to admit it." She knelt in front of him and opened his buttons to take him in her mouth. It did not take long. He came without any visible sign, just a short, stifled gasp and a rocking on his heels and then, as she drew away, drips on to the floor. She took a handkerchief from the chair and spat into it, then got up and went to put a dressing gown on. The room was freezing and her flesh had come up in goose pimples. She looked at the soldier, who still stood in the corner of the room by the doorway, holding himself up with the table edge, making no move to hide himself, head bowed. His eyes were screwed shut. Neither of them spoke. Eventually Finlay dressed himself, reached into his pocket for the money, put it on the table and left. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. His clothes felt damp and clammy, and his head ached from beer and fatigue. He breathed in the sea air deeply. He suddenly felt desperately tired. He wanted to stop and sleep for days, for weeks, in absolute warmth and stillness, in some warm dry room far from anywhere that he had ever known. With no streetlights or moon, it was difficult to find his way, even with the aid of the stick. A mist was rolling in off the sea which compounded the darkness. He headed first for the harbour front to get his bearings. As he peered into the gloom, the despair in him welled up like the waves slapping against the harbour wall he could hear through the clammy darkness. The face that was in his mind, that had been in his mind even as he had

emptied himself into the woman's mouth, was there still, imprinted on even the rolling banks of fog as they came in off the Channel. He felt now as he had felt then, three long years before, walking through the blackened streets, trying to find anything at all to cling on to that might lighten his heart. On the harbour front, he was challenged by one of the sentries, and remembered that even officers were not supposed to break the curfew in the coastal areas. The guard was a heavy set man of at least fifty, dressed in Home Guard uniform. He did not carry a rifle. There were none available. Finlay apologised and hurried on his way, trying to remember the way back to his billet from the harbour. The street signs, like the road signs inland, had been taken down. Only eventually did he find the smashed house which he knew was at the end of Meeching Road. His billet was dark and quiet, and he crept up to his room. He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He did not sleep. ‘ He was still staring at the ceiling when the sirens sounded for another air raid. Finlay was not surprised. The rain had stopped an hour ago, and he had heard the distant throbbing of the aircraft coming over further down the coast. The noise was a low distant murmer, which meant the aircraft were still far away but there were many of them. He felt too tired to move. He lay there and listened to the distant thunder of the coastal batteries opening

up again. Within a few minutes, the higher, more fractious sound of exploding bombs started. He was still lying on the bed when there was a huge crash, very close. He could feel the shock waves of the explosion in his ears as the taped windows rattled but refused to give under the pressure. The noise was like nothing on earth. He swung his legs from the bed as there was a crashing on the door. Before he could answer, it opened and Gray's head came through. "For God's sake, Derrington! Get a move on." The head disappeared. Civilians were supposed to go either to the Anderson shelters in private gardens or the public shelters in Brighton, whichever was nearest, but during air raids officers and men had to go to the fort or battle stations for stand to. As he got to his feet, another huge crash hit the building. In between the noise of the explosions, he could hear the steady droning overhead and the tinkling of broken glass like music. There was a sound of someone screaming, far away. Gray and the others were waiting downstairs. With every compressed thump and its attendant shock wave, his head ached more. He almost laughed wishing the Germans would stop to spare his hangover. Gray was looking at him. He still had not combed his hair. The look in his eyes had a wildness that had not been there before, and Finlay felt his heart skip a beat. "’Cromwell?“" It was the code word they were waiting for. "Don't know. Brigade HQ say the weather has cleared and the forecast has been revised."

Gray's voice, unlike his eyes, was calm. "You three get up to the fort. I'm going to the seafront." Finlay could feel a tightening in his chest that matched his beating heart. It would need only a few hours gap in the weather for the Germans to attempt a landing. Gray walked to the door as another huge crash came, even closer this time. It must have been just up the street. Finlay could see the whole structure of the front door of the house bulge inwards with the pressure as Gray staggered back from it. He heard the familiar tinkling of glass in the aftermath. Gray looked around and took a huge breath, as if trying to will himself to go outside into the noise. "Right. I'll see you up at the fort. Newbury, where the bloody hell is your gas mask?" Philip turned and ran up the stairs as Gray opened the door out into the street and was gone. The masks came in a respirator bag that also contained anti-gas pills and ointments that were universally assumed to be useless. The three men started to run up the street. There was already a noticeable lightening of the sky. As they ran Finlay could see that one of the houses further up had taken a hit. The bomb might have landed in the garden at the back. The house was not badly damaged, but all the windows had been blown in and a portion of the roof was missing. There was a middleaged woman standing in a nightdress at the gaping front window. Her hair was wild, and she stared out at the street below with terrified eyes at the soldiers running up it below. Finlay stopped and ran to the front of the house. The woman must have been one of the few who had

refused evacuation weeks before and opted to stay put. "Have you a shelter to go to?" There were more muffled thumps of bombs, this time further away. She did not appear to hear him, instead staring out into the street with a look of primaeval fear. He screamed the question again. Still she continued to stare at the street, then up at the night sky and the droning that came from it. At last her gaze settled on him. She nodded. "Well get in the bloody thing then!" His own fear made him shout. The fatalism he had felt inside the house had given way, now he was outside under the bombs. The woman stared at him in slowly dawning comprehension, then disappeared from view. In the distance, he could hear the siren of a fire bell add itself to the clamour. Philip Newbury was at his side. "Come on." They ran on to the end of the street, and turned up towards the fort a mile away. As they went they were joined by other officers making their way to stand to at the fort. Between the explosions the sound of the droning overhead continued. They were still passing over. There seemed to be a staggering number. The ubiquitous Heinkels the Germans were now producing in huge quantity, judging by the engine noise. Some of the men could tell by the sound of the explosion just what sort of bomb had been dropped, what size and whether incendiary or high explosive. The raid on Brighton did not seem to merit the number of planes overhead. It probably meant that only a few were

dropping now. The rest would either drop north of here, continuing the war on the airfields, or wheel east or west to hit the other Channel ports. He found it difficult to run. His boots and uniform were still wet. His respirator bag, helmet and webbing were awkward and slowed movement further. He was about to slow to a trot when there was a colossal impact just ahead of them that threw him and the Newburys to the ground. Others around them went down too. The bomb had landed on a patch of wasteground at the end of the road. They could feel clods of mud and debris landing on them as the shock wave went on down the street. Finlay was thrown hard to his right, and landed on his hands on the road, skinning them. He felt dazed and, for some reason, very warm. At first he was frightened to move, in case there was something wrong with him. But he did not seem to be hurt apart from his hands. He looked back down the street to see chaos. The windows of the street had been blown out for a distance of 100 yards, and men all along it had been blown over. Much of the rest of the bomb's impact seemed to have funnelled harmlessly up the street. Soldiers were picking themselves up off the road and dusting themselves off. A few were cursing, but no-one stayed down. Peter Newbury was blowing hard. "Jesus. Do you think this is it?" His long hair looked crazy. For a second Finlay could not understand what he was talking about. "Do I think this is what?" "The invasion, man. The fucking invasion! Gray said the weather was clearing."

Finlay fought the urge to laugh. "How the hell should I know?" He looked up at the sky. A thin drizzle was still coming down, although patches of light were showing through as daylight beckoned. They carried on trotting up the road to the fort, slower now. There was a universal superstition among the men - shared by the officers. If you got away with a close one, then either you were not going to get it that night, or the next one would kill you outright. Either way there was no point in running. He did not know whether the belief was a mechanism to cope with fear, or whether it was in some way logically valid. "Why the hell has Gray gone down to the harbour?" said Philip Newbury. "He should be up at the fort with us." "Perhaps he's gone down to start the fires." Rumours had spread that army engineers had perfected a new kind of slow-burning oil, which could be sprayed on to the sea and set alight. The notion had been seized on by a public desperate for wonder weapons, as the existing ones were lost. Finlay suspected it was either useless like the anti-gas pills, or non-existent. By the time they got up to the fort, the worst of the raid had passed. Now there was only the sound of alarm bells and sirens from Brighton itself, together with muffled thumping from further down towards Brighton. It was bitterly cold now the rain had gone and their clothes were damp. Overhead, there were gaps in the low-lying cloud. The weather was clearing. Peter Newbury looked up into the sky as they mustered outside the fort. Officers milled outside the

entrance, smoking and coughing from the run up the hill. From out of the Nissan huts a stream of men were still pouring, clutching rifles, pulling on coats, coughing and swearing. Their blasphemy had a quiet intensity to it that suggested that they, too, wondered if the time had come. "Jesus Christ," Newbury said again, still looking with a child-like wonder into the sky. His gaze fell to stare out at the empty Channel. "I thought the weather was supposed to last until the weekend?" Nobody answered him. As Finlay looked up, the stars seemed to grow and swell, as if to mock the men below. Finlay noticed others looking up in the crowd of perhaps 100 men, and noticed also a spreading silence as the single thought spread. Then one clear voice. "At least it'll be a nice day for it." There was laughter. Finlay shivered and lit a cigarette as his own gaze skipped over the Channel waters and settled on the long guns pointing out towards them. They were silent now. Sergeant Ballater marched up smartly and stamped to attention as if trying to punch his boot into the chalk of the cliff below. "Men are stood to, sir. All present and correct." The sergeant had a glint in his eye that was unfathomable. It could have been fear, excitement, even bloodlust. The look made Finlay want to shudder. The job of his platoon would be to assist with the defence of the fort with its radio station and myriad of underground tunnels. He gave the carry-on order, but Ballater did not salute and about turn. He stood there, looking uncertain.

"Sergeant?" "Sir." Ballater made no attempt to say what it was and Finlay took the hint. He walked away from the others. Ballater followed. "Well. What is it?" Ballater was the most unflappable and laconic man in the platoon. The sergeant reached into his pocket. "One of these, sir. Didn't think you'd want the other officers to know I confiscated it off one of our lads. Didn't know what to do with it." He handed Finlay a leaflet. It took him a moment to realise what the faded, yellowing, paper was. The text of a speech by Hitler to the Reichstag that August, concilliatory, and a last appeal to the British people to make peace, their soldiers not to fight. Otherwise, the consequences would be faced. The Luftwaffe had dropped millions that summer. They had become famous and were supposed to be handed in or destroyed if found, although Finlay doubted many were. He had heard of the leaflets while in Dover, although he had never himself seen one. "What shall I do with it, sir?" asked Ballater. "It was Baker had it. I've already put him on a charge." Finlay fingered the paper and looked down at the roughly printed words once more. He was fascinated by the measured tones of it, the implied threat in the words. What he would have liked to do was keep it as a souvenir, although that would have set a bad example. Instead he handed it back to Ballater. "If you are supposed to destroy them, sergeant, then I suggest you do so. Unless you want it as a momento?"

Ballater, straight-faced to the last, looked shocked at the suggestion. "Certainly not sir. I'll get rid of it right away." In the assembly hall underneath the fort, Finlay could see the faces around him looking even more weary than in the days before. Yet there was a pronounced murmer of conversation in the room. The silence had disappeared. The noise died as Moore entered the cavernous room. He looked exhausted, his usual ruddy complexion white, and he stared fixedly ahead of him. Finlay could hear the click of his boots landing on the concrete floor. He could feel his own hands slowly clenching and unclenching. The palms were damp. Moore seemed in a trance as he crossed the room and turned to face them. He had no need to get their attention, since every eye was on him already. He shuffled a sheaf of papers in his hand with uncharacteristic nervousness, staring at them intently, before looking up. His eyes were dull and glassy and his voice was quieter than it had been before. He spoke almost conversationally. "Right. You know why you’re here. We got another terrific pounding from the enemy this morning, though the worst seems to have passed. Dover, Folkestone, Bexhill and Eastbourne are all being hit even more heavily as I speak to you." He paused as his eyes scanned the faces in front of him. "The Germans seem to be switching targets once again, this time to troop concentrations, which seems to point to only one thing. You can all see our luck with the weather seems to be running out, and the Coastguard people say the tides are now in favour. So we are

moving to Invasion Imminent and assuming the worst. Intelligence says there is unprecedented activity around Boulogne and Calais. "Final evacuation of all immediate coastal areas will begin now, and all other civilians are being told over the wireless to stay indoors. All leave and day and night passes are cancelled forthwith, and make sure all ration and ammunition requisitions are put in and collected this morning. You may not get another chance. Questions?" A hand went up at the front, though Finlay could not see to whom it belonged. "How long have we got?" Moore smiled. "I cannot say, Lieutenant, anymore than anyone else can. But it's only a matter of time now, maybe only hours." He paused again. "There are probably words I should be saying to you at a time like this, but right now I cannot think of them. Sorry." There was silence for a long moment, longer than before, then a sound of startling clarity and unexpectedness. Somebody at the back had started to sing the national anthem. Finlay was first surprised, then embarrassed. The bloody national anthem, for christ’s sake! Then he was ashamed at both reactions. The singing was muted, quiet, almost mournful, but it was growing in intensity as others joined in. Moore himself looked surprised, then stared at the men with a renewed intensity, although he did not join in. With a surge of fellow feeling behind the fear, Finlay felt his own throat catch and his eyes smart as he tried to sing too. But no sound emerged.

When they had finished, Moore stared at the floor at his feet, blinking. Eventually he found the will to speak. He seemed to find refuge in technicalities. "From this morning, we will begin evacuation from immediate seafront areas. I know we have told people to stay put but these people will have to be moved as best we can. If they stay, they’ll die. You all know which sectors you have been allotted. There is going to be a lot of resistance on the one hand and we have to be firm with that. On the other hand we don't want to start panic. The roads inland have to be kept clear of all non-essential traffic, so we can get our people where they will be needed." He paused again, and Finlay could feel a sick, sinking feeling in his stomach at the thought of what he and his fellow officers would do, and see, that day. In France he had seen the wreckage and the anguish of ruined lives as the German advance had spread. The troops had dug in in France, near the Belgian frontier, before the attack. They had dug trenches and dugouts, fire-steps and dog-legs, just like 20 years before. Finlay, in the spring heat and dust, had thought: So this is what it was like for him. Only it had not been like that at all. The tanks had outflanked them in days, and in the headlong retreat to the coast, the images of refugees terrorised by the dive-bombing and German speed had burned themselves on to his brain. Now it would be English refugees, loading possessions on to anything that would move, scrambling north, lives smashed. The thought brought home to him as nothing else had done what might be about to happen to them, and he could feel cold grip his innards. He could see by the faces around him that others were feeling it too.

Moore's gaze seemed to encompass them all, and more besides. "Right. Good luck. And God bless you all." Together with the Newburys, Finlay collected his company and marched them down to the harbour area. There was no singing or talking now. Leaflets explaining what to do and where to go had long ago been distributed around Brighton, but there would be stragglers, and those who refused, and those who panicked. At the harbour, the scene was better than he had hoped. People were calm and ordered but it was the calm of those in a daze. Army trucks - the few available - were drawn up on the main street and by the harbour wall and were being loaded up with civilians and all they could carry with them. At least the children had gone already, thank God. He set his men to help carry possessions and see who needed help and who did not. Peter Newbury came up to him in the street. He looked tired and shivered in the cold morning air. His platoon were clearing the next section up from Finlay's, away from the harbour front. Finlay guessed that he was worrying about his family in Weymouth again. Nobody expected landings that far west, but nobody could be sure either. He could hear the distant rumblings of bombing coming along the coast from both east and west now. He and Newbury discussed the demarcation line between their platoons and who was responsible for which street, with the aid of a street plan that would then be destroyed. Newbury was looking more and more unhappy. The hand holding the map was shaking visibly.

"Is this really going to do any good?" His voice was unsteady and beseeching. "Do you think the top brass know what in God's name they are doing?" "What do you mean?" Newbury made an expansive gesture with his arm. "All this. Evacuation. Fighting them on the beaches and all that stuff. We all know if the Germans get ashore they've won." Finlay looked past him to an elderly couple just emerging from a house behind them. The man must have been 70 and walked with an air of quiet resignation and acceptance. The other hand held a lead on the end of which was a sheepdog. The dog was excited at the commotion. Finlay wondered how the couple had managed to feed the animal over the last few months. He remembered George in Brighton and the way he used to pull on his lead. Newbury carried on talking. "I just wonder if things haven't gone far enough. We've shown the Germans we haven't given in easily. We've fought them. We've held them off. Sometimes I wonder why we don't make peace and be done with it." His voice had fallen to a whisper, although there was no-one in hearing distance. "Don't you wonder sometimes? Whether it's gone too far? It feels like a truck going down a hill without any brakes and we cannot get off. We've lost. In France. In the air. At sea. Why don't we salvage something from the wreckage? Hitler's supposed to admire the British for Christ's sake, isn't he?" Finlay saw that Newbury was losing control. It gave him strength.

"Look on the bright side. At least you're not a Local Defence Volunteer. Hitler says they’re murder gangs. Most of them haven't even got rifles." His words did not reassure Newbury, although Finlay felt too tired to care. He was grateful for the strength the other man's fear had given him, but his own fear was still too prevalent. He continued to stare at the old couple, who were being helped into one of the trucks by his men. The old man made repeated attempts to lift himself up on to the tail board, but always fell back. Eventually he was bundled in without ceremony. He thought of his own father and mother, dead, and he was glad. He thought of Ren in Brighton, perhaps already dead too. Newbury's words ran around in his head. As the two men stood, the morning sun broke and bathed them in its cold bright light. As his gaze shifted away to the sea again, the truck's engine started up and it began to move off to join the convoy heading inland. From its canvas sides, Alice stared out at him. Alice. Her face was drawn and tired, but smiled in recognition. She raised one, hesitant hand. He looked away. Newbury was still talking to him. "I hope you are paying more attention when the Germans come, Derrington. Otherwise you might just miss the whole bloody show." Newbury ran a hand through dishevelled hair. "Or is it that you don't think they’ll land here?" The subject had exercised the minds of Finlay and his fellow officers that summer and autumn like no other. The country had become obsessed with fifth columnists and Nazi parachutists dressed as nuns or God knew what. If parachutists did come, Finlay knew,

they would come in force, with no need of disguise. Moore and others spoke of intelligence assessments indicating where enemy activity was greatest. The reality was, with no RAF, assessments had to come from resistance workers in the French Channel ports and were notoriously unreliable. The pocket battleship Graf Spee had been reported in three different ports, all on the same day, which summed it up. Any British spotter planes venturing far out over the water were shot down. Some thought the Germans would restrict the landings to a narrow corridor, landing in huge force to punch through the defenses - an extension of blitzkreig to amphibious warfare. If so they would immediately drive on London and only coastal defences and the Canadians at Aldershot would stand in their way. Others said the landings would be on a broader front, to counter British attempts to fall back. But no-one knew. No-one had ever known. The evacuation went more smoothly than Finlay had feared. There was only one disturbance in his sector. A woman who lived alone, and had refused to leave, had been set upon by her neighbours. When he arrived, summoned by one of the men, it was to find Ballater holding apart two women spitting at each other with venom. Both were dishevelled, and one had a cut down one cheek that oozed blood, presumably from the other's nail. He was shaken by the vociferousness of their feeling, but suspected it was caused by something other than the alert. With the streets clear by mid-morning and only the distant thunder of the bombs to disturb the quiet, he

knew the operation had distracted him from what was to come. All they had to do now was wait. He could feel the mood affect the men, making them frightened and irritable. The resigned, cheerful acceptance was gone. He felt himself dizzy with tiredness, and his legs ached again. But even now, he found he could banish the fear for long moments. What they faced was still too abstract - the unknown. He wondered if he lacked the imagination to perceive it. As the last truck revved its engine and took off, the black car that he had used two days before coughed its way down into the harbour area. Gray got out. "Derrington. Get your men together and up to the fort. Where are the others?" Philip Newbury came around the corner, studying his street plan. Gray looked at him. "You too, Newbury. Destroy that and you and your brother get your men up to the fort and stood to. On the double." He shook his head at their questioning eyes. "No news. Still no news." Finlay gathered up his men and marched them up to the fort. The sky was now blue and the weather's protection had finally gone. Within an hour the bombing started again. This time, it did not stop. After another night on the cliff looking out into pitch blackness, Miller could see nothing. It was forty eight hours since the alert. He had spent so long staring at total darkness pictures appeared in his mind. When the light finally began to come, he could not be sure it was not imagination.

Eventually, the different lines appearing were undeniable; horizon, shore and the lip of the firing port window. He was in a state of nervous exhaustion. He kept confusing lines appearing before his eyes, thinking the horizon was the shore, and wondering where the cliff edge had gone. He rubbed his eyes again and tried to find a bit of nail on one of his fingers that was not already bitten down. The fingers smelled powerfully from countless cigarettes. At his feet, Dixon slept, his back against the freezing wall of the pillbox, somehow managing to ignore the bombs crashing on to Brighton below. Miller craned his neck and looked into the sky, at the stars still shining in the lightening air. It was bitterly cold because there was now no cloud cover. At his feet Dixon stirred, and Miller wondered if the cold had finally woken him. But he remained where he was, eyes closed. Miller was relieved that he would not have to talk to the boy for a while longer. All through the night the leaden cold in his stomach had grown worse, partly through hunger; mainly fear. He knew that even if there had been anything to eat, he would have been unable to touch it. Since going on duty the evening before, he had felt no inclination to speak, preferring to retire inside himself for the struggle to come. Dixon was the opposite, gabbling non-stop, his eyes growing wilder as darkness approached. Eventually, in the light of the spluttering candle on the floor of the pillbox, he had cried. Huge, racking sobs that shook his lanky frame and sent tears down his cheeks and mucus from his nose. Miller had withdrawn at first with a feeling close to panic, but eventually had managed to hold him by the shoulders, letting the boy

cry himself out. Exhausted, his hysteria had turned to a mournful calm, and sleep. Miller lit a cigarette and thought again of home. Games of football on Stepney Marshes, and then the pub, to get falling-down-drunk on pint after pint. They would play darts all night, until his mates were too drunk to see the board any longer, never mind hit it, then buy chips from the shop which stayed open at the end of the High Street to catch the trade. He could remember the tiredness of his body after the matches, which were fiercely contested, and the way the aches and pains dissolved after the first few pints. He could remember those times when the evenings had seemed dull, and the sight of a pretty girl across the bar on the arm of one of the spivs might prompt yearnings for something more. Now the images seemed of heaven. He wondered if the pub had survived the bombing. Dixon finally stirred and woke. He looked at first frightened, then bewildered, staring around uncomprehendingly. Miller almost laughed. Now he would be grateful for the company. "Tea?" Dixon rubbed his eyes tentatively, nodded, stared around again. Miller could see the horror of remembering run through him like a spear. The younger man shivered uncontrollably and his voice was hoarse. "Jesus Christ. What time is it? How long have I been asleep?" "About two hours." Dixon got to his feet with a groan.

"Feeling any better?" Miller asked him. Dixon looked as if he was about to vomit. "Better than last night." He looked at the older man warily. "Sorry." "S'all right. I'll make the tea." He bent down and extinguished the candle still burning at their feet. The light coming through the firing port was enough now. He busied himself with the stove, grateful for the mundane task. Dixon went out to relieve himself. From above there came the incessant droning of bombers going over, and from Brighton they could hear explosions as their cargo was delivered. When Dixon returned, the two sat cross-legged on the earth floor of the pillbox, drinking tea from whose surface clouds of steam billowed. Neither had had anything to eat, but neither felt like eating. At least the tea took away the taste of the endless cigarettes. Dixon cradled his hands around the cup for warmth. The temperature was barely above freezing. "You checked the radio yet?" "Yes. No news. The alert's still on." Dixon shuddered again and stared, white-faced, at his tea. "Christ, I wish I hadn't woken up. I was dreaming about being back at school." "Best days of your lives and all that?" "The first time I got a beating. Feels like that now." Miller stared silently at the concrete pillar in the centre of the pillbox. Now that Dixon had gone through the fear and passed through to the resigned calm of the other side, Miller could feel his own torment growing. No longer the fear of simply appearing to be

scared, but the deeper primal fear of what was about to happen. He could remember, like Dixon, the days at school when he was due for a caning from the headmaster, the desperate attempt to make time slow down to delay the inevitable. But time had not slowed down, nor speeded up, but had continued its own remorseless progress onwards. He looked down at his watch. It felt like that now, as he watched the hands click remorselessly round. From the direction of Newhaven there came a huge crash, much bigger than before. An ammo dump must have gone up. With no food inside him, the strong tea made him jittery and in need of a piss. He got up with difficulty, an old man again, and went outside. The ground was covered in thick morning dew, and mist swirled around his legs. He looked down towards Newhaven, but could see nothing. Only the explosions, every few minutes. As he looked at the cliff edge, the mist seemed to be sliding towards it before disappearing over the edge, like a waterfall. He did not walk far, relieving himself on to the grass a few steps from the pillbox. Steam rose from his urine in a great cloud. When he turned back round, Dixon was at the pillbox entrance. When he saw Dixon's face he understood. It had been pale before, but now it was deathly white, all blood drained from it. The eyes stared in abject terror. Dixon tried to speak, but no words came. Miller felt his heart stop. He ran past, back into the pillbox and to the firing port that stared out over the sea.

At first he could see nothing. There was a rythmic pounding in his ears which he at first thought was coming from the town or out to sea, before he realised it was his own heart. He took a pace to the left - still there was nothing. He was about to turn back, questioning, to Dixon, when the banks of swirling mist out to sea shifted, drawing slowly back to make their disclosure like curtains in a theatre of the damned. Within a few seconds, it was revealed to him. There were two lines of ships, stretching back into the mist to the horizon, the nearest still miles out to sea, yet seemingly close enough to touch. Even from this distance, he could see they were sailing in two convoy lines, several hundred yards apart, cruisers, battleships, destroyers and frigates among them. In between the lines, there was a mass of dots, smaller boats. The water between the two lines was black with them - it looked like the convoys were escorting an oil slick. Miller could feel his heart smash in his chest, hammering to get out. The mist bank closed in again, hiding the awful sight from his aching eyes, and he could hear his own voice. "God in heaven. They're here. God in fucking heaven..." Dixon was behind him, cowering in the corner of the pillbox, speechless with terror. His head shook slowly from side to side, as if to deny, even now, the evidence of what his eyes had seen. Finlay had known if the invasion did not come on the first day of good weather, it would come on the second. The men were quiet all the first 24 hours. It

was as if they dared not even breath. And at night, even had there been no bombing, no one would have slept. At four in the morning, the men were stood to and marched down from the fort to the harbour wall, and along to the seafront. Their freezing breath hung in the air behind them. Trenches had been dug out of the sand on the beach tops and fortified with barbed wire and sandbags. As he marched beside the men, Finlay could feel bile rise in his throat. He stole a glance to his left, trying to make out the faces of the men through the darkness. He was frightened by how anonymous they seemed - he could recognise few of them. Closest to him was Farrell, chain-smoking as always, tall and thin, marching beside Campbell, heavier-set, usually telling jokes but this morning silent. Behind them Langton, Gaskell, Elliot. He was frightened to depend on men he did not even know. At the seafront, he said goodbye to the Newburys, and took his men to their allotted positions in trenches and pillboxes vacated by the previous company. The pillbox Finlay stationed himself in, although it would be a more obvious target. With him was the Bren gunner Gaskell and the radio operator Johnson. Gaskell, dwarfed by the Bren set up in the firing port of the pillbox, asked permission to smoke. He gave cigarettes to both men. Finlay could barely make out their faces in the moonlight. The three smoked silently in the damp chill. With the first light, the bombing intensified. Finlay's platoon were stationed about a mile from the town. Behind them the hill rose steeply up to the fort itself. In front was a hundred yards of stony beach

to the sea. An hour passed. As the sun began to rise, Finlay could make out ghost-like shapes appearing as tank and boat traps rose from the water. They were spaced pathetically widely. They would stop nothing. The barbed wire between them was inadequate. It would take one man with wire cutters seconds to get through. As if in answer to his silent thought, a bomb landed directly in front of the pillbox, a hundred yards out, right on the water's edge. He felt the ground shudder with the impact as he pulled his face away from the firing port. As he did so, earth and sand and rock were blown through the hole. When he looked out again, the barbed wire along a line of twenty yards had vanished. In the pillbox, Johnson spat into the corner, his face ashen. His radio crackled. He looked at his watch, then at Finlay. Six twenty. Finlay stared out at the beach and the mist. It was daylight now. The bombing was concentrating on the beach areas, shells landing every few seconds up and down the coast. There could be only one reason. His heart had started to pump with a steady rythm, no faster than normal, but with a heavy, throbbing quality. His legs felt painful and weak, and the palms of his hands were damp despite the cold. He wanted to urinate. He wanted to run up and down the beach to check on the men. His feeling earlier of not knowing them had disappeared. Now he felt they were part of him, an extension of his body, he felt an anguish for them that was physical. The part of him that did not want to run away wanted instead that they should do so, to leave him here alone.

Then it was fully light, and time moved on again. Gaskell lit a cigarette with a hand that was shaking so much he could barely hold the match to his face. From outside there was a huge explosion, very close this time, and he felt the pressure wave crushing his eardrums as the ground shook beneath them. Finlay wanted to get out of this tomb he had been assigned to defend. He wished he could order Gaskell and Johnson out, so he could drop the mask of calm that was slipping of its own accord. Instead, he waited. And then Finlay looked out towards the sea and saw that one part of time was over, and another had begun, and they would have to wait no more. They were here. The artificial fog, created by German ships further up the coast, had abruptly cleared and before them appeared an amada of ships, more than he had ever seen in his life before. It was impossible to judge distance, though the nearest vessels looked to be at least a thousand yards from shore. For what seemed miles out to sea, the ships and boats were joined so close together, there appeared no water between them. It looked like an island. Johnson by his side had now seen them too. He could hear the soft Cockney accent. "Holy Jesus Fucking Christ." Johnson looked at him. Finlay could see, above the man's eye, a nerve flickering wildly, beating an irregular pulse of its own. He clapped a hand on the man's shoulder, willing himself to look into the other man's eyes and not show his fear. It was easier than

he thought. The hammering in his chest had settled slightly. "What the fuck do we do now?" Johnson had to shout to make himself heard. Finlay looked out at the mass of ships. On the outside of them, at the limits of their vision, there seemed to be naval ships, destroyers, cruisers and mine sweepers. In between, a great sprawling mass of smaller vessels, barges, trawlers, tugboats, dinghies, even sailboats. He shook his head in wonder, feeling his skin crawl with fear. The extremities of his body felt as if the blood had drained out of them and they were numb. When he looked at his hands, they confirmed that the feeling reflected a physiological reality; they had turned blue. "We have to wait," he shouted at Johnson. "Get on the radio and raise Captain Gray." Out in the Channel, the bombing from overhead was now being supplemented by shelling from the fighting ships out to sea. Above their heads, the guns on the cliffs had opened up in response. The noise was deafening. Finlay looked at the mass of ships and boats in front of them. It would take hours, days, to hit them all, even had they the shells. It was impossible. He could see plumes of water rising as shells fell into the sea. The gunners on the hills and cliffs were wasting tens, hundreds of shells finding their length. He could imagine the panic. He had no need to imagine the pathetic number of shells each gun had in reserve, shells now falling long or wide, into the swallowing ocean.

He wondered if the pillbox could survive a direct hit. He, Gaskell and Johnson and the others could only wait. His own unit's ammunition was pathetic; ten magazines for the Bren, five for Johnson's rifle, only fifty bullets for his service revolver. Three grenades for each man. As he looked at the darkened horizon ahead of him, he knew it would never be enough. He thought of his friends Peter and Philip Newbury, and whether they were thinking the same thing. Perhaps they were already dead, blown to pieces by a bomb from the air or smashed by a shell from the ships. Through the noise, the minutes somehow passed. The detonations, the noise, seemed to be building to a climax that was not possible, that was from another world. It could not go on like this. Looking out, the fleet did not appear to have moved, though he knew that would be an illusion. Gaskell was setting out the twin legs of the tripod on which the Bren stood, pointing out at the boats, still way out of range. Finlay glanced at his face. Behind the glasses the eyes were wide and wild, the face deathly white with deep bruises of fatigue. His breath was coming in thin, ragged gasps. But his movements seemed mechanical, and Finlay realised he was following routine drummed into him over weeks of training. Behind him, Johnson was on one knee, screaming into the radio receiver, trying to make himself heard above the crescendo. Finlay was loathe to leave the pillbox, but he had to make sure the men were positioned properly, and he would have to leave the shelter to do it. He fought the urge to freeze and do nothing – to wait for death. He looked at Gaskell and Johnson at their tasks,

finding comfort in action, and felt a tiny flicker of pride. Surely he could follow his training as they did? "Going to check on the others. Make sure they are in position. Back in a minute!" The words would not come properly because his throat was so dry. He would have liked to drink but there was no time. Gaskell did not look around from his fierce concentration on the Bren but nodded his understanding. Outside, Finlay sheltered in the doorway and looked down the beach. The Germans had not found their length either and shells were falling short into the sea or landing on the slopes behind the trenches along the seafront. Ballater, the sergeant, would be in the nearest trench fifty yards away, with Smith and Milner, the platoon's mortar man. Both were young, but Finlay was confident Ballater would steady them. He was more worried for the men in the trenches further away. Howard, the other sergeant, would be in the far pillbox. In between, the platoon was spread between five trenches, each twenty feet long and six deep, with a bank of sandbags in front. He ran. The ground under his feet was grass, a long strip of it running between the beach and the hill up to the fort. It was heavy, soaked in rain for weeks, and gave under his feet. A shell landed on the hill to his right a hundred yards away, pushing him over to his left and showering him with clods of earth and stones. He ran with something like relief. He was doing the job he had been ordered to do. He had not run away. He could cope with the fear. He could feel himself lightening as

he ran, and the tightness in his chest had disappeared. But his heart beat wildly. He ran on past the first trench to the second. It had a partial roof of sandbags over wooden boards at one end while the other was open to the sky. Farrell and Langton were in it, together with Thomas, a young Welsh boy, and Fletcher, who was almost Finlay's age. All four were sheltering at the far end of the trench as he slithered in. Thomas and Langton looked petrified, while Fletcher just looked disgusted. Farrell, even now, was trying to get a cigarette lit, but his matches were wet and they spluttered out before he could get the tobacco to light. "Anyone been hit?" "Not yet. Only a matter of time," shouted Fletcher. Finlay had to look at his lips to make out the words above the crashing around them. Farrell glared at him. "What happened to the fucking oil? I thought we were..." The rest of his words were drowned by a huge crash in the air behind as another shell landed. They all bent down. "I don't know." "What happens now?" shouted Fletcher. "We just wait to get blown apart?" "We wait until they start to disembark. Don't use up your ammunition until they get off the boats and are in range." "We wait? Till they get ashore?" "Yes." His throat was hoarse with shouting. "Then kill them." He checked the rest of the trenches, then sprinted back the two hundred yards to the pillbox. The ships

were closer now, perhaps only half a mile from the beach. On the way back a shell blew him clean off his feet. He felt the heat and the wind, and then the crash as he landed on his back and the wind was knocked from him. He remembered Dunkirk, and waited for the pain that would follow. It did not come. He got to his feet and ran on. In the pillbox Johnson was shouting at him but he could not hear the words. Eventually there was a lull. "Gray says we stay here as long as possible, then make a fighting retreat up to the fort." He nodded, appalled. Is that all there was? The land behind rose sharply up to the fort, with no cover whatsoever. They would be sitting targets. He looked through the firing port again and was shocked. The horizon had disappeared, replaced by a grey wall of every type of vessel. The fighting ships to either side were now laying down smoke shells to try and shield the attackers as best they could, but he could still see men walking on the roofs of the barges towed by other vessels. A fighter, smoke billowing from a wing, flew straight into the sea in front of the wall of ships. He could not see whether it was British or German. There was a huge plume of water. As his eye ran along the line, he saw what looked like a fishing trawler. No-one was visible on deck, but a red flag of some kind flew from the radio mast. As he watched, the cabin of the trawler disappeared in an explosion of wood, smoke and flame. The gunners had found their range. A series of explosions of ammunition blew the trawler apart. None of the troops

had even attempted to get off. They were killed by the first shell. Finlay found it difficult to take his eye from the stricken vessel as it sank. He remembered the impotent terror on the boat back from France when it had been strafed by a German dive-bomber. There were dive-bombers overhead now. He could hear the sickening wail of one as it added its clamour to the noise. On other boats men were appearing in organised lines, waiting with terrifying patience to disembark. They were still not in effective rifle range, although he could distinguish their helmets gleaming in the sunlight. Between the booming of the guns and the crashing of shells, he could hear the tinny rattle of a machine gun somewhere. The ammunition would be wasted. The elation of before had gone. He was not frightened of death, but he feared the pain that would accompany it. A shell landed directly in front of the pillbox and this time there was no chance of pulling back. He and Gaskell were blown back off their feet and up against the central concrete pillar. For a moment he lay still on the floor where he had fallen, at peace. His head, even protected by his helmet, had been smashed against the pillar with sufficient force to make him black out for an instant. Gaskell had been blown back and to the right. Finlay's face burned and his mouth was filled with earth and sand. His eyes stung terribly, and when he opened them the pain grew worse and he could see nothing. He felt hands clawing at his chest and recognised Johnson's voice. It was whimpering, pleading with him.

"Are you all right? For fuck's sake! Are you all right?" Slowly, his dazed brain began to clear. He was disappointed that he was still alive and had returned to the hell he might as easily have left. Slowly, crying, his eyes began to clear themselves of the dirt, though they burned as if acid had been poured into them. Some vision returned and he felt relief. He remembered the pictures of the men blinded by gas in the war; he remembered Dr Whitworth's crying eyes, long ago. Eventually he could get to his feet, aided by Johnson. Gaskell had faired better. He had been to one side of the port and looking sideways on. Only the side of his face had been hit. As his vision cleared more, he could see one side of Gaskell's head black with grime, and the lense on that side of his glasses was shattered. The eye stared out behind it, bright and red and full of tears. The first boats were now only a hundred yards from the shore. Plumes of water were exploding in front of them and among them and on them, but the boats came on regardless. Men from boats that had been hit were jumping off into the water and swimming ashore. To his left, Gaskell started firing short bursts from the Bren gun. Even with the colossal noise already, the tearing of the machine gun in the cramped space was shocking. He unholstered his revolver; it felt ridiculous in his hand. How could they possibly hope to throw back such a concentration of men and machinery? This was probably not the main landing, more an outflanking attack to get behind the main defences along the Kent coast. What on earth must it be like further east? He

looked again at the beach. The pillboxes and trenches were coming under increasing rifle and machine gun fire now, from men firing from the leading boats. Some were now nearly at the water's edge, and he could see German soldiers jumping from them into water that was now only waist high. Some sought cover behind the very obstacles designed to prevent their landing. He saw one man jump from what looked like a barge into the water, only to be hit by a bullet and thrown back against the front of the boat, which then passed over him as he disappeared beneath it. What drove these men? For every one that fell, two or three more would jump into the freezing water and wade in, firing as they went. He could see as he looked out, firing his revolver, that his men would shortly be overwhelmed. There were 300 defenders to every mile of beach, but ten times that number attacking. To his left he could hear Gaskell screaming incoherently in between bursts of machine gun fire. His mouth was drawn up in a snarling rictus of fear. Finlay glanced at him to see what he was shouting and Gaskell's left eye disappeared, the space where it had been transformed into a red mass as the bullet came out through the back of his head. Gaskell's head twitched with the impact, like a punch-drunk boxer taking a blow, before he slumped to the floor. Johnson stared at him in horror. Finlay looked once more at the beach and made his decision. Wave after wave of men were now wading ashore. If they did not go now it would be too late. He holstered his revolver and picked up the Bren, trying to disentangle the bag of magazines from around

Gaskell's neck. It seemed to take an age. He heard rounds splattering against the walls of the pillbox outside. He screamed at Johnson to get the radio and be ready to retreat up the hill. Carrying the machine gun and the ammunition bag, he ran out of the pillbox and sprinted as fast as he could to the first trench. As he ran he waited for the bullet that would kill him. He could hear them going over his head, buzzing like bees. He tried to shield his face, wondering what it would feel like. He made it to the first trench, almost kicking Ballater in the head as he slithered in. The sergeant was feverishly threading bombs down the tube of the mortar, not bothering to duck his head out of the way before the shells launched themselves with a dull, thudding sound. The end of the trench had been smashed by a shell, and Ballater now knelt in a mess of earth, sandbags and blood as he worked. His face was set and expressionless, though tears coursed down his cheeks. He did not appear to notice them. At the far end, Milner was lying in the grotesque distortion of death, his lower body disappearing in red flesh below the waist. His face stared straight up into the sky, eyes open, with a look of concentration. For one horrifying second Finlay thought he might still be alive. Ballater followed his gaze. "Shell," he screamed. "Milner copped the lot and saved me from the blast." "Where's Smith?" He had to scream into the sergeant's ear. "Ran away." With a nod of his head, Ballater indicated behind them, and the hill up to the fort. "He got hit. He's dead."

Finlay looked behind but could see nothing. "We're getting out - now. We cannot defend this we're being overwhelmed. The top of the hill will be better if we can get to it. Do it now - take the mortar with you." Ballater looked at him. "How are the others to know?" he screamed. "I'll tell them. Get moving." Ballater gave him a strange look, but said nothing. Finlay took one more look at the mangled corpse that had been Milner. He thought of Gaskell and Smith and at last his fear was alleviated by hatred. He thought of his dead mother crying quietly, secretly, for his obliterated father. Would there be any grave for these men's families to mourn? In the second trench, Farrell, Langton, Thomas and Fletcher were unhurt and returning fire; he screamed at them to get out and pressed on. The men in the next two were similarly unhurt. The last trench before Howard's pillbox contained the platoon corporal Lodge and Abrams. The ground rose up to the coastal path, before falling again to meet the steep hill up to the fort. It meant Finlay could crawl along the grainy surface, protected from the fire from the beach. As he went, the grass soaked through to his elbows and knees, although he barely noticed. As he crawled, he noticed little specks of yellow on the grass to the side. When he got to where he estimated Lodge's and Abrams' trench was, he raised himself on his arms to look over. His judgement had been right, but now there was no trench to see, just a huge shell crater, twenty feet across and ten deep. Trench, sandbags and men

had ceased to exist. Finlay stared. The floor of the crater was virgin earth. There was no trace of them, no blood, no clothing, no equipment. He could not believe two men could simply be blown to nothing. A bullet hit the earth bank in front of him and he ducked his head down again. After he had screamed at Howard and Sylvester to leave the last pillbox, he sprinted back along the beach to collect Johnson. He did not try to take cover, but concentrated on covering the ground as fast as possible. Even so, he seemed to run in slow motion. He could not believe he was not hit. Johnson was cowering in the doorway at the rear, making no effort to approach the firing port at the front. There were Germans a hundred yards away now across the beach. Johnson was screaming at him, but in the solid noise he could make out nothing of what he said. Johnson gave up and instead screamed one word over and over again. His eyes were wide, staring pleadingly, and he was pointing at the hill above them. "....Gas. Fucking gas..." Finlay understood. He looked up at the hill top as a shell landed, smashing into the grassy surface and blowing chalk and earth over their heads. Behind the explosion there was something else. A white cloud billowing out from over the top of the hill and beginning to spread. Heavier than air, it began to sink down towards them on the beach. The cloud swirled, its edges caught by the wind and thrown into the air, the main bulk of it descending unhurriedly but remorselessly. Johnson was already at his feet, scrabbling desperately with his gas mask container, panic stricken fingers fumbling

with the clasp. Finlay reached for his own. He could feel a fear overtake him worse than anything before. He fought the urge to run away from the cloud, towards the enemy and the sea. A bullet would be preferable to this. He risked another glance up the hill, but the gas cloud was slow moving, sinking with horrible grace down the hill. Eventually, his trembling fingers managed to get the mask out of its container. He tore his helmet off and pulled the mask over his head. It was attached by rubber straps that fastened around the back of the head. Once he had it on, the only indication that it was properly in place was that it became almost impossible to breathe. The air had to come through the filtration nozzle at the front, which was incapable of processing enough air to cope with his ragged and desperate breaths. He had to fight to control the tide of panic. It was impossible to see properly out of the mask. Within seconds the two eye windows were misting up. It only added to the overwhelming claustrophobia. He looked down to check that Johnson had his mask on properly, then looked again at the hill top. The clouds of white were hitting the bottom of the hill and starting to billow towards them. In a moment he and Johnson and all the men on the beach could be choking to death on the phosgene. His heart rate went up another notch. He wondered how fast it could beat before it just stopped. The enemy shelling from the ships offshore and the bombers overhead was diminishing as they moved their sights inland to avoid hitting their own men, but the sound of machine gun fire was growing. He hardly cared. The prospect of a bullet seemed preferable to running willingly into a

cloud of poison. He was petrified the mask would not work. Even in the cold, the sweat was pouring and he could feel the mask slip across the surface of his face. Johnson was still in the doorway, mask on, the radio at his feet. He was rigid with terror. Finlay bent down and took his arm. His voice sounded tinny and robotic. He was quite sure Johnson would hear none of his words. "We're going to get up to the fort. We have to go now. We can use the gas as cover. All right?" Johnson nodded silently behind the black mask, dumb with fear. Finlay stole another look out. The gas was only a hundred feet away now and would be on them in a minute. It would give only the thinnest of cover. To his left, he could see men - his own and others - breaking from the trenches and running headlong for the gas and the hill. He saw one man sprint out from a pillbox further down the beach, then stop and stand straight up. His legs buckled under him, and he went down on his knees, crawling forward. The gas devoured him and he disappeared. Finlay grabbed Johnson's arm and ran. The jolting caused by movement jogged the mask and he realised with horror that air was getting in. He dropped Johnson's arm and brought a hand up. He was no longer aware of the Germans on the beach behind them, no longer aware of the bullets. His whole attention was focussed on the white cloud ahead. As they entered it, he prayed for the bullet that would spare him. It did not come. He waited instead for the pain of burning in the chest and eyes, but that too refused to come. He went on.

Beside him, Johnson faltered, staggering to the right and falling on one knee. The mask had slipped on his face and his eyebrows were visible above it. Finlay stopped and reached down, trying to push the mask on to Johnson's face. The radio man was holding himself up with his hands now. Finlay reached with both hands to try and position the mask, then realised it was hopeless. As his right hand went to the back of Johnson's head, his fingers found not dry hair but a mess of smashed bone and blood. There was a hole he could have put three fingers into, and Johnson's brain was coming away in his hand. He felt its warm weight pushing out. He picked up the Bren and ran. The climb took forever. At the top of the hill the gas was being released by men in masks like his own from yellow containers behind sandbags. All along the hilltop, men were staggering out of the clouds and running for cover, falling. They looked like robots, automatons from another world. They took cover along the hill, behind sandbags, gun emplacements, lying in shellholes. Some of the guns were still firing, but the one nearest him had taken a direct hit, its barrels pointing straight down into the earth and its workings a mass of tangled metal. From twenty yards away, he could see flesh and cloth among the debris. Below them, Germans were now swarming forward from the boats beached at crazy angles in the shallow water. They had come prepared. Men with masks ran up the beach, oblivious to the dispersing gas that surrounded them. He saw three sprint to the pillbox he had inhabited and disappear in its shadow.

There was an explosion from within. Without thinking, he positioned the Bren and took aim at the pillbox through the sights. Once all three men had crept round into view, he pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in his hands and within a second the magazine had emptied. It felt no different afterwards, though this was the first life he had taken. Nothing in him turned over, no switch clicked on or off. He reached into Gaskell's bag and pulled out another magazine. Methodically he worked his way through them all. He saw the faces before him of Gaskell and Johnson, Milner and Smith, Lodge and Abrams. When he had emptied every magazine for the gun, he threw it aside and lay there, empty and exhausted. His mind was blank. He felt calm. A soldier in a mask ran over towards him from along the ridge. He threw himself down beside Finlay. The gas canisters had run out, and the wind took the last vestiges of cloud down and out to sea. The soldier beside him was Gray. He pulled his mask off. Finlay did likewise. "It's a disaster," Gray shouted above the din. "A fucking disaster. We haven't held them anywhere. Even the gas didn't work. Except on our own men." Gray's hair stood out at crazy angles. The thin strands on his balding skull looked even more tenuous than usual. "All the gas has done is shown them we’ll stop at nothing. What will they do to us now?" Gray's voice trailed off as his eyes looked across the carnage of the beach below. The Germans were making no attempt to make a frontal assault on the fort itself, but fanning out to left and right, making for the

cliffs and Brighton. Gray's voice was now little more than a whisper, and he was crying. "What have we done? Jesus Christ! What have we done?" "What about casualties?" Finlay shouted, more to bring Gray back than in expectation of an answer. "No idea. They've landed at Folkestone and Dover. There are parachutists at Hythe. They've already got tanks ashore at Pevensey Bay, which could be hear soon. We needed to hold them on the beach and we haven't." Both men ducked as a shell came over and landed in the marshy grass behind them. "What about your men?" "Six dead, the rest up here as far as I know. Don't know about wounded, but there’ll be some. What do you want us to do?" "Get back into the fort. It's the only place we can defend. Do it now." Finlay almost laughed at the notion. The Germans could starve them out at their leisure. But he said nothing. He felt a surge of tenderness towards Gray. "What will you do?" "Start to organise a counter attack. Moore's idea. I don't know where from. I'll see you in the fort. Good luck." He clapped Finlay's shoulder and went. There would be no counter attack. When Finlay looked at the beach he knew they had already lost. Lines of Germans were now streaming ashore, not even bothering to return fire coming from the hilltops. Sharpshooters in cover brought withering fire down on

any resistance, while medics were doing their best to treat wounded who could be got to cover. From left to right there were still thousands of men landing, fanning out to shelter at the bottom of the hill. He turned to sprint to the next bank of sandbags where he thought he recognised Farrell crouching in his mask. He had taken only a few steps when a colossal force smashed into his shoulder and head at the same time. He blacked out. When he came to, he felt sick and dizzy with a searing pain in his shoulder. His head ached and he could not focus. He did not know what had happened to him. He could feel rough hands pulling at his clothing and at his head, and he wished they would stop, so that he could lie in peace. But the hands would not leave him, prying at his agonised shoulder and unbuttoning his tunic. He could hear voices in the distance, and a hammering, like that on a factory floor. Then he remembered the beach, and the Germans, in an abstract way which supplied no comprehension. For a while he blacked out again. In his unconciousness, there was more pushing and pulling. He would vomit now, if the hands did not leave him alone. He wanted only perfect stillness, for hours, days, weeks, so that he could adjust to his new situation and avoid the pain and nausea of movement. He wanted to rest. Farrell had seen Finlay begin to move across to him when the Lieutenant had veered to the right, crashed to his knees, and crawled forward for a few steps before toppling over. When he slithered over to him, Derrington looked dead. Blood came from a head

wound, and also from the left shoulder. There had been no explosion, so it must have been bullets from the machine guns already set up on the beach, raking the tops of the hills. Farrell was about to crawl back to his own emplacement when the Lieutenant opened his eyes and blinked once. He said nothing but stared glassily into space. He breathed heavily, taking in one shuddering breath and letting it out with a sigh. Farrell stared at him, undecided, before starting to drag him back along the ground to his own shelter. After a few yards, he almost gave up. The Lieutenant seemed fastened to the ground, an inert mass, and Farrell had to drag him while he himself lay as close to the ground as possible. To have got to his knees would be to invite death from the beach below, for he would have been a clear outline against the sky. It took him several minutes to drag the body, inch by inch, back to the emplacement. As he moved the Lieutenant, there was a soft moaning. They waited for an hour, no longer bothering to expend what little ammunition they had left on the men on the beach, by which time Ballater and the wounded Howard had got what was left of the platoon assembled and inside the fort. There was shell damage to its walls and surface, but the underground network of tunnels and caves were still intact. The invaders on the beach were concentrating on driving towards Brighton itself and the less impregnable coastline on the other side of the fort. They could leave it until later. By the time Farrell and Langton eventually carried Finlay bodily inside it was the middle of the morning.

The first tanks, landing unopposed a few miles down the coast, arrived an hour later. They were beseiged under the fort for three days. The invaders, securing beachheads and driving inland, were content to leave them. They could be dealt with later. Through patchy communication with the frantically retreating remnants of the army, those in the fort learnt that landings had taken place in three sectors, along a front between Folkestone and Brighton. The two main attacks had been between Bexhill and Hythe, the landing at Newhaven only an outflanking one. The Germans got 70,000 men ashore in the first assaults, with heavy casualties. Within three days, nearly 120,000 men were dug in. They were ashore, and so they had won. In the catacombs under the fort at Newhaven, the defenders rapidly ran out of food, water and ammunition. The men lived in crowded filthy tunnels hacked out of the chalk, which became foetid with the stench of fear, death and defeat. The bombers overhead were pressing north, towards London. The besieging army outside would starve them out. Finlay spent the first day in and out of conciousness, lying on his side in one of the tunnels with the other wounded, passing through a fever that invaded his body within hours of the bullets entering. The round that had hit his head had removed only hair and scalp, grazing the skull. The shoulder wound was worse. The first bullet had swivelled him round so that he had been facing away from the beach, and the

second had passed through his left shoulder. It had missed the bone, but muscle and ligaments had been ripped away. During his fever he would sometimes be aware of what was happening around him. At other times he was pulled away to different worlds; childhood, schooldays, times in Brighton and France. He saw faces: his mother's brother John, from childhood, bringing presents; the picture of his father in the living room; the face of Ren, laughing. It filled him not with happiness, but with fear and foreboding. He could not understand why this should be so. Midway through the morning of the second day, the face of Peter Newbury came to him and it was no longer a dream. The fever had broken. Newbury sat a few yards up the tunnel. The passages were lit by weak candles or from an overworked generator. Finlay's head ached with a slow, pulsating beat that never varied and sent waves of nausea through him. His shoulder burned. He felt a raging thirst, but his water bottles had been removed along with his webbing and pistol. Newbury gave him a drink from a bottle that contained tepid, brackish water. He drank greedily but found he could talk only with difficulty. The slightest movement, even in his jaw, sent pain through his shoulder. "What happened?" he managed to ask. He had never seen his friend look like this. Newbury's drawn cheeks were stained with grime and smoke, his eyes bloodshot, his lips cracked and scabbed with blood. He spoke only in a hoarse whisper. Finlay could dimly hear explosions echoing

from somewhere, although his orientation in the tunnel made it impossible to know from where. "Down in Brighton," Newbury said. "When the Germans came we couldn't hold them. We were out of ammunition almost before they hit the beaches. They must have been under orders to take Brighton and harbour at all costs - we copped the bloody lot. We've been up in the fort for a day now, they still haven't attacked properly." His voice was dull with an expressionless that filled Finlay with foreboding. "Philip?" "Dead." Newbury's eyes filled with confusion, as if he could not understand the meaning of the words he had spoken. "I saw one of his men here. Said he got it almost immediately. Don't know whether to believe it or not." "I'm sorry." Finlay looked about him for the first time, up and down the tunnel. He felt sick and tired and exhausted, and there seemed to be a mist in front of his eyes. The men were silent and sullen. They stared at the wall, eyes blank, their faces white and drawn and dirty. The injured ones moaned only softly, as if not to break some agreed silence. The events they had witnessed were beyond comprehension. To Finlay the presence of the Germans and the death of so many seemed unreal, a trick. Perhaps Abrams and Lodge, who had disappeared into thin air, would as suddenly return to greet them from the end of the tunnel. Newbury looked at him through pain-dimmed eyes.

"What happened to you?" "I got hit outside. In the head and shoulder I think. There was a blow to my head. I don't remember." "The medic says you were lucky. The bullet went through your shoulder without breaking it. The other one nearly took your head off." "Am I lucky?" Finlay asked. In the circumstances it seemed an odd remark. Then he remembered Philip. "What's happened outside.?" Newbury shook his head. "They're ashore and consolidating. They've got about ten miles inland so far - we're not holding them. They got tanks ashore further up the coast. My lot got chopped up by them coming up behind us. This place is surrounded. My guess is they'll leave us alone and wait for us to starve." Finlay stared at him, still unable to take in what he was saying. Newbury put a hand to his face, pulling the flesh tight. He closed his eyes. "We've lost, Finlay. There's nothing to stop them now. The Canadians won't be able to hold them. It's over." Finlay looked at his friend, the despair tugging at his control. He could feel again the stirrings of anger. As he looked at the men around him, he nurtured the feeling, knowing it was the only defence left. He spent a second night in the tunnel, sleeping less fitfully after morphine from the medical officer. The fort had held the emergency medical supplies for the area, so there was at least little shortage of dressings, medicine and antibiotics. He was given a huge dose of penicillin, to stave off infection.

There was no attempt by the Germans to take the fort. They could have taken it if they had wished, but had more urgent objectives. He could imagine the scenes in the harbour and all along the coast, an armada of vessels bringing men and supplies, shuttling between France and England, each minute making the German toehold more permanent. On the second night, Newbury lay alongside him. He had settled into a resigned bleakness, with only occasional flashes of the bitterness Finlay felt. The pain was too much. "We cannot stay here for much longer can we?" Newbury spoke as the dull crump of a mortar sounded overhead. He stared at the floor. "The Germans will get around to us eventually. There's supposed to be a tunnel that leads under the cliffs away from Brighton. They're getting the walking wounded and fit out through it tomorrow night. They've sent a party down to reccy tonight. Supposed to date from when the fort was first built. We might be able to get out and join up with the Canadians or someone. It means the wounded will have to stay and give themselves up." Finlay looked at him. "I'm sorry about Philip, Peter. Don't give up." He was glad to see some interest appear in the black eyes. His friend looked up at him. "I'm more worried about Muriel and the family. What in God's name has happened to them? I'll make them pay for Philip. Somehow." They slept for a while beside the other men. With the morphine, Finlay's dreams were more vivid. He walked through the streets of Newhaven, with

no idea where he was heading, only the knowledge that he was searching for something. Although it was night, he stopped at a house and was given water by a woman whose face he could not see. The men in the room with him also had shielded faces, although he was sure he had known them. Now they were dead. He had to concentrate hard to bring their faces into focus. When he did, he recognised the men from his platoon. By the third day, after 48 hours in the tunnel, the atmosphere was unbreathable. A soldier called Mortimer, shot in the intestine, had died in the night. His body had evacuated itself and added to the stench. Finlay was disorientated, with no idea what time it was, whether day or night. But some of the nausea and exhaustion had left him. The morphine seemed to cope with the pain in his shoulder, while there was no sign of infection. His head still hammered with a monotonous rythm. His body ached from the days in the cramped tunnel and it was impossible to get to his feet without dizziness that overwhelmed him with any movement. He had to steady himself against the tunnel wall, grimacing as the shoulder jarred against it. The whitewashed surface was damp with accumulated breath and sweat. He picked his way slowly among the soldiers lying wounded, taking care with each step. Twice he had to stop and go down on one knee when the swirling in his head became too much. He checked off faces as he went, seeing if any of his men were there. At the end he found Ballater against the wall, feet splayed out in front of him. The sergeant did not

appear to be injured, only exhausted, staring out through red-rimmed eyes. "How are you feeling?" His eyes indicated Finlay's arm, secured by a makeshift sling. "Been better. Where are the men?" He found it difficult to speak. His throat was dry, and he did not wish to hear the reply. "Farrell and Howard upstairs on duty, sir. Langton's along there, with a bullet in the thigh, but he'll live." He stared at him. "That's it?" "That's it. They're the ones who got off the beach." Finlay hung his head. He could say nothing. "We thought you'd had it like the others, sir." "You weren’t the only one. Where's Langton?" "In the other tunnel, the one that leads off from the end of this one." Finlay went to look. The end of the tunnel gave on to the cavernous hall he had stood in only days before, when they had been briefed by Colonel Moore. Now it was strewn with equipment and ammunition boxes, clothing and medicine containers. Around the walls men lay or sat, injured or sleeping, uncaring. He remembered singing the national anthem here, the words loud in the cramped surroundings. It was quiet now. He found the entrance to the other tunnel along the wall. Langton was halfway down. His wound was relatively minor - a heavy flesh wound where the bullet had passed through the muscle of the upper thigh, missing the bone. He would be able to walk. A dry, sardonic 20-year old with a vivid scar down one side of his face, he appeared unruffled. He asked for water

and Finlay promised to try and find him some. He went back to the central hall, through the press of bodies. Six tunnels, hacked out of the bare chalk, led off from the main hall. Two led to short corridors which in their turn led to flights of steps up to the fort. Two others, the ones he and Langton were in, led nowhere, ending in bare chalk walls. The last two tunnels he had not been down before. The defenders held the caves and tunnels under the fort, and the fort itself, but nothing else. The building above had been built for a different age of warfare, with a dry moat on its landward side and brick walls. If the Germans had wanted to take it, they could have done so the day before. He found a discarded water bottle in the main hall and took it back to Langton. He sat down next to the private, feeling the nausea and weakness of before return without warning. His breath came in ragged gasps. It was here Colonel Moore found him. Despite everything, he was shocked at the change in his commander's appearance. The usually ruddy complexion was parchment white where it was not stained with dirt. The skin had now a translucent quality, which showed the veins and blood vessels pumping underneath. His eyes stared. He asked Finlay if he could still command his platoon, or what was left of it. Finlay said yes. "Good," Moore answered. "We're going to get out of here. The Germans won't hold off for ever, busy as they are, and there's supposed to be a tunnel we can use. If we can get north quick enough we might be able to link up with other units."

Moore's voice was dull, flat, resigned. He gave Finlay strength, although he did not know why. "Captain Gray?" Moore looked at him. "Captain Gray attempted a counter-attack. My idea. He's dead." He got to his feet and shuffled off down the tunnel, bent and unsteady. The men inside the tunnels who would leave prepared themselves. Their movements were slow and uncertain. Like Moore, they had aged and become infirm in only hours. Finlay said a long, painful goodbye to his men who would stay, taking details of family addresses with him. He would contact them if he could. Those who would stay watched the others with calm, knowing eyes. About 200 men gathered in the main hall to be told what they were to do. They carried what weapons and equipment they could. Finlay remembered the briefing from a few days before. The men now were a different species, blank-faced, starving, devoid of hope. It seemed a lifetime ago. Of his own men, only Farrell, Langton and Ballater would go with him. Howard would remain. Hall, a private, and Petre, the platoon corporal, had got to the fort succesfully, but had been hit by a mortar bomb. Hall had died instantly. Petre, with his left leg severed above the knee, had lasted a day. Finlay wished Howard good luck. The long column of men started down the tunnel in unnatural silence. They were oppressed by defeat and what awaited them outside. The fort had become a shelter of a kind, shielding them from the reality in

which they found themselves. They left it reluctantly. The tunnel was unlike the others, unlit and much narrower. Finlay had to keep his arms pulled in tight to stop the arm snagging on the bare chalk wall and jarring the shoulder. The only light was from electric torches carried by a few of the men, which had to be kept off most of the time to preserve batteries. Others carried candles, but these would periodically gutter and die in the movement and lack of oxygen, and the carrier would have to stop and re-light it as those behind waited. He was at first petrified by the confined space and the claustrophobia as they went on. He found the presence of the others a help, and after a while he found he could close his mind to his imagination and concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. The pain from his shoulder helped. Whenever the claustrophobia got too much he could jar the shoulder against the wall and his mind would be kept busy with the pain. It was getting more and more difficult to breath. The tunnel went on and on. He found he could not remember how long they had been walking, doubled up, down the passageway. He wondered how long they could possibly hope to carry on along it. He was towards the rear of the column and the carbon dioxide from the men in front made him feel lightheaded and warm. He could hear his own breathing mix with the ragged gasping of Farrell behind, who with his tall frame found their progress even more difficult. As they went on, the pain in his shoulder was overtaken by pain in his back, protesting against the unnatural posture. It would not have been much above

freezing a few feet over their heads, but in the tunnel, Finlay had to wipe sweat from his eyes. The first indication of the end came with the air. It became fresher, and after a time Finlay began to make out the outline of Ballater's head and backside ahead of him. With the prospect of air after the putrid atmosphere of the fort, it was all he could do not to pitch forward too fast, upsetting Ballater and blocking the tunnel. He forced himself to hold back. They emerged into an amphitheatre, a semi-circle cut into the sides of the chalk hillside to form a quarry. Across its basin, clumps of bramble and the hillsides provided the only cover from the open ground beyond. To the north, there was no cover at all apart from the bushes, and none from the air. Finlay emerged blinking, drawing in lungfuls of air and shielding his eyes from the glare even though the sky was dark with cloud. He felt a hand on his arm. It was Moore. "Get your men under cover as best you can and join me back here." Together with Newbury and two other lieutenants, Stocks and Preston, he got the men down by the lower lip of the quarry, hidden from view, although the downland to the north seemed deserted. In the distance they could hear the dull thudding of shells, like a distant, discordant drum, and the occasional drone of an aircraft, but there was little noise here and it was almost peaceful. It seemed impossible this could be a land now so alien. Finlay shivered as the cold air dried the sweat on his skin. When he went back to the tunnel entrance, it was to find Newbury crouched beside it, listening intently. There came the sound of a muffled thump from within.

Seconds later a rush of air came from the concealed entrance. Newbury looked up. "They’ve blown the tunnel from their end. So noone follows. God bless them, poor bastards." He looked away and stared at the chalk in front of him. "Moore is over the other side of the ridge. Wants you over there." "Why?" Newbury swallowed. "Something to show you." He might have been shocked - in the days before - but not now. Like a drunkard, insulated from what was around him, he breasted the lip of the quarry, scanning the countryside quickly for the enemy, and looked down to see Moore standing in a group of men. Near them were the bodies of perhaps fifty soldiers. Face down, laid out in a neat row on the meadow grass, hands behind their backs. As he scrambled down to join the others, he felt the rushing in his ears that had come when he had first seen the ships out to sea. Each man had been shot neatly in the back of the neck, below the hairline, the entry holes of the bullets almost invisible, just a grey smudge. Some of the men by Moore were reaching down and turning bodies over, looking for dog tags. The corpses were swollen already, faces puffed and featureless. The other men looked on in silence. Moore cleared his throat but said nothing. Rain was beginning to fall and there was a rush of wind, although the bad weather was too late to save them now. The rain fell on the bloodless skin and open eyes before them. Finlay scanned the faces staring at the

sky. His eyes settled on the third along. It was one of the soldiers who had been in the pillboxes along the coast. The name came to him effortlessly - Miller. Private First Class Miller. He had made Finlay tea and smoked a cigarette with him. As Finlay watched, a drop of rain landed in Miller's open eye, dispersing and scattering tiny droplets of water. A thin trickle of blood from his mouth was hit by more raindrops and started to wash away. Miller's eyes stared into the sky in silent, unblinking protest. Finlay reached forward to close them.

1941

Ren Amsden sat shivering in the tea room at Kings Cross station and tried to hug the material of her thin coat even more tightly around her. She sat on a rough bench, a cup of ersatz coffee steaming on the table in front of her. She kept her fingers wrapped around the hot enamel for as long as she could to warm them enough to make rolling a cigarette possible. The room was too cold and her fingers shaking too much. The gas fire in the corner of the room looked like it had not been lit in years.

The coffee tasted of chicory and cardboard - its two principle ingredients. Like tobacco, it was made with different things from month to month depending on what was available. The tobacco included cheap, home-grown, leaves that sparked a cough in those who smoked it. But the coffee was hot and she could not have done without the cigarettes. The tea room was empty. The phrase conjured up images of warm toast and crumpets, warmth and laughter. Nothing like that here. The sour-faced woman who served had retired back into her kitchen, where clinking cups could be heard. German soldiers were forbidden entrance by a notice posted on the door, in German and English, and the place was down-market for officers. The station was quieter than she remembered from years ago. Few civilians had the means or authority to travel. Most trains were packed with German soldiers; subdued heading north for Scotland; more cheerful heading south for the coast and leave. She dreaded this north-bound trip more than the one south in a few days time. She pulled the ticket and her travel authorisation permit from her pocket and studied them, stifling a cough as she drew on the cigarette she had managed to roll. Both were printed on rough cardboard, the gothic lettering illegible in places, a sign of the scramble to organise the rail network the occupiers had had 18 months before. It had taken three weeks of form-filling, interviews and bureaucracy to get the permit, and only then because she was more trusted than others. For many, the application to travel was rejected out of hand. She took one more mouthful of coffee, then gave up on it

and got up to leave. If she missed the train it would be the same process to get another permit, and weeks of saving for the ticket - she was not sure she would have the energy again. It was midday but the February sky was so opaque it looked dark already. The clouds were pregnant, swollen with icy rain that threatened to crash down. She was glad to be out of it. She shivered as she crossed the station forecourt. A group of German soldiers, pink-faced and young, were gathered on the far side, queuing for the train she would be on. They looked cold and miserable and far from home. The German officer who checked her permit behind the ticket inspector gave her a warm smile. He was tall and his bare head was shaved at the back and sides. His dark eyes were friendly. That was the trouble with the Germans. They were all so coldly polite and correct, as if emphasising they chose to be. She remembered hearing civilians had been at first welcomed on to trains the year before, when partisan activity had been more common, as insurance against attack. It had not stopped several being blown up, especially in the north. Like the tea room, pubs and restaurants, the train was divided into areas for German soldiers, and others for their officers and British civilians. The train would go up to Leeds, then on to Glasgow that night, the soldiers going to the outlying garrisons of the north, where their presence was thin and the danger from partisans greatest. As she walked along the platform looking for a carriage with Zirilist - Civilian - she passed more soldiers smoking quietly on the platform.

The carriage windows were already fuggy with the mass of military humanity inside. As always, she felt self-concious. She prayed she would not be the only civilian on the train. For the first time in five years, Ren was going home. She had resisted the urge before, despite everything, but the craving to see her mother and younger brother had grown too much. The Germans had begun to deport all men between the ages of 17 and 55, for two-year periods, (nobody believed the time limit) for hard labour in Germany and occupied France. The authorities gave no more than a week's notice of deportation, to discourage evasion, the punishment for which was death. Ren's father, a factory foreman, had been among the first summoned. He had been only two years short of the age limit. By the time her mother's letter had reached her, he had gone. She had hated him, but she hated the Germans for humiliating him even more. The carriage for officers and civilians was furthest from the platform, predictably enough, tacked on as an afterthought. She was relieved to see two men already in the carriage, neither in uniform. She could feel a weight lift from her shoulders as she opened the door of the carriage and got in. It was no warmer inside. There was no heating on trains nowadays, and she shuddered at the thought of the long hours ahead. She chose a window seat opposite the older man, who had thinning white hair, hooded eyes below bushy eyebrows and a hawk-like face. The man's face was severe, but he flashed her a friendly smile as she sat down. He wore a tweed suit

and a well-worn overcoat that looked warm. She envied him. She stole a furtive glance at the other occupant who sat near the door. He was younger, perhaps 60, and engrossed in a book. He had thick glasses and a full head of white hair. As he read, he chewed his nails vigorously and swung one foot up and down with his legs crossed. The nervous sort. He looked like a college professor. His dirty overcoat covered an equally shabby jumper. From outside, there came a distant rumble and she felt her body tense. Again? Then it dawned. With the pregnant skies it must be thunder. Her gaze caught the hooded eyes of the man opposite and both smiled. "Thunder, I think, this time," he said. "A storm brewing." She said nothing, looking out of the carriage window. The train pulled away on time. As they emerged from the station, rain lashed the window and for the first time that morning, she stopped feeling cold. The man opposite spoke again, pulling her gaze away from the glistening London rooftops. "It's one thing to be said for the Germans, isn't it?. Didn't we always used to say it about that idiot Mussolini? He made the trains run on time? Before the war, I mean." Ren smiled at him. She did not wish to encourage conversation, but did not want to appear rude either. They were probably the only English people on the train. "The trouble is they make it so difficult to get a ticket in the first place - all the forms. It takes an age."

The man nodded. "German efficiency, I suppose. Where are you heading, might I ask?" "Leeds. To see my mother. My father was deported. I thought I'd visit. I've left it long enough." Before she knew it she had introduced herself and asked him where he was going. She learnt he was an expert on forestry, travelling to Scotland to advise on the planting of pine north of Glasgow. He smiled as he told her, as if planting forests was a silly thing to do. With the shortage of coal now most was exported to Germany, it was important to invest in fuel the Germans would be less interested in, he told her frankly. She found her interest aroused in spite of herself. "If they take the coal already, won't they take the wood as well?" "It's not economic. Coal, steel, they're all transportable. Wood is not the same. It's not worth their while to ship it. So the more we grow, the more we have for ourselves. The Germans only need so much to keep their barracks warm. Besides," he said, whispering. "Good cover for the partisans up there." He sat back, putting a theatrical finger to his lips. Then he smiled at her. "It must be hard for you and your mother, with your father gone. Hard for everyone with this deportation. A bad business." Ren shrugged. "I haven't seen him for five years. It's hard for my mother. And I have a little brother who is probably devastated."

She could tell the old man was puzzled by her equanimity over her father's fate, not knowing the history behind it. "What about you? Do you have family?" "A wife and two daughters, safely tucked up in London, out of harm's way, thank God. The German's didn't find Wimbledon as enticing a target as Whitehall." The sadness in the old face was plainer. At the last moment London had been declared an open city, as Churchill and the others had fled, but Whitehall had still been flattened in the last weeks. "I fought in the first one. We did better then. Sad, when you think of all the men who died and they just walk in a generation later." The conversation was getting dangerous. Ren remembered history books and names; the Somme, Mons, Flanders. She remembered Finlay, talking about his lost father. Or rather, not talking about him, as they had walked down the rainy street in Brighton. She remembered wanting to unlock in him his true feelings about it, about anything, about her, and the feeling of loss at her failure to do so. She looked into the old man's eyes. "How can you bear to live here now, seeing them every day, when so many died before to keep them out?" she asked. She was surprised at her passion. The man by the door stayed engrossed in his book. The old man did not answer at once, staring out of the window at the rain lashing down, lost in thought. Eventually he smiled.

"With method, a man can live comfortably even in hell“. It's a Buddhist saying I think. I suppose that says it." He was interrupted by the carriage door opening. It was the German who had inspected their permits. He was still bare-headed, though now he carried a cap in his hand. The atmosphere in the carriage vanished. He pointed next to Ren and looked at her. "Is the seat taken?" His English had no trace of an accent at all. Ren shook her head. The officer thanked her and nodded at the two men before sitting down. "I'm afraid we seem to have packed the train out. I couldn't find a seat anywhere. I hope you don't mind?" His politeness was disarming. It seemed genuine and he appeared unaware of the irony in his words and the manner in which they were delivered. For a while the carriage was silent, pregnant with the conversation before. Ren found it uncomfortable. It was, well, embarrassing. She wondered if the others thought so too, or if the officer realised the effect he had. He reached into his tunic pocket and produced a silver case. "Does anyone mind if I smoke?" he asked, looking at the two men opposite him. The man who had been engrossed in his book looked up without indicating either yes or no, the old man shook his head warily. The officer put a cigarette to his lips, then offered the case around. The man with the book had gone back to it and did not notice, while the old man opposite stared. Then, with a shrug, he took a cigarette. Ren was relieved. If the old man had refused, she would have done so herself, on principle. But since he had

taken one, she could, despite the shame. The lure of a proper cigarette was enticing after the rubbish they had to smoke normally. The German seemed pleased and pulled a lighter from his pocket. It was a smart silver one that matched the case. The tobacco was rough and unfamiliar, but better than she was used to. "Russian," he said with a rueful smile. "They are not very well made. You have to hold them up or all the tobacco falls out." The old man pulled a newspaper from the seat beside him, to forestall further conversation, and that was that. It was so often like this, Ren thought. Polite Germans doing their best, shunned by the population conquered. The Germans could never really get the balance right between politeness and patronising contempt. She dealt with a lot of them where she worked. This one was better than most. At least he wasn't SS, who didn't give a damn about anything. The newspaper, she noticed, was one of the few not closed under the occupation. Its proprietor had close contacts with the occupation regime, and kept his paper open by employing a judicious silence on any mention of resistance or the exiled government in Canada, and an enthusiastic acceptance of all edicts issued by the office of the German Governor General in London. Ren did not bother to read the headlines. She sat and stared at the fields outside. Several had abandoned vehicles, farm machinery, even old kitchen appliances still dotted around in them, like some bizarre exhibition. A hangover from the days before the invasion, obstacles put in the path of the German gliders, matchsticks to hold back an avalanche.

With a start she realised the German officer had been following her gaze. "I come from Cologne in Germany. It rains all the time there too. But in the summer it can be beautiful." Despite his friendly tone the old anger came immediately. "Nobody asked you to come." She had said it before she had a chance to think. In the old days she would not have needed thought, but the passing times leant reflection. The officer drew on his cigarette, then stamped it out on the floor. His eyes met hers. They were sad. "I'm sorry. Many of us did not ask to come here either. Some are sorry they did." His eyes held hers and for a moment she felt an unfamiliar feeling. Not quite sympathy but perhaps understanding. The carriage darkened as they entered a tunnel. The German gave up on conversation and after a while she slept. Perhaps because of the soothing clatter of the train, for once she did not dream. When she woke, they were pulling into York. The man who had been engrossed in his book had left. The old man was asleep opposite her, the paper draped over his lap like a napkin. When she looked around, the German officer was looking at her. He did not look away, but smiled shyly. "I'm sorry. We’re going to Scotland, where it is almost as cold as Russia and sometimes as dangerous. It is pleasant to have a distraction of any kind. What do you do, if I may ask?"

Ren coloured. Once again, she found herself disarmed by his manner and the quiet frankness of his voice, different from the arrogance she was used to. "I work in a cafe on the south coast and teach English privately, mostly to German soldiers." She felt the familiar feeling she always felt when she admitted it; angry guilt. She hoped the old man opposite was still asleep. More than that - she hoped the German did not think she was over-friendly, like the tarts who promenaded along the beach with officers, bold as brass. "Have you been to Russia?" she asked, to change the subject. "Yes." "What's it like?" She was ashamed at how silly the question sounded, but curious despite herself. There was so much rumour about what was happening in the east; one minute huge victories, then huge defeats. The newspapers only ever peddled the authority line. The only certainty was the Russians were still fighting. The officer sighed. She was shocked by the candour of his answer. "Russia is not a country like yours or France. Russia is half the world. It goes on and on. We fight battles and take prisoners and capture more land. But there is always more land, more prisoners, more battles. It never ends. We call him Ivan - he's a good soldier. Sooner or later we will run out of men to fight with. But the Russians will never run out. And then we’ll lose and your country will be free again." He lit another cigarette with a smile. "Or at least... free from Germany."

As if in belated recognition of what he had said, he looked warily at the closed carriage door behind him. "Do many Germans feel as you do?" She spoke softly, but the mood had gone. The officer had already said too much. "I'm sorry," he said, stubbing the cigarette out. "I must attend to my men." He looked at her as he stood up and paused before he went to the door. His eyes were sad, but with a hint of anger in them. "You British shouldn't get so upset about being beaten. That's just a question of luck. The important thing is to remain true to yourself." He smiled. "Good night. It has been a pleasure talking to you. Miss Amsden, isn't it? I hope we shall meet again." Ren stared out of the dark carriage window at the empty station platform. Did she feel “true” to herself teaching Germans her language which they used to order arrests and worse? Or smiling at them in the cafe? Was she true to her father? Well, she didn't care much about him. Was she true to the memory of Finlay, so long ago? She thought of his face, and felt her chest contract. Her heart ached. The train pulled into Leeds as darkness fell. The old man had woken up, but remained engrossed in his newspaper. He pulled her bag down for her as the train entered the station, wishing her a cheery goodbye. Nobody else got off. She had been frightened the bombing would have changed everything, but in fact it was just as she

remembered it. Smoke and pitch blackened, the station roof yawned above her. The roof had been home to pigeons, thousands of them. Now there were none. People had eaten them. There were few other signs of the occupation here, and no troops lounging around. Only bored-looking soldiers standing half at attention on the station forecourt. She reached into her pocket for her ticket and travel permit, but the soldier showed no interest, waving her through. The rain had eased and it was bitterly cold. There was still enough light for her to recognise the outline of the city she had known. She was surprised to see it so intact. Then she remembered it was Sheffield, with its steel-making capacity, which had taken the brunt of the bombing this far north. Only a few gaps in the streets and shops around the station - nothing like London or the south coast. She walked out and down the street she had known since childhood. It seemed unnaturally quiet, and the silence frightened her. It was like a ghost town. She shivered and quickened her step. You heard such terrible stories - always only rumours. The familiar streets did not reassure her but instead only added to her sense of dislocation. They reminded her of the time before the occupation, before so many had gone, and in their very familiarity emphasised the new reality. She found with memories of her childhood came others, more recent; the school in Lewes, her arrival in Brighton, all the lost faces. Above all, the lost faces. Her pace only slowed as she approached the house she had grown up in. As she reached a row of shops vivid in her memory, she stopped altogether.

There had been a greengrocers and a newsagents, where her mother had stopped before venturing further into town. The third shop had been the ironmongers, full of fascinating objects she had not understood but which had exercised the attention of her father. It had been owned by a tidy, energetic little man, always friendly even to the children who would come in but never buy anything. With a sick feeling she realised the shop was empty now. The sign above it remained, but across it was painted in red letters Jewish Undertaking and the inside had been gutted, the front window smashed. She had seen similar places in London and Brighton. She shivered and quickly walked past, the shop's front yawning at her. It was now too dark to recognise much. She could not tell the colours of the bricks or the doorways. But at number 22 the neat front garden with its flowerbeds was familiar, as was the brass doorknob she had never been able to reach as a child. She pulled the heavy metal back and let it fall. She could feel her heart pounding as she waited. There was no sound of footsteps. She was about to knock again when the door opened. Her mother stood there, looking at her with blank eyes. Her appearance had changed so much - the shock was terrible. She was thinner, and hunched, as if protecting herself from a blow. Her hair was shot through with streaks of white or grey, and her skin seemed drier, thinner, and paler. She smiled thinly at her daughter, but the eyes had lost the sparkle they had once shone with. She had aged twenty years in only five, and Ren burst into uncontrollable, sobbing tears. In her

mother's arms, blind with crying, it was as if she had grown taller, or her mother smaller. The body in her arms seemed fragile. As she blinked tears away, the hallway of her childhood came into view. There was another figure there, her baby brother. Only he wasn't a baby any more. The four year old she had last seen five years ago, always laughing or crying, was now nine and had changed even more than her mother. Silently, he came and put his arms around her waist gently, like an old man, and she could smell the carbolic soap in his hair. He said hello in a quietly grave voice and her tears came again. Ren's mother poured tea into cracked china cups as they sat in the kitchen. The pot and cups were familiar to Ren. Every object had become a source of remembrance. Her mother's hand shook as she poured the tepid liquid. Her brother had retired to the other room, although Ren heard no sound of playing. The rain had started up again. She could hear it splashing against the windows and into puddles in the yard at the back. The house was cold. Her mother's voice was dull and expressionless. "It was last month. Only a week of warning. We got one of those letters through the post. James had one three months ago too. I was going to mention it but I didn't know if you'd be interested." She did not bother to hide the implied rebuke. Ren's father had worked in a factory producing metal sheeting. With steel production diverted abroad the

factory had been closed and the workforce deported to a man. "How is he taking it?" she asked, nodding through to the sitting room. "Keeps asking when daddy is coming back. There's nothing I can say to him that makes it any better. He knows he's gone for a long time." Ren sipped at the tea and felt exhausted. She dreaded the answer to her next question but felt constrained to ask anyway. "How were - things? Between you and him?" Her mother stirred her tea, even though there was no sugar to put in it. "They've been all right, Ren. All right." Her mother was lying and they both knew it. It was this attitude as much as the violence itself which had made Ren leave. This night, she was too tired to argue. It was another world, and did not impinge upon her now. Mother and daughter sat and drank the tea, Ren asking for news of childhood friends and aquaintances, her mother replying with direct answers but volunteering nothing more. Soon the pauses were longer than the words. Her mother reached a hand out. "Why don't you come back to Leeds? Live here with me and Keith. You know he misses you terribly." She paused. "Your father will be gone a long time." She had expected the plea, though not as quickly as this. She avoided the beseeching eyes. "I've made another life. I cannot come back. There would be no work, no nothing. At least what I've got down there I've made myself."

Her mother's eyes hardened and she withdrew her hand. "What you’ve made yourself? You said the school's closed, didn't you? What sort of life is teaching bloody Germans? That's not a life." Ren had asked the same question many times in her own mind. What sort of life was it, indeed? But she knew the answer. Better than this. Her mother was speaking again. "Why do you punish me for what he did?" Ren shook her head miserably, for she had no answer. After a while, the mood passing, her mother suggested a game of cards, but Ren refused. The memory of games over the fire when she was younger, waiting for her father to return, was too prevalent. There was no wireless to listen to, for wirelesses were illegal. "Would you like a drink?" Ren was surprised. "What have you got?" "Whisky." "’Real“?" "Been saving it for a rainy day. Made sure he didn't know about it."" The first real smile to cross her mother's face appeared. She went to fetch the bottle. Later, Ren sat in the kitchen alone, trying to adjust to its strange familiarity. It was so quiet she could hear a whistling in her ears. Keith was asleep. Upstairs, she heard the sound of a tap running and the tread of her mother. She drained the whisky at a gulp, grimacing at the burning taste, and then with a silent apology poured out more until the glass was half full.

The memories crowded in on her. She had stayed teaching at St John's until late in 1939, but the war had come and the school had closed as children were evacuated out of harm's way. She tried to get a position elsewhere, but those available would have entailed moving north and she was reluctant to leave the life she’d made. Stephen and Michael both joined the Home Guard in the chaos of 1940. She remembered the party they had thrown to celebrate. Then had come the invasion, and everything had been lost. Stephen and Michael and the other men had all disappeared. Then confirmation of defeat; Churchill and the King fleeing to Canada; a government in exile with no prospect of return. The Germans had occupied the country to a line running between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The school had been turned over to the German army as some sort of headquarters. She had eked out a living as best she could waiting tables in Brighton, hoping for the children to return. By the following year, the Germans still had not relinquished control, and she realised why. With their policy of deporting able-bodied men, it would have been impossible to staff it. She had existed, serving food and drinks in cafes to German officers who were usually the only people able to afford them. She adopted the same cold neutrality towards them as most others. It was easy with the arrogant ones but became exhausting with the many who were polite, even embarrassed, by the unequal relationship. She had seen the looks the girls got walking hand in hand with German officers on the

promenade. At first disgust and hatred, then resigned acceptance, and then no looks at all. After a year, she steeled herself to reply to an advert in the newspaper asking for English teachers for army officers. She persuaded herself it was no different from serving them food. She would not be seen out with one, wearing nylons and a cheap summer dress, but she would teach them her mother tongue. In the better moments she could convince herself it was a cultural victory of some sort. She tried not to think of the evening in Brighton so long ago, when she and Finlay had sat together in tortured silence, and what she had so much wanted to happen had not. After so long, the images were now blurred and imprecise; when she tried to recall the events of that evening she found them only partially recoverable in her mind. She had cried when she found this was so. She hadn’t understood his actions, then or now. The obvious conclusion - he had rejected her, she didn’t believe, without quite knowing why. But he’d gone, and the hope that she had carried that night had died with his going. Perhaps he’d been scared, and she had done nothing to reassure him. If only she could have had the evening again, all might have been so very different. He had written the following year to Stephen to say he had joined the army. Stephen had shown her the letter, asking how everyone was, but her name had appeared only in a list of others. After that there had been nothing. She had thought many times of seeking his address and writing herself. But she could not think of what to say. And then it had been too late.

She tried to dispel the hope they would meet again. The hope was a long time dying, and her life became thin and automatic, ruled by habit but not desire. She survived. The Germans were at first savage, then the repression had become more systematic, more formalised. They had taken more casualties than expected; isolated units surrendering to them were shot out of hand. But with organised resistance - and the reprisals for it - confined to Scotland, and an allengaging war in Russia, the Germans had come to regard postings in southern England as leave from the eastern front. Ren had heard them talk of the east as they sat in the cafe, with awe and fear. Like the officer on the train had said, that was where they believed the war would be won and lost. As occupation went on, the horror behind the studied correctness grew; Jewish shops smashed and owners taken away, mass deportations, beggars starving in the streets, chronic shortages. And everywhere a bitter resentment combined with a lethargy to everything and everyone. People looked at the evidence of defeat and an alien presence around them and turned their faces away in distaste. Two days later Ren returned to Brighton. There was little to say between her and her mother - they had changed beyond recognition. The occupation and the years had left not even the core of each woman intact. Ren enjoyed playing with Keith, but found he was not the bright, inquiring boy she had known. The light in his eyes flashed only occasionally. He seemed to have erected a wall since his father's

departure, and after five years she had lost the familiarity with him to break it down. It broke her heart. As she wondered the streets of her childhood, the sense of dislocation and loss grew to become an ache, worse than anything before. In the end she was glad to go, but she made the long journey home with a heavy heart. Back in Brighton, Jean had cooked supper for the two of them. The rooms they had moved into four long years before had been lucky. The station had been bombed by the Germans during the landings, to disrupt the defenders, and some nearby houses were destroyed. But their rooms had been spared. The food was typical. A thin soup with hard, stale bread to go with it. Nothing else. The Germans ensured the only thing not in short supply was alcohol, which was available in quantities and at prices not much different to before the war. "How was it?" Jean asked as she dropped her bag in the hallway. Ren saw in her friend a reflection of herself. Jean had grown thin and pinched and hardened by the occupation. Her parents, who had lived near a large railway junction in south London, had been killed by a bomb meant for the station. Their house had been flattened. She refused to have any dealings with the Germans on any level at all. She had bitterly resented Ren's decision to take up tutoring officers, but had to admit without the money their lives would have been impossible. Ren sipped at the soup and tried to dispel its taste with a gulp of whisky and water. The bottle's label described it as Scotch, although it was made at a

German-run factory in Croydon at which Jean worked 12-hour shifts. A bus collected workers from Brighton at a central depot every morning at 5am. Ren told Jean of her trip, and the indiscreet officer on the train. Jean stared. "They're getting frightened of what will happen if they lose, what everyone will do to them. But they won't lose, unless the Americans join in like last time and that's not going to happen. How's your mother? Coping all right?" Jean knew the history of Ren's family and was embarrassed by the question. "Well, she has the job in the laundry and I can send her money." Ren reached for the whisky again. "I'm sorry. But the soup is foul." She put her spoon down apologeticaly. The bowl was still half full. Jean laughed. "I know. They said the rain has hit the vegetable crops again and there’s nothing around. The Germans take all the best stuff. It will get a lot worse before it gets better. I would have yours but I can’t finish mine. Pass the whisky." Ren sipped at her drink and let tiredness wash over her. "What I could really do with is a bath. Is there water?" The building's hot water barely functioned even when there was adequate fuel in its ancient boiler, which was rare. "You're in luck. We've had hot water since you left. Grab it while you can."

In their tiny bathroom, Ren stared in wonder at the tap. Steam rose to form a fog in the damp, clammy room. The water only stopped when the bath was half full. She looked at her naked reflection in the mirror. Like Jean, the past two years had thinned her. Her cheeks were hollower, while there were dark shadows below her eyes. Her body was thinner too. Where before she had run almost to fat, now she was slight. Her breasts had once been heavy, but now they were small. She smiled sadly. James had been the last to see them, and that had been long ago. Trying not to gasp at the heat, she eased into the scalding water. The drowsy feeling intensified. The thoughts in front of the mirror would not leave her. She remembered James with his manic scramblings with affection and regret. He had been inexperienced and there were few occasions when someone had not been around. She was filled with regret there had been no-one since. It would have been so nice. She thought of Finlay, and this time did not immediately banish the image as she had learned to do so well. What would it have been like? He had been a melancholy man, but there had been a passion behind it which had filled her with longing. She ran her hands over her stomach. Flatter than it had ever been, and no-one to see it, she thought. She remembered the German on the train, and with a start realised he was about the only man of her age she had seen in months. It did not bear thinking about. She could not stop herself wondering what it would be like to have stood in front of him as she had the mirror, naked, with his eyes on her. The thought made her

feel ashamed. She wasn’t one of the whores, fucking them to get chocolate or nylons. To banish the thought, she deliberately pictured Finlay again. She had developed a technique for remembering his face. If she emptied her mind, and remembered circumstances when they might have been together, she could bring it to her. If she tried without the technique, the image would melt away. It worked again now. She fingered the pendant Finlay had given her, which lay around her neck, and was still her most prized possession. She could feel the longing. Her fingers spread down from her stomach. Waves of guilt and shame washed over her as her fingers moved, but it only intensified the yearning. She rested her head against the edge of the bath. The face she had not seen for years was clearer than ever. She was filled with sadness. He would have been kind and strong, she felt sure, though she would never know now. Over and over again her fingers moved, until with a shudder she felt the climax arrive with a rush of pleasure and unfulfilled longing. She opened her eyes and cried. The next morning she woke early and realised, without surprise, she was already miserable at the prospect of the day ahead. She lay in bed and looked at the cracked ceiling above her. It would have been nice to paint it, she thought idly, but paint was not available and they couldn’t have afforded it anyway. Jean had already left without waking her. The rooms were freezing and she found the prospect of deserting

the warm blankets unbearable. She could see the cloud of her breath as she exhaled. Eventually, she threw back the blankets and got up. She dressed hurriedly, in a plain grey skirt and blue jumper, and made a cup of tea, spooning in half a teaspoon of powdered milk from a jar she had made last a month. She wished Jean was here now, the silence was oppressive. The February clouds had temporarily removed themselves. She looked into a cold blue sky. The patch of green outside the window was covered in a hoary frost the sun was trying to dispel. On the way to work, she felt her spirits lift slightly. The cafe where she worked was in the area of narrow lanes and shops near the seafront. Most had sold jewellery and luxuries before the war; after nearly two years of occupation they now concentrated on second or third-hand clothing and furniture. Others had closed. She remembered the area as a busy bustling place when she had first come to Brighton. Now it was quieter, although German soldiers often came to buy souvenirs to take on leave. The cafe stood opposite where an old music hall had once stood. During the invasion it had been used to house troops defending the area and been destroyed by a bomb. The soldiers inside had been killed. Brighton authorities had asked permission to clear the site and erect a small memorial, but had been refused. Instead the ruins remained as they were, shored up to prevent a final collapse of the remaining walls, an unacknowledged salute to those who had died. Flowers were often laid on the ground

there in the early hours of the morning. German military police would remove them as litter, only for a fresh batch to arrive the following morning. Ren had long ceased to wonder why the Germans bothered with a cat and mouse game they could never win. It was an example of their stubborness. The cafe was owned by a huge couple. Joseph Hartman and his wife Isobel continued to run the establishment despite both being in their sixties. Ren had viewed the unshaven figure of Hartman with suspicion when she first applied for work, wondering if there was some other agenda on his mind, but he had turned into a kindly employer. He took a fatherly interest in her affairs and had given money in the past when she and Jean had been desperate. The couple were childless and viewed her as a surrogate daughter. In her more reflexive moments she realised she viewed them as surrogate parents. The relationship was restricted not by her, but by the couple themselves. They were self-contained and reliant on each other, without the bitterness and rancour many older couples had after a lifetime together. It was not simply the relationship between them. They displayed a taciturn reluctance to talk about themselves and their past, to an extent which disconcerted Ren but which she had been forced to accept. Isobel was a Londoner, she knew. Hartman had fought for the Germans during the last war, been captured and brought to England, where he had stayed and married. This much she knew, though only through snippets revealed in the couple's conversations. If she asked a direct question, it was answered with a vague generalisation, or not at all.

After a while, she grew to feel that she was being rude even to ask. With Hartman, a German in a country occupied by the Germans, she did not ask his opinion of the war, and had little idea of where his sympathies lay. It was not discussed. Only once, when she had had to serve a particularly boisterous crowd of officers on leave, had they discussed the war. "It’s all a bad business," Hartman had said quietly, shaking his bald head. His hand had come up and swept from side to side, and he had looked at Ren. "No good can come of them coming here." "Them?" she had asked despite herself. "Yes, them. I was Austrian, not German. Now I am an Englishman. They have made war on me as they have made war on you." He had forestalled further conversation by shuffling off into the back room behind the counter. That morning she found Hartman in his usual attitude, sitting at one of the tables with a cup of black coffee, staring into the street, waiting for the day ahead. From the kitchen, she could hear the sounds of Isobel washing up. Hartman greeted her warmly. "How was your trip? I was worried you wouldn’t come back to be with us." He had a formal way of speaking as a result of his first language. His eyes twinkled. Isobel came out from the kitchen. As stout as her husband, she exuded a warmth that had not left her in the years since she had moved to the coast. Sharp, boot-black eyes (always reminding Ren of a rat) stared from an oval face. When not working she would fold her arms across a massive bosom, her jet black hair pulled back in a

knot. Sometimes she looked more foreign than her husband. "How is our Ren?" she asked, arms folded now. "How’s your poor mum?" "All right." "Well I hope she realises what work she’s put us through, taking you away like that. It's been busy here. No end to it." Ren did not feel inclined to talk, although she was grateful for the feeling of normality. She pulled off her coat and headed for the back room where the aprons were hung up. "Why so busy?" "Only Germans. A load more on leave, waiting to be shipped over. At least they have money now." Isobel, sensing Ren's mood, went back to her dishes and Hartman continued to stare out at the street outside. The cafe bore the continental imprint of his background, more French than Austrian. The tables were covered in bright red and white tableclothes, and on the walls hung cheap prints of scenes from his native country. Ren busied herself setting out tables for the lunchtime trade. She found the routine comforting. She did not have to think. Isobel and her husband had switched to their favourite topic, the price of vegetables as the shortages bit. Even those buying from wholesalers, like Hartman, felt the pinch. If he paid more for his ingredients, he had to have permission to put up prices, controlled by the occupation authorities. Hartman said he could not see the point of Germany fighting Russia - the two seemed to be much the same in wanting to control every bloody thing.

He looked at Ren, cleaning tables. "It means we cannot take anyone on to help, Ren. I'm sorry. I know I said I would but it is just not possible at the moment." Ren shrugged. At least her job in the cafe seemed safe. That was the most important thing right now. The lunch-time session was busier than usual, and she was given no time to think. The cafe served simple English food when the ingredients were available, and more bizarre concoctions when they were not. It was lucky. While German officers formed most of the clientele, the cafe had not become exclusively their preserve. Hartman assiduously cultivated his non-German customers, despite their lack of money. A cafe on the seafront, owned by a British fascist which had turned itself over exclusively to German food, had been firebombed the month before. The owner had died in the fire. The lunchtime officers were in high spirits, with money to spend and the knowledge they were going home. A table in one corner had been taken by three English men who sat waiting quietly. Ren was glad there was at least one table where there were not the usual remarks, delivered under the breath, she knew referred to her. The men were structural engineers, down from London to advise on the rebuilding of the station area. They were the lucky ones. They escaped deportation because their professional skills were needed here. They ordered their food quietly and did not look up from their table. Most of the German officers in the cafe ignored them. After she had taken their order, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that one German had not. He looked more senior than

the others, and had a table to his own. The men around him were quieter. She tried not to look as he got up and approached the three engineers. She turned to see him say something to the men, although his back was towards her and she could not see his face. After the officer had spoken, the men reached into pockets. Obviously they were being asked for documents. The soldiers in the room ignored the scene before them - it was an everyday occurence. The looks on the faces of the Englishmen turned from fear to sullen resentment. When she returned to their table with their drinks, the conversation had ceased. The German officer had resumed his seat. The men ate in silence and left hurriedly. Towards the end of the lunchtime rush, there was only one table left occupied. It contained five officers, all now the worse for drink. Many of the Germans had developed a taste for cider, without appreciating its alcoholic properties. Ren noticed that all were overweight and red in the face. She watched one of the men laugh loudly at the remark of the man next to him and clap him on the back. The man's face glistened with sweat, although it was not hot in the cafe. There were folds of pink fat bulging over the neck of his tunic even though the top button was undone. She shuddered. This was the worst part of losing the war. To look at a face like that and know it held your life in its hands. Hartman had appeared soundlessly from the kitchen to stand by her side. As they looked, the German who had slapped his comrade now withdrew his hand, knocking an empty bottle to the floor where it

shattered. The others laughed loudly. Ren was about to fetch the dustpan and brush from the kitchen when she felt a pressure on her arm. Hartman himself went to clear up the mess. She knew he would not anatagonise the Germans, knew also that he’d deliberately spared her the humiliation of clearing up their mess. She did not want to see him having to do what he had spared her, so she went into the kitchen. When she came back, the Germans had quietened and were preparing to go. They wished Hartman a respectful goodbye. Ren was dumbfounded. "How did you get them to leave so quietly, and so soon?" "I told them it was time to leave as we wanted to close. I said we had to prepare for a senior officer's party tonight. It helps if you tell them in German. They won't be back to check - they'll be sleeping it off all evening." He winked at her and bustled off into the back of the cafe. After work, Ren walked down to the seafront. Her route home rarely varied. She would walk along the beach, then cut up Montpellier Street and up the hill. She had three hours before the evening session began. Outside was bitterly cold. It was no longer raining, but the wind was so hard she could feel particles of water, picked off the tops of the waves and flung into her face. Usually the sea and the waves - some quality within them - calmed her. But today she felt her heart hammering in her chest. She felt light-headed.

Only a few hardy walkers braved the harsh conditions past the faded and smashed facades of the front. She passed a row of boats on the beach, unused and rotting from neglect. You needed some form of permit to sail them now, and the Germans did not give them out with the quite believable excuse the seas were still dangerous with mines. Two boys had been blown to smithereens recently, although there were rumours they had been hit by a patrol boat. There were always rumours... As she walked, she heard the familiar sound of ropes hitting masts still upright on some of the boats. She could remember the noise from before the invasion. It carried a form of music within it. She walked past the smashed remains of an overturned tram, still lying in mute protest beside the road. She thought how much she had changed in the intervening years. The peace and the equilibrium she had found in Brighton years before had gone. There had been a time when she might have been happy to remonstrate with a crowd of unruly but probably goodnatured drunken men, as the Germans had been in the cafe. She found more and more things that might not have worried her before now left her with a thudding heart and an unbearable, low sense of dread. The very familiarity of things from the past - the masts on the beach - seemed only to emphasise the alienation she now found. She wanted to know when the invasion would end, the Germans go home, and when would those who had gone return? But there was no-one to ask and no answer for anyone to provide. She thought of the old man on the train. What had he said? With method, one could survive anything,

or something like that. She remembered the blank look in his eyes when he said that. She shuddered at the thought of what “method” meant. Her heart was still pounding by the time she reached the turn for home. Even in the winter cold, the streets seemed unnaturally quiet. Further up she could see a shambling figure, its back to her, walking up the hill. An old woman beggar. Her heart sank - the figure was familiar, one of many nowadays. She had stopped to speak to her before, to see if the old woman had anywhere to go. There had been no intelligent response. Every few seconds her eyes had shifted over Ren's shoulder, to look in terror at something behind her. When Ren looked around, there was nothing there. The old woman had only a few teeth left, and wore layer upon layer of filthy, decrepit clothing with the holes all in the same place. Ren had given the old lady some pennies - all she had - and walked away, ashamed. Now she was almost level with her. Even with the stiff breeze off the sea, she could smell her. At Ren's footstep, the old woman turned to face her. There was a red scratch down one cheek, as if she had fallen, and the eye above it was red and weeping. She pushed out a hand without speaking. Ren reached into her pocket, but her fingers closed on nothing. She had no money at all - it had all gone on the trip to Leeds. There would be no more until pay day at the cafe, a week hence. She found herself apologising. There was no indication whether the woman understood her or not. She slowly withdrew the proffered hand, but continued to stare at Ren from beseeching eyes. The two women stood facing each

other for a few seconds, Ren feeling first sympathy, then anger. She could feel herself colouring. She apologised again and pushed past the woman, walking on up the hill. She tried to concentrate on not looking back until she got to the top of the hill. When her resolve broke, the woman had gone. The following evening Ren gave English language tuition to a German officer. The class was in the former police headquarters on the other side of town, which now housed the occupation authorities. She usually got to see Jean for a few minutes before she had to leave. That evening, for once, her friend returned laughing and cheerful. The Croydon factory was staffed exclusively by women and managed by a handful of Germans. To combat theft and sabotage, there was also a detachment of soldiers. Workers and guards were not supposed to mix, and the language barrier usually ensured they didn’t. But some of the younger soldiers, bored, had begun to learn English and talk to the women. Ren had rarely seen Jean so animated. "It was one of the guard's birthdays. This little one called Joachim or something. He's tiny - doesn't even fit his uniform," Jean laughed. "What happened?" "He told us it was his birthday, so we got a bottle for him. Can't be 18 if he's a day. He takes the bottle off. We don't see him. He must have found somewhere to hide, because when he shows up again he's roaring. Gone. Rifle dragging along the ground behind him and he's laughing so much he pees his pants. And he's lost his helmet somewhere. We

dumped him in the storeroom - by that time he was unconcious. God knows what they’ll do to him when they find him - shoot him probably. We were all laughing at him. Sometimes they're almost human." Ren smiled. "You know that old woman around here?" she found herself asking. "The mad one with the jumpers on and the scarf on her head?" "What about her?" "Nothing. Wondered how she survives in this weather. Where does she sleep?" "The shelter in Preston Park. It's run by the Church. That's where most of them go. Why do you wonder?" "I was just interested." Ren poured hot water into two cups for tea. Even inside, it was cold. "Anyway," Jean went on. "Don't get depressed. There's a party at the weekend for one of the girls who lives in Brighton. Her fortieth. She's got hold of a load of jazz records. Now all we need is a gramaphone. Mavis says she knows where to get one." Ren smiled. Mavis was a friend of Jean's, who said the deportation order on her husband was the best thing that ever happened to her. He had been one of the first to go. "How was work?" Jean asked. "Same as ever. Busy. Stuffed with Germans. A lot of them on leave so more cheerful than usual. Hartman still refusing to take anyone on. Nothing changes." Jean stared into her sugarless, milkless tea, her smile fading.

"No. Nothing changes." Ren set off into town. The weekly trip had become routine and habitual, but the nausea at the prospect of collaborating was difficult to look at with such equanimity. The old police station was on Edward Street, off the Old Steine. As the German headquarters for West Sussex, the lights in the building burned all night long, so it was said, and lorries arrived at all hours, containing Godknew-what. There were walls of sandbags against the entrance, with a turnstile manned by German sentries who guarded against "partisan activity". She had never heard of such activity in Brighton, apart from a few slogans daubed on walls, but the guard never varied. The dread had come immediately she first decided to take the work on offer six months before. She and Jean were barely surviving, and Jean had yet to get regular work in the factory at Croydon. Ren had seen the ranks of local women who entered the station every morning to work as secretaries, typists, cleaners and telephonists. All seemed bright and cheerful, untroubled. After two weeks of eating potatoes she had caved in. Even Jean had agreed. The German officer who had taken her details had been politeness itself, even hinting he understood how difficult it must be for proud people to work for those who had invaded their country. But she did not feel proud, then or later. For the last month she had been tutoring a young officer called Schellenburg. He was hard-working but humourless and not very bright. She stuck to business and discouraged informality, which seemed to suit the

pedestrian officer. She knew familiarity with him would only make her feel worse. Her identity card was checked at the front entrance and she walked through the long, brightly-lit corridors to the room where she taught. The institutional feel of the building reminded her of St John's. Secretaries and typists going home passed her in the corridors. The English in the building avoided eye contact with each other. The Germans were polite, nodding, smiling and holding open doors. The building was warm and she could feel her face glowing. It was the only truly warm place she knew, unaffected by fuel shortages that crippled everywhere else. She thought of the old woman that afternoon. Would she ever know heat and comfort like this? The room was on the second floor, up a flight of stairs at the back of the building. Plain white walls and ceiling, no pictures, a table and chairs and a blackboard. Schellenburg was always the regulation five minutes late - the only sign of character she had yet determined in him. She wondered if it was because he found their positions incongruous. The Germans referrred to the English half-jokingly as Eingeborenen colonial natives. She wondered if Schellenburg called her that behind her back. She set out her books and pencils on the table and sat down to wait. He didn’t come. She had no watch, but had developed a good sense of time passing. After the usual five minutes, she began to ponder going to look for him. Every time the sound of boots came along the corridor, she convinced herself it would be him. Each time they faded into the distance. She knew she

should get up, but a lethargy had overtaken her which was impossible to shake off. She wanted to sleep. She wondered how many others had sat in rooms in this building, in the basement probably, their minds on anything but sleep. Finally, a pair of boots stopped outside the door. They seemed to hesitate, then the door was opened. The face that appeared was familiar, but not that of Schellenburg. It took her a moment to realise who it was. The officer on the train going up to Leeds. The one who had talked of Russia and given her a cigarette. The nice one. She was confused. Hadn't he said he was going to Scotland? She could feel her face colouring, remembering the thoughts she had had of him and the terrible shame they had provoked. "Good evening." He smiled at her confusion. "Hello." He bowed to her. "I'm afraid your student Schellenburg isn't it? - will not be able to make his class. He asked me to extend his apologies." "Oh. I thought you were in Scotland?" "I was only escorting them to Scotland, to oversee their journey and give advice, so to speak. Then I come back to await the next consignement. I suppose I am a bit of a teacher, like you." "What a coincidence." "Not really. Brighton is not large, and since you work at the headquarters... I am often in the coastal towns, supervising arrivals and departures." "Troops don't arrive in Brighton, surely?" He smiled, unabashed. "No, they don't."

"Well, if there’s no lesson this week, I’d better be getting back." She felt irritated. She could have done with the money from the lesson. She gathered her books under an arm and pulled her coat from the back of the chair. The German cleared his throat nervously. "I wondered if by any chance you would accompany me into Brighton for a drink? Since there’s no lesson, I thought you might have the next half-hour free? I would be very grateful." Once again she was thrown by his politeness. Her mind raced for excuses she could give, but none would come. She hesitated only for a second, but the German missed nothing. "I realise it would be ... difficult. But how much harm can one drink do?" She hesitated again. She remembered the looks people used to give, still did sometimes, a mixture of sadness and disgust. She had given a few herself. If she did this, it would break an iron rule, despite all the offers in the cafe. His English was so good, if he would only have worn civilian clothes, nobody would have known. She was thinking this way because she wanted to say yes. And that made her more confused. The German took her hesitation as imminent victory. "We could go to a public house, a quiet place near here." Public house was the first indication English was not his first language. "I'll try not to have anyone shot while we’re there." She laughed despite herself. "I don't even know your name." He beamed.

"That is easily remedied. I am Henrik Linz. I believe that’s Henry in English." They set off and, she had to admit, it wasn’t that difficult. She was grateful they were going nowhere near where she lived and were unlikely to meet anyone she knew. Linz offered her his arm, but seemed to understand when she didn’t take it. It was getting dark and the streets were almost empty. She noticed the German walked with a limp. She supposed it was a war wound, but she did not want to encourage the intimacy of asking. Again, he missed nothing. "Forgive me if we don't walk too fast. I don't have a very good leg and it's difficult to keep up. You can run away quite easily." He smiled. She had felt disgusted with herself the second they left the station. But he made it impossible to stay like that. His manner made it almost easy to forget all those she felt she was being disloyal to. She tried to think of other things. "How did you hurt your leg?" "In Russia." "Did you get shot?" "Not quite." He said nothing more, as if reluctant to provide further details. She remembered the bitterness on his face when he had mentioned Russia on the train. The smile had left his face, although eventually he spoke again. "I got frostbite. Near Moscow. I shouldn’t really tell you where but it probably does not matter. They evacuated me out. It's cold in Russia. Cold like you could not imagine. Now I'm short of toes on one foot." He smiled ruefully.

"What's frostbite?" "If your toes and fingers get too cold, really cold, they freeze and die. The blood inside freezes. The bit that dies has to be amputated. We are losing tens of thousands of men with it, although I certainly should not say that." "Does it hurt?" "It did at the time, but not now. Not any more." They walked on in silence, choosing a pub on St James Street, only a few hundred yards from where she had once lived. It was dark and mercifully quiet, with only the landlord and two middle-aged ladies in the public bar. Ren immediately chose the saloon instead, which was deserted, but she found her selfconciousness had returned with the eyes of others upon them. She remembered coming into this very pub with Jean, years before. Linz showed her to a chair and asked what she would like to drink. She asked for whisky and water. She was relieved they were not in the eyeline of the two women in the other bar, and the barman served Linz with indifference. She looked around. It had changed little from what she remembered. The same sofas and prints on the walls, the same copper pans and low beams above her head. Of course the pub was empty now, and she remembered when they had to fight to get into the place. She and Jean had sat, laughing, at the bar, trying not to return the looks of the spivs down from London and on the look-out. The place seemed to have shrunk in some way. Linz came back and sat opposite her. She felt ashamed, tense, and tongue-tied. He was the first man she had “mixed” with since the invasion. The men she

had known had gone. Their faces were flooding back now, bringing only misery. She could feel the tears coming back again. She tried to stop them. "What are you thinking?" Linz asked. He sipped his beer quietly. She had the feeling he knew exactly what was in her mind. She felt naked in front of him. "I feel ashamed of myself. Sitting here drinking with you. After all that's happened." Linz said nothing, but lowered his eyes to the floor. "I don't mean you personally," she went on. "It's just difficult. To be here, with you, sitting drinking in a pub. As if it were the most normal thing." Linz nodded. "I know. Nothing is normal anymore. Not for you or for me. Not for any of us." "Where did you learn such good English? You should be teaching it, not me." Linz stared at one of the prints on the wall. "My mother was English - from Bristol, actually. She moved to Germany before the first war. Then she taught me as a child. I think it always remained her favourite language. She always said she hated German - too harsh and ugly." "They are still alive?" "My father died in the war, the first one. He was one of the last killed. My mother died shortly afterwards. After he had gone there was nothing left for her. She felt marooned. I do not think she felt she could come back here after marrying a German. Yet there was nothing for her in Germany - she had no friends." "I'm sorry."

"She died of influenza, on the surface at least. But I think she died because she wanted to. People do that. The physical cause is only secondary. At least some of the time." He took a gulp of his drink and looked at her. "She was a bit like you. She felt she had betrayed people, when all she had really done was be a human being, involved with another." "You don't think she was right to think that?" "Was she right?" He shrugged. "I don't know. Perhaps she was. A country is only ever the product of what its people think it is." Ren sipped at her drink. She remembered another night when a man like this, quiet and gentle, had said the same thing, and told her of his father's loss destroying his mother. Finlay had looked like Linz did now. Tired and old beyond his years. She swallowed. Linz asked if she wanted another drink. For a moment she was tempted to say no, but something stopped her. He looked surprised and went off to the bar smiling. She was left with a growing disquiet. I’ve been safe for two years, she thought, letting nothing touch me. Don't spoil it now. She would have this drink and leave. When he returned they discussed English pubs and their equivalents in Germany. The conversation was easy and inconsequential. It allowed her mind to wonder on to what had been said before. Did she really feel she was betraying something, or someone, by talking to him now? Or was she merely frightened of what others might think? Inadvertently her eyes went to the door of the bar. She dreaded anyone coming through it.

His eyes followed hers and he knew. "I’ll tell you something, Ren." It was the first time he had used her first name. "When I was in Russia I saw things. Terrible things we did to the people there. Things I could not believe my countrymen - my friends - were capable of. That’s why I got the frostbite. I took my boots off one night, drank a bottle of schnapps, and left my feet in the snow, all night. I watched the toes rot and die in front of my eyes. Just to get out of there, because I wanted no part of it. It was only just starting then, and people didn't realise. Now you would be shot for a self-inflicted wound." He paused. "I cannot defend what’s happened in England, because I have seen worse elsewhere." "But why can't it be stopped?" Even as she asked the question she realised how stupid it was. "It will be, eventually." He spoke to her eagerly. "The Russians will win, and their revenge will be terrible, and we will have deserved every bit of it. Sometimes it is not just nature that has to take its course. Mankind as well. We will only realise we were wrong when we are defeated. That is the nature of war, and of Germany." "And you will carry on regardless?" "I am like you. Even if there is nothing wrong with doing so, I cannot betray my country. Not again, after Russia. Humans don’t like to be alone." He looked at her suddenly. "It’s true, is it not? None of us like to be alone. That's why you fear being here with me. In case it ostracises you from your own people." "You get used to it," she said. "You took so many away."

"Do you know someone who was killed or deported?" "I know many people." She regretted the turn the conversation had taken. "Someone special?" She shivered. It was past the time to leave. "I knew someone once, years ago. I liked him. I don't know if he liked me. I never found out. Then he joined the army and that was the last I heard. You came and I never saw him again." The conversation was over for good. It had reached the unbridgeable divide between them. It was time to go. She drained her glass and set it down on the table. "I really must be getting back." The door of the pub opened and an elderly couple entered. As she looked at them, they caught her eye briefly, their expressions neither condemnatory nor welcoming. Just blank, like everyone else's. Her heart, which had begun to thump in her chest, slowed. Linz left his beer undrunk as he stood up with her. "Would you allow me to escort you home? There are a lot of soldiers around preparing for leave and in high spirits. If you understand." She understood only too well. "I'll be fine. They'll still be in the pubs and on the seafront." "Are you sure?" "Quite sure, thank you." Why did she feel she was being ... well, stuffy about it? Perhaps it was the look on his face. The smile was back, but sad and rueful, no longer happy. They gathered their coats up and left. The landlord did not say goodbye. The street was deathly quiet, even

though curfew would not begin for another two hours. Her breath made clouds of white in the dim light. She rather wished Linz would offer one of his cigarettes, but he did not appear to be smoking this night. He stared at her. "Could I at least walk you to the end of the road? I have to go back to the station tonight anyway." His voice was gentle, requesting, totally unGerman. They walked to the end of the road, then turned right to the police station. They stopped outside, by the sandbags. The lights were blazing away as always. "Are you quite sure?" he asked again. "Quite sure." She looked up at the lights. "Don't you people ever sleep?" He laughed. "No, we never sleep. Very industrious, the Germans." She did not return his laughter. "Good night, Ren," he said, holding out a hand. When she gave him hers, he kissed it in a gesture she found absurdly formal. "I would be grateful if we could repeat this evening sometime. It has been very nice." She nodded. "Goodnight." She pulled her hand away and walked off. When she looked back, Linz was standing where she had left him. He waved at her. She had to stop herself waving back. She walked back through the dark and empty streets, hugging her coat around her in a gesture that

had become automatic. She walked away from the sea, past the monument to the dead of the first war, beside which a German soldier stood sentry. When she got to the top of the Steine, she cut through to the road Finlay had lived on, and on which she had stayed briefly herself, a lifetime ago. She had walked past the house many times since then, although the windows were always dark and unlit, and there was never any sign of Mrs Brockenbury, the landlady. The house was unlit tonight, as usual. Ahead she could see a crowd of men spilling out on to Preston Circus from the pub on the corner. She felt herself tense. They wore black uniforms, but she was too far away to tell whether they were German SS or one of the English groups. To join one of the fascist movements made an application to avoid deportation more likely to succeed, though most members seemed to join out of conviction anyway. She shuddered. SS in the south were a rarity - these were more likely to be blackshirts. She crossed the road as unobtrusively as possible, then heaved a sigh of relief. Most of the men seemed to be going back into the pub. She could hear laughter inside over the sound of a piano playing. She passed Preston Circus and went on up the hill. In the darkness under the viaduct there was movement in the shadows. She quickened her pace. Her heart started to thump. "Hello." The voice was English, little trace of any accent, although it did not sound pleasant. She pretended not to hear and hurried on. She heard the sound of boots behind her and then the voice again.

"’I say. Hello there." The voice was drunk and already belligerent. She could no longer ignore it. She turned to stare into the darkness under the bridge, looking slightly away to see better. At first there was nothing, then a dark figure appeared. The man was huge, with a puffy face and a dark uniform. She could smell the beer as he came closer. He was probably from the group in the pub, she thought, up here to be sick or urinate. Her heart was hammering now. These people were the worst, in many ways. Worse than the Germans. "What are you doing here at this time of night?" The words were slurred and the man staggered as he said them. He seemed so drunk he probably would not be able to run even if had wanted to, she thought. She turned around and began walking away up the hill.Immediately she felt a hand on her shoulder. Her reaction was instinctual. She shrugged the hand off and backed away, turning to face the man again. "Get off me, you pig." Her voice was too high, more frightened than angry. The tension of the evening added to fear. She could tell the drunk had noticed as well. His face broke into a leer. "No need to be so unfriendly, fraulein." The blackshirts were always using German words, apeing their masters to an extent even the Germans found embarrassing. "I was only trying to say hello." As he came out of the shadows towards her, she could see his eyes clearly now. He stopped in front of her, towering over her by at least a foot. She debated whether to run. Part of her wanted to hit the man, but

she was frightened of enraging him. She could feel anger and frustration bubbling up inside her. He was standing so close now, she could smell the sweat, even in the freezing night air. "Why don't you come and have a drink with me and my comrades and stop being so miserable, eh?" He grabbed her arm as he spoke. She tried to pull away again, but this time he was expecting it and his grip was firmer. "Let me go. I want to go home." She was appalled at how pathetic she sounded. "Well then I'll accompany you home, my dear." The man's gaze seemed fixed upon her. He was no longer slurring his words and seemed less drunk now, and there was a gleam in his eyes that frightened her even more. She pulled away again, but his grip only tightened. "You are hurting me." "Well, why are you being so snotty, then?" Anger twisted the bloated face. The gleam in his eye brightened and was nothing to do with drink, and she was terrified. She could think of nothing to say that would not enrage him further, or humiliate herself. For a second, the two of them stood there, face to face, his hand still gripping her tightly. Time seemed to have stopped. Then, from the silence behind them, there was a sharp, distinct click, like a door latch being thrown. Immediately, the drunk's grip on her loosened. When she looked up into his face, she saw that he was transfixed by something over her shoulder. The gleam in his eyes had died and now they sparkled with fear. She turned around and Linz was barely 10 feet

away. He had come so silently under the shadows of the viaduct neither of them had had any idea he was there. Now he stood watching the drunk intently, saying nothing. Ren could just make out his uniform and the blank expression on his face. So could the drunken blackshirt. He could also make out the gleam coming from within the right hand that hung loosely down by Linz's side. The assailant released his grip and backed away. His voice, speaking now to the dark figure in the shadows, was hesitant and frightened. "Look, I'm sorry. Just being friendly. I didn't mean anything by it." As he was speaking, he was backing away from Linz, down the hill. He backed further, then turned and stumbled off in the direction of the pub, his boots crashing on the stones of the pavement. Ren watched his departing figure, then became aware Linz was looking only at her and ignoring the stumbling figure. His face was still without expression. He holstered his pistol. She had not even noticed him wearing it earlier in the evening, although all officers had them. He looked back at Ren. He nodded at her curtly, a stranger, then turned and walked off down the hill, as silently as he had come. Within seconds he had disappeared. Ren stared after him until he was out of sight, then turned to walk on up the hill towards home. Lying under the threadbare blankets in her bedroom, she found it impossible to sleep. In some profound manner, Linz had disturbed her. She realised what it was, of course. She had never in two years allowed herself to be approached by a

German, and in that was a certain pride. A recognition of all that she and others had lost. She felt that something inside her, something she had nurtured and cherished, had broken. She had dishonoured all those who had gone. She could hear their silence. She slept fitfully, waking several times. Towards morning she could not trick herself back into sleep, and a glow from the window suggested dawn was about to break. Usually Jean had already gone off to work by the time she awoke, but this morning she could hear quiet footfalls as her friend got ready for the day ahead. She threw the bedclothes back. Even with preparation, and the thick jumper she wore, the shock was terrific. Her feet on the bare floorboards felt numb. She quickly threw another jumper on, with socks and a skirt. Jean was surprised to see her up. It was not yet five o'clock. "Want some tea? You were late back." "Yes." She was ashamed to admit what had happened. Especially to Jean. "Everything all right?" Jean poured water from the kettle into a pot on the table. "I went out for a drink. I was taken out, actually. By a German." She scoured Jean's face for a reaction. The look that came was merely quizzical, a slight arching of the eyebrows. "So you've conceded, have you? Ren the collaborator. Just shows, everyone has their price." "It was only a drink. I couldn't get out of it. He drowned me in politeness."

Jean handed her a steaming cup with a sympathetic smile. "Relax." "I thought you of all people..." "Would scream at you? Jerry-Bag! I cannot be bothered anymore. Some of them are human beings, I suppose. That's what makes it so difficult for us, isn't it? It's exhausting to have to carry on hating all the time." "But it makes you feel so disloyal." "Disloyal to what?" For the first time there was anger in Jean's voice. "Everybody in this country is having to come to terms with them and deal with them in some form or another. No-one can escape it except for the soldiers who took to the hills up north and they're probably all dead now." She cut slices from a hunk of bread. "All that stuff about fighting on the beaches and never surrendering and what-have-you. It was all rubbish. It was all right for Churchill - he could bugger off to Canada and get out of it. For the rest of us it's different. If he's a nice bloke I cannot see what's wrong with it. Why crucify yourself?" "Jean!" "Well..." The passion in her voice died as she sipped her tea. Ren said nothing. It was the exact reverse of what Jean had always previously believed. Jean looked at her as if she had read her mind. "I know. It's strange hearing this from me, of all people, isn't it? But after a while your perceptions about what's right and wrong change, don't they? Or you just get tired out by it all. Anyway, I have to get to

work otherwise I don't eat. Some of us haven't got friends in high places. Like you. Just joking. I'll see you tonight." She kissed Ren on the cheek, put on her coat and an old threadbare woolen scarf, and was gone. Ren took her tea and went to stand by the front window, watching the sky slowly lighten. Everything felt different somehow, and she fought a rising tide of panic the feeling instilled in her heart. The words Jean had used kept revolving around in her mind. Your perceptions change... She was not sure she wanted to live in a world where "perceptions" could change so much - where so much could be forgotten. She stood staring out of the window for a long time. The snows came as February drew to a close. Ren sat at the window of the front room, staring at the flakes settling on the grass outside. The evening before she had taught at the police station. There had been no sign of Linz for three weeks, and she had felt some element of equilibrium return. Eventually she got up to wash and dress. She would be early today, but it did not matter. She was often early. The water was cold as usual. She brushed her teeth without toothpaste, washed her face without soap. Both were luxuries they could seldom afford. She pulled a brush through her hair and pulled on her overcoat. The pavement outside was already layered with a thin film of snow. The crunching sound under her thin soles made her shiver as it set her teeth on edge. She thought of the beggars in the streets and the partisans

who were supposed to live in the open like wild animals in the north. How did they survive in this? In the snow it was common now to see homeless people dead on the street in the mornings - she had seen several herself. The ones who had not got shelter. They would be removed during the day. She could feel the first gnawing of hunger in her stomach as she walked, so she lit a cigarette. As it did every morning, the tobacco made her feel sick and light-headed. But it took away the hunger. She walked down past the station with its huge awnings covering the damage and the first clankings of the early morning trains. Even at that time, the station would be crowded with troops, the beggars who pleaded with them for food or money, and the little boys who always found soldiers so fascinating. She wondered vaguely if Linz would be there, supervising troops being sent on leave or up to the north. She hurried on, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Down North Street, the scene was more familiar. Shops were opening and stallholders setting up their wares. A few delivery vans were making stops. The feeling of normality, displaced by the thought of Linz, returned. It did not last. As she came within sight of the cafe, she could see from far off white marks disfiguring the glass front of the building. The street seemed unnaturally quiet, though she was not sure if this was her imagination or not. The feeling of dread returned. She saw that one of the shop's windows had been smashed. Fracture lines in the glass spread out from one point like a fan. Had it been a bomb? There had been partisan attacks before, though not in Brighton. A restaurant in

Nottingham had been blown up, killing everyone inside. Or perhaps an unexploded bomb, like the ones the Germans were having to diffuse every day. But why were the other buildings intact? They would have been smashed as well, and this was too little damage for a bomb of any size to have caused. And then she could make out the white marks on the front of the glass were letters, roughly painted, and she understood. Below each letter, lines of white fell vertically where the paint had dripped. Jews Get Out. Next to the words was a crude swastika. Ren stared and began to feel sick. She stopped walking. Of course. She did not doubt the words were aimed at Hartman and Isobel. Something in their manner, the way they concentrated fiercely on what they were doing whenever the subject arose, had convinced her they were Jewish. Wasn't Hartman a Jewish name anyway? She realised - with horror - that her first impulse was to run away. She forced herself to walk towards the cafe. She could see the front window, usually steamed up with the cooking inside, was still clean and dry in the places where it had not been smashed. Somehow it had stayed up instead of cascading into the street. Bricks from the smashed theatre opposite still lay on the pavement. It was impossible to stop her mind from racing with questions. And of course she knew the answers to them all. Did it really matter if the Hartman's were Jews? No. If the fascists who had done this thought so, that would be enough for the Germans. Hartman had made friends with many officers who frequented the cafe,

and surely they would see that he came to no harm? She knew even as she thought it she was clutching at straws. None of it would matter. It never did. She had to fight the urge to turn and run as she approached the cafe. Conquering the impulse lent her calm as she opened the cafe door. She went inside. She was more disturbed by the scene inside than outside. Its very normality shocked her. The chairs and tables with their checked tableclothes were dotted around as usual, salt and pepper pots on each one, and Hartman sat at one of the tables, staring out into the street through the shattered glass as of old. A cigarette was in his hand and there was a packet by his elbow. But there was no noise of Isobel washing dishes and preparing in the kitchen and Hartman's face, usually red as a cherry from the heat of the kitchen, was deathly pale. The bones of his face seemed to have shrunk, so the face sagged and the skin hung down in folds, yellow and pallid. Ren noticed deep bags under his eyes that had never been there before. The light in the eyes themselves, usually so vivid, was gone. He barely looked at her, and said nothing. She closed the door as quietly as she could and walked over to sit at his table. He continued to stare as if transfixed over her shoulder at the smashed glass and the world outside that had so suddenly invaded. He looked tired beyond endurance. "What happened, Max?" He took a long time to answer. Eventually he sighed - the first audible sound he had made since she had entered. "Everything has happened. Our time has come."

"What do you mean your time has come?" she said. For the first time he looked directly at her. His eyes were still dull and hooded, but deep within them a light burned now, flickering to life. "They came this morning, just after curfew." He indicated the window. "They were drunk. We thought we would be firebombed but they settled for the paint and the bricks. Then when they’d gone the Germans arrived. They asked questions about what had happened. And the words outside. You know how it is." "What did you tell them?" "What could I? They were just young idiots who had had too much to drink? That we are not Jews. What does it matter? They will not believe us. It is only a matter of time before they come back." Ren fought back tears. "But this cannot happen - not to you." Hartman spoke to her bitterly. "Of course it can. They are the masters. They do as they wish. Who can stop them?" He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. The dish was overflowing. "Where's Isobel?" "Upstairs, trying to sleep. She is all right. Quite calm." "But this cannot be happening. They cannot hurt you. What about all the soldiers who eat here? They like you. They will not believe what a bunch of drunken fascists say, will they?"

Hartman shook his head patiently from side to side. It seemed to cost him an enormous effort of will to speak. "Don't you see? The fact they know me, that they ate here, that they were served by me, will only make it worse. They will feel tainted and it will make them hate us more." There was silence. Ren could hear the crying of a seagull. She took one of Hartman's cigarettes without asking and lit it. The smoke made her feel sick again. "Maybe they won't come here. Maybe they won't believe the fascists. They don't like them any more than the rest of us do." "The Germans will believe them. They will find out. I have family still in Austria. They can check. And they will find out that I am Jewish and we will be sent to the camps like all the rest." He looked at Ren and saw that she had begun to cry. He reached for her hand across the table. She was surprised at how dry and cool his touch was - she had expected his hand to be warm and damp. He squeezed softly. "Don't upset yourself, girl. We have known this would happen all along. And in your heart, you have known it too." She cried. His voice combined sadness with wisdom that brought the tears in a flood. She had thought she had lost the ability to cry, but the tears had been waiting for a time such as this. She was crying for herself as much as for Max and Isobel. Hartman was right. She had known all along, and that one day the Germans would come for them as they had for the others. And that life would go on. There were two

jewellers shops on Preston Street. She had bought a brooch for Jean in one of them before the war. A thin wizened man with whispy hair had sold it to her. She had not even thought of him being Jewish -the shop had been called Tanners. But it had closed immediately the curfew after the invasion had been lifted. She never saw the man again, and the shop never reopened. Somehow the 18 months since had convinced her the Hartmans were immune. The Germans were said to have rounded up Jews, soldiers, communists and other "undesirables" within six months. Since then the occupation had become something liveable with, an abberation from normality that was yet sustainable. Now she realised how shortsighted she had been to think like that. The new reality was still unthinkable. She and Hartman sat at the table for what seemed an age, their hands still intertwined across the bright tablecloth. She noticed how clean the white squares were in between the red ones - Isobel cleaned them every other day. Eventually there was a footfall on the creaking stairs at the back of the kitchen and Isobel came down and through to the front of the cafe. When she saw Ren, her face creased into a look of pained sympathy, as if this was happening to Ren, not to herself. Her long rich black hair, usually tied back so severely, hung loosely down to her shoulders. Ren thought how beautiful she must once have been. She was dressed in a red dressing gown under which there was a nightdress. At the sight of her the tears came again.

Isobel came forward and embraced the younger woman, and Ren could smell the warmth of her. The two women held each other. "Why is this happening, Isobel?" she managed to say, aware the question was unanswerable. Isobel lowered her gently into a chair before sitting down next to her. "What is happening to us has happened to many before. We knew it would happen sooner or later." She could not believe the two of them could be so fatalistic. There was no urgency to their movements. It was as if the bricks outside the cafe had smashed not just the glass but their will to go on - they were slow and lethargic, and seemed to be ageing before her eyes. "Surely it’ll be all right? If we just get the windows replaced and the sign painted over. It could be done this morning." she asked. "Surely it can carry on as before?" Isobel's voice was a whisper. "People have seen what it says outside, Ren. They know now or at least they will suspect. Word gets round. Even if they let us carry on there will be no customers. And the Germans have already seen what it says." Her voice was still quiet, but now frightened also. "We saw the look on their faces. We could tell what they were thinking. They said officers would come back to question us later. Us, not the people who did this. Smashing the windows of a Jew is not a crime. The British hated us as Germans when the war came - we were interned for six months in 1939, remember. Now the Germans will hate us as Jews."

Ren was about to interrupt again, but Isobel put her hand up. "What does it matter to them? You know what they are like about the Jews. And what does it matter to us? Without the cafe we have nothing anyway. All our friends from before are gone now, and some of yours too. What do two more matter?" "But some of the officers who eat here are friends, surely? They will help. They won't allow this to happen. People would listen to them." Isobel managed to smile at that, and Ren could not blame her. It was a ridiculous hope. "They can get their sandwiches elsewhere. Even the ones who don't agree with it would not risk tainting themselves by trying to help us. Even the English with their "fair-play" pass by on the other side now." Hartman took up his packet of cigarettes again and lit one for himself, Isobel and Ren. She had never seen Isobel smoke before. Hartman lit them with a steady hand, then drew the smoke into his lungs fiercely, to get it in as deep as possible. His hand came across the table again to grasp Ren's. He looked at her. "We will have a cigarette and some tea, now, yes? Isobel - go and make some tea." Ren did not at first have any idea of the path his thoughts were taking. He still looked at her intently, his eyes set. "We will have tea together, Ren. Then you will go. You must leave." The impact took a moment to register. Its horror was all the worse because she knew, deep in her heart, that part of her wanted to leave as much as he wanted her to. She was frightened for herself as well

as for them. She tried to fight the feeling. She knew if it overtook her, it would be the final defeat, and there would be nothing left. The self-disgust that rose in her, she knew, was the most powerful weapon their conquerers had. With it, they were invincible. She tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the thought from her face, but she knew she would fail. "For God's sake, Max." The tears came again, and this time they were for herself. For the choices she was being asked to make. Hartman's voice came again, quietly, and the look in his eyes was only of sympathy. He knew everything in her mind. "You have to leave. You can no longer afford to be seen here. It will do you no good. Nor, in all probability, us." "But I could help. I met this German officer. He is kind - he will help." She was stumbling over her speech. She thought of Linz. Would he help the Hartmans? Even as she thought it, she felt the dead weight of feeling inside her that told her the answer. Hartman said it anyway. "No German will intercede for us. And you will do no good for yourself by asking one to." He lit a cigarette straight from the stub of the old one. Isobel appeared from the kitchen, carrying a tray with teapot and cups - the trappings of normality in a world gone mad. She sat down beside them and poured the liquid into the cups, without waiting for it to brew. Her movements seemed automatic, like sleepwalking. "Please, Max. How can you be so... resigned to this? Let me try to help."

"No." Hartman's voice was angry, with a bitterness now she had rarely heard. "No German will risk trying to save the Jew." He pronounced the word as a parody, in the same spitting, clipped manner the Germans used. It made Ren shudder. "We are resigned to it because this is our fate. It has always been our fate - throughout history. What the Germans do is only the most recent example. It has happened before and it will happen again. They say we killed Christ, and they are doing God's work to make us suffer. It is all they understand of the Jew. Please don't talk of it anymore, Ren. You were better never to have met us." Hartman relapsed into silence, holding his head in his hands. Ren stared at the top of his gleaming head, dumb with misery. She turned to Isobel, and Isobel took her hand with a tired, sad smile. All three sat and said nothing more and the silence was complete. They still sat in the same position when the Germans came. There were no screeching truck tyres or hammerings on the door, as Ren had secretly expected. Instead just a quick, cursory knock on the shuttered front door of the cafe. Before Hartman or Isobel could get up, the door opened quietly. A German officer stood framed in the dull, early morning light, peering into the room. For a moment Ren had an insane flash of hope it might be Linz, but this man was different. He was thick set, with heavy jowls that sprang from the tight fastening of his tunic. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked as if he had had no sleep the night before. For a second she felt another

flash of hope when she saw he was dressed in grey, rather than black, but then she saw the twin flashes of the SS insignia just below where the tunic fastened around his neck, and the hope died. The man came into the cafe and others followed him in. One was dressed in civilian clothes, with a long coat and no hat. His thin, animal face looked around the walls of the cafe with interest. Two of the other three men were soldiers. They stopped and stood to attention near the door. Both looked bored. The last man was a British police constable, staring at the floor. By now Hartman and Isobel were both on their feet. Ren stayed sitting. The SS man addressed Hartman politely. "Mr Hartman?" He nodded, saying nothing. Ren wanted to be sick. Hartman did not appear to breathe but Isobel was breathing so heavily Ren could hear the rasps of her lungs as her chest filled. She placed a hand on the table in front of her, as if to steady herself. The SS man spoke again. "Hauptsturmfuhrer Reinbek." He smiled. "I believe that’s Captain Reinbek, in English. I am informed that you had a disturbance this morning,?" Hartman still said nothing, but gestured towards the window dumbly. Reinbek followed his gaze, then looked back and nodded. "Good. You and your wife will accompany me to the police station to make a report. I have a car waiting." Hartman nodded. Ren could feel her heart hammering in her chest. The icy politeness of the

German and Hartman's dumb submission screamed in the confines of the small cafe. It would have been preferable if they had smashed their way in. At least it would not have been this silent, icy menace. "You are Mrs Hartman?" Reinbek had turned to Isobel. "Yes." She licked dry lips. "Then I am afraid you will come too, for the purposes of the report." Reinbek's voice, like Isobel's, was quiet. "We just need to collect a few things before we go," Hartman said, finding his voice. It was tired and resigned. Reinbek bowed slightly. "Of course. Collect whatever you wish." While Isobel went up the stairs, a tortuous silence settled over those in the cafe. Eventually Reinbek broke it. "I have arranged for glaziers to come and attend to the broken glass. It would be very dangerous for children. They will take the glass away and board the window up for you. "Yes, yes, of course," Hartman spoke vaguely, as if in a dream, holding fast to the delusion the officer was propagating. Ren understood the implication of the officer arranging for the glass to be boarded up the Hartmans would not be around to do it. Reinbek's eyes settled on her. "I'm afraid I don't know who you are?" he said. His English was halting and formal in the same way the officers at the police station were. "I work here."

She tried to keep her voice level, aware the civilian, and the soldiers at the door, were looking at her. "Were you here when the incident occurred this morning?" Reinbek's eyes looked at her levelly. Apart from the tiredness, they carried no expression whatsoever. There was no hint of irony in them nothing at all. "I only come into work at nine o'clock." "You are not related to Mr and Mrs Hartman then? May I see papers?" Ren handed over her passport and a white registration and identification document issued by the occupation authorities. The German studied them at length. The identity document listed place of birth, residence, occupation, religion, national insurance number, past addresses, and race. It was an offence to be without it at any time. As Reinbek studied the card, she noticed he swayed gently from side to side. She wondered if it was caused by drinking, but thought it was more likely fatigue. He was polite in a way the Germans never were when they had been drinking. Eventually he looked up with a thin smile and handed the papers back to Ren. "Your papers are in order, Miss Amsden. You may go." Ren fought down the twin tides of panic. She was terrified of being dismissed, and terrified of staying. "I would prefer to stay with Mr and Mrs Hartman," she said as loudly as possible. Hartman stared dumbly at her, his previous words forgotten. It was as if nothing held any interest for him any longer.

"I'm afraid the Hartmans will need to help us with a report," Reinbek said. The first signs of irritation showed in his tone. "And I'm afraid you cannot accompany them." As he said the words, the man in civilian clothes stepped forward and whispered something in his ear. He smiled slightly. Ren did not hear or understand it, but Hartman did. He spoke to her urgently. "You must go now Ren. Now. We will see you later." She knew by the expression in his eyes, which had come alive again, that he was lying, and she had to fight back the tears again. He hissed at her. "’For God's sake, go“." The civilian spoke again, this time more loudly. The officer at once became more animated. He looked at Hartman and pointed to the civilian. "You will go with this gentleman out to the car now. I will wait here for your wife and accompany her." Hartman nodded and Reinbek looked at Ren. "Leave now, please." Ren felt overtaken by panic. "But how long will it take?" Reinbek looked at her. For a second, she thought perhaps there was a flash of something across his eyes. Sympathy perhaps, even sadness. Then it was gone.The shutters had come down. "I have no idea." At a sign from the man with the civilian clothes, one of the soldiers at the door came across the room to stand at her side, taking her arm. She was halfescorted, half-pushed to the door of the cafe before she could turn around and stop. When she turned it

was to see the man in civilian clothes behind her. He stared down at her with black, expressionless eyes. "If you make waves about this, it will be bad for you, and worse for your friends." He spoke the words in faultless, whispering English that sneered with every word. When he mentioned friends, the word was accompanied by the slightest raising of his eyebrows, almost unnoticeable, but which highlighted a glint in his eyes. So this is what they are like, thought Ren. She wanted to drag her fingers down that complacent, sneering face, to feel the skin split under the pressure of her hands and fingernails, to see blood appear and feel it on her fingers. Instead she looked once more around the cafe the plain clothes man obscured her view of Hartman and stepped out into the street. She was hit by a cold blast of wind straight from the seafront. She could feel the salt on her face. The street outside was empty, save for the huge black limousines only the Germans used. The presence of the cars themselves, she thought, would be enough to prevent all but the most foolhardy walking down the street. Instead, they would turn about and walk away, as Hartman had said. The barbers across the street, run by an old Polish Jew who had come every morning to the cafe for breakfast, now yawned its emptiness at her. It would not open today. She stood outside the cafe and tried to think logically, to stem the fear overcoming her. Her first impulse was to run away, the same impulse she had had when she had first seen the words and the damage outside the cafe.

She began to walk away, up the street, and she knew as she did so that it was over. If she stayed the Germans might take her, or her presence might make it worse for the Hartmans. The realisation of their power was crushing. With the loneliness and the guilt, she felt her stomach turn over with despair. Nothing had been as bad as this, not even the days after the invasion, when the shock had transfixed people, and they had walked the streets in a daze. At least then she had felt her predicament was a shared one, and there was a comfort in that. Now she felt more alone than ever in her life before. They had all gone - Finlay, Stephen, Michael, her father, now Max and Isobel too. She hugged her coat around her, but it did no good. The cold went through her to the bone. She found herself heading unconciously for the police station. Linz had helped her once. Maybe he would again, even if it was to save a Jew. As she articulated the thought, she clung to it greedily, even though she could see it was a forlorn hope. Surely just as some of her fellow countrymen applauded the crimes against the Jews, there must be Germans who were appalled by them? She crossed North Street, busy with the first activity of the morning. The first shoppers were out and people were hurrying to work, and shops were opening their doors to the day. How could this life go on? It seemed an offence against order, against creation. She walked on. Past the ruins of the old Pavilion, destroyed in the bombing, past the memorial to the first war dead and its stony-faced sentry.

She passed an old man pulling a cart loaded with vegetables, no doubt for sale in the market at vastly inflated prices. He shot her a warm smile and wished her good morning, his mouth a dark cavern in the leathery skin. She did not return the greeting. When she got to the police station, her feeling of panic increased as she realised she had no idea what to do. She urged herself to think. She had no idea where Linz was based, nor of what he did. He might be in Scotland - or Germany. By tomorrow the Hartmans could be in a camp, or on a ship heading for the Continent, to a fate she could not imagine. She took a breath and entered the station, trying to dispel the images already forming in her mind. She walked unchallenged through the doors. There was still the legend Police on the blue glass, though that had long ago ceased to be the purpose of the building. Inside, there were more sentries who demanded to see the pass that allowed her entry. There was a desk to one side with a telephone, manned by a young soldier. It felt strange to be here in the morning. But nothing was normal today. She felt the old nausea she always felt coming here. She swallowed hard. "I wish to see a Mr Linz, please. Henrik Linz. I think he's a lieutenant. I am a friend and it’s urgent." The young man cocked his head to one side, like a bird, and there was the beginnings of a smile on his face. It was a reaction she was used to. "One moment," was all he said as he reached under the desk. He produced a directory and began to look through it leisurely. He cleared his throat. Ren was vaguely familiar with some of the men who had sat at this desk. She did not know this one.

"It would help if you knew Herr Linz's office," he said drily, looking up at her. She racked her brain quickly. "I don't know it, I'm sorry." The German looked back down at his book, leafing through more pages, occasionally stopping at one before moving on again. "May I ask what this concerns?" "It's a... private matter." "I see." The smile was more pronounced now. She tried to calm the screaming within her. She balled her hands into fists until she felt the nails cut into the palms. Eventually the idiot at the desk looked up again. "I'm sorry Miss...?" "Amsden." "There is no officer in the building of that name. Have you seen him here before?" "Yes. He was here recently. I teach English and my student cancelled. Mr Linz told me. It was a few weeks ago." "Ah yes. You’re the English teacher. I have heard of you. I may need your services myself soon, I think." Ren ignored him. They were always like this. The man caught her mood at last and became more businesslike. "Do you know what Herr Linz does, Miss Amsden?" "He said he often had to go to Scotland, escorting troops up there." "Then that is probably where he is now. He may be there some time. A troop transport has just gone

up. I should not tell you that but you don't look like a partisan." His manner was crushingly condescending. "Is there any message I can take for him when he gets back? Or something I can help with?" He cocked his head in the same manner as before. It was perhaps meant to be endearing, but was not. Ren felt the tension and the panic and the fear subside, a fire flickering out, to be replaced by a flat, deflated emptyness. "No. It‘s nothing you can help with at all." She walked out, past the sentries and the sandbags and away towards where the pier had once stood, long ago. She walked towards the front, passing faces that were closed in a quiet acceptance of a fate they had not wished for, but had long ago believed they had no power to change.

1942‘

In any other life it might have been idyllic. The cottage sat beside a stream trickling towards a loch a mile down the valley. No longer much of a home - just three stone walls and half a roof. But it would do. Straw left long ago for passing sheep had rotted. There were no sheep now. It had taken Finlay longer than expected to find he had begun to worry he would not make it. The map had given few clues to look for and he was unfamiliar with the territory. When he finally spotted the place, a fine drizzle had been coming down for over an hour and there was little daylight left. He approached from

the steepest hill above, treading softly through the heather, and settled behind a slab of rock sticking out like a gravestone a hundred yards away. His eyes remained fixed on the tiny dwelling, staring, except for glances to scan the skylines for movement. After an hour of watching, with the light dying, he was satisfied. He gathered up his things and with a final sweep of the horizon stepped out and trotted softly down the hill. Inside, he made a quick inventory of the position. There was higher ground on all sides except to the loch. It could not be helped - sound would carry from at least half a mile away. But no roads came within three miles of here. Safe enough. He arranged the straw with the driest bits covering the sludge below, making a bed for the night. He pulled an old rotting door across to provide shelter from the wind where the missing wall had been. He followed a routine ingrained in his subconcious. He took off his boots and socks, hanging the wet socks over the side of the door before putting the boots back on his feet. He did the same with his undershirt - which stank worse than the straw - before putting his shirt, jacket and overcoat back on. He shivered as the clothes touched his skin, but at least there would be a layer that was drier by morning. Now it was nearly too dark to see, which made him feel better. The clouds would obscure the moon for the night, making the valley pitch black. From his pack he took a lump of sausage - almost rotten - and bread, which he ate with a pocket knife and water from an old army water bottle carried on his belt. He was so tired he had barely any appetite. He saved half the bread

for the morning. When he had eaten, he lay down on the straw and pulled a tin from his pocket. He felt the seven cigarettes - German, like the food - he had left, lighting one while shielding the flame from outside. He put the spent match in his pocket. The noise of the rain on the slates above gave an illusion of warmth despite the damp. He felt the tension in his back and shoulders lessen. He had walked 30 miles in two days. As he stared out of the smashed wall of the cottage, he could see only black, and he had to use memory to recall the view an hour ago. For a second his mind went back further, a chain slipping on a worn cog, to a childhood years ago, before all that had happened. He shook his head. His last acts were the most habitual of all. He put his pack behind his head as a pillow, one of the straps still hooked over a shoulder. He checked the barrel and breech of his gun for dirt and made sure the safety was on, then wound the strap around his forearm and laid it across his waist. From the west there came the drone of an aircraft. The light buzz of a spotter plane, returning from patrol. A familiar sound. The drone of the bombers was no longer heard over this country - there was no need for them. Even now, sometimes it was impossible to believe. He listened until the noise finally died. Then he slept. He woke with a fear that took minutes to subside. It was still dark, still night, and he could see and hear nothing. Eventually the beating in his heart subsided. It was always like this.

He pulled his stiff body out of the nest of straw and put his undershirt and socks back on. They had hardly dried at all during the night. He grimaced at having to dress in the clammy morning mist. When he was ready, he gathered his belongings and set off to march back up the hill, through the mist, to the rock he had sheltered behind the evening before. Then he settled down to wait. He shivered in the cold as the damp clothes stuck to his body. He would have liked to walk and move, just to ease his aching limbs and put some warmth in his body, but that would not be safe. He had to wait for what seemed an age. The men he was waiting for would have spent the night in warm beds and proper cottages not far from here and would have no reason to wake at the hour he had. When they did eventually come, an hour and a half later, the mist was already beginning to clear, and he froze as he heard the sound of boots crunching through the heather. They sounded careless. As he peered around the rock, they made no attempt to conceal themselves, or look around them, and seemed unafraid of any ambush. He watched as they walked up to the cottage and peered through the hole where the missing wall should have been. They matched the physical descriptions he had been given, but he waited a moment longer, checking there was no signal to any of the hilltops beginning to appear faintly through the mist. No giveaways like that. The two stood beside the cottage, looking around in the confusion he had expected. As satisfied as he could be, he flipped the safety catch on his gun and stood up.

It was their turn to freeze as he slowly walked down the hill towards them. He kept the gun pointed at the ground in front of his feet, but his finger covered the trigger. He stopped twenty feet from them. They matched the descriptions more closely now - in their fifties, one tall and thin, longer hair, the other fatter around the waist,thinning on top. But descriptions meant little. The taller one spoke first. His southern accent was more reassuring than anything else. "You must be the lieutenant. Everything all right?" "Fine." There were supposed to be passwords and suchlike for these situations, but they were difficult to set up and nobody bothered. Neither of the two men appeared to be armed, although both wore long coats under which anything could be hidden. "Any problems with the drop?" "None at all. Got some good stuff as well, this time. Newspapers. And socks. Only took a year." He felt himself relax a little. "Let's get inside," he said. The quieter one was only now looking cautiously around him at the hills appearing. The lieutenant pushed past them into the cottage, wondering how such people survived as long as they did. The men had brought chocolate and cigarettes and even fresh milk. All three ate without speaking. The two older men viewed the younger one with curiosity and fear. When they showed him the bag he had come for, they were like children showing off to a parent, seeking approval. He did not bother with the incongruities of the situation. He was used to it. Instead he examined the

rucksack he had marched two days to collect. Inside were individual paper-wrapped packets, 40 in all, each the size of half a brick. The packets were soft to the touch and gave to the press of his fingers. On top were fuses and detonators. Other ammunition would have to wait. The two older men introduced themselves. They did not give last names, and the man they had met did not offer his, merely nodding. Instead, he asked them how far they had come. "Brighton north of here. Moffat. A few miles away." The taller one's companion spoke in a broad Scottish accent. "Garrisoned?" "God, no. Wouldn't be there if it was. The Germans come out from Glasgow occasionally, but they keep to themselves in the main. We don't encourage them." The lieutenant sat and ate in silence, staring off into the distance, a cigarette forgotten between his fingers. The two men found him disconcerting. You heard rumours about these people, what they got up to. They hadn’t seen this one before. He had seemed suspicious of them at first, and now indifferent. They wondered at the history that was etched into the worn, tired face. The man before them was in fact barely half their ages. His hair, cut crudely short, was already speckled with grey, although through the dirt it was impossible to be sure. The eyes must once have laughed, for the wrinkles spreading out from the corners were deep-set. But now the face was blank.

"Where have you come from?" the tall one asked, to break the silence. The lieutenant seemed to shake himself from his reverie. "East of here. The Cheviots." "You have a base there?" "Yes." "How many?" "Only ten now. It used to be more." "Soldiers?" "Some. Others, as well. Stragglers, Jews, some women. Anyone with a bit of... experience." He looked into the sky. The mist had continued to rise, but there was still good cloud cover. No planes up this morning. The fatter one gestured towards the rucksack on the floor between them. "Will that help? Will it make a difference?" The question seemed somehow to encompass more than the bag that lay at their feet. The lieutenant pondered the question but seemed reluctant to talk. "Who knows?" At the lieutenant's instigation, all three began their preparations to leave. "The next drop won't be for a few weeks yet, they say. Will it be you who comes again?" The lieutenant shook his head. "Probably not. They don't like the same people doing the same thing too often. You know how it is." The older man stuck out a hand awkwardly. "Well. Good luck then. See you after the war." The lieutenant took the proffered hand and smiled at the phrase. He felt the familiar loneliness, which he welcomed because being alone was the safest way. He would

have to find cover until darkness before he could put any distance between himself and the cottage. It was not much to look forward to. He shook the other man's hand. The two made to go off as he surveyed the hilltops around them again. Neither of the older men had made any attempt to do so. As they walked off, the thinner one turned. "What‘s your name by the way? Or is that against the rules?" The lieutenant stared at him. "Everyone calls me Finlay. Everyone did, anyway." He turned away from them and went back into the cottage. When he had watched the two men out of sight, he got his things together quickly. The cottage was too conspicuous during daylight hours, even so far from a road and under cloud cover. He had remembered a wood the other side of the hill. It would provide a better place than this to rest before the night. The countryside was too open to risk travelling across in daylight. He pulled the rucksack on, grimacing as the canvas pushed his wet clothes on to his raw skin. It was heavy and would slow him badly - the walk back would take two days at least. He put the strap of his own pack around his shoulders and let it hang down in front of him, balancing the weight on his back. He picked up the machine gun and looked around the cottage, checking that no trace had been left to compromise the place. It could be used later. Only some cigarette butts attested to any recent human

presence. He turned to go, and then out of habit picked the butts up and slipped them into his pocket. As he walked back up the hill away from the cottage, scanning the hilltops as he did so, it started to drizzle softly again. He hurried on. As a child, he could dimly remember being indifferent to the weather, in some abstract recollection. Now it played such a crucial part in his life he had what amounted to a nervous tic, always craning his neck back to see what clouds and sky were doing every few seconds. RAF pilots were said to have done the same thing, checking for enemy aircraft. In the days when there’d been an RAF. He hurried on faster, anxious to find shelter before he got soaked again. It drizzled for most of the day, and he spent much of it lying at the bottom of an upturned tree in the pine forest on the other side of the hill. It had been blown down in a gale and its roots had pulled earth from the ground in a semi-circle of compacted soil which they then covered to form a natural shelter. By burying himself in dry leaves he could remain surprisingly warm. He spent the hours drifting into and out of sleep. At one point he woke to find a fox staring at him intently, its fur glistening with a rich sheen. He wondered how the animal managed to survive here. He had no food to give it, yet dared not risk a shot to kill it and eat it himself, so instead the two stared at each other for a while, until he drifted back to sleep. He was sorry to have lost the company. It looked like he was going to be lucky with the weather. The cloud and rain had lifted as darkness came, and it looked like it would be a clear night. That

meant cold, but there might be a moon to see by. The route he would take was on a compass bearing, since there were few roads to guide himself by. Without a moon, the journey would be far more dangerous, when a badly twisted ankle amounted to a death sentence. He found he could empty his mind and think of nothing when he walked. He made good progress. The moon was almost full, and cast a spectral light over the moorland as he walked. His boots began to make a crunching noise as the frost began to settle, and he went past the first reference point, an abandoned farmhouse at the end of a track heading down from the north, more quickly than expected. By morning, the clouds had moved in with a vengeance, giving him protection from above. He was exhausted and did not want another night in the open, so he decided to press on through the day. With luck, he might make the camp by nightfall. It was forbidden to return during the hours of darkness. He walked on and on. In the end, he made it just in time. The camp had been well-chosen, buried deep in a pine forest in one of the valleys of the Cheviot Hills on the borders between areas that had once been England and once been Scotland. Now the border was an administrative line drawn on maps made in Berlin. The camp was really no more than an old barn, still in a good state of repair, in a clearing in the forest from which four tracks led away to different points of the compass. A tunnel had been dug from behind the barn stretching 100 yards into the impenetrable forest, an escape route in case of attack. He and others at the camp had had to dig it, cutting roots and digging out

soil and clay for days at a time in the clammy pitch black earth. He had remembered the fort at Newhaven. He had only a few minutes of dusk left by the time he got to the outskirts of the forest, and he was nearly at the end of his endurance. He’d walked seventy miles in barely three days. He tried to get his mind to think logically, but it was losing coherence fast. He remembered to check the surrounding hillsides before entering the forest, but the mist and dusk were closing in so fast visibility had fallen to only a hundred yards or so. He checked the track for tyre marks - there were none. He walked into the forest with his hands spread out to the sides, in a crucifix, whistling. It was the signal for recognition. He knew there would be a guard on the track somewhere near the edge of the forest he simply had to wait for the person to appear. He rounded the first bend, to be greeted by the sight of a figure standing in the road. A man with a rifle hanging by a strap round his neck, muffled in a thick overcoat engrimed with filth. A familiar figure, welcoming. Peter Newbury was hatless, and his long hair swept back from a face in which dark eyes stared out keenly. "Hello, Finlay." Finlay looked at his old friend, the man with whom he had shared so much, and staggered. Newbury stepped forward and caught him. When he had revived slightly, he cautiously let him go. "Finlay. You're back early. We didn't expect you until tomorrow." "Got lucky with the weather."

"Had there been a drop?" "Yes. Explosives." The two men talked briefly, but Finlay was nearly gone. He had to rest. He walked the last half mile to the barn alone, leaving Newbury on guard duty. After a mile, the track opened suddenly into the clearing which surrounded the barn and a small lake. The lake served as washing tub and bath, despite the fact the water inside was stale and filthy. When he got to within a hundred yards of the clearing, he put his arms out to the side and whistled again, in case anyone was waiting. Nobody was. The sentry system was designed, with a man monitoring each road, so that a shot would be heard in the event of any approach by Germans along any of the tracks, giving people time to scatter into the forest. If the Germans came, it would be by the tracks. They did not have the manpower to surround the woods themselves. Finlay stopped outside the huge door of the barn, knocked superfluously, and went in. Inside was another world. A fire glowed in the middle of the barn in a clearing well away from the straw bales and bedding around the walls. Five people were gathered around the fire, eating soup from rough wooden bowls. Even from the doorway, he could smell it above the odour of bodies and the farmyard smell that still inhabited the barn. The others looked up and smiled and one man, bigger than the others, got up and came to him. Mark Davies had been a Captain in the army before, outranking both Newbury and Finlay. Without ever having sought or asked for the post, he was the unelected leader of the group. Because he never sought to make or impose decisions, people

tended to defer to him, feeling less threatened by his opinion. He stood a head taller than Finlay, and despite years of hard-living and starvation diets, still filled a huge frame topped with close cropped hair. A livid scar ran down one side of his oval face. A face which, for once, was smiling broadly. "Good to see you, Finlay. Everything go all right?" Finlay eased the rucksack of his shoulders and laid it gently on the floor. He laid his gun down next to it. "There it is. Any soup left?" He went and found a clear space by the fire and sat down down in front of it, crossing his legs painfully and not bothering to remove his coat. His shins ached from the long hours of impact with the ground. Steam started to rise from his damp clothes almost immediately. While the others made space for him, Davies went to get a bowl. By the time he came back, Finlay was asleep. He woke to find himself sitting between Angharad Rees, in her early 30s and from Wales, and Sean Nathan, a small, gaunt, dark-haired Jew of Finlay's age, who smoked incessantly and even now had a home-made cigarette in one hand as he ate with the other. While Finlay ate, Davies filled him in on the events of the three days he had been absent. The soup was thin and watery, bits of potato the only ingredient he could recognise. He tried not to think of what else might have gone into it. Instead he sat and let the fire warm him and allowed his mind to go blank. He felt his face glowing in the heat. Davies had seized on the rucksack and was looking through it

enthusiastically, pulling out the packets of American explosive and examining each one, nodding to himself. He looked like a child with a Christmas stocking. Angharad looked at Finlay. "Why don't you sleep? Mark can store the explosives." He nodded and tipped the last of the soup into his mouth. Angharad lit a cigarette for him. "When will we next get a supply drop? Did the Scots know?" "Two weeks. Maybe three." "Jesus. What do they think we fight with? Bloody Americans." She had grown up in the mining communities of south Wales and had been a staunch socialist before the Germans came. Finlay suspected she was ashamed their weapons and supplies were American in origin - dropped by parachute or landed by submarine - and not instead from the Russians, who needed them themselves. The supplies from the other side of the Atlantic were never enough. A creeping suspicion had solidified into accepted truth that the Americans were far more interested in their official war with Japan in the Pacific, rather than their undeclared one with Germany. Whatever happened in Europe could be left to the Russians fighting the Germans in the East. Finlay was too tired to argue. It made no difference. "Do you think the Yanks give a damn about what happens to us?" Angharad went on. "As long as we keep the Germans occupied they're happy just to sit

back and let the Russians and the Germans destroy each other. Then they pick up the pieces." Davies looked up from repacking the rucksack with explosives. "I thought it was the Germans keeping us occupied, Angharad." Some of the others smiled. Angharad just glared at him. "Well, how long do they expect us to carry on with this? How long before they help? It's been two years now." Her voice was rising to a crescendo the group was familiar with, not just from her. They sat in silence and let nature have its course, aware that she expressed a frustration they all felt. All except Finlay, locked within a private bitterness within himself that made the war and the occupation in some ways a distraction. Davies came and sat behind Angharad, laying one massive hand on her shoulder. The hand could probably have broken the shoulder easily, thought Finlay. "What do you expect, Angharad?" Davies' voice was calm and level as usual. "Do you expect them to invade Europe across the Atlantic? It's not going to happen. It will take as long as it takes, and then we’ll have our country back again. You'll hate it. Churchill and the King back again, lording it over everyone. Don't you remember 1940, after the French had given up? We were all saying how good it was to be alone no more allies to pamper. You've changed your tune." Finlay listened to the gentle voice. Did he remember 1940, when it had all changed forever? It was a lifetime ago now. His mind was

shutting down even though his body was still tense and awake. He got up silently from the fire and walked over to his bed by the far wall. It was only a straw mattress - old straw at that - but it felt like goose down now. He took off his boots and sodden socks - he would sleep with them off tonight. Otherwise it would be a dose of trench-foot like the last war. He shook his head and checked his feet again to make sure they were as dry as possible. His pack, as before, he used as a pillow. This was the best part of an empty, despairing day. To lie in warmth, listening to others still awake, talking about the future as the defeated always did, mentioning the past only when necessary. Yet they could not forget. He still felt the fearsome shock of the invasion. Even after so many months, even after the disasters at Dunkirk and in the skies that summer, noone had seriously believed the Germans would come. There had always been a blind faith, either that Hitler would pull back at the last moment - had he not spoken of not wishing to destroy a "great Empire"? - or the Germans would be smashed in the Channel. But they had not been smashed, and had got ashore, and it had been as good as over. Then had come the white faces of the stunned refugees, heading north with the defeated army to London and further north. Then the government's flight to Canada, the exhortations to fight on a grimly ironic backdrop to the mass surrenders. Churchill's broadcast itself had been made from - of all places - a flying boat in a lake in north London, the Germans had said, even as it waited to take off across the Atlantic to safety as the shells crashed on to the stricken city.

After that, nothing - only memories. Memories, and the smell. The smell of a countryside ill-fitted to war, reeking in a few weeks more like an abattoir, bodies of men and animals everywhere. Finlay had seen the pictures of the aftermath of battle from the first war. But that had been in the countryside of France, not in Brightons, fields and hedgerows of Kent, and Sussex, and Surrey. Many had thought the occupation would be a gentle affair. There had been talk of new beginnings. Political groups with names like Regeneration and New Dawn came forward to meet the advancing conquerors, hoping to reach accomodation with the victors. But of course it hadn’t been like that - indeed, could never be like that. The gas rolling gently down the cliffs to envelop the landing Germans had put paid to any mercy they might have been inclined to show the "great Empire". The invasion had cost them 40,000 dead and injured in the six weeks before organised resistance had been wiped out - far higher casualties than they had expected. That, and the knowledge of how close-run it had been, made the repression harsher. The Germans shot or deported for indefinite hard labour all surrendering troops. Within weeks, the round-ups of "undesirables" and Jews started. Within months, plans were advanced for the wholesale deportation of all men between the ages of 18 and 45 for two-year labour periods on the Continent. It became known as the "British" treatment. In no other country, not even Poland, had the repression been as harsh. Only later was it equalled, with Russia, in 1942. Finlay's mind switched to other images.

The long retreat north-west from London; the arguments about how and whether to surrender. Peter Newbury, lost without his brother, whose body he had left on the beaches. And always, the image of a woman crying beside the road, watching the defeated columns of men marching past her to escape, the remains of her baby a bloody mess in her arms. He knew now what he had not known then, that the key to survival was to know how to forget. But it was impossible. A week after his return from collecting the explosives. He woke late. The others were already up apart from the four on night duty and those who would relieve them. The fire had died to ashes, and the sleeping people lay around it to benefit from its dying warmth. In the far corner of the barn on a rough wooden table was the radio receiver, covered by a sheet of tarpaulin. Alongside it lay a pile of machine guns, rifles and pistols that made up the group's armoury. Apart from the tables and the bedding, the barn was empty. Finlay got up. The stubble on his chin was over a week old. He needed a wash and a shave badly, and he shuddered at the thought of the freezing water outside. For a change, it was a clear and cold morning with little mist. They would have to listen carefully for planes going over, although it did not often happen. Buried in the valley, the camp could remain shrouded in mist for days at a time, which was why it had been chosen. Davies was chopping wood in the corner of the clearing, Peter Newbury was with a woman called

Jane by the lake washing clothes as best they could. He walked over and squatted down on the hard, compacted earth by the water. His two companions had broken a semi-circle of ice in the lake to use the water underneath, and their arms were blue as they dipped the clothes into the lake. They were almost inseperable, nowadays. Finlay was glad for Peter's sake. Jane was a thin, nervous girl with tightly curled hair.. She was probably Jewish, which might account for her presence in the camp, although she never talked about her background at all. Finlay had been told her father had committed suicide with the invasion, although under what circumstances no-one knew. Her nervousness would often descend into a stutter if she had to talk in front of the group. But this morning she seemed calm and relaxed. Two bright specks of red appeared on each cheek as her hands pummelled the clothing in the freezing water. From between Newbury's lips a cigarette dangled, forgotten and no longer lit. "Morning lieutenant. Had a good sleep?" Ranks were preferred to names in the camp, if applicable, although Finlay had never known if the practise had evolved or been decided by some rule no-one had told him of. Jane looked up from the washing. "The Captain has called a meeting for later. I think we've had orders and there's something on. Do you know anything about it?" Finlay shook his head and lit a cigarette. He was content to wait - Davies would tell them soon enough. The idea of "orders" was a misnomer anyway. Groups

like his own were free to do as they liked, with the proviso the supplies they were provided with, such as they were, were used against the enemy. The "orders" were delivered by submarines broadcasting from the Atlantic or the Irish Sea; the men who gave them, the government in exile, now based far away in Canada. Often they were weeks out of date. They would be ordered to attack, say, an army unit that had already been posted to Russia. He got up, stretching his legs, and walked over to where Davies had finished chopping the wood and was carrying it into the barn. Finlay fell into step beside him and helped. "Jane says we had something on the radio." Davies dumped a pile of logs under the awning of the barn where, in time, they would dry. "This morning. There is some sort of camp being built on the coast near Alnwick - the other side of the main road. They don't know if it is military, labour or... something else. Anyway, the orders are to delay it as best we can." "How?" "Blow the east coast railway line. That's how they are bringing supplies and labourers up from Newcastle. They're also landing stuff from Norway there. It won't delay 'em long but it should be a fairly simple job. We can use your fancy new Yank explosive. If we can blow it over a bridge it will take them longer to rebuild and there shouldn't be many troops that far north on the line." Finlay was the only one in the camp with explosives expertise apart from Davies himself, which would mean he would be part of the team that did the

job. He felt neither pleased nor afraid. It did not matter either way. He had done many similar tasks. "When the others come back to swap for guard duty I'll fill everyone in. For some reason they seem desperate to stop the Germans getting this camp up and running." "I see," Finlay said. There could be only a few reasons why Canada would be interested in delaying the construction of an isolated camp in North-east England. The Germans were using Newcastle more and more as a transit point between England and Norway to carry coal and steel to the Continent. The camp might have been connected with that. The other reason was more sinister. Even before the war had started, let alone the disasters of 1940, the rumours were rife. With the occupation, they were confirmed by escapees from camps set up along the south coast and on the Isle of Wight. Surrendering soldiers and men of military age might be shipped to the Continent and forced labour, if they were lucky, but the fate of Jews, Gypsies, communists and homosexuals was worse. They were sent to a special camp somewhere in northern England, and for them there was no return. It was only the latest in a series of happenings once unimaginable, now commonplace.. Later, Davies gave details of what he had already told Finlay. The attack was to be carried out as soon as possible. Finlay, Davies, Newbury and Nathan would

go. The rest would stay behind. Davies outlined the plan and asked for comments. "Surely more people should go?" asked Chapman, a thin-faced, prematurely balding man. With Davies, Morgan and Finlay himself, he was the only other former soldier in the camp. "What happens if the line's guarded? If it's that important it's bound to be." "If it's guarded," Davies said, "we follow the line south until we find a point where it isn't. They cannot guard the whole thing. That is not a problem. Canada only said they wanted it blown - they didn't say where. Believe me, it should be simple. We've done it before and I want as many people in the camp as possible. It is safer that way." People did not argue with him. The ones who would stay in the camp felt relief they could not admit to, and from then on there would be a line between those who would stay and those who would go. The former would do the chores, bringing in the wood, cooking and mounting guard. Those who would blow the line would receive first-call on what food was available. It had been like this before. That evening the soup was enlivened by two rabbits snared in the forest and there was whisky, bartered or stolen from surrounding villages whenever the chance arose. The whisky was fortified by potato spirit Nathan produced from a distillery kept outside the barn. The mixture tasted revolting but had the desired effect. Finlay sat and stared into the fire, feeling the drink burn his throat and stomach. After the food, he was surprised at how full he felt. The atmosphere around the fire had a settled expectancy, as it often did before someone had to leave. The group were conservative - they hated

change, because change meant danger and brought suffering. They left two days later, at dusk. Finlay's joints were only just beginning to recover from the journey to collect the explosives. The shoulder gave him little trouble, but his legs ached with a dull throbbing rythm which filled him as much with fear of what it portended as with any physical discomfort. They would be walking for perhaps four days, perhaps six, and there would be no respite. The journey back to the camp, with the Germans alerted to their presence, would be dangerous. The four men said their goodbyes and set off, Davies leading, Finlay behind him, Newbury and Nathan bringing up the rear. Finlay carried the explosives they would need, and each man carried ammunition and food, in the quantities the camp could spare. On such an expedition, it was more important than ever that the camp - depleted of numbers - was left with ammunition to defend itself against a random German patrol, even if it would never have survived assault by a larger force. Groups like Finlay's - there had at first been many after the invasion, north of the border - operated in a limbo, known and unknown to the local population, thin as it was. There were some outlying farms that were still occupied where the inhabitants could be trusted for the remants of a hot meal and a barn for the night; others where nothing, not even sympathy, could be expected. The reception usually depended on what dealings the farmer had had with the local Germans, and on whether he still bothered to risk listening to the propaganda broadcast from the Atlantic. Many had hoped for an American

landing across the vastness of the Atlantic, or an advance across Europe from the Russians. But it had been over two years now and neither had yet come. As the month's passed, the number of groups dwindled, and the places that would receive them dwindled too. The conditions were worse than they had been for Finlay. The clouds that ushered in yet another steady, freezing drizzle obscured the moon's dim light and made their progress difficult, even over familiar paths across the hills. Several times they had to stop and retrace their steps to pick up the correct one again. Several times also they fell in the dark and this in its way was more worrying. A fall in open country could be fatal. It went on like this for four hours. Eventually, Davies called a halt. "This is no bloody good. We're making no progress at all. I think we should rest up until morning or until the moon breaks through." They stopped to consider. They were in open, exposed country, with only the occasional clump of trees and low stone walls for cover. It would be dangerous in daylight. "Let's find cover, then," said Nathan, trying to light a cigarette against the wind and the drizzle, shielding the light of the flame with his jacket, then giving up. They walked for another half a mile, until they reached a large clump of trees. Finlay reckoned they must be near the main Edinburgh - Newcastle road by now. As they got close, they would have to be more careful. The road was heavily patrolled and the country alongside it bare. The decision was made for them by the weather, as so many were. The drizzle was

becoming heavier, and the temperature had fallen several degrees. The conditions were deceptive, he knew from experience. Options narrowed very suddenly. If you didn't find shelter quickly, the only chance was to keep walking through the frozen rain, since exercise was the only thing that stopped you freezing to death. They started to follow the edge of the forest until eventually Davies, who had travelled this route before, found what he was looking for - a low stone byre, waist high, designed for sheep, which would provide rudimentary protection. The four men could fit into the byre by squashing up against each other. It increased their warmth, but meant the movement of one disturbed the others. All were used to it and too tired to care. Nathan managed to get his cigarette lit at last and pulled the smoke into his lungs gratefully, exhaling with an enormous sigh. They sat with their backs to the stone, staring out into blackness. The rain, mixed now with hailstones, was crashing down, and the four of them stared at it wordlessly. Rain like that could have killed them all. Finlay found himself drifting off into sleep. The noise was soporific, and he could tell by the breathing of the men alongside him that they felt it too. He woke to find his legs and neck impossibly stiff, cramped and cold, and he wondered if he would ever move again. He had slept for perhaps two hours, and the rain had slowed to a faint drizzle. In the east he imagined, rather than saw, a faint lightening in the sky. Davies, next to him, saw it too. His voice was low and even,

though there was an edge to it that had not been there before. "Let's go. We need to get distance covered before it gets too light." The four men gathered themselves for the march ahead. All felt the cramped hunger they were used to, although none felt like eating. All shivered uncontrollably in the damp, near-freezing mist. The shelter had kept the worst of the rain off, but the early morning had soaked into every fibre and pore of their clothing, and only hours of walking would get rid of it. Even in the darkness as the first hint of light crept over the horizon, faces appeared deathly white in the last vestiges of moonlight, steam rising from mouths as they exhaled. Deep shadows ran under each man's staring, glinting eyes. They looked like ghosts from another world; men who had died already, looking only for a place that would grant them peace. A day later, they made faster progress in the first moments of the day's light. A clinging mist, for which they were grateful, covered the hillsides of the moorland over which they marched on and on. Finlay could see barely fifty yards ahead, to the misty figure of Davies ahead of him. Behind him he could see a vague outline that was Newbury. Nathan was lost in the gloom. The mist, welcome as it was, made him nervous. It was unpredictable and could lift in seconds, leaving one exposed on a clear hillside to a spotter plane above. It could also play tricks with sound, distorting and disguising it, so that one had no idea where a voice or a footfall had come from. The ground over which they walked, for the most part sodden

heathland, was open and flat with little natural cover. Occasionally they had to cross one of the low stone walls that had separated one farmer's land from another, long ago. For an hour they skirted the northern edge of a line of hills before unknowingly crossing over what had once been the border with England. Within three hours, they had crossed a road and the land had flattened. The route Davies was taking would bring them to the rail line about ten miles north of Alnwick. The open heath land and moors of the Cheviot lowlands had given way to forrested glens and valleys, which made progress slower but safer. The mist and cloud cover held. By late afternoon, they had stopped on the banks of a small stream to rest. They sat and ate and were mesmerised by the sound of the clear gurgling water that ran away down the valley. Two more hours brought them to the Newcastle - Coldstream road, the main road running up the coast. According to the map Davies studied, the line would be only a few miles on the other side of the road. The nearest station was at Chathill, a small town two miles south. From now on the possibility of being seen by a patrol was far more likely. Newcastle and Edinburgh were both strongly garrisoned and the road would be busy. Even to cross it in the late afternoon was risky. They scouted north for two miles until they found a clump of woodland that would allow them to approach the road from cover. In the forest, under the enveloping tree trunks, Davies stopped.

"Once we cross the road, it gets more dangerous, as you know. Getting back across the road once we have blown the line will be the worst bit of all." Finlay lit cigarettes for himself, Newbury and Nathan, who had already run out, as Davies continued in a low voice. "By the time we blow the line, it's going to be dark anyway. But we need to get back across quickly so we don't get trapped on the other side. We need to put as much distance behind us as possible. Unless we are seen, the Germans will assume the charges were laid by locals. They will look for saboteurs there, not on the moors." There was silence. The implications had been faced by each of them before. They would escape, and others would face the reprisals. It was as it had always been. "Unless we’re seen," said Finlay. Davies was breathing raggedly from the effort of marching, as they all were. He looked at Finlay. "Exactly." "Why don't we wait until dark to blow the line? That cuts the risk out altogether," said Newbury. "True, but the sky's clearing and it's getting colder. We don't want to get caught in the open if it snows. The tracks will be obvious and we could freeze to death. I know these parts - it's going to get colder. By tonight I want to be heading back." The others nodded. None relished having to turn round and begin the trek back without rest, but the snow could be more dangerous than anything and they had all felt the temperature drop. The road beside the forest was deserted.

Finlay felt an eerie sensation as he scanned it through the gloom. It indicated a civilisation he had left behind. There was no traffic. They crossed it at a run and took cover behind a low stone wall. There was at least a mile of open heathland to negotiate before they could see a copse that would give cover from the road. They set off, jogging and bent double, looking back every few yards to check the road was still empty. They reached the copse before anything had appeared and stopped to get their breath back. Nathan, the heaviest smoker, stifled a hacking cough, although there were no houses in sight. Within a minute, Davies was urging them on. They reached the line they had come to destroy half an hour later. To simply blow the line would never seriously hamper the Germans in what they were constructing further up the coast. A work detail could fix it within a day. As he had studied Davies' map the day before, a different possibility had struck Finlay. Less than two miles further north, the line crossed a river at a village called Newham. Blowing the bridge would delay the Germans weeks, rather than days. It was not much, but it was something. The four set off, walking up the line, cautious for any sort of activity. The raised ground of the line left them exposed, but the river it crossed they could see to their right, and this would provide cover. The bridge was perfect. Unguarded, its thin wooden supports already looked decrepit with age, only held together by the metal girders strapped alongside. It was about forty

feet across, supported on two brick arches that fell down to the water below. Finlay scrambled down to take a closer look at them. He was pleased by what he saw. Even the brick of the arches was crumbling with damp from the river. If he used enough explosive on each arch, concentrating the blast, there was a good chance the whole superstructure might come down. He set to work while the others stayed on the bank keeping lookout, taking the packets from the rucksack and taping them together. In the cold his fingers were numb and would not function properly. Davies scambled down to the water's edge to join him. His face was taut. "How long?" "About ten minutes. Why?" Davies smiled like a crazed schoolboy. "There's a fucking train coming. Get your stuff and hide in the bushes." He scrambled up the bank and over the superstructure of the bridge itself. Finlay could hear the sound of the train himself now. The clatter of its wheels on the track sent vibrations along the length of the old bridge. It sounded alarmingly close already. Why the hell hadn't the others heard it before? He re-packed the explosives as carefully as he could and scrambled over to a thorn bush halfway up the bank, lying down behind it and praying it wasn't engineers inspecting the bridge. If they were planning on using this section of the line heavily, the state of the bridge might have worried them already. He lay back and tried not to think of it. If they stopped at the bridge, he might be spotted. If he

was spotted, there would be a fight, and he would die. He cradled his gun across his chest and gritted his teeth to stop them chattering. He was beginning to relax even before the train passed. The level of vibration and noise grew continuously - the train was not slowing. He felt his muslces ease as it clattered with a mighty roar over the bridge. Then it was gone as quickly as it came, the noise of its wheels on the track fading off into the bitter night. He gathered his bag and went back to work. The worst part was placing the charges. He had no option but to take off his boots and socks, which were sodden with marching but warm, and wade out into the freezing water up to his waist, to get to the arches. He had felt cold and tired before, but the water in the river left him breathless. He had to force himself to move, when any minor movement increased his agony. He looked around to see the others staring anxiously down at him from the top of the bank. He waded further out to the centre of the river. Davies had been right. He was shivering uncontrollably now, making it almost impossible to handle the explosives. If they did not get back to the camp soon, he could die. He thought of himself as immune to death, immune to the fear of it, for himself or others. But such a death would be so futile, it was unbearable. He tried to concentrate on the job in hand. On each arch, there was a small shelf just above the water line on which he placed the charges. He was lucky. Without it he would have had to wire the charges to the supports and he doubted if his numbed fingers would have been capable of the task. As it was

he had difficulty enough running a wire between the two arches and connecting it to the detonators on each package. By the time he had the detonators primed and ready, with a wire to the switch on the bank, he had lost all feeling in his legs. He waded back and signalled Davies to join him. "Everything all right?" "Help me put my boots back on. Fingers aren't working." Davies nodded and while Finlay sat on the bank, pulled his socks and boots on and tied them, like a mother with her child at the beach. The job was more difficult than either man had expected. Finlay kept his hands clenched under his armpits, trying to get some warmth into them. Eventually they were done, with Finlay dressed and the explosives wired to the detonating box. It had a small wooden handle that was wound round sufficient times to create electricity to trigger the charges. Davies summoned Newbury and Nathan down from the bank and their watch on the line. The light was fading fast, and thick clouds were gathering. The temperature was still falling. The only good point was a gathering mist which was falling with the dark. Davies spoke in an unnecessary whisper. The clouds from his breath obscured his darkened face. "After we blow the charge we head along the river, quick. It takes us back to the road. Once we're across that we head out into the open moorland. Even if the Germans hear the explosion, they won't look for anyone there, especially not with this weather. We can walk through tonight and rest up tomorrow. If there's snow we'll have to anyway. I know you are tired, but

we can be back at camp within two days. It will have been worth it." Through the clouds of his breath, they could see the gleam of excitement in his eyes as he spoke. He had not underestimated their condition. In the last two days they had covered nearly thirty miles across difficult terrain and were already approaching exhaustion, with another thirty still to go. With the weather deteriorating fast, they would have to keep moving just to stay alive. He could feel himself already seizing up with the cold. It was time to go. The four of them clambered back up to the top of the bank. The wind was increasing and gusts were blowing across the heathland from the North Sea. Before they did anything else, they sheltered in the lee of the bank and ate most of the rest of their food and drink. If anything went wrong, there would be no time later, and they would need the energy. There was cheese and bread and even chocolate. They ate quickly and greedily, anxious to be away. For the last time, Finlay scrambled down to the bank. He made the final connection between the charges and the detonating box, then began to play out the wire as he scrambled back up the bank. There was only just enough to allow him the protection of the far side of the raised bank. He prayed the explosives would be enough. Dew was already settling on the ground and turning almost immediately to frost. He looked at the anxious and expectant faces alongside him and asked if they were ready. The glint in Davies' eyes was more pronounced than ever. He cranked the detonator handle round and

then, with a silent prayer the water had not impeded charges or detonators, pushed it in. At first, nothing. There was silence for over a second - perhaps two - then two deafening roars, so close together as to be almost indistinguishable. The noise was shattering in the ghostly quiet of the dusk - it felt like the whole world would hear it. The four men flattened themselves against the ground as the shock wave rolled over them and away. After it had had passed, the eerie quiet descended again, this time broken only by the faint sound of a dog barking in the distance and the crashing of falling masonry and wood. Finlay screamed at the others to stay down as a cascade of debris landed around them. He felt a pattering of earth and stones all over his back and legs and a heavier thump on his shoulder as a piece of brick landed on it. Eventually the cascade diminished and they were able to get hesitantly to their knees. Even with the damp in the air and the water of the river, the dust was thick and it took a full minute for it to clear sufficiently for them to see the scale of the destruction. The charges had been much more than sufficient. Both supporting arches had been demolished by the blast and the superstructure had collapsed into the river below. With more experience of explosives and their effects, Finlay was the first to recover and react. "Come on." They set off along the edge of the river at a fast trot. Behind them there were the sounds of more dogs barking in the village. They walked on towards the hills and did not look back. By the time they had reached the road it was almost dark and there was little need to

remain under cover and avoid open ground. Crouching beside the road, they could see no sign of lights along its length in either direction. Their boots clattered sharply on the tarmac after the silence of the sodden fields, and in front of them the cover of the dark forest beckoned. Only a low stone wall bordering the road lay between them and its comforting shelter. Davies with Finlay and Nathan behind him clambered over it. Newbury jumped up on to the wall and made a final check for any sign of activity before jumping down. There was a sharp crack. He had landed awkwardly on the compacted earth below the wall. The others were turning away as he landed and heard only the snap and the muffled thump as he collapsed on to the ground. In the darkness and silence the noises were clear and perceptible. They turned around, but were barely able to see the faint outline of Newbury's form, prone on the floor below the wall. He lay on his side, a stream of hissed obscenities pouring steadily from his mouth. Finlay felt dread in the pit of his stomach - he had heard the crack clearly and already suspected what it signified. Davies was already past him, scrambling over to the wall on all fours. "What the fuck was that?" he asked unnecessarily, his voice matching Newbury's in hissed intensity. Newbury put his head back in agony, fighting the scream building inside of him and trying to keep a level voice. "My ankle. A hole in the ground as I came down. Jesus."

"Let me see." Finlay bent over his friend. He clicked on a small battery torch, then tried to pull the trouser leg up to examine the ankle. Newbury gasped and fended his hands away. "Wait. I'll do it." He pulled the leg up and tentatively started to undo the bootlace. "It's broken. I felt it go." "We heard it," said Davies. In the shaded light of the torch, the leg looked pale and fragile, like white porcelain. Without taking off the boot, Finlay pulled the sock down as far as it would go. There was no discolouration to the skin yet, although the joint looked as if it was already swollen. Newbury's breathing was coming in shivering, racking sobs. "Don't take the boot off. You'll never get it back on again," he said. "What the fuck do we do now?" Nathan expressed the thought that was already in all their minds. They knew no-one in the area who could be trusted. Within hours, the surrounding villages would be subjected to searches anyway. Davies sighed violently. "I don't know. Let me think for a moment." Newbury let out another string of expletives through clenched teeth. "It's my own fault. Just leave me." "Shut up," Davies hissed at him. "I said let me think for a moment. Nathan, keep an eye on the road." The silence of unspoken thought settled on them for a moment. If the Germans had heard or been alerted to the explosion on the line, they would probably come from Alnwick, five miles down the road. Brightons in the area were among the most heavily

garrisoned in northern England. Eventually Davies spoke. "Right. We are not leaving you here, but you are never going to make it back to the camp. We don't know anyone to trust around here and it'll soon be crawling with Germans anyway. So we'll have to take a chance. There's a village five miles west of here on the way back - Chillingham. It's isolated. We'll ask someone to take you in. We can carry you there." "Carry me there? Five miles? Are you joking?" "You got any better ideas?" "I just gave you one." Davies ignored him, picking up his rifle and slinging it over one shoulder. "Come on. Let's go. We've wasted enough time already. And for Christ's sake don't leave anything behind." They distributed Newbury's equipment and picked him up between them, his arms around Finlay and Nathan's shoulders, a further string of obscenities coming as he got up. But he could move along fairly well, hopping on the one good leg. Less comfortable were his two supporters. His weight pulled at the already exhausted muscles of their backs and legs. They had to rest more frequently than the injured man himself. They set off shambling and stumbling into the freezing night. It took four hours of halting progress to cover the distance to the village Davies had spoken of. If there had been habitation before that, they would have stopped there. But there was only the frozen, forbidding moorland. The thick clouds that threatened

to unload their burden on them at any moment obscured whatever light the moon offered, making progress even more difficult. They had to stop for rests every few hundred yards, and the stops became ever more frequent. Eventually, there was a cluster of lights, dim but unquestionable, in a plain below them. They had crossed the first patch of moorland and in front of them, invisible, lay the dark bulk of the Cheviots. As they edged closer to the dim lights, they could discern that they came from a low farm building, among a cluster at the foot of the moor. Further on, a sprinkling of fainter lights further down the valley was all they could see of the village. It was nearly ten o'clock, and all four men were approaching exhaustion. As they stopped and looked the farmhouse over, the first flakes of snow were starting to come down. Newbury's breath in Finlay's ear, like his own, was coming in short, ragged gasps, a symptom of pain, shock and fear. Davies turned to face them. "I'll go and take a look. If it's all right, I'll ask them to take you in. We'll take your pack and your rifle. I'll leave you this." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small pistol, slipping it into Newbury's pocket. Finlay wondered for a moment what Davies expected Newbury to do with it, then put the thought from his mind. He knew well enough. He thought of Jane back at the camp. What would he tell her? "What happens if they refuse to take him?" said Nathan. "They'll take him."

"And what are you going to tell them?" "Nothing. The less they know the better. All they will need to know is that we are English. They'll work it out, even if they don't hear of the line being blown. We’ll have to trust them." He turned his back and disappeared down the hill. The two men gently helped Newbury to the floor, where he sat on the snow-speckled ground. He was shivering uncontrollably and probably already in the first stages of hypothermia. Finlay spoke to him gently, but it was impossible to know if Newbury was coherent enough to understand any longer. "These people will sort you out. It will only be a few weeks of hiding out till the leg heals. Then you can get back to us. You probably won't want to come back anyway." Placing his body between the torch and the farm, he examined Newbury's leg. The white skin was now so swollen it bulged out grotesquely. The boot was keeping the swelling around the ankle down, but probably only at the expense of excruciating pain for Newbury. In the torchlight, his face was white. His eyes were closed and all the blood seemed to have drained from him. He was in shock. If they did not take him at the house, he would be dead within hours. Davies re-appeared. "It's an old man, alone. He's terrified and I cannot get much sense out of him but I think it’ll be all right. Come on." The two of them stirred their aching limbs once more, levering Newbury up between them until he was again perched slackly on one leg. They staggered the

short distance down to the farmhouse, then crossed a cobbled front yard and through the open front door of the building. Inside there was no fire but it was still blissfully warm after outside. The farmhouse was starkly furnished. An old moth-eaten sofa sat under one window, next to the empty fireplace. Alongside it were two equally delapidated armchairs. The floor of the house was bare stone. The only light, the light they had seen from outside, came from a small oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling, spluttering in the wind from the open door. Apart from that the room was bare - no pictures, no wood for the fire, only a doorway to the kitchen beyond and another to some rough wooden stairs. In the corner, the old man looked on at the men filing through into his house. He was completely bald, with a wrinkled face and a gash for a mouth. He did not appear to have any teeth. His small eyes stared out across the room at the strangers. Even in the dim, flickering light, it was obvious he was petrified. "Do you have any blankets?" Davies asked him gently. He stared at Davies for a long second, then nodded once and turned round to shuffle painfully up the stairs. His clothes were rags. Finlay wondered what he lived on. Finlay looked at Newbury. He was lying on the sofa, eyes closed, though the warmth seemed to be reviving him slightly and he appeared to be awake. "Peter?" "Yes."

"You know we have to get back to the camp, don't you?. The weather is closing in and we cannot all stay here. We can leave you some food." Newbury's face broke into a smile, forced through. His eyes were still closed. "I know. If you don't go now the weather will kill you. I'll be fine here. There's bound to be somebody around here who can do something with the ankle. What did you say the village was called?" "Chillingham." "Good." The smile disappeared from Newbury's face as he looked at Finlay intently. "Go on, piss off, Finlay. You've a long way to go. You must go now. The old man will be all right - don't worry about me." His eyes swivelled to Nathan, then to Davies. "Best of luck to all of you. I'll see you again." He shook hands awkwardly with all three of them as the old man shuffled back down the stairs carrying a blanket. Then the three men were moving towards the door, towards the freezing dark and the gently falling snow. Finlay was the last to walk through it. In the doorway he paused. He turned to say something to Newbury, but saw that his friend's eyes were closed. The old man still stood, motionless, at the foot of the stairs, the blanket still in his hands, his terrified eyes flicking between the two of them. Finlay tried to speak, but the words would not come. There was nothing to say. Just another loss, first Philip, then Peter, like all the rest. "Goodbye, Peter."

He smiled as best he could, then turned and stepped out into the night. Through the night Newbury slipped in and out of conciousness. The exhaustion in his limbs and mind kept carrying him to sleep, but the pain in his ankle would bring him back to a semi-conciousness where he was dimly aware of what was going on around him. Through his mind filtered dreams and memories of childhood and life before the war. He thought of Philip. When he rose towards waking, he was aware of the wind battering against the windows, blowing flurries of snow up against the thin veneer. Once, near the morning, he was aware of hands covering him with a blanket, and the front door opening and someone stepping out into the night. Then the door closed gently and he slipped back into sleep. He was dragged back from sleep in the early dawn by the worsening pain in his leg. The foot, eased by its position on the end of the bed, had continued to swell, and the pressure against the boot increased the pain. When he was finally awake, sour-breathed and aching, it was to see the old man standing at the foot of the sofa. He had hardly been aware of him, or anything else, the night before. Now he took in the wragged clothes, the wrinkled face and the gash of a mouth, toothless. It was the old man's eyes that held him. They were drawn wide open in a dazed look of pure terror as they looked down at Newbury. Seeing him awake, the old man took a stumbling step backward. Still confused by sleep and pain, Newbury tried to reassure the pitiful sight in front of him.

"It's all right, old man. There's nothing to worry about." He could manage barely a croak. The old man still said nothing, but was now shaking his head from side to side, his eyes bright with fear. Like clouds shifting, the pain subsided, and Newbury remembered the door opening and quietly closing before the dawn. With a sadness he had never known before, he at once understood. He had always known it would come to this. And there it was - he could hear it already. He pulled the pistol from his coat pocket as the sound of the truck engines grew until it was a roaring in his ears. He pointed the pistol across the room. The old man backed against the wall, still shaking his head from side to side, his dark mouth moving wordlessly, silently. A tear swelled from each eye and coursed down the roughened, whitened cheeks. From his mouth there came a sound, but it was too whispered, and drowned in the noise of the engines outside. It was one word, repeated over and over, and without understanding Newbury knew what it was. The old man's face was scarred by sorrow and fear, and the torment in it was something Newbury could feel through his own agony. It took away what pain and sadness he himself felt, and filled him only with a great calm and certainty, even a relief that the cold and the hunger and the loneliness was over. He lowered the pistol as the sound of the truck engines died out, replaced by boots hitting the concrete outside. He nodded at the old man, even managed a smile, and his voice came clearly to him now; calm

and strong. He could see Philip now, really see him. His brother, who had died on the beaches of Newhaven so long ago. "It's all right, old man. Not your fault. Don't worry." He brought the gun back up and as the boots clattered outside he placed the barrel carefully into his mouth. The three who had left walked on into the night. All found it easier to carry on if they switched their minds off and allowed them to settle elsewhere, on some distant memory or interest, like a bee selecting a promising flower. Mile after mile, foot after foot, their progress continued. They did not think about the man they had left behind. Finlay found himself hallucinating with exhaustion, the pain in his feet and legs, and the hunger in his stomach. With the sweat of exertion, it was as easy, he knew, to become dehydrated and die in a raging blizzard as it was in the heat of the desert. From time to time they would stop and suck handfulls of snow, never speaking, creatures from some other existence. With the cloud cover now blanketing them as it deposited its white shroud on the land, it was possible for Davies to select a much more direct route home, across open country, on a compass bearing. It was more direct, but it meant they had to climb higher over the hills. As dawn broke, they passed by a peak which Davies informed them in a rambling way was called Cushat Law. The snow had cleared the mist from around them. As light broke behind the peak, it appeared before them. Finlay imagined some

fabulous monster, arising out of the ground in front of him. But he felt no fear. Skirting a thick forest, the three found themselves looking from their elevated height down a shallow valley into which a thin river trickled. Alongside the river a rough track ran. By now it was light and far below them, at the track's end, they could see a small hamlet. Davies studied the map. His movements were slow and exaggerated like a drunk or an old man, and his speech was slurred and indistinct with exhaustion and cold. "Shillmoor... Down there." Finlay looked at him. His own tongue felt thick and inflexible in his mouth and there was a roaring sound in his ears. He knew they were close to the end. "Let's go down there. We need to find shelter and rest. Otherwise we won't make it back, not in this. We've still got 15 miles to go." Davies nodded dumbly. Exhaustion had robbed him of all powers to command or any desire to do so. He followed Nathan and Finlay down the hillside towards the cluster of low stone houses in the distance. They made no effort to conceal themselves. There was nothing to hide behind and it was too late anyway. Yet even as he stumbled drunkenly down the hillside, disquiet scratched inside Finlay's mind. Something was wrong - out of the ordinary. He felt disconcerted rather than afraid. He stopped to take a breath and let the others catch up and then he thought of it. Even in this early morning, surely there would be some activity? The bark of a dog, the cluck of a hen, smoke rising from a chimney? There was nothing. His

muddled mind considered the answer. It was not unusual for small villages to be deserted. Plenty of the more isolated ones had become so in the light of shortages, famines and deportations. But as he stumbled on, something still burrowed at the back of his mind, worrying him in some abstract way. Only as he reached the level of the track that led through the village did he realise what unsettled him. None of the buildings had any windows. Each building appeared only as a stone outline; where doors and windows should have been, there were only gaping holes. It looked like a model village, only half completed. Yet it was not half completed - the stone was old and the buildings had the settled permanence of age. As they walked up the track to the first cottages, comprehension finally dawned. Around windows and doorframes was the charcoal black stain of fire. The village had not been abandoned, as others had been. It had been burned. As they walked on, every house was the same. The grey Northumberland stone mostly unmarked, but every house a shell with the scorched timbers inside. Some had bullet holes clearly marked in the stone outside, others the blast damage of grenades. Finlay looked through the doorway of the nearest house. The inside was gutted completely, although there was no smell of smoke. What had happened here had happened a long time ago. On the floor at his feet were the blackened cases of shells from a machine gun. There were scores of them, here and on the street outside, under the gently falling snow. As he kicked them, they tinkled together with a sound like a

child's bell. In the corner of the room was something else. Finlay looked at it, then quickly looked away. There were others in other houses. Outside, the snow-capped peaks looked down impassively. Perhaps even now there was another village where the trucks were pulling up, the men jumping off, pulling wire across the main road, smashing the doors down and all the rest. His voice was a flat monotone as he spoke. "We'll rest here. If we set off tonight we will back at the camp by tomorrow morning." The others nodded but did not speak as they looked around them. He felt nothing as he closed his eyes against the bright early morning light. Only the desire to sleep. By the following morning they were back in the camp. A week later. Finlay woke to sunshine and clear cold skies. It would be a day to beware of spotter planes, a day not to venture out of the forest, a day to hide and forget. Outside, Audrey squatted on her haunches, washing clothes in the lake. Its surface was no longer frozen over, but the snows had swollen it. Finlay walked over and sat down, lighting a rolled cigarette made with a mixture of tobacco and dried grass. He watched as she expertly rubbed cloth together, dousing it and re-dousing it in the freezing water. The skin of her hands was pink and swollen. Perhaps that was what was meant by washer-woman's hands, he thought to himself. He smiled at the thought of applying the epithet to Audrey. Like Rennie, the

other Scot, she had a ferocious temper and was a good fighter. Six months before, she had shot a German soldier through the head, in cold blood. Finlay remembered the man's brains on her hands. He suspected the other women feigned ferocity. Not Audrey. "Morning, lieutenant. You’re late up. Got anything you want washed?" With her dark hair and a pretty, almost oriental face, the rough tones of her home city 50 miles to the north sounded incongruous. She had been living in the camp for a year. Alongside her, Finlay was a newcomer. But he had brought experience and arms. "No thanks. Anything over the radio?" "Nothing from Canada. Not much from London either. Just shit about the occupation arrangements for the “Greater German Reich” as they are always calling it now. They’re putting the country under a GovernorGeneral - whatever that is. Like a colony." The radio was the only source of communication with a world they had left behind. There were daily bulletins from the BBC, vetted and controlled by the occupying Germans, and less clear transmissions from the government-in-exile in Canada, transported like the supplies over the Atlantic in submarines and broadcast when they surfaced out to sea. The broadcasts were intermittent, difficult to pick up, and of poor quality, but they at least contained a grain of truth about what was happening in the wars between America and Japan, and between Germany and Russia. In the forests there was little danger of the Germans using directional radar to spot the signals.

Finlay watched as Audrey rang a shirt out over the cold water. The droplets cascaded from the material, then slowed. Perhaps because of the snow, the water somehow looked cleaner than usual. "They must think they’ve pacified us by now what's that word they always use? Regularisation," he said. "They've pacified the fucking English all right. Only the Scots still fighting. You lot caved in, expecting to be treated nicely." There were resistance cells in England, but they were largely aimed at irritating the Germans, writing graffiti and publishing underground newspapers. Partisan groups - actually fighting - operated only in the remotest areas of Scotland, where they could hide and the German presence was thinnest. To have operated anywhere else would have been suicide. Two years after the invasion, their numbers were dwindling fast. Finlay didn’t answer Audrey, but instead sat beside her and watched her busy at her task. Despite himself, he found his mind wondering and remembering. He was brought back by her voice. "Give me a hand with these. The water makes my hands ache and I cannot grip properly." He squatted further down and reached into the freezing, clear water. Before he selected a shirt, on an impulse, he brought his dripping hands up to his face and pressed them onto his skin. The cold made him gasp. Audrey laughed. "Jesus, man. Are you a sucker for punishment." She began to sing a song from her home town, softly mouthing the words. He could not make them out. When they had finished wringing the clothes out,

he helped her carry them to a line stretched between two trees at the edge of the clearing. The clustered branches would shield them from overhead. Finlay worked with the calm, methodical actions of one happy to concentrate on his task. Later that evening, he would be on guard duty on one of the tracks into the forest. It was the worst time for him, when the hours of standing at the edge of the forest allowed the memory and imagination to run riot. He dreaded it. Davies came over and watched them working. His face was creased with a frown even deeper than the one habitually there. "What's the matter?" "Angharad’s ill." "What do you mean, ill?" asked Audrey, carrying on with her work. "She's got an infection. She's been coughing for a few days now, but it’s getting worse. I've covered her in blankets but she says she’s still cold. She has a fever. I'm not a doctor but I think it's pneumonia." Finlay could tell by the look on Davies' face that it was serious. At some point in the past, Davies and Angharad had been lovers. There was an ease between them, as well as an occasional bitterness, that spoke of past involvement. Neither spoke of it, and the others had therefore not asked. Now there was a white, staring quality to Davies' face which sent a chill through Finlay. With the diet they existed on, with no antibiotics or medicine, even the smallest infections could be serious. In the forest he had seen the graves of others who had been here before him, coughing up blood into a pile of blankets, far from home, buried even more

anonymously than the thousands who had gone before. Audrey stopped her work. "Has Chapman seen her?" Chapman had the most medical knowledge of them all. "He's looking at her now." Audrey hung up the last of the clothing and picked up the rough wooden basket that had contained it. She put a hand on Davies' shoulder and squeezed. "Don't worry, Mark. Angharad's tough. She'll be all right. Probably just a fever that will be gone by tomorrow. She's had them before. We all have." As she talked, the harshness of her accent had gone. But it would not be all right, and Finlay knew it when he went to look in on Angharad before guard duty that evening. She lay under a pile of blankets, her own and others, with a small fire glowing in a cleared patch of earth by her head. As he knelt beside her, he was shocked by the evidence of illness in her face, even calmed - as it was now - by sleep. A sheen of sweat rose, not only on her forehead, but around her mouth and her neck as well. The top of her shirt, visible above the blankets, was stained a darker colour by it. Her cheeks and face were deathly white and on one side of her forehead a vein pulsed with a quickened, irregular beat, raising the skin as it traced its passage underneath. Her breath was coming in short irregular gasps. Finlay knew that she would die.

By the side of her mouth was a smudge of some dark red colour. He knew before looking that it was blood from her lungs, and that she had either tuberculosis or pneumonia. Either way it would be fatal. He laid his palm on her forehead, which was ragingly hot, and leant forward to kiss it. He could taste the salt of her sweat on his lips. He did not care if he infected himself. Then he went out into the gathering gloom for guard duty. She was no better when he returned. As others slept, Jane lay beside her, mopping her brow with a damp cloth. She became delirious, and tossed and cried in her sleep, though no-one could understand the things she said. On the third day, Finlay again had guard duty. When he was relieved, he was told that she had died. He walked back through the forest alone. When he got to the barn, it was to find the others gathered around her body. Of Davies there was no sign. They buried her the following morning. Chapman had said hesitantly that they should carry the body outside before nightfall, in a voice that suggested he knew the idea would be ignored. They buried her alongside the others, in a small clearing made a few yards from the main one. Finlay, Nathan and Rennie dug the grave. Still Davies had not returned. "Do you think we should look for him?" Nathan asked. "He may not be coming back." Finlay shook his head. "If he’s not coming back there’s no point looking for him. If he is, he’ll come back in his own time. Leave him be."

When he thought of Davies' mourning, he felt his chest grow heavy in a way it had not done for a long time. The sadness of the other man was a conduit for his own feeling, long since suppressed. His heart had travelled down a road from which there was no way back, and only the suffering of others provided reminders of the world it had left behind. When he returned that evening, he found the dark hulk of the barn faintly lit by the amber of the fire flickering to its death within. The others who had returned were ahead of him, and seemed to have settled down for sleep already. Davies sat alone, staring awake into the embers of the fire, which cast shadows across his face. He did not look up at Finlay as he came quietly in, nor as he crossed the floor of the barn. Finlay stopped behind Davies and placed a hand on the captain's shoulder and squeezed. There was no response. He released the grip and went over to his bed. He lay there, fully clothed, and watched until he saw Davies go to his bed and sleep. As he himself was lying back, there was a stirring from one of the beds nearby. It was Audrey. She carried her bedding over to where he lay and placed it down beside him. She lay with her back to him and inserted her body into the bend of his, so the warmth of her buttocks pressed into his groin. He did not speak. He thought of Davies and Angharad. He wondered if he might feel arousal, for the first time in years. But there was only the warmth of the girl's body and the memory of another woman in a different life. He closed his eyes and slept.

The loss of Peter and Angharad settled like scars on the camp. Winter began to take the forest in its grasp - the second winter of occupation - and conditions grew more difficult. Wood had to be cut from further and further afield, in order not to leave clues for planes that passed overhead more frequently now. The food situation worsened. It seemed it would not be long before starvation became a possibility. The previous winter, the group had existed on stockpiles of food prepared before the collapse, and on the help of isolated farmers. But the stockpiles had run out and the farmers who would still help had no food. Full stomachs were a memory. One dizzying weekend, Chapman and Audrey had come upon a sympathetic farmer a day's walk to the south, who had provided five sackfuls of potatoes and even some cheese, along with a cart on which to transport them. No-one could imagine how the farmer could have come across, let alone stored, such wealth, but with the distance between farm and camp the risk had been deemed acceptable and the food gratefully taken. With no cloud cover, leaving clear wheel marks in the snow at their feet, the two had dragged the cart all the way back to the camp. Davies had been furious, but when there was no sign of them having been spotted, and a snowfall to cover their tracks, even he had relented. It was a bonus, but it ran out quickly. There was an unspoken realisation in the camp that their time was coming to an end. It would not be possible to go on as they were.

The only time everyone was warm together was when they gathered around the radio receiver and a tiny fire. There had been an announcement the previous night, warning of an important message to be broadcast, when the king and the government would address the abandoned nation. The atmosphere in the camp was of restrained excitement, with speculation as to what the messages might contain. Finlay sat transfixed by the bright lights of the receiver as Davies tried desperately to catch the faint and intermittent signal. He caught it only halfway through the broadcast, after the king had already spoken. There was swearing from the assembled company and then silence as the crackling, dogmatic tones of Churchill issued from the metal box. Even with the static and the poor quality of the sound, the voice came through. Hitler is beaten and he knows it. The colossal wars in the east go on and he is being pushed back there, despite the tyranny those countries have seen. The wars of resistance continue; in France, in Holland, in Poland and Czechoslovakia, in Belgium and on our own beloved island. The blockades are having their effect and biting into his ability to prosecute this foul war of conquest and aggression… The voice on the radio was drowned briefly by static before Davies managed to find the signal again. …he thinks he can paper over the cracks in his occupation of our island by turning it into a province of what he is pleased to call the Greater German Reich. But that will not stop resistance to him; in Scotland and in Wales, and increasingly in Brightons and cities of England as well. I call upon every citizen of our still

proud island to redouble his efforts. To take the battle to the enemy. To show Herr Hitler that it will take more than a decree from Berlin to turn our island into a colony. I say this to those same citizens. This war cannot continue indefinitely and this murderous occupation cannot continue indefinitely. You must set your country ablaze. The invader must not simply leave our island, forced to go as the war with our Russian friends drains him of his strength. He must be driven from the island by active resistance, all over the land. Only then will we be able to look others in the eye and say, we fought our own fight, and we won our own victory... The price we will pay will be great, but it is worth the sacrifice. God bless you all. God Save the King... The signal began to break up again as the first bars of the national anthem played. Davies turned the set off, and for a moment there was silence. Nathan lit a cigarette and looked around at the others. "Fighting our own fight? There's your answer. He wouldn't have said that if the Americans were coming. We’re on our own." "But he has a point," said Jane wearily. "We have to help ourselves. Isn't that what the Irish say? Ourselves alone." "A rather inappropriate analogy," said Chapman, a sardonic glint replacing the usual dazed expression. "Look what we did to them." Another guard duty. Finlay shivered in his inadequate coat, his mind an unthinking blank after hours staring up the track to

the snow-laden hills beyond. There had been heavy falls over the last days, which made the temperature warmer, especially at night. Snow gathered on the branches of the trees was melting in the thaw. In between the soft pattering of drops of water there was the occasional clump as a larger piece fell to the ground. He was startled into cocking his gun by the sound of a human footfall, heavy and regular, coming along the path towards him from the direction of the camp. He sheltered behind a tree. "Who’s that?" "Davies." He relaxed. It was some time yet before he was due to be relieved and he had allowed himself to fall into a trance-like state. He was intrigued. Breaks from routine were dangerous. There was always the possibility of a startled sentry, expecting no-one, loosing off a round in fear. It was getting dark, and Finlay had to wait for Davies to come up to him before he could make out the outline of his face. Outwardly, the captain had recovered from Angharad's death, but over his features there had settled a grim melancholy which spoke of repressed torment. "What is it?" "It came over the radio. They want a meeting." "Who does?" "Someone big. They're coming all the way from Canada. That speech by Churchill." "What can they want a meeting with us about?" "It isn't a meeting with everyone. It is a meeting with you and me. Others too. They're sending several people over. Some landed by subs, others coming in

openly, as Americans, attached to the embassy. Cultural attaches and that sort of thing - like in the spy books. The one meeting us is a full-blown Colonel." "What does he want?" "Don't know. Something to do with setting up groups down the south. They want people who know the area. Anyway. I'm just marking your cards for you. They wanted people who knew the south so I said you did. The meeting's next week, in Moffat. If the man they’re sending doesn't have any problems." "How the hell will we know who he is?" "They’ll radio a description of him, passwords, locations, that sort of thing, in the next few days." "You mean he’ll be wondering around the country with details of resistance groups in his pocket and half the fucking Gestapo on his tail? Jesus Christ." "Relax. He doesn't know any of our details. We are meeting him, he's not meeting us. We'll just have to be careful." "What if he's caught?" In the darkness, Davies' face was a black outline. "No doubt they’ll have provided a pill." Finlay was left alone with his thoughts. He had been with the camp almost nine months now; he considered it a home, for all its discomforts. It was a place where he had been able to belong, for the first time since the invasion. For men such as him, there was no going back. The Germans had now deported all military age men who did not qualify for exemption. Those caught now were shot out of hand. It meant they were safer in camps like this than outside them. Going south again would mean danger of a kind he had grown unaccustomed to.

Not the danger of taking a bullet in a firefight with an ambushed German patrol, but the danger of fingernails pulled out and beatings in a darkened cellar, before the long walk to the firing squad. Not a homecoming to relish. He shivered in the cold and hugged his damp coat around him tighter, feeling the old familiar fear come again. Finlay and Davies set off four days later. The meeting was to be in an empty cottage outside Moffat, north of where Finlay had picked up the explosives before. The thaw had continued, assisted by dense low cloud that warmed the air above them. It meant the snow had melted completely in some areas, which made the ground sodden and the going difficult. Two days marching to get there, then a night spent watching the cottage from cover. The man coming to meet them would arrive in the morning, under the cover of being a neutral American, on a familiarisation tour, attached to the US "legation" in Edinburgh. The German authorities no longer allowed embassies in the new "province" of their Reich. Despite the poor going, the soldiers made good progress. They got to what they considered half distance by dawn. They were in a shallow valley of the gently undulating foothills and there was a hunting cabin, disused since the start of the war which would provide shelter through the hours of daylight. It was empty, with an earth floor that was surprisingly comfortable. It was not as cold as in recent days, so they decided not to risk a fire.

The two men ate bread and cheese. Davies pulled a bottle from his rucksack. In the growing light of the shack, Finlay could see the etched lines of melancholy on the older man's face. He envied him the feeling, envied him his sense of loss. He had had something to lose. "I'm sorry about Angharad." The words were inadequate, but he could think of nothing else. Davies was staring out of the window at the lightening sky outside. The view was obscured by years of dirt on the glass. "She never would have come to the camp if it hadn't been for me. The others - Jane and Audrey they have their reasons. But Angharad followed me. She'd been a communist but the Germans would never have found it out. She would have been all right." "That doesn't mean her death is your fault." "Doesn't it?" "No. She came to the camp of her own free will. If she hadn't been allowed that, what is the point of any of us fighting?" Davies shook his head. "What the hell has free will got to do with it? We fight because we have to. If we give ourselves up, we would be shot out of hand. Are you really doing this because you still want to?" "Yes." "And why’s that? Because you hate the Germans and want your country back? Or because there’s nothing better to do? "

"It's good enough reason for me. I'm going to sleep. You take the first watch and wake me when you want to change over." He rested his head on his rucksack and turned away from Davies to sleep. The cottage lay on the outskirts of the town. They repeated the drill Finlay had used before, finding a suitable hiding place a hundred yards away from which to survey it. Although deserted, it looked in a better state of repair than many, and that increased their caution. Finlay remembered the two men he had met from Brighton, who had said it was not garrisoned. That had been weeks ago now. They spent the day sitting in a clump of woodland overlooking the cottage. All day they watched, and all day there was no sign of life at all. If Brighton of Moffat was not deserted, the cottage itself appeared to be. At dusk, after eight hours, they were satisfied. They made their way over a field to the back of the building, where their first impressions were confirmed. It had been abandoned only recently. The back door was unlocked and the stone floor inside clean and swept. The house was even sparsely furnished, with a faded armchair and sofa in the middle of the room and a table in one corner. There were no other signs of habitation, no sign of who had lived here, and where they had gone. The two men settled down for the night, one sleeping or resting for two hours while the other kept guard. This would be the most dangerous time.

Finlay was woken by Davies shaking his shoulder shortly after dawn. "He's here." He felt the usual sense of fear and panic, but this time it was worse. They had made a mistake. Before dawn, they should have been up and in the safety of the woodland above. In his despair, Davies had become careless and had not woken him in time. And now maybe it would kill them both. Finlay scrambled to the window alongside the captain, trying to clear his head. Down the long cottage track a small car was crunching its way towards them slowly. Finlay froze. This was all wrong. Surely their visitor's cover could not be so good he could drive around the country in a fucking car? The only vehicles on the road nowadays were German. This was madness. His mind was in turmoil. If the Germans had come, they would have come with trucks and in strength, surely? He tried to stop his heart hammering in his chest. Behind him, he heard the dry click as Davies cocked his gun. The gesture was fruitless; if the cottage was surrounded, they were gone. "You stay here. I'll go and see if anyone's round the back. If it's Germans we might be able to make the woods before they see us." Finlay fought nausea rising in his stomach. The little black car came on. Perhaps this really is the end, he thought, after all the fighting and the running and the hiding. He felt himself grow cold. His fear was like standing on the edge of an abyss, into which it would be as easy to leap as to walk away. No matter what happened, the

end would be a relief. And then the car was pulling up outside the cottage, still in full view of the window, and the track behind was still deserted, and he could feel his heart quieten. He heard the ragged breathing of Davies, back in the room now, behind him. "Nothing out the back. How in God's name has he got hold of a car?" Three men got out, and Finlay began to think it would be all right. Two of them were the men he had seen weeks before, who had handed over the explosives. What had their names been? He could not remember. He could feel the relief flooding through him, though they were still exposed, and the car was bound to attract attention. He wanted to be away from here, in the sheltering woods and the forest. He wanted no part of this. He turned to Davies. "The two in front. They’re our people." The two men were walking off down the track, to where it joined with the road, on the lookout for passing patrols. They would stick out like sore thumbs if one passed. They had looked amatuerish when he had met them before but this was worse. He cursed under his breath. The man they had brought with them was from a different world. He wore a long comfortable-looking overcoat, with shirt and tie and hat, all conspiciously expensive. He looked like he had stepped straight from his hotel five minutes before. He was at least six feet tall and well fed. Only the neatly clipped moustache, the straight back and the way his eyes swept from side to side in a quick, professional appraisal indicated any military bearing. He strode quickly to the front door of the cottage and entered

without knocking. The stranger found himself looking into the barrels of two guns. He drily surveyed his companions without the least discomfort. His voice was strong, with an English accent, cultured in the authority of command. "It used to be an offence to point a loaded weapon at a superior officer." The guns were lowered. "Which one of you is Davies?" "I am." The visitor did not salute, but instead stepped forward to shake Davies' hand. His eyes moved to Finlay. "Colonel James Thomas, of the Black Watch. You must be Lieutenant Derrington?" Thomas pulled three cigarettes from a silver cigarette case. "Virginia tobacco. Possibly rather different from what you’re used to." The last was said with embarrassment. Finlay sucked the smoke into his lungs. Davies was speaking for them both. "If you don't mind my asking, how the bloody hell did you get hold of the car?" Finlay was reminded of the easy familiarity of the officers' mess, a long time ago now. Thomas smiled. "I didn't bring it in a submarine, if that's what you're wondering. You’re also talking to Lieutenant Colonel James Thomas, of the United States Marine Corps, over here on official attachment to the United States military attache at the legation in London." He spoke in a convincing West Virginian drawl, down to the curious pronounciation of Lieutenant.

"Our German friends are rather shy of upsetting Americans at the moment - treating us with kid gloves. A sure sign things are not going well in the East." The voice was so incongruous both other men smiled "It's a good accent," said Davies. "Not a problem if your father was an American and settled over here. Anyway, here I am in Scotland." He spoke with an easy informality that belied his rank and those of the men he addressed. But behind it there was some reserve, some element of discomfort. Finlay remembered the scenes at Liverpool docks, with the army commanders on board the last ships to leave, the refugees below being held back by troops as they screamed and tried to buy their way on board. Perhaps the Colonel had been on one of those boats. He had the air of one coming to business. "Right, gentlemen. I haven't much time. Even as an official of a foreign government I still have to report to the headquarters in Edinburgh in a couple of hours. Firstly, a strategic update, if you like. Briefly, the situation is pretty good as far as we know. Although I appreciate it may not appear so on the ground here." The Colonel looked up as if expecting a comment, but there was none. "The Americans are doing well in the Pacific. For the last three months they have pushed the Japs off three islands in a row, driving them back all the time. They have almost cleared them out of mainland China. It's a hard slog but things are moving. That has had a massive follow-on effect in Russia. These things always do. The Russians have been able to release several divisions of Siberian troops who were watching

Japan, and are starting to move them over the Urals now." He paused again, this time perhaps for dramatic effect, and stubbed out the cigarette under his foot. He picked up the butt and put it in his pocket. "As you probably know, its been chaos with the Reds ever since they were invaded. One fuck-up after another. But now they've got a new man in charge - a General Zhukov I think - and he seems to be having an effect. The Germans failed to take Moscow last winter and it doesn't look like they will take it this one either. They also have a large army in the Caucasus which looks like it will be surrounded at any moment. Place called Stalingrad. They have been trying to take it for weeks but the Russians have gone mad to hold them off." He paused and looked at both men in front of him. "In other words, it looks like the tide is finally turning." "Jesus Christ," said Davies. "That's the good news. There is every indication even without America formally declaring war on Germany and invading Europe, the Germans are being bled white in the East. And that is good news because with the state of Russian-American relations at the moment, the US are not in any hurry to launch heroics across the Atlantic even if they thought it possible, which it probably isn't…” "What's the bad news?" asked Finlay. "The bad news is this. With Zhukov getting the upper hand in the East, the Russians are not interested in negotiating spheres of influence in Europe. If they beat the Germans, they are going all

the way to the Atlantic. They won't let the Americans in. If they are successful, and it's only a matter of time, it means we swap a Nazi dictator for a Bolshevik one. I am informed the two are not dissimilar." "What does this mean?" "It means our only hope of staying free from the Russians is to get the Germans to leave within a year, before they lose the war in the East." "But if they are losing in the East they will have to withdraw troops from England to defend Germany anyway. They will leave of their own accord." "Possible but unlikely. What is more likely is the Germans get cut off here - we know their Navy is depleted. Then they surrender and hand us over to the Soviets. Don't forget they partitioned Poland between them. And now there’s no Poland. We need to get them out before they lose, so the Russians have no excuse to occupy the country. They may walk in anyway, but at least they won't have an excuse to." Thomas smiled ruefully. "It's not much of a plan but it's all we've got." "So where do we come in?" asked Davies. Thomas looked out of the window. "You don't. That's the reason I'm here. Groups like yours are finished. We both know you cannot last much beyond the winter. Now the supply dumps are exhausted we cannot keep you fed and supplied with ammunition with the number of submarines we have. Right now we have a better use for you - setting the country ablaze, like the old man said. A resistance network in the south. We have some people in place already but we need more. You'll be going to the areas you knew best - that's where you can be the most

effective. That means Liverpool for you, captain, and the lieutenant will be heading south. The lieutenant also has a rather more specialised mission to accomplish." There was silence. Neither Davies nor Finlay spoke, though they were thinking the same thought. Thomas seemed to read it. "It means you breaking cover and coming out into the open. It's more dangerous I know, but it’s also unavoidable. It's the only way we can get some form of organised resistance that might make the Germans reconsider staying here. I can provide you with all the identity papers you will need - labour exemption certificates and that sort of thing - I can bring them with me next time we meet. There's no hurry as yet but we want you in place by the spring." He stood up abruptly. Both men could smell aftershave. Another world. "I have to go now. I'll see you again tomorrow. Same time and place. I'll bring documents for all your group, and money. And details of rendevous and safe houses. You should be safe here - the place is owned by someone we know and trust. If you’re not happy with the arrangement, go and stay in the forest and come back tomorrow. It's up to you." The faces before him stared, white with fatigue, eyes unnervingly blank. He spoke briskly to cover his awkwardness. "I know you’re tired. But you're going to have to carry on. There isn't any choice. You heard Churchill the other day. What happens now, how we behave now, will affect how we see ourselves forever. The Germans can’t stay here forever." He paused again.

"When they’re gone we’ll need to know some of us carried on. Otherwise there’ll be nothing to build on." Still the two men stared at him without speaking. Thomas could see there was nothing more to say. He turned and left, closing the door of the cottage behind him gently. Finlay stared at the floor of the cottage beneath his feet. His mind could not take in what the colonel had said. For too long he had led an existence lived only hour to hour and day to day, limited by horizons he could see and comprehend. It was impossible to think of a time when the Germans had not been here, impossible to think of a time when they might leave. The idea of returning south was equally impossible, the memories waiting there for him came from another life lived by a different person. He knew only that he would do as they asked. He would go south as ordered, would carry on fighting as ordered. To think otherwise needed an energy and imagination which he no longer possessed.

1943

A train, heading south. The first Finlay had been on in years. He sat alone in the carriage, staring out of the window, and was terrified. When he could get his breathing under control, his heart rate would slow in sympathy. Then both would take off at a gallop again and the cycle would repeat itself. He noticed a nerve above his right eye had started to flicker. For Christ’s sake. At another time, he might have found the torrent of symptoms interesting. After four hours on the train, he was past

that. Through the bland Hertfordshire countryside he stared intently at the fields and hedgerows, under a dull grey April sky. He strained harder to see each object, its lines and details and colours. He had thought himself immune to fear but he had been wrong. He had seen others die around him, and thought it something that could not be guarded against indefinitely. He had lived as an animal for years, one failed skirmish to the next, but it had insulated him only from the death and suffering of others, not himself. He knew now the fear would never leave. He sat in the empty civilian carriage of the southbound train, endlessly checking the package in the inside pocket of his jacket. The papers presented him as a labour-exempted civil engineer, heading south for a commission repairing bomb-damaged rail track along the south coast of England. He knew little of civil engineering except how to destroy it. The irony was not amusing. Through the walls of the carriage echoing along the corridor came the raised voices and laughter of German troops. They were heading for the south-coast and leave and they were in high spirits. He understood a little of their language. It filled him with hatred. He gave up on the view outside and instead focussed on the stitching of the seat in front of him, sinews straining at the thought of a German officer entering the civilian carriage. Under their own regulations they were entitled to do so, he knew, if space was limited. As his eye traced along the line that joined the old and cracked leather to cloth, the faces that came into his mind were of soldiers - Germans he had seen before, unlucky enough to have been

taken alive in ambushes that, occasionally, succeeded. They always knew their fate. He had watched in fascination as faces turned from shock to fear. In the hardest, a very few, grim resignation took hold and with it a certain disdainful pride, but those ones had seen it before and knew what was to come. With most of them he remembered the strained, questioning eyes, desperate for hope and salvation. Would his own eyes betray the same clues an experienced soldier would see? His hand moved yet again to his chest. Travel permit, ID card, ration book, labour exemption certificate and letter of commission. Each touch of the bulge stilled the beating in his heart slightly. It had become a talisman. The documents were all genuine, obtained no doubt from a sympathiser somewhere in the regime. His hand tapped once more, before returning to his lap. The palms of his hands, despite the cold of the carriage, were wet. He looked back out over the fields towards a clump of woodland on the horizon, almost invisible in the mist, and remembered the last train he had travelled on, a lifetime ago. From London to the coast, to rejoin his regiment in the last chaotic weeks before the end. He had felt then as he did now, frightened, fearful of what the future would bring, but lulled by the rythm of the train's steady thumping over the tracks. The sound could still transport him back to childhood seaside trips; sisters arguing, his mother staring out at the passing countryside, father an absence. His sisters. He didn’t know whether they were still alive, interned and deported because they shared a name with a soldier the records would show as unaccounted

for, or been killed in the bombing. Their memory came from another life. The scenery gave way slowly to grimy back-toback terraced houses as they finally neared London. He felt the tension ease slightly. Perhaps his cover and his nerve might not be tested in conversation with a German after all - there had been nothing at the station in York. But he was frightened of what might lie ahead. The larger stations in the capital, with troop movements through them, would be the places where security would be highest - the best troops would be there. From outside the carriage there came a burst of laughter, louder then before. He bunched his hands into fists, nails dug into sweaty palms. Not long now. A German came stumbling along the passageway, heading for the lavatory, face red and puffy with drink and tunic undone. He lurched from side to side even though the train had slowed to a crawl. He barely looked at Finlay as he passed, and Finlay had to force himself to look away. He was grateful to have seen the man, though he feared he might ask for papers on the way back to his carriage. The man's stomach, in a white vest under his open tunic, bulging over the waistline of his trousers, the insolent arrogance of the red, glassy-eyed face, rekindled hatred. Cold hatred that had kept him going. He felt strength flow back. As the train slowed for the platform, his attention was drawn to the edge of the concourse to his right. A wall led up from track level to the street alongside, on which a row of houses with black, grimy walls stood. One of the houses had been blown apart by a bomb or shell, leaving a neat gap in the row. The outside walls of the two houses either side were shored up with

rough wooden planks. On one of the walls a huge V sign had been painted in white. Nearly six feet high. The signs were supposed to be common in towns and cities across the country, although Finlay had never seen one. Whoever had painted this one would have risked execution to do it. He felt the loneliness lift off him as he looked away. Before the train stopped he got up to stretch his legs and reach for his bag on the luggage shelf. He had to reach up with his left hand - his right arm would not stretch that far above his head, a legacy of Newhaven. He wanted a chance to exercise before stepping from the train. A limp attracted the attention of the Germans, who were always suspicious of anyone showing signs of injury, which might indicate an uncaptured soldier or partisan. He stepped off the train and started towards the ticket barrier. There were crowds of German soldiers unloading kitbags and equipment, laughing, ignoring him. The proximity of them sent shivers up his neck, and then on up to his scalp, which itched in the cold damp air. He walked on, trying to keep a measured pace and not look up at the barrier ahead. There would be a ticket inspector, a German soldier, and probably a policeman too. He reached down and pretended to be fiddling with the buckle on his bag, his heart hammering in his chest. Don't look up, he told himself. They’ll looking for the ones who look up. When he could stop himself no longer, he found himself looking into the sad, friendly, water-logged eyes of a ticket inspector. No sign of any army officers or police. He almost sagged with relief. The ticket

inspector's damp eyes held his in an unexpectedly steady gaze. "Ticket and travel permit, please." Finlay listened to the voice intently. It was almost artificially low, and he wondered if he was imagining the note of amused conspiracy the voice and eyes seemed to suggest. He handed over his documents without comment, wondering if the man simply enjoyed his show of authority, or whether it was something deeper. The inspector did not look at the ticket, but concentrated on the travel permit. He stared at it for a long time, and Finlay felt his heart in his chest again. The permit could be out of date, or unacceptable for any number of other reasons he could not think of. He stole a glance around him, calculating where exits were and whether he could hope to reach them in time. The station concourse was almost empty - he would have no chance. Some of the disembarked soldiers were already being shepherded up the platform by officers towards him, he could hear the clattering of boots on concrete. They were young, fit men. And then as the panic took hold, the inspector looked up. He had run a finger across the rough typing of the travel permit, as if it were braille for a blind man, as if searching for some hidden signal in the very fibre of the ticket. A slow smile spread across his face. “One of the best I've seen. Hope you had a nice journey." Finlay stared at him. He knows. There is something wrong with the travel permit but he has ignored it.

As he took the two slips of paper back and moved off, he almost managed a smile at the old man. He had to resist the temptation to run across the station forecourt. Behind him, the inspector looked after him all the while until he was out of sight. Only then did he turn his attention to the German troops waiting for him to open the gate. It took Finlay half an hour to find the safe house, even though it was in a square only a few hundred yards from the station. He was hampered by not wanting to look lost. That might invite attention. The last thing he needed was a policemen asking him if he needed directions. When he found the right street north of the station he walked up it looking for the right number. He had thought that he might have lost the ability to be shocked, but he knew now that was not true either. On the four or five streets he had so far seen of the capital city, he had walked past ten or fifteen beggars, both sexes and all ages. Some were silent, others beseeching. He knew better than most the hardship and privation the occupation had caused, with the diversion of food production to the Continent or the occupying forces. But in the countryside he had lived in for the past two and a half years, the poverty and desperation were hidden. Here, in London, it was all around him. At the first street corner, he walked past a man sitting with his back to the wall, his face ingrained with a dirt no water could wash away. The man stared straight ahead, shivering in an inadequate coat of some military cut, his eyes blazing and his hair sticking out in rough thickets around his scalp. In

between the clumps of hair, patches of baldness could be seen, spread haphazardly around the skull. One empty trouser leg lay flat on the pavement in silent testimony. There was no sign of a begging bowl, no sign of crutches either. A few yards up the street, an old woman in filthy rags crouched in a doorway, crying bitterly. She seemed unaware of her surroundings, fortified by grief. Again, there was no sign of begging. He felt a physical recoil of panic overtake him as an old, familiar memory came to him, unbidden as always. He hurried on, as if to outrun the memory, but it would not leave him. A country road. The soldiers are moving as fast as they can to get away from the Germans. The injured have been left behind and the dead have not been buried. They have been strafed an hour before and to their right they can hear the distant rumble of artillery moving forward on their flanks to cut them off. Somewhere near Oxford. A woman beside the road, crying helplessly, energetically, like this one, her baby son in her arms. A bomb has removed the child's legs at the waist. The woman is clutching the top half to her mindlessly. The raid had been days before and the body is already starting to stink. Some of the men try to get her to part with the remains, but she holds on with terrifying strength. Eventually they give up and leave her, dried stinking blood covering her dress. Finlay looked at the woman before him and with a concious effort of will pulled his eyes away and shook his head. The city, with its beggars and ruins, was unreal, no more part of this life than of the old one. He had to get away and find somewhere to think, to

adjust. He found the house at the end of the street, opposite a tobacconists'. He walked straight past it at first, trying to remember the rules and clear his head of the woman, barely stealing a glance to check on any signs of occupation. His fear had calmed on the walk from the station, but was getting worse at the thought of entering the unknown house. He had lived too long in the open. His fingers fiddled with the keys in his pocket. He would have preferred to wait outside the house for at least an hour or two, to check for watchers, but the street outside offered no cover of any kind. To linger for even a minute, let alone an hour, was to invite attention. Yet the only alternative would be to walk away and find a park or something to wait in, before returning after dark. And the place could be crammed with Gestapo. It might even be dangerous to spend that much time on a bench in a park. His aching legs made the decision. He gave it one more circuit around the block - there was still no sign of life - then went up the four stone steps to the green front door. He had no problems with the keys, surprisingly, and found the door opened onto a dim hallway with bare floorboards. He closed the door gently behind him and stood in the hallway for two minutes, adjusting to the sounds and silence of the house, getting his bearings. Deserted. A thick film of dust over everything. When he moved forward to the sitting room, he found it uncarpeted with bare walls. It did not seem to have been occupied for years. Only a few footmarks in the dust at his feet spoke of any more recent activity. He explored the house quickly and quietly.

There was at least a modicum of furniture upstairs, with an old bed in the main bedroom with a few damp blankets covering it. The kitchen at the back of the house was empty, although the stained sink had running water. In one of the kitchen cupboards he was amazed to find tins of army issue bully beef. He had a knife with which to open them, but he did not want to eat now. He carried his bag up to the bedroom and drew the filthy curtains across a window that was almost opaque with dirt. He was exhausted. He had not slept in 48 hours and the last twelve he had spent rigid with tension. As he walked about the bedroom he found himself stumbling with tiredness. He went back downstairs and bolted the front door, then walked through to the kitchen and unbolted the door at the back that gave on to a small, overgrown garden. It would give him a few minutes if the worst was to happen. He walked back to the foot of the stairs. He had to hold on to the bannister rail to stop himself from falling. Now that the tension and the fear were in abeyance, his body felt like it was collapsing in on itself. He had to breathe deeply to keep himself upright and his head clear. He would go upstairs and sleep. But there was one more thing he had to do. He walked back into the kitchen and looked at the floorboards. He studied them for a full minute until he saw what he was looking for, what he had been ordered to look for. He went to the back of the room near the unlocked door, and bent down to prise up one of the boards with the blade of his knife. The board came up easily - it had been unscrewed only days before. He reached down into the dust below.

At first his fingers closed on nothing, and he had to extend his arm along under the next board almost to the elbow before his fingers found what he had known would be there. A slim brown envelope. He pulled it out and put it in his pocket, before replacing the floorboard exactly as he had found it. He went back up the stairs and sat on the bed. He untied the laces on his boots and took them off. He was about to lie back on the bed, but habit was too strong. Boots back on, unlaced. The room was cold and damp. He pulled the envelope from his pocket and looked at it. It was plain brown, no markings whatsoever. He opened it and pulled out a single sheet of paper. It was covered in close typing on one side, blank on the other. Alongside the sheet of paper was a single photograph. He looked at the photograph and a bolt of recognition hit him in the stomach. The realisation of who it was made him forget how tired he was. The sheet of paper was filled with instructions, timings and an itinerary. No indication who had written the words, when they had been written, or to whom. He read the first few paragraphs without expression, unsurprised. Then when he reached the lower half of the sheet, he stopped. His mind could not comprehend what the words on the sheet meant; the implications were too much. He put the sheet down on the bed and stared at the wall, shaking his head slowly from side to side in disbelief. He picked up the sheet again and re-read and reread it again, trying to convince himself that his mind was understanding what his eyes were telling it. When he was done, he burnt letter and photograph, stamping the ashes into the floor.

He lay back on the bed with his mind racing. He no longer felt tired at all. He smiled. He stayed in the house two days and nights, sleeping, eating the tins of food and resting as he grew accustomed to his surroundings and stopped listening for the sound of trucks drawing up outside. There was a chair upstairs, and for hours he sat staring through a crack in the curtains over the bedroom window, his mind blank. He became absorbed in the characters and lifestyle of the beggars in the street. They would go away for hours at a time, but always returned to an allotted place. It was as if, with nothing left to cling to, they cherished order and routine as goods in themselves. After a day watching, he had worked out a German patrol passed the house every hour. The soldiers looked young, fresh-faced and inexperienced. With the war in Russia, they were not likely to be front-line troops here. On the second day, he found a newspaper under the bed. The Times, dated June 22, 1942, nearly a year before. The pages were dry and dusty, and already yellowed with age. But it was the first newspaper he had read in years and he read the stories with fascination. The evidence of censorship was everywhere to his untutored eye. There were reports of war and "progress" in Russia, of plans for Hitler's second visit to London later that year. Less obviously dictated reports of a murder in Paddington and a rationing and black-market scandal in Bristol. He spent hours devouring the newspaper, reading every article, fascinated. He still had not finished it when it

began to grow dark in the house. He lit the stub of a candle which he had found the previous day, and carried on reading by its light. The next morning it was time to move on. He rose early, feeling less tired than in years, and after washing as best he could he checked the house to make sure there were no indications of his presence. The food tins he left in the kitchen. After a final check, he left the house and walked back to the station to buy an Underground ticket for Victoria. Like the train, it was the first time he had been on the Underground for years. He found the dark passageways even more claustrophobic than the train had been, although the Underground had the advantage that few German soldiers used it. The long tunnels reminded him of the days under the fort in Newhaven. He shuddered and walked on down. He got onto a crowded morning train and stood near the door. He felt disconnected. He had no feeling of being bound by common experience or nationality with the people he was now so close to. They felt as alien to him as the soldiers on the train. Their faces looked tired and weary, disinterested and defeated, even now. He looked around him and felt an aching stab of loneliness. If he did not belong here, where did he belong? A couple near him were arguing gently together. Something about going to see the woman's mother. The man might have been about the same age as Finlay. He wondered how he had avoided deportation. What reserved occupation had he gained for himself to escape it? He did not look like a policeman or one of the fascists. He and Finlay were the only military age

men in the carriage. The couple's bickering only increased the isolation Finlay felt. As he looked at them argue, the man caught his eye and returned his gaze in a questioning manner. His look was sullen and resentful. Finlay turned away and looked at the black walls of the tunnel rushing past. At Victoria, he joined the throng of people rushing up the stairs to the station above. His sense of dislocation increased above ground. The station was thronged with early-morning commuters, but also with dozens of German soldiers, heading south. There were far more sentries here, standing at points on the station concourse. There were piles of sandbags clustered around every doorway. The damage to buildings was far more evident. He remembered the station only vaguely, but the bomb damage here, so close to Whitehall, was worse than anywhere else in the capital. There were yawning gaps in the streets around with houses smashed to rubble and no building work at all. With the rushing crowds, the scene was like some bizarre pastiche of normality. He had to force himself not to look at the destruction in wonder. He remembered there had been a theatre almost opposite the station. Now there was simply a pile of cordoned-off rubble where the building had once been. He hurried on. He would be glad to be out of the city if it was all like this. He already had a travel permit and ticket, so he had no need to join the queue for them on the far side of the concourse. Instead, he allowed himself the luxury of a cup of tea, black without sugar, at the canteen on the station forecourt. A sign in the window

said the cafe was restricted to civilians and officers. It was empty when he went inside apart from an old man behind the counter. The man looked at him suspiciously as he served him but did not attempt conversation. Finlay sat near the window and sipped the hot tea, which came in a chipped china mug, and lit one of the cheap cigarettes he had bought that morning. The tobacco, adulterated with God knew what, was still better than he was used to. With the prospect of another train full of soldiers for the journey south, he could feel the fear again. He sipped the tea to stop his mouth drying out altogether. The train left on time, as nowadays they always seemed to. As he walked up the platform towards the civilian carriage, he could see the train would be even more crowded than the one two days before. Most of the carriages were already full to overflowing with soldiers, young and in high spirits, while others jostled at the doorways and loaded bags on. As he walked past one group, a young soldier at the rear recoiled sharply, avoiding a playful punch from one of the others. He backed directly into Finlay's path, making him check and move swiftly to one side. He winced. The young man turned quickly, alerted by his friends' laughter to what had happened. The face that stared into Finlay's was young, open and honest, with close cropped hair above eyes that smiled frankly. He apologised in broken English. Finlay could feel himself struggling to shift his grimace into a smile of forgiveness. It was difficult. He

tried to summon the hatred back - it might help him to smile at this young man and pass the incident off. But it was difficult to feel anything but sadness. He would never again be a young man, larking around on a station platform with friends. He walked on up the platform, the laughter and the apology and the fear ringing in his ears. The civilian carriage was packed with German officers. He contemplated turning back, but all later trains would probably be as crowded and it would look suspicious to go back now. He tried to look on the bright side. There were no civilians that he could see, so he might get away without a detailed conversation. He hoped none of the officers was an Englishspeaking engineer. He pulled open the carriage door to be greeted by a thick fug of smoke and body odour. Whatever happened, the die was cast. The four officers inside barely looked up at him as he entered. Their conversation continued. He understood little of it, hated the sound of it, but today he was grateful for it. Two of the officers shuffled along their seat to make room for him, still talking. He felt a rushing in his ears - a symptom he had had before, of fear and concentration. He forced himself not to look frightened or - worse - too diffident. You are an engineer, going about your business. Your papers are not even forged, and your hands will be steady when you are asked for them. He put his case up on the rack above his head, then sat down. He looked straight at the two officers opposite, trying to make eye contact, but they ignored him. Then he looked to his right and nodded at the

officers who had moved up for him. One of them was looking at him and nodded back. Finlay was prepared for the man - about his own age - to give him the once over. If it was going to happen it would happen now. But the man turned away. Finlay stared out of the window and on to the platform. His toes inside his boots had curled up with the tension and he had to conciously straighten them out. He stared out and breathed in as deeply and slowly as he could. Inside, his mind was screaming. With a judder, the train moved off. Finlay struggled to remember the times he had been on trains before. Tried to encourage the memories of other trips. It was the way a civilian might think. But he found he had no such memories. He could think of the first time he had gone to Brighton as an adult, to teach at the school in Lewes, but only in an analytical way. He could not remember the feeling of what it had been like. He had been a different person then. The train crossed the Thames, and for one shocking moment as he looked up the river to the east he forgot his surroundings. He dimly remembered the magnificent buildings that had been there years before, with the tower of Big Ben above them. Now there was nothing. Parliament had been smashed deliberately, first by bombs and then by shells from the advancing artillery, until there was nothing left. For hundreds of yards along the river bank there was simply wreckage; piles of rubble with the occasional piece of wall rising above it, nothing left. Of Big Ben there was no sign, and the bridge had the entire central section missing. London had been declared an

open city, for Christ's sake. It had made no difference at all. The train crossed the river and the evidence of the rape of his country was replaced by the grimy facades of the terraced houses south of the river. There was respite only for a moment, then the train clattered past the wreckage of a huge railway junction. Here the damage was if anything worse. It looked like the fighting had only stopped a few days before, not three years ago. There were carriages and locomotives still lying on their sides across the tracks, and the train he was on had to by-pass most of the station's many platforms. From his window, Finlay looked out across the wreckage to houses that backed on to the line. In a row of around twenty, perhaps half were still standing. In one, a young woman was hanging out washing, despite the cold damp air and the proximity to the fumes and the filth of the trains. Then she disappeared from view. He was due to get off at Haywards Heath, a small town just over an hour south of London. His luck lasted until a few miles north of it. The German officers had talked happily on for perhaps an hour after leaving the station. He had no watch, and no means of telling how far they had come, since he could not remember the stations on the line he had travelled on so long ago. The soldiers were thankfully not drinking, and after a while he began to relax and wonder if it would not be all right. Then their conversation started to dry up. Something in his unconcious mind realised from the cadences of it that it had now turned to him, to this odd, nervous and no doubt exhausted-looking man who had sat next to them for an hour, saying nothing.

The carriage door opened. The train's guard - an old man - stood in the doorway and asked for tickets. His voice seemed unnaturally loud. He was looking straight at Finlay. A German soldier behind him said something to the officers, and they reached into pockets presumably for their own. So it begins. The guard examined Finlay's ticket perfunctorily, then returned it and turned around. The officer behind him indicated he should squeeze past him and then his eyes settled on Finlay. "Your papers and travel permit, please," he said in English. The soldier was older than the others in the carriage, though he looked only to be the rank of something like a sergeant. As Finlay reached for his documents he was concious of the others in the carriage all now looking at him. He handed over the ticket, travel permit, ID card and labour exemption certificate. The officer examined them laboriously. Then his eyes looked up into Finlay's. He seemed to be trying to impress the other officers in the carriage with his thoroughness. "You have come a long way," he said, his eyes searching. Finlay was not sure if it was statement or question. The ticket would only have given details of the trip from London, but the travel permit would have indicated his journey had begun in York. "Yes," he said, his mind racing. The officer held his gaze for a moment longer. A flicker of something like disappointment crossed his eyes, although it might have been Finlay's imagination, then he nodded and turned to go. The officers in the

carriage had already started to talk among themselves again, their interest in him spent. As he left the carriage, the officer who had checked his ticket said something to the officer nearest the door, who looked at Finlay and smiled. Then he resumed his conversation, the guard left, and Finlay breathed again. As they neared Haywards Heath, he got to his feet to pull his bag from the luggage rack in good time, to avoid the appearance of a hurried departure. The four officers looked at him blank-faced, and he nodded to them curtly as the train began to slow for the station. He turned away and looked out of the window, urging the carriage to slow down more quickly, fighting the longing to wrench open the carriage door too soon. And then the train had stopped and he opened the door and stepped out on to the platform. He was the only person to get off. The others - all soldiers - were heading south for the coast, a coast he had last seen three years before. As he walked to the ticket office and the exit, the train started off again with a screech of tortured metal. He walked out of the station past the lone sentry standing stony-faced by the exit. When he was outside, there were two roads, one leading into Brighton, the other leading out into the Sussex countryside. He chose the latter. As he walked, he pulled in a huge breath and held it as long as possible, then let it out with a huge sigh. It was over. The smell of earth and manure from the fields was like perfume, it was as if the air was so clear it was

water, cleansing him. The sky overhead was grey and thickly studded with cloud, though no rain fell yet. He walked on and on past the rolling hedgerows down the road, further and further into the countryside. He felt he could walk forever in this state. There was now a pure silence, with only the rustling of the wind in the trees and the occasional bird to break the silence. After the perverted destruction he had seen in London, the world he walked through now seemed to have returned to the order of before, the correct order of things. It gave him peace. Eventually, he stopped beside the road and set his case down. He squatted on his haunches and sat on it, lighting a cigarette and drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. He could feel the tension drain from him. He looked up at the range of low hills, at the green countryside around him, and for a moment it was impossible to imagine any other world but this. The field on the other side of the road led up to a small clump of woodland. He looked at it intently, wondering if he was being watched by those who were meant to meet him and who had designated that he stop here, on the road away from Brighton. He blew smoke into the damp, morning air. Let them watch. He was content to wait. He knew that by coming south, by rejecting the life of a partisan and swapping it for the world of undercover resistance, he had taken a step that would mean him placing his trust in others in a way he had never done before. At first it had seemed madness like that first meeting with Thomas months before, when he had felt everything was running out of control

and he was helpless to stop it. Now he found he was able to live with it. After all, it was not as if everyone was a complete stranger. When three cigarette butts lay crushed on the road at his feet, he heard the approach of the man he was here to meet. A man from another time, from a past life. A ghost. The clear sound of a horse's hooves sounded from along the road, hidden by the hedgerow. From around a bend, a horse and cart appeared, driven by a man sitting on a rough wooden bench fastened to the front of the ancient looking vehicle. The horse looked thin and haggard to the point of starvation, with bald and scaly patches on its haunches. It seemed barely to have the strength to pull the cart and its passenger along. Horse and cart drew up in the road next to him. The man was thinner than Finlay remembered. Thinner and older. He had changed, as had they all. He looked down and smiled. Time had come full circle. "Well, well. Been a long time." "Hello, Stephen." Finlay looked up into the face of Stephen Calvert, who had been his friend in Brighton and who he had last seen five long years, a lifetime, ago. A long time indeed. It was some time before they set off creaking back the way they had come, the horse setting a gentle, unhurried pace. Even with Stephen there, Finlay was tense with the possibility of betrayal, but he found the silence of the countryside and the rythm of the cart soothing. Stephen stared ahead at the road.

"Forgive the mode of transport. But even if we had a car, which we don't, it would attract too much attention. The only people who have cars are the Germans. They are the only people who can get petrol for them. This here's Jessie. She doesn't look much but she's game enough. We've another one back at the farm called Albert." Finlay looked at the muscles working away under the thin, dry skin of the haunches. "He looks like he could do with a square meal." "Couldn't we all? Jessie's more likely to end up as someone else's." Stephen's voice went quiet. "I suppose it's worse in Scotland." "Yes. It is." Finlay did not want to talk of Scotland. The letter in the safe house had told him of Stephen's existence, but he wanted to know more. His mind was alive with questions. "What happened to you, after the invasion?" Stephen's voice was a flat monotone, so different to what Finlay remembered. "Me and Michael were in the Local Defence Volunteers, in Brighton. I was captured. I managed to escape and get back here. My family have known the local copper for years. He got me an exemption certificate, saying I'd always worked on the farm. So officially I never fought and it's a reserved occupation. I wasn't deported like the others." "Hell of a coincidence us meeting again." "Not really," said Stephen. "In fact, hardly one at all. Remember - almost all the military age male population have been deported already. It's good to see you."

"Michael?" Stephen looked ahead of him. "Michael died." "I see." Finlay stared at the passing countryside. Stephen only increased the dislocation and loneliness he felt. He was not the same person, and neither was Stephen. That was the tragedy. There was no way back. Yet he had to know. "And the others. Ren?" Stephen did not look at him. "As far as I know still in Brighton, if she survived the fighting. I haven't tried to contact her." "Why not?" Stephen turned and looked directly at him. "It would put her in danger. Me too. Besides..." He looked away and made as if to speak, but then stopped. "Never mind." There was silence. Eventually Stephen spoke again. "You must have been told a lot about the farm and me and the girls for your cover. But nobody told us about you." Finlay thought for a moment. "Not much to tell. I was at Newhaven when they landed. Got wounded but managed to fall back. Been in the north ever since." "Is it true people are still fighting up there, as partisans?" "There were some, but the food and ammunition ran out over the first winter. People either died or went

home if they could. The powers that be reckoned we would be better off fighting down here, under cover." They drew up into a farmyard nestling between rough farm buildings. It had begun to rain. Stephen pulled the cart up and jumped off. "While you are here you can help with the manuring. You look fit enough. Grab your bag and come in. The women went up to Brighton earlier but they should be back by now." Finlay got off the cart and followed Stephen towards the main farmhouse. The building had cracked and low whitewashed walls. Some of the cracks ran from the patchy thatched roof all the way to the floor, and the walls had not been painted in years. The building looked like it could fall down at any moment. Stephen opened the front door and stepped into a dark and low kitchen. There were stained oak beams on the ceiling and a cracked stone floor. Two women were sitting at the rough wooden table as the men entered. They both looked to be in their late twenties or early thirties, tighter and more compact versions of Stephen himself. Both with short dark hair and both obviously sisters. Finlay found he had to bow in order not to hit his head on the ceiling. Stephen was taking off his coat. "This is Finlay. I suppose I should introduce him as Finlay Calvert, since he is supposed to be our brother. That's what your papers say, isn't it? This is Clare, and over there is Marjorie." Finlay nodded to them. Neither seemed particularly welcoming, and neither got up as they entered. They stared at him with drawn smiles that

disappeared quickly. Both looked tense and frightened. Finlay realised he was shy. He did not know what to say to them. The feeling was so unfamiliar he did not recognise it at first. Eventually Clare spoke, looking at him with a level, direct gaze. "You must be tired after your journey. It cannot have been easy." "It was all right. The Germans are more interested in leave." "Sit down and I'll make some tea. There's no milk or sugar, but the tea is genuine." She got up and reached for an old iron kettle that stood on the hob. Marjorie got up too. She said nothing, but shot a glance at her brother before going through into the room next to the kitchen. Stephen followed her wordlessly, shutting the thin wooden door behind him. Finlay followed them with his gaze, then sat down. The room was warm. He took his coat off and laid it over the back of a chair. "You've been in Scotland, is that right?" "Yes." "And now you are here." "Yes." She busied herself with the kettle. "I'm afraid Marjorie doesn't agree with what is happening here - with us sheltering you. She thinks it is stupid to carry on fighting. It only leads to more reprisals and more people dying." "I see." It was expected. "The thing is... it is not much of a life here but we survive. We survive because we co-operate. There is no other way. If they are attacked there will be a price to pay. There always is."

He had heard it all before. There had been a time when he had thought of little but this. "And what do you think?" She set down a mug of dark tea before him and her face creased into a tired smile. She had the same crow's feet around the eyes as her brother. Unlike his, her face was pale, almost white. There were dark shadows under her eyes. "I suppose I'm one of those people caught in the middle who make up most of the population. I stopped thinking about it long ago. My fiance was killed in Dover when they landed. While you are here you are welcome." Finlay sipped at the tea, which was hot and strong. Outside, he could hear the rain starting to crash down. In the far distance there was thunder. Later, after a short tour of the farm with Stephen, he set off through the rain alone back to Brighton. The journey had two purposes. He wanted to familiarise himself with his surroundings and the route to Brighton as quickly as possible. It made him uncomfortable to be in such an alien place. The other reason was tucked into the bundle of documents in his jacket pocket. The occupation regulations stated that he must register with the police at Haywards Heath on the day of his arrival in the district. He walked along the country lanes in the silence gratefully. He wanted to be alone. Having seen Stephen, and now he was back barely ten miles from Brighton and the coast, the memories of his time there - the memory of Ren flowed back uncontrollably. He found he could not

concentrate, even on the buildings Stephen pointed out on the farm. He could see her face everywhere, the sudden uncontrolled laughter like an explosion, the way she walked, the mocking in her tone, the warmth of her scalp through the fineness of hair. He had never been able to think of her as dead and gone, killed by the bombing or walking along a street breaking the curfew, nor as anything that might be finished in his memory to be discarded and only remembered. Too much of him was a part of her, measured itself alongside her, saw things still as he imagined she would have seen them. He knew the feelings were unnatural, disproportionate. They had never even become lovers. But she exercised such power within him as the expression of an impossible ideal, never compromised by experience. He knew the reason he still thought of her was the same reason he kept fighting. His love for her was as his hatred of the enemy, a way of channelling emotion into some avenue where it could not be compromised by lesser feelings, the realities of an everyday existence. His mind filled with faces he had seen and known and lost; his sisters, the friends from school days and Brighton; Michael and the Newbury brothers and Davies. It was impossible to think of such things without despair. The feelings for Ren, the hatred of the Germans, were an escape, a safety valve. The longing for what had never happened was a shield against the despair of what had happened. If he took away love for Ren, would anything be there? If he took away the hatred of the Germans, would anything be left? Love

and hatred were the only strengths left in him, so he clung to them. He felt his spirits lift as he reached the outskirts of Brighton. The police station was opposite the railway station - he had seen it when he had first arrived. There were sandbags outside and another sentry. Like the one at the station, he looked young and inexperienced. Finlay wondered how things were going for the Germans in the East. The sentry looked barely out of his teens. He did not challenge Finlay as he walked past him into the station and looked about him. There was a glass fronted booth that he took for the reception desk directly in front of him. Behind it were two men, one a British policeman in uniform, the other a German officer. Both looked up at him expectantly as he approached the desk. He addressed himself to the policeman and ignored the German. That would be what was expected of him. "I've come to register as a new arrival. I'm an engineer staying with my brother at Manor Farm." He tried to remember to smile. "I just arrived this morning." The sergeant seemed friendly enough. He reached under the counter for a log book of some kind. "Manor Farm? Stephen Calvert's place? Didn't know he had a brother." Finlay was prepared for this, but the hair still rose on his neck. "I've been working up north. In London, then up in York. No rest for the wicked."

He felt sure the smile would be taken as a grimace, but the policemen didn't seem to notice. The German officer barely looked up from the papers he was writing on. Finlay handed over documents for the policeman's inspection. They were examined carefully and the details noted down in the black book. The man wrote in a tiny, spidery hand. Finlay could feel his heart slow a little. The police sergeant spoke without looking up. "How are the two sisters? What are their names again? I sometimes see them." "Clare and... Marjorie. They're fine." "Nice girls. Always friendly. Tragic about your mother and father. I knew them too." Finlay said nothing. Inwardly he was screaming. This was getting dangerous. Why didn't the bastard dispense with the jovial copper routine? It didn't work with a fucking German at your shoulder. Eventually, the man looked up and smiled. "There you are, sir. Just sign on the right hand side." Finlay smiled again. He remembered to sign with his false name. ‘ Stephen sat staring out of the window of the farmhouse, across to the outhouse where Finlay was sleeping. It was dark now and the rain, heavier earlier on, had slowed to a drizzle, without thunder. The building across the courtyard was shrouded in gloom and mist even from a few yards away, although from one window there was a faint glow from a candle. Stephen was frightened. He knew that by accepting Derrington's presence with them, he and his

sisters had taken a step that would have profound consequences for them all. At best it would change their lives, at worst perhaps end them. The idea of taking an active part in resisting the occupation had given him an ease he had not felt for years, a feeling of belonging that coloured everything. He remembered his father saying it - sooner or later, you had to tie your colours to a mast. He had not understood the words at the time, but they had stayed with him through the years. He realised now what it was that made him welcome the man he had once known, so long ago, despite the dangers the man brought with him for Stephen and his sisters. It was what his father would have done. He sucked hard on the dying remnants of a cigarette. Things could not go on as they had done even Marjorie had to see that. Ever more stories of defeats for the Germans against the Russians, and no indication of the Americans doing anything - it was more important now than ever that his country should exhibit some spirit.. He had found himself surprised at the feeling his country could awaken in him. But once it had come he had accepted it. The Germans were bound to take more hostages to try and insure against acts of sabotage and attacks on them, they had done it so often. There had been horrific stories of what had happened in the north. But that, surely, was the price to be paid? He thought of the distant memory of Churchill and his imprecations to fight on. At first they had sounded magnificent, then hollow when it was revealed he had flown. But the message had not completely died.

He gave up on the cigarette and stubbed it out on the floor. The thought of what the next few weeks might hold filled him with fear - a cold emptiness in the stomach - but the fear was not for himself. It was for Clare and Marjorie. And for Katherine, the quiet and shy daughter over on the Miller farm on the other side of the hill. He had wondered about proposing to her, but there was no point now, with things as they were. If he was to marry her, he wanted to bring something with him. If not money, then some other wealth, a wealth of spirit. He had been fond of Ren, had loved her even, but had known all along she had not loved him. She had loved another. With a last thoughtful look at the glowing window of the outhouse, he blew out the oil lamp in the kitchen and made his way to bed. The outhouse in which Finlay lay was even more delapidated than the farmhouse itself. Great clumps of plaster had fallen from the walls and there was a steady dripping from various leaks in the ceiling of the old shed. The smell of pigs - its last occupants, long ago - was still strong. Finlay was even further from sleep than Stephen. He was grateful for the hospitality people were showing him, knowing the risks they faced. But he was filled also with frustration. He wanted to see Brighton again. He was impatient to see Brighton, to see if it matched up to the mental picture his memory had left him with. He could no longer stop the picture of Ren coming into his mind. He no longer wanted to. He was

consumed by the thought she might still be alive, might even be in Brighton. The simple fact of geography had altered the capacity of his brain to expel her from his thoughts. While he could no longer see her face in a sharp focus, he could recall the evening of her birthday with the precision of a surgeon's knife. Far more than anything since, more than the German invasion, it was the night he felt he had lost everything. There had been no-one since then, except for a prostitute in Newhaven, in the mad days before the landings. No-one in London, no-one in Scotland. As the pictures of her came, the image that returned again and again was the feeling of her hair when he had touched it, the smell of it when he had bent to kiss it. He could smell it now, clearer than any picture. He lay back and stared up at the broken ceiling with its dirt and cobwebs, cold and empty. Eventually, he fell into an uneasy sleep. He stayed in the farmhouse for a week, never venturing further than the outlying fields, and in that time he saw no Germans at all. Impatience to see Brighton and to plan for the task that was ahead in London nagged at him, but he was also overtaken by the life at the farm, so far from what he had known, so close to what he had considered a normal life before. By day he would help Stephen with the farming as best he could, in the evenings he would sit down for evening meals better than he had known for years. One evening there was even bacon. He had forgotten its strong, salty taste. Clare, the younger of the sisters, remained open to him. Marjorie kept up a hostile reserve. He was beginning to relax and find the life

enjoyable. He had to remind himself, with a growing sense of dread, that he was here to do a job. One night Stephen did it for him. The two were sitting at the kitchen table together. Clare and Marjorie had gone to bed. Stephen looked at Finlay. His eyes were tense. "You... we... are going to need weapons, aren't we? I presume you were told I know of an arms dump near here." "It hasn't been used? "Not that I know of." Before the invasion arms caches had been buried at pre-determined locations all over the country, a prelude to the expected guerilla war that would follow successful German landings. The caches were buried in watertight boxes the size of coffins - Finlay had seen several in the north. "It's over near Cuckfield, just outside Brighton under a cow trough. I saw them putting it in when I came back here. I thought of going to get it out myself but it would be a long job even for two men. It's a lot of digging." There was a defensive note in his voice. "Could we use the cart?" "No. Too dangerous at that time of night. It would make a hell of a noise. Even if we were only stopped on the way out we could still be shot for breaking curfew. Besides, if we take the cart we have to stick to the roads. Between the two of us we can carry it just." Finlay got up and walked to the window. There was low cloud cover, and the first beginnings of a night mist coming in. "We'll go tonight."

They set off at midnight. Finlay wore a dark overcoat, Stephen a dark duffel coat that looked naval in origin. He carried a slim pencil torch in one of the pockets. They walked down the farm track and turned right on to the open road. At this time of night they would have ample warning of any vehicle approaching. This far into the countryside, a foot patrol was unlikely. Finlay had to trust to Stephen's knowledge of the road - which seemed to be excellent; he could see nothing. Only occasionally did the clouds break to reveal a quarter moon which bathed them in light. He concentrated on following Stephen's footfalls, walking behind him, relishing the silence. Several times he found himself wandering off the road and nearly into the ditch alongside. He was not used to the darkness of southern nights. They walked for nearly two hours, by-passing several hamlets along the way, at which no lights showed. Finlay wasn't sure if it was because of the hour or because the houses were deserted and abandoned, as they had been in Scotland. As they approached Cuckfield they stopped. The cloud cover was now less heavy and the moon was breaking through more often. He was worried that it might be getting too light under its glow, but Stephen did not seem worried. He could just make out that they had stopped at a crossroads. To one side a wooden stake came out of the ground to a height of about three feet, where it had been raggedly broken off. Probably an old signpost destroyed before the invasion. Instead of a road-sign in English, there was

now a rough wooden sign, with handwritten German on it. He did not know what it said. Stephen was examining a slip of paper under the torch. He clicked it off as Finlay approached. He pointed down one of the roads leading away from the village. Even as a whisper in Finlay's ear, his voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silence. "Down there. About half a mile. The field is on the left as the road turns into track." It took them another quarter of an hour. Twice Stephen ventured off the road, only to return, shaking his head. The third time, he came back and summoned Finlay. The two made their way down a field of plain grass. Finlay looked for any sign of cattle, but saw none. They would have been slaughtered long ago. The trough was at the bottom of the field as it fell down to a small brook and a clump of woodland. It was a good spot, sheltered from the road by the curve of the field, and with the woodland nearby. The trough was empty. Finlay set the two spades down against it carefully and rubbed his leg. They rested for a few minutes, both smoking cigarettes behind cupped fingers, then set to work. The trough was made of old lead and they dragged it aside with difficulty. Then they started digging. As his spade hit the ground, Finlay had one of the electric bolts of memory that were hitting him more frequently now. He was back, three years before, digging trenches with his platoon on the Franco-Belgian border near Armentieres. The memory was like a physical blow. The digging had been harder then, the soil dry and burnt, the heat and the dust everywhere. The men had

sweated mercilessly under the July sun, but there had been laughter and jokes too. They had not seen the future. He and Stephen dug for an hour, never speaking but occasionally grunting with the effort. The earth was heavy and compacted, though the steady rain over the last weeks helped. If Stephen had any doubts this was the right location, or the arms cache was still here, he did not show them. After an hour, his spade struck something other than soil, about three feet down. Finlay felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Buried treasure. He looked up at Stephen and could tell the other man was looking at him. The two men dug harder. Within a few minutes they had dug round the edges of the metal crate and could reach down to pull at the handles at each end. "This is what body snatchers must have felt like," Stephen whispered tautly. At first they could not even lift it. After three years, the box seemed to be stuck to the soil like concrete. Only when Finlay managed to work his spade underneath was he able to prise it up, breaking the hold the clammy soil had taken. He wondered at the condition of the weapons inside. After that it came easily. With a final heave, he and Stephen hoisted it out and deposited it beside its grave with a dull thud. Finlay eased upright and opened his raw, blistered hands. He looked up to see with alarm that the sky had grown clearer and the moon had taken on a fresh brightness that bathed them in ghostly light. They

might have only two hours of darkness left. It had taken that to get here and then they had been unencumbered. "We need to hurry," he whispered to Stephen's outline. He sensed, rather than saw, the face expectantly watching his. "Don't you want to open it up and have a look inside? Just to check." Finlay had already set to work filling in the hole they had made. "No time." They only just made it back before daybreak. The clouds had disappeared and they were bathed in almost continuous moonlight. The best way to carry the box was as if they were pall-bearers, on their shoulders. Finlay's neck and shoulders were aching unbearably and he was beginning to limp badly. His hands were bleeding. Stephen, more used to such work and healthier, seemed less affected. They carried the box into the kitchen and set it down heavily on the scarred surface of the table. Clare and Marjorie were still asleep, for which Finlay was grateful, and the two men worked silently, only talking in whispers as they had outside. By the light of the oil lamp, Finlay could see where the box was not caked in earth it had been eaten away by rust. There was no indication what colour it might once have been. The box had what was left of a metal catch, without a lock. He opened it using a knife to prise apart the weakened metal.

Tense with anticipation, he raised up the lid, pushing hard as the corroded hinges stuck. The contents were covered in sodden newspapers. Water and time had reduced them to a damp and moulding mush. He pulled layer after layer away, and then underneath, found black tarpaulin cloth. As he touched it, he found it not sodden with water, but with a mixture of grease and oil. Underneath were the weapons. There were four American-made machine guns, four pistols, hand grenades and boxes of bullets and magazines. He pulled out one of the machine guns. It gleamed blackly in the light from the lamp, its surfaces shining with a layer of thick grease. It looked brand new. He pulled the bolt back and it slid easily. When he looked up, it was to see Stephen's face staring at him, pale in the early morning light. Behind him, silent and unnoticed, was Marjorie. The three of them stood for several moments after Stephen had caught the line of Finlay's eye and looked behind him. Neither of them could mistake the reproach in the woman's face as she looked at both of them first and then at the gun in Finlay's hand. Without a word, he replaced it in the box and covered it again with the black cloth. Marjorie, clad in a dressing gown, turned away and walked silently from the room. Finlay looked at Stephen questioningly, not needing to ask. Her fear and her hostility aroused in him equal mixtures of anger and sympathy. He did not know which was right. Stephen looked back at him and shrugged. "Where are we going to put these?" Finlay thought as Stephen, reconsidering, left the room after Marjorie. Without the box, the weapons

would take up far less space and be easier to hide. The box could be discarded. Any military insignia had long ago rusted away. After a few minutes, there were raised voices from the room next door. They grew louder all the time; Marjorie's angry, Stephen's consoling. Finlay could not hear the words but he could imagine them. He wondered if they would wake Clare, then decided it would be a good thing if they did. The sitting room door opened and Marjorie stood framed in it. There were red flushes on her usually pallid cheeks and her eyes were full of unreleased tears. "You know what all of this means, don't you?" Her gesture took in Finlay, the weapons, everything. "It means simply more killing, more dying. And for what? Whose war are you fighting? Everyone says the Russians are winning in the East. Sooner or later the Germans will leave. What is the sense in provoking them further? You won't have to take the fucking consequences." She paused, fighting back sobs. Her whole body shook. He was more shocked by that than by the words she used. His eyes bored into the box in front of him, as if it might contain the answer to her. No words came. There was silence for a while, and then Stephen's voice. "We have been through this over and over again, Marj. We cannot just let the Russians win the war for us. Where will that leave us? A damn sight worse off than before. Something has to be done, whatever the cost." "How can we be any worse off than we are now, for God's sake? Whatever the cost. You always use

that expression don't you? That's because it's not you who has to bear the fucking cost. It's the ones who get taken hostage, shot or hung for no other reason than because of what you want to do. I cannot believe you don't think about that." She paused and gestured at the guns again, her voice quieter, still staring at her brother. "Nobody wants this, you know. You may think you are making heroes of yourselves or something, but nobody else does. People don't want any more killing, don't want any more resistance. You can see that from the newspapers. People accept the Germans are here. They don't like it but they accept it. It cannot be changed by a few stupid men getting others killed. Nobody bothers anymore. It just means needless suffering. If the Russians come, they come. All well and good. But we're beaten. The great British Empire is over. Most people in this country just want people like you to accept it." Stephen was having difficulty keeping his voice down. "If we carry on fighting, we're not beaten. There is a point to it." "There's no point at all. We were beaten three years ago. Beaten. Everything since then has been futile gestures paid for in other's blood. All the slogans on the walls, the bombs in cafes and on trains, all that." She turned to look at Finlay, crying now. "Why don't you tell him? You've been in Scotland, haven't you? It's worse up there. Fighting and bombs ever since the invasion. What difference has it made? I'm not a fascist - not one of the blackshirts. But tell me

- what difference has it made, apart from more suffering?" Stephen took Marjorie's arm but she pulled away from him, still staring at Finlay. "Well?" "For God's sake Marjorie, drop it." Finlay stared into the box of weapons. He could think of nothing that would explain it to her or help her in any way. Everything she had said was true anyway. That was the worst part. The three of them stood together, not speaking. Eventually, he turned and walked out into the yard through the front door, closing it behind him softly.‘ Two days later Finlay went back to Brighton. It had been three years since he had seen it last, and then only the station as he waited for a connection to Newhaven, too frightened of venturing into a town that would hold such memories. To go there now was pointless and dangerous but the longing was too great. Stephen gave him a lift to the station on the cart. They rode most of the way in silence. Stephen did not ask what the purpose of Finlay's trip to the coast was. He would have received no answer had he done so. At the station, he jumped down and went in to buy ticket and permit. The guard who manned the ticket office viewed him with keen eyes, staring out from a weathered face. On his right arm a red swastika armband sat, insignia of one of the fascist parties that had sprung up since the occupation. Finlay asked the guard about travel permits, and was informed none were needed for such a short trip. The bureaucracy of

processing permits for such short distances had defeated even the Germans. He bought a ticket that would enable him to return that evening. "New around here, aren't you?" The guard's manner did not imply a friendly question. "Not really. I'm staying with my brother. Been working up north." "Oh really." His eyebrows rose in a look of scepticism that Finlay thought was probably general, rather than specific. The guard handed over the ticket. "Nice work if you can get it." He looked at Finlay with unreadable eyes. Outside, Stephen stared down at him. There was a light in his eyes that was a mixture of curiosity and concern. The two shook hands. "Take care of yourself," Stephen said. "You don't have to be told it's far easier to be picked up in Brighton, even if your papers are in order. Whatever you are doing there, be careful." Finlay nodded and went back into the station to wait for his train. He was luckier than he had been on the train from London. This time the civilian carriage was empty. He was grateful. He knew he was nervous and distracted, not thinking straight - he would not have relished any sort of company. The journey was a short one - barely half an hour - and then the train was slowing down as it passed Preston Park and approached the station. He looked out at the skyline he had last seen three years before. Then, as now, the effects of bombing were less apparent from up here on the station approach. Only

the odd gap in a street here or there pointed to any abnormality. As the train approached the station the damage become more apparent. The railway sidings to his right had been destroyed in several places with huge craters and gaps still unrepaired. The station itself was missing the whole eastern section of the wall. The difference between memory and reality compounded the unease he was experiencing. So much had changed, but so much remained the same. He was not sure which was which any more. He tried to remember his first arrival six years before, when he had come to teach at the school in Lewes. But the memories from that time were faded and misty, like a photographic film corrupted by light. Once the train had stopped and he had passed through the platform gates on to a concourse crammed with soldiers, he found himself unconciously following the footsteps he had taken six years before. He felt frightened and even vaguely ridiculous. He had no idea why he had come, no idea what to do. He went out of the station and down Trafalgar Street towards the Old Steine. The barber's shop was still there, still open; the cafe alongside it still steamed up by the cooking inside. His sense of displacement increased, but his nervousness lessened. He dreamed of entering a pub and ordering a whisky - it had been so long. He could afford it and it would fit into his cover story should that be necessary. He decided later on he would risk it. Only when he got to the bottom of Trafalgar Street was he brought up short. Both sides of the street, including the pub on the left hand corner, had been flattened by blast. For the last 100 yards before it

opened out, the street was a dirt track, passing over earth and rubble used to fill the crater. The pub had had low ceilings and bookshelves lining the walls. It had been a friendly place. Perhaps he was walking over some of those books now. The flattened square where the pub had been brought back more memories of another life. He remembered a game of darts with Ren and Stephen in this very place. He could see her face quite clearly now, laughing as her darts went anywhere but the board. He stopped to light a cigarette, and his hands were shaking. The visions in his mind were like a physical presence alongside him. He coughed heavily as the smoke hit his lungs. He turned right, away from the road in which he had once lived, and walked towards the seafront. The closer he got, the more evidence of invasion there was. He had thought of Brighton so often during the years of struggle and hardship, he had been unprepared for the evidence of devastation within it. Brighton had been something untouched in his mind, he could not now take in the smashed buildings and bullet holes in walls as he walked along. The Pavilion had been smashed by shellfire. A wooden fence now surrounded it. Where once there had been the extraordinary domes of the building's oriental roof, a jagged edge of broken brickwork now ran along the top of walls intact, but without windows. As he watched, a group of boys emerged from a doorway and ran off towards a gap in the fencing. He walked on. The war memorial was undamaged by the fighting, its white portals still above the fountain.

A German sentry stood guard by it. Finlay wondered why he needed to be there of all places. Instinctively he lowered his eyes and walked on. He was sinking into depression. Brighton had not been inviolate - it had suffered as much as anywhere else. The sanctuary it represented had been only in his mind. The damage was a sacrilege, an act of evil performed on what had become an icon. He had been foolish to allow it to become so - Brighton was more likely than most to have suffered - but he had allowed it all the same. It had been a mistake to come here, as he had known it would be. Only when he reached the seafront did some calm return. The seagulls wheeled above his head, as indifferent to the destruction below as the waves which continued their eternal pounding on the seashore. Where both piers had once stood, now there were only the angry stumps of their wooden supports sticking out of the water, like broken teeth. He sat down on a bench and stared out to sea, lighting another cigarette from the butt of the old one. The tobacco was cheap and did not burn properly but the action of lighting it was a release. He tried to remember why he was here in the south, what task he had been set. His mind was incapable. She was everywhere, on the seafront, in the buildings and the rubble he looked at, beside him on the bench. He searched the faces of those promenaders brave enough to tackle the seafront in the blustery, showery weather. He wondered if they had known her, and if they had, whether it would show in some sign on their faces.

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He was brought back to the present by the sound of an army truck thundering down the seafront road behind him. Sitting on a bench alone, a solitary man of military age staring out to sea, was not the best way of avoiding attention. Under the guise of lighting another cigarette against the wind, he stole a look at the truck. It was packed with soldiers. Unlike those at the station going on leave, they looked purposeful and serious. He tensed, grateful to be rescued from the storms in his mind by the danger of the present, but the truck drove on along the coast past him. He got up and crossed the road, re-entering the streets of Brighton. He walked up the road towards the street Ren had once lived on, the rooms she and Jean had been burnt out of after the fire. He could not find the building that she had once lived in. He could not remember what type of shop it had been above, and the whitewashed facades of the buildings provided no clue. He narrowed it down to three possible candidates, but could not choose between the three. He walked on into Brighton. He found a quiet, empty pub far from the station and the police headquarters, a place where his presence was unremarkable. He was hungry and his legs ached. They seemed to give him more pain than they had in Scotland, perhaps because he was walking less now. He ordered a whisky and a cheese sandwich. While he ate, he read a copy of the Daily Mail someone had left on the seat beside him. It was thinner than he had remembered, the stories obviously doctored by the occupation forces like the paper he

had read in London the week before. Eventually, he let it drop and stared into space. After he had eaten, he carried on walking from street to street, trying to remember the names and fit them into the picture in his mind of what Brighton had been. He had to quell a growing feeling of aimlessness as he walked, but the illusion of activity stilled the thoughts in his mind. He stopped himself from heading anywhere near the house in which he had lived on Viaduct Road, or the rooms Ren had taken up the hill from there. On the seafront, and in the town, he saw German soldiers walking with their arms around obviously local girls, speaking in studied, halting accents. He had to stop himself from staring at them. When he looked at their comfortable togetherness, it emphasised his own alienation, not theirs. He was the interloper here, not they. The world had swung on its axis to take new bearings, and those people around him seemed, if not happy with them, at least comfortable. He thought again of Marjorie the other morning. She was right. People had accepted the German presence here; they wanted no more killing. He walked on, trying to avoid the eyes and outstretched hands of the beggars who seemed to be everywhere now. He felt more contempt for them than for the enemy - their begging seemed the final confirmation of defeat. He thought the Germans with their intolerance would have cleared the beggars from the street. But of course they did the opposite. They thought as he had done; it was the final confirmation of a people vanquished. He gave money - a few pennies - to a young woman with a bundle of filthy rags beside her. Only when the bundle moved did he realise it was her child.

He was anxious to be gone. The road to his right led up over the hill to the station. It was the most direct route, but it was also the road on which Ren had lived. He was frightened of what he might see when he passed her old house. God knew, she might still be living there. More than that, he was frightened of the same thing happening as on St James' Street. He might not remember which building had been hers, and that would be worse than knowing she had lived there, might still live there. It was the early evening and the wind rushed in off the sea a few streets away. He shivered. There was a pub just up the road which he remembered from before. He would stop there for another drink to give his mind time to calm. The pub had a small yard at the front with pretty plant pots - that much had not changed. Inside, it had a low ceiling. Light from the front windows provided some illumination towards the front of the pub, but further back there was almost no light at all. It was busier than most places at this time of the evening. There were several elderly men at the bar, and a group of younger women at tables to his left as he entered. The pub was near the main street and benefitted from people who came for a drink after work. Finlay scanned the place as unobtrusively as possible - there were no Germans apart from a party of officers at a table near the front window. They were talking quietly among themselves and barely looked up as he entered. Had they not been so near him, he would have turned and left. But that would have drawn more attention, so he went to the bar and ordered a whisky instead. The barmaid who served him looked

tired. He took his drink to the back of the room, where it was darkest, and sat down. He should not be in here. It was madness. He was compounding error with error, taking stupid risks for no reason at all. He sipped the whisky, which was coarse and adulterated with some unknown spirit, and listened to the conversation at the bar. The pub was beginning to fill up. Finlay wondered where they got the money with things as bad as they were. He would have this drink and get out of here, he decided. He would draw the day to an end. He looked at the faces of the drinkers ordering pints of beer and spirits at the bar. He could not reconcile this picture with the beggars he had seen outside, could not understand how the two pictures could co-exist together. How people could let it happen. The German officers at the window carried on talking and drinking, ignored by those around them. There seemed none of the bitter resentment he had expected, had sought to draw strength from, in the studied indifference to them. Another German officer entered the bar, a woman in a dark coat behind him. The German was tall and limped. Finlay was looking away - anxious to avoid eye contact - when some familiar aspect of the woman caught him, in the fragment of time when he still had her in his peripheral vision. He looked back, his stomach already churning. Madness indeed. The woman was Ren.

He had frozen with the glass in front of his face. Had she looked up, she would only have seen the top half of his face, his eyes staring at her. But she did not look up - she was deep in conversation with the German. She was so thin. Finlay sat sickened with shock and fear and hatred. He did not realise in the back of the room, he was shrouded in gloom. He felt his heart explode within his chest and the sound of rushing blood in his ears like never before. It was her, no question; the same dark, penetrating eyes, this time without their laughing sardonic twist. Her expression - serious and intense - was exactly the one the first time he had ever seen her, in another pub, in another conversation, another life. But so thin. The face that had been rounded before was now angled, the bruises under the eyes prominent and dark. She was alive. He had never imagined so vital a person could die. He watched as she laughed, staring into the face of the officer, light dancing in her eyes. The German bent his head and kissed her hand. Finlay was blinded, dazed, unable to move. He tried to force himself to think. His heart was beating so fast he could hardly breathe. He knew the despair would come later. What took over was a hatred and survival instinct that killed off all other feeling, all other thought. He risked a glance to his left, this time to a doorway close to where he was sitting. It led to the men's toilet. The glass was still in front of his mouth, shielding his face. With no other thought in his mind

but to get away, he looked for one last time towards the bar. Ren and the German were now at it. Ren was shielded from Finlay. He could go now, or he could stay sitting where he was, and face all that that might entail. He brought his left hand up and made a pretense of running his hand through his hair, covering his eyes as he did so. His right hand went down to deposit his glass in front of him. He stood up and walked to the lavatory door, praying it would not be locked and willing himself not to look towards the bar. His hand was still in front of his face. It would have been clear to anyone looking at him that he was hiding from something. The door gave under his pressure, and he passed through to the safety inside. There was no sign of recognition, no hand on his shoulder. Once inside the door, he collapsed against the wall, fighting to get his breathing under control and trying to think. He succeeded with neither. His mind could only summon different images of her from the past back to his unwelcoming vision. He swore to himself silently under his ragged breathing. The same word, over and over again. After some moments he managed to look around him with a semblance of thought. He was in a small room with only two doors, one leading to the pub, the other a glass one to the passageway outside. If the pub did not have an outside passageway, he was trapped. He crashed through, making far too much noise, and felt weak with relief as the blast of cold air hit him. At the end was a wooden door, marked ’Gents“. He ran to it and yanked it open. On the other side was a small stone-floored

yard lit by a bare light bulb. The yard was crowded with beer crates, and was open to the sky overhead. A light rain was falling. He turned his face up, breathing deeply. On the other side of the yard was a lighted doorway - the entrance to the lavatory. His heart was still hammering. He was sweating profusely, though it was not warm. On one side of the yard was a pair of locked wooden gates, at least seven feet high. Anyone coming into the yard would see him at once. There was nowhere to hide under the light from the bare bulb. Perhaps at that very moment one of the German officers was coming along the passageway to the yard... The thought galvanised him into action. He crossed quickly to a line of huge beer barrels. They were too heavy to lift, but he found that if he tipped it up he could roll the barrel towards the gates. He pushed the barrel up against them, where it settled back on to the ground with a dull thud. He wrenched himself up on to it and looked over the gate, praying nobody would come into the yard now. The street on the other side was darkening steadily, the pavements glinting, slick with rain. The only figure was shambling away from the pub, at least 100 yards off. It might have been either a beggar or a drunk. He did not care. He sensed deliverance. He hauled himself up on to the gate, swung his legs over with difficulty, and dropped awkwardly to the street below. There was no shout, no challenge, no cocking of a rifle or the bark of a dog. The shambling figure continued on up the street. He pulled the collar of his coat up and walked away, down towards the sea,

willing himself not to break into a run. Slowly the beating of his heart subsided. He walked on into the rain. The man had been a German officer, and he had kissed her. But that was not what had crucified Finlay. It was the light in Ren's eyes as she had looked up into his face. He had seen it before. The despair would come soon enough, Finlay knew well. But the hatred would have to be dealt with first. A few hundred yards down the road, when he was sure he had not been seen, he turned and doubled back. Back towards the pub, and the woman he had once known. It was over an hour before they came out of the pub. Finlay followed them up the hill to where Ren had lived before. It was dangerous, but it did not matter to him any more. The German was obviously walking Ren home. Outside the rooms she had shared with Jean all those years before, the couple said goodnight. She lived there still. Finlay watched as they embraced. Eventually, Ren went inside. The German walked away towards the hill that went down into Brighton. He was limping. Finlay knew if he killed him, Ren might be implicated, if it was known she had been with him. It was another thing that didn't matter anymore. Not really. He followed the German into the night. Finlay was shaving in cold water in the outhouse. He had risen not long after dawn, having slept not at

all. All through the night he had stared into darkness. It had been the same every night since Brighton. Tiredness numbed his mind and body, and he barely noticed as he dragged a razor down his face in the cold morning air. As he finished, the unfamiliar sound of engines crashed into the silence of the farmyard. It could mean only one thing. He did not hurry his washing, only settling himself for what might be waiting outside. He pulled on shirt, jumper and jacket calmly, then went out. Two vehicles had pulled up - an open command car in front with the officers, and a truck behind with a platoon of soldiers. Stephen was already next to the command car, talking to the two officers in the back of it. Neither had made any move to get out of the car. Finlay was pleased to see Clare and Marjorie had come into the yard - the women would take the edge off the soldier's watchfulness, although the expression on Marjorie's face was one of rank terror. Stephen was animated as Finlay came over. He could see with relief none of the soldiers looked to be getting out of the truck with a view to searching the farm. The guns were hidden in the outhouse where he slept. Even a cursory search would find them. Stephen looked at him as he approached. "This is my brother. He’s staying with us while he is working on the rail lines. An engineer." His voice had just the right note of sycophancy mixed with pride at his engineer brother. He seemed a better liar than Finlay had given him credit for. The officers looked at him. Relaxed, but alert and intelligent. Panzer Grenadiers - far superior quality to the usual occupation soldiers. He wondered what

fighting troops like this were doing here. The one nearest cast an eye over him and spoke in halting English. "You don't look much like your brother." Finlay could feel the hairs rise on the back of his neck, but even as he said it the officer was looking away around the farmyard, checking things off. The other said something in German, at which the first laughed. Finlay assumed it was a remark questioning his parentage. All well and good. Finlay smiled as benignly and ruefully as his stomach - knotted with fear - would allow. He said nothing. The officer finished his examination of the farm and looked back at Stephen. "We are looking around this area for accomodation for officers. Brighton is crowded now and there is difficulty with billets. How many bedrooms do you have?" "Three." "Good. We will allow you and your sisters to stay in one. We will need the others. Your brother can stay where he is." Finlay did not know if it was his imagination, or there really was some hidden inflexion in the use of the word brother. Perhaps it did not matter if there was. Not if the man believed they were from different fathers. Stephen nodded quickly. "I'm sure we’ll manage." Finlay silently congratulated him on his tone. It seemed to please the officer, who appeared to have decided he was sympathetic. He marked something on a clipboard.

"Very well, then. Thank you. We will come back to inspect the rooms later." He turned to Clare and Marjorie and nodded at them with formal courtesy. Clare nodded back coldly, Marjorie still looked petrified. The officer had already looked away. He was used to it. The two vehicles circled the farmyard to turn around. Finlay glanced at the truck in the rear; sixteen bodies held rigid, eyes staring ahead. He thought of cattle, but these men were not that. They were disciplined, fighting men. The four of them watched as the Germans drove out of the farmyard and down the track until they had disappeared behind a hedgerow. Stephen let out a huge sigh and turned to Finlay. "Christ. I thought they would search the place. We need to find a better hiding place for the guns." "Not now. We'll do it later. It's a classic trick. They come back in a few moments and find us lugging a load of guns around the place. Leave it until the afternoon. They are not fools." "What do you think troops like that are doing here? They don't look like the usual ones. Perhaps the Americans are coming to save us after all." Finlay shrugged. "Or the Russians." He walked back into the outhouse to finish dressing. Clare had gone back into the farmhouse, but Marjorie still stood at the farmhouse door, staring after the Germans, the look of fear still on her face. Finlay did not wish to see it any longer. After seeing Ren and her German, nothing mattered. The German had died coughing up his own blood under the bridge in the dark, a mile down the

road from where he had left her. Nothing mattered now. Three days later Finlay and Stephen went to meet members of a resistance cell created by Stephen in the recent months. The men were in occupations exempt from deportation. They would help with the task Finlay had been ordered to accomplish. The meeting was an arrangement made weeks before Finlay had arrived and it made him nervous. These were not people like Stephen - put in position years before, awaiting a call to action. They were men whose sympathies had been measured by Stephen himself, probing gently without revealing his hand, to see whether their hatred of the occupier was enough for them to take action. Finlay was placing his life in other's hands more than ever before. But there was no choice. What they had to do he and Stephen could not do alone. By the afternoon it had started to drizzle lightly. The meeting was at a farm owned by a friend of Stephen's family from before the war, ten miles away. They would go in the evening and return the following morning to avoid curfew. Stephen attached the horse to the cart once again. The drizzle had taken the edge off the cold for which Finlay, looking at the soaked hills around them, was grateful. He climbed up alongside Stephen. He had debated taking one of the guns, but the risk would be too great. Whatever awaited them at the meeting or on the journey could not be changed, and the risk of being stopped and searched would be too great. There would be a time for such risks, but not now. Stephen

gathered the reins together and flicked them to move off. As he did so, Clare came out of the door of the farmhouse. She was dressed in a hefty raincoat, with a drab scarf around her head which did little to protect it from the drizzle. She trotted across the yard and hopped up lightly into a sitting position on the back of the cart, looking at one man, then the other, her level eyes challenging them. Stephen looked at Finlay, then at his sister, then at Finlay again, his eyebrows raised in question. Finlay shrugged, and Clare smiled briefly. Finlay looked away. He trusted her as much as he trusted anyone. Her presence would help if they were stopped. The rain grew worse as they made their way through the country lanes, keeping to side roads. The sky was darkening with the clouds overhead. Rain trickled down Finlay's neck, although he was used to it. Behind him Clare sat like a child, her legs hanging over the edge of the cart. "What will Marjorie do while we are away?" he asked. Her opposition still worried him. "She'll be all right," said Clare. "She'll go to bed and read a book." There was silence for a while, then she spoke again. "What did you do before the war?" "I was a teacher, with your brother. At a school in Lewes. That's why I know this area. I lived in Brighton." "Stephen never told me." "He wasn't supposed to." "You were a teacher up until the invasion?" "Yes. Then I joined up in 1939." "You didn't like teaching?"

"It wasn't that. It was... something else." "Did you think there would be a war like this?" "Didn't you?" "No. I suppose I always thought they would work something out. I certainly didn't think we'd lose. Or that we would accept it as easily as we have. And then when Duncan got killed... I suppose I didn't really think about anything after that." Her voice trailed off. Finlay stared at the passing hillsides. The house was buried deep in woodland - like something from a fairy story. It reminded Finlay of the camp in Scotland. Lighted windows appeared before them like beacons in the gathering gloom. From somewhere an owl hooted. Finlay looked at the black woodland that surrounded them. It could have contained a battalion of men. The feeling of losing control, of surrendering his fate to others, was strong as never before. He wondered if the same thought had occurred to Stephen and his sister. The door of the house was thrown open. A figure was briefly silhouetted against the light, then it quickly moved to one side into the dark. It was a man, and there was something in his hand. Before he could challenge them, Stephen's voice rang out. "It's Calvert." The man did not speak, but stayed standing in the dark by the door. Stephen's voice dropped to a whisper. "That's Baker. Curtis must be inside."

Stephen pulled the cart up into the light of the doorway. Finlay could dimly discern a whitewashed building with a thatched roof, in the same state of repair as Stephen's farm. Only when they had jumped off the cart did Baker come forward into the light and speak. His accent was broad Yorkshire, and Finlay could make out a short, thick-set man, older than himself, with thinning hair cropped short and leathery skin. Keen eyes stared at him. "Any problems?" "No," Stephen said. "This is the lieutenant. He got here eventually. Where's Curtis?" "He's here," said Baker, and turned to go back through the doorway. In his hand was not a gun but a carving knife. Inside, oil lamps hung from the low oak beams of the ceiling. The only other occupant of the room - Curtis - was taller and younger than Baker, and stood by the kitchen door on the far side of the living room. About thirty, with a thin angular face and strong bones. His greeting, unlike Baker's, was formal. He stepped forward and shook all their hands in turn. He had to stoop to avoid the beams above their heads. The room was cold with no fire, and Finlay and Stephen sat on a delapidated couch. Curtis sat down opposite them on a small stool. His thin, wiry frame was rarely still, and he sat hunched, tensed for movement. Unlike Baker and Stephen, he had achieved exemption from labour deportation on medical grounds, rather than from essential farm work, and he worked as a journalist in London. "Did you get the guns?" he asked Stephen. "Yes." "And do they still work?"

"Still in their wrapping, as good as new." The direct gaze switched to Finlay. "And you’re the army man who’s here to tell us what to do with them." Finlay listened for resentment in Curtis' tone, but there appeared only enthusiasm. Somehow it worried him more. "So what are we going to do with them?" Finlay pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it across to Curtis. It was from the Daily Telegraph some days before. He watched as Curtis' face registered what he was reading. As the others saw the expression turn from puzzlement to horror, their eyes turned to Finlay. He stayed still, not speaking, waiting for Curtis' reaction. The slip of newsprint, crumpled and grubby with the poor ink, gave details of Court events for the following Monday, a week away. Most of the items concerned senior members of the occupation regime, as if they were some new royal family. One item he’d underlined. Curtis looked up at him, shaking his head in disbelief. His voice was low and clear. "You must be joking.” "What is it?" asked Stephen. Curtis looked up at him, then back to Finlay, then back down at the paper in his hand again. He read the underlined item out slowly. Reich Party Comrade and Governor General Reinhard Heydrich and SS Colonel Dr Franz Six of the Military Economic Staff will meet with their royal highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at Hampton Court Palace and proceed from there to Buckingham Palace for luncheon and talks.

Curtis looked up again. "What are you thinking? You're going to kill them? You must be mad!" Finlay took a deep breath. "I’m not going to kill them. We are." He looked away from Curtis and stared at the wall. He did not wish to meet his eyes or any of the others. He could feel the tension rising in the room, but he fought the urge to break it. They would draw the conclusion they wished. For a second Curtis' look of horror had unsettled him, disturbing the scarred lines of thought in his own mind that had led up to this, making him question his own judgement. It was what he had been asked to do and he would do it, come what may. Curtis broke the silence. Finlay had expected shouting, outrage. Instead his voice was quiet. "Heydrich?“ The Governor General? Have you any idea what they will do if he’s assassinated? And the Duke of Windsor?" Finlay stared at the faces around him before his eyes returned to Curtis. The others stared at the floor, though whether in shock at the revelation or acceptance of their task he did not know. He kept his voice level, though there was a rising bitterness and resentment in it, directed as much at Curtis as at their occupiers. "Heydrich is viewed as Hitler's successor. We also know as governor in Czechoslovakia last year he butchered Prague. It's rumoured the partisans there tried to get him but missed. He's an animal. The worst of them all. That is why we’re suffering so badly now.

The whole military-age male population has been deported. It never happened in France, in Belgium, not even in Poland." Curtis made as if to speak, then shook his head and stared at the wall. Finlay went on. "There are rumours - the Americans again - there have been attempts on Hitler's life. The generals may try to boot him out before he fucks up the war for them in Russia. But if he goes, the one man worse than him will take over. Heydrich." "But why kill the Duke of Windsor?" Curtis finally asked. "The Germans will install him as king before the end of the year. They think it will make them respectable here. In the eyes of some, it will." "What does this all mean?" This time it was Baker asking. His voice from the kitchen doorway was quiet. Finlay continued. "We know the Russians are winning in the east. It may be years, but it is only a matter of time. Then Russia will rule Europe. We also know neither Hitler nor Heydrich will sue for peace, ever. So the Russians will have to destroy Germany and then they will have Europe. If Heydrich and Hitler are both dead, maybe someone will take over who will make peace with the Russians before they take over everything." "So we're killing Heydrich to save the fucking Germans from the Russians?" said Curtis. "In a sense, yes. And to save ourselves." He knew what the others would be thinking, could imagine the scene himself. It was always the same. He had seen its aftermath even more closely than they. Villages and towns closed off by barbed wire. SS going

door to door. The mothers and children dragged screaming to the trains, the fathers to the pits. He had walked across the sites of such events after they had happened and he had caused them and the silence had screamed at him as it would for years to come. It would be ten times worse for Heydrich. He found the atmosphere suddenly choking and he needed to be out in fresh air. His hands were shaking and his heart was beating. He had no strength to argue anymore. He thought of the words he used to describe Heydrich and knew they could be used against him now. He carried death with him like a scent. He could not continue to argue for an action which was so obviously insane. Its execution was dependent on acceptance without question. Without that, there was only madness and despair. He got up and walked to the door and stepped out into the rain, closing it behind him firmly. He took great gulps of air, looking at the black woods around and clenching his fists. The others would talk and argue and come to their own conclusions. He no longer cared. He lit a cigarette and stood leaning against the damp wall, oblivious. Eventually, the door opened. Clare stood in it. Her face was expressionless, though her bearing suggested a decision had been reached. "You'd better come in. You'll catch your death out here." The atmosphere was a funeral. Stephen stared at the floor, while Baker was in the kitchen, out of sight. Curtis' angular face stared up at him. His skin was drained of colour, and the eyes that looked up sparkled with torment. His voice was barely a whisper.

"How do you propose we go about committing this... act?" "An ambush, on the street. Without explosives, it's the safest way, with the most chance of us getting away." Curtis nodded, staring into space. "And what of those who cannot - get away?" Finlay stared at him. "They die." A week later. Finlay got off the morning train at Croydon and waited for one that would take him on to Kingston, a suburb south of London. The normal way to make the journey would have been via Clapham Junction, but the interchange had been destroyed in the bombing. The travel permit he had with him was a forgery, prepared weeks in advance; he had had only to fill in the date and the destination. It was the first time he had used a forged document and it added to his unease. The longer he remained in the south, travelling as an engineer working on the railways, the more likely it was that some zealous German officer might inquire as to whether a Mr Finlay Calvert was actually known to his employers. The train on which he had travelled up to Croydon had been almost empty, but it did not stop the fear. The journey to Kingston was short and he stepped off the train with only a handful of other travellers. There had been no Germans at all. He set off towards the river in the direction of Hampton Court Palace - the official residence of the German Governor General in Britain. He remembered

it vaguely from a visit years ago when he and his sisters had gone walking up the river. They had tried to fish but had caught nothing. The enormity of what he planned, and the lack of knowledge with which he planned it, made him feel as if he were drowning. From a cursory look at an illegal street map, he could guess the likely route of any convoy from the Palace to central London. The shortest and simplest route would be along Hampton Court Road with Bushy Park on one side and Hampton Court Park on the other, over Kingston Bridge and on to the London Road. But that was only one question addressed. The best plan would be to hit the convoy as quickly as possible after it had left. The nearer it got to London, the more likely it was to take a different route from the one he and the others might be waiting on. The disadvantage with hitting the convoy so soon was the nature of the area. Open, suburbia, hardly touched by bombing or fighting, a difficult place to hide. Ideally, they would disappear into the Underground system, where they would be untraceable. But out here that was not an option. To try and get away using the parks on either side of the road before Kingston Bridge would be suicide; if they were seen entering them they could be surrounded and flushed out. But a house would be no better. With Heydrich dead, the Germans would conduct house to house searches for miles around as if their lives depended upon it. Their lives would. Looking at the map, the germ of an idea dawned. A mile north of the bridge up the river they would be within a few hundred yards of Richmond Park; five

miles of thickly-wooded moorland to hide in. Most parks in London had been decimated for firewood over the past years, or razed by the Germans to deny shelter to vagrants or partisans. But Heydrich hunted the deer in Richmond Park - so the woodland there had been guarded. They could strike, then make their way to the towpath beside the river and head north. There had been pleasure-boating on that section of the river before the war - it would be deserted now. He could imagine the German reaction after years of peace in the south. They would panic. They would go for road blocks and searches on trains. It would take them time to imagine more exotic forms of escape. Once in the park, he and the others would have only the hours of daylight to wait, and then they would be safe. The Germans would not have troops immediately to surround the entire park. Another, more obvious, question nagged at him. Even with little partisan activity in southern England since the capitulation, that did not mean Heydrich would be unguarded. Finlay remembered the truckload of Panzer Grenadiers that had visited Stephen's farm. If those sort of soldiers were following the convoy, an attack would be out of the question. Their only chance would be with a convoy of at most two motorcycle outriders and two cars. Anything else would be suicide. And he was not ready for that. The solution would have to be left to the last minute. They would be in position and ready, and attack only if the convoy was unescorted by a troop detachment. It was not ideal, and they would be running huge risks just to get into position, but without intelligence from within the palace there was no other way. He walked on

towards the bridge at Kingston feeling an increasing sense of unreality as his mind pondered such problems in the pleasant calm of the suburbs with their lawns and affluent facades. He felt quite alone, in a way that had never affected him, even in the worst times in Scotland. He shook his head. The plan he favoured would opt for simplicity. He knew from experience that the more complicated it was, the more things could go wrong and kill them all. They would take over a house overlooking the road just before or after the bridge, place a look-out to await the convoy's approach, then hit it with machine guns and grenades. If Heydrich's car was armoured, only a grenade was likely to stop it. With only five people and no vehicles of their own, they would not be able to create a diversion or use another car to stop the vehicles. It was also possible - if the weather was favourable - the German cars might be open-topped. Then it would be easy. As he walked on over the bridge, he calculated the odds with a dispassionate mind. He thought the chances of killing Heydrich and his royal passengers were at best only one in two, the chances of doing it without casualties to themselves zero. He thought of the villages he had seen in Scotland, charred ruins, their people dead or deported. He selected a house on the far side of the bridge, looking out over the river. The convoy would be slowing down to take the corner on to the bridge. Heydrich and the Duke would be discussing... what? He couldn't imagine. As he thought of them, he felt hatred and he welcomed it, nurtured it. It would make things so much easier. The house commanded good views over the bridge and, to the

right, up the road towards the Palace a few miles away. He had seen no German officers around here. The area was too affluent, the owners of the houses would have bought the Germans off long ago to avoid having them billeted on them. It was always the way. He felt the hatred make his throat tighten. The occupants of the house he had selected he gave no further thought to. The time to think about them would be later. He felt more confident as he walked back into Kingston. A mood of grim determination settled upon him, which lasted all the way to the station. As he reached it, two black saloon cars, of the type only the Germans would have, pulled up rapidly on the other side of the street. He tensed immediately, but the men inside had not come for him. He watched as best he could. There were four of them, one in the black of the SS, the other three in the plain clothes of the Gestapo. The SS officer rapped hard on a doorway. He thought back to the visit of the Germans to Stephen's farm. Perhaps they had not come for billets at all? Perhaps security was being tightened for some reason he could not fathom, connected to the Duke of Windsor, who had returned from the Bahamas only weeks before. It would do them no good, he thought to himself as he walked on, forcing himself not to look as the door was opened and the Germans forced their way inside. Anyone walking past him would have seen a smile on his face, and might have wondered what it portended. But they had seen the cars ahead of them, and their eyes were lowered too.

Even with only five day's grace, there was little to do, little to plan. The attack would follow the same pattern as others before. In London, he would have the advantage of knowing who the target was, his likely level of protection, and the approximate route of the journey. Finlay had already decided he, Stephen and Baker would attack the convoy; Clare and Curtis would be look-outs to warn of its approach. Only the three of them had any experience of handling the weapons they would use. He awoke next morning with a feeling very like euphoria. In some fashion that was beyond his comprehension, the date of the attack provided a kind of relief. He knew the worst fear came with not knowing - the fear he had had, they all had had - back in the dark days of 1940 before the onslaught. This was different. He had no doubt the fear would come, but it was something that could be controlled until the time was at hand. In this artificial and unexpected state of mind, he and Stephen and the sisters continued with the running of the farm. The normality of the work seemed to emphasise the enormity of what was about to happen. The days somehow passed. With four days to go, Finlay lay on his rough straw bed as dawn broke, staring wide-eyed as the light from the grubby window spread across the floor. He was remembering mornings like this in the camp in Scotland, when he would wake hours before the dawn and lie listening to the wind outside. There was a soft knocking on the door.

It was Stephen. He pulled open the creaking door and walked into the room. His face was haunted. "Are you awake?" "Yes." Stephen perched himself on an upturned rusty milk churn in the corner of the room. He was dressed, and his breath made patterns in the air as he exhaled. He looked exhausted, but could not meet Finlay's gaze. "Marjorie’s leaving. She is going to stay with our cousins in London." He looked at Finlay for a reaction. When there was none, he looked away again. "She says if we are going to kill ourselves and others she wants no part of it. You probably gathered her attitude when she saw us bring the guns back." The first alarm bells began to sound in Finlay's mind. "She doesn't know about the attack?" "No, but she knows something’s up. And she knows what the German reaction will be. We all know that, I suppose." Finlay knew that the other man was telling him this to express his own doubts. He waited for him to voice them, but offered no encouragement. "We really are going to do this, aren't we?" "Do you think we shouldn't?" "I don't know. It's difficult to talk about your country's pride and honour, and what might happen to Hitler or Heydrich or whoever, when you are faced with seeing what happens to people here, on the ground, people we know. It's difficult to make any sense of it. It's difficult to make sense of anything any more."

Finlay was tired of the argument. "When is she leaving?" "This morning." "Will she talk?" It came out more harshly than he intended, and he regretted it instantly. Stephen looked at him, his eyes angry. "Good God, no, of course she won't talk. She's my sister, for God's sake." "Sorry." Stephen seemed mollified. His gaze shrank back to the earth floor at his feet. "If you and Clare don't want to be involved you don't have to be. You’re not in any army. You know how dangerous it’s going to be. God knows doing this is not going to make us popular with our own people, let alone the Germans." "It's not that. It genuinely isn't the fear, although I admit it's terrifying. It's just the bloody... cost. To have so much blood on your hands. To imagine what they will do afterwards." "That's why they do it, to make us feel as you do now. To stop us in our tracks. Then they win. They’re good psychologists. Getting better all the time." "This must have happened in Scotland. Reprisals and all that. Even the Germans admitted what was going on." "It did." "And you just stop thinking about it after a while, is that it?" "Yes." The word came easily in the effort to help the other man. It wasn’t true.

When Stephen had left, he dressed in the cold of the outhouse and walked out into the farmyard. The morning mist obscured the hills around them and there was ice mixed with the frost on the concrete floor of the yard. On the cart, which had been drawn up outside the farmhouse door, Stephen sat with the reins in his hands, staring straight ahead. He did not look around as Finlay came out. A suitcase and a bag were stowed behind him. The farmhouse door opened and Marjorie and Clare came out. He was struck again by how dissimilar they looked, despite the short dark hair and square, strong features. This morning the effect was stronger. Marjorie was ashen white. There were deep shadows under her eyes, which were red-rimmed with crying. They sparkled with tears, though her expression was blank and staring. Finlay stayed in the doorway. It was he who had brought this misery upon her, he could offer her no comfort. He watched silently as she hugged Clare wordlessly and then clambered aboard the cart on which Stephen still sat. Only as they moved off did she look around at him, staring with a peculiar intensity. He realised the look was hatred. For the Germans, she had shown only fear. And then her eyes snapped back to Clare's and held them as the cart trundled forward over the ice and frost of the yard to the road beyond and was gone. In the kitchen, he set about making tea with water from the kettle on the hob. Clare had disappeared in the house, but re-appeared silently as the kettle boiled. "Would you like some tea?" He could think of nothing else to say. "Yes, please."

When he looked up, she was staring at him. He had expected hatred, like the sister, or at least hostility, but there was only an open, frank appraisal. "Does anything touch you, anymore? Aren't you frightened about what happens next week?" "Yes. And what happens after it." "What will you do after that?" "You mean if we survive?" "Yes." Her expression did not change. "I don't know. Whatever I'm asked to do, I suppose." "Might you stay on here?" He did not know if it was meant as an invitation, or the opposite. "I don't know. It depends on the orders I receive." "Do you always follow orders? Would you follow them if they told you to stop this? To stop fighting?" "I suppose it would depend on who gave them, and why." She grunted, almost with laughter. "But don't you ever want to stop fighting? Accept what's happened and get on with your life? Any life? It's what everybody else has done." He set her cup down in front of her and lit a cigarette. He did not sit down himself, but stared out of the window at the mist just rising from the hills. "A lot of us don't have a choice but to carry on. We cannot just stop. If the Germans caught me now I’d be shot anyway. They would take it for granted I was a partisan. It's the only life I’ve had, since the invasion." "But doesn't that mean you are fighting for all the wrong reasons?"

For the first time emotion - a hint of reproach was in her voice. "Probably." He drew on the cigarette. "I don't care anymore. Everybody has different reasons. Usually not as good as they appear." He sipped his tea. The smoke from the cigarette mingled with the steam from the cup, until the two became indistinguishable. Clare broke the silence, getting to her feet and reaching for a newspaper hidden behind some saucepans on a shelf. "You might like to look at this. Curtis is involved in it. He gave it to me. It has a picture of our man in it." She threw the paper on to the kitchen table. The word newspaper leant it a gravity it did not deserve. In reality it was a large sheet of rough, poorquality paper, folded down the middle to form four pages in all. He had been told of these things, like the V-signs on the walls, though he had never seen one himself. In rough but ornate newspaper lettering across the top was the word Victory. The print was irregular and badly-spaced, and the ink came off in his hand. It was one of dozens of underground newspapers produced around the country, an antidote to the remnants of the national press which had survived in censored, propagandised form. The image that held him was the picture that stared from the front of the paper. A face he had seen, had studied, several times before. The face seemed gaunt to the point of starvation, the hair receding already and graying. But the tiny pale eyes were what held him, staring out accusingly, as if the camera itself had been guilty of some monstrous wrongdoing. Above it, the headline; The Butcher Arrives... with a short, surprisingly neutral

article giving details of Heydrich's installation as Governor General three months before and a short history of his career in Czechoslovakia and Germany. Finlay had read all the details before, many times, but he devoured the article anyway. When he looked at the face again, as well as the hatred there was also fear. Not of what he was about to do, but a fear that he would not do it, would not be able to do it, would be unable to bring himself to once more accept his own death and that of others as meaningless. He put the paper back on the shelf behind the saucepans and went out into the cold damp air of the morning. Two days before the attack Baker and Curtis came to the farmhouse in the evening. The atmosphere in the dimly-lit kitchen was tense, and both men's faces were drawn and watchful. Finlay was glad. If nothing else it showed they understood what they were about to undertake. Stephen reached to the back of the pantry and produced a bottle of whisky. Scotch - from before the war, not the drink distilled by the Germans. "I was keeping it for a special occasion." "Why not?" The plan was simple enough. Finlay, Stephen and Baker would go to the house he had selected in the evening, before curfew. They would knock on the door and overpower whoever was inside. They would be tied up and gagged, partly to ensure their silence, partly to ensure they might not be harmed when the Germans discovered them. To get inside the house without making a commotion was one of the riskiest parts of the plan, but he could see no way around it.

They could not wait in the open. Curtis and Clare would arrive in the morning, positioning themselves further down the street at intervals of 100 yards. They would be more exposed, and would have to find a way to look as inconspicuous as they could, which would be impossible, he knew, at that time and in that place. It could not be avoided. The attackers would have to have warning of the convoy's approach. "What if there are troops on the street. A patrol or something?" asked Baker. "In that case, nothing happens. This is not a suicide mission." He wondered at the truth of the words. "And what if there's a truckload of troops with them?" asked Curtis. His voice was not quite steady. Finlay took a gulp of the whisky, feeling the liquid light a fire in his throat and chest. "The same thing. It’s a decision that can only be taken at the last minute. Your job will be to give us warning when they come. Only when we see them do I decide if we’re to attack. We can cancel right up until the last moment. If the street is lined with troops, if there is a truck behind them, we let them drive past and we go home." "And if neither happens?" asked Clare quietly. "There will be some escort, but hopefully only one other car and outriders. The important thing is to hit them with everything, as fast as possible. It's no good firing off a few shots just as they go past. That’ll just get hostages shot for no reason. If we’re going to do it, we do it properly. The car’ll be slowing for the bridge, but it will still be travelling at speed. It will need everything we’ve got, and a lot of luck as well."

"And if people are captured?" Curtis again. "You all know what it means if you are captured. To you, to the rest of us, to your families. You're all here of your own free will. None of us will be able to hold out from telling the Germans everything they want to know and it isn't expected of anyone to do so. If anyone is taken alive, the rest will assume they tell everything, and quickly. We meet back here only if we all get away safely." "Or if whoever didn't get away is dead," said Curtis tonelessly. "Yes. If any of us is taken alive, you all have money and the addresses in the north to help you disappear and get new papers. Hide them in a place known only to yourself and for Christ's sake don't have them with you when we attack. And don't leave them here. If someone is taken alive, you all look after your own. Clare and Stephen will have to get Marjorie away. Curtis and Baker will do the same for those linked to them." "Is there anyone the Germans can link to you?" Stephen asked. "No." He paused for a moment. "If anybody doesn't want to be involved, say so now. This is your last chance." He looked at the faces around him. Noone spoke. "Good. Then there is not much more to say, is there?" He drained the whisky in his cup and reached for the bottle on the table. They talked late into the night, the kitchen table illuminated by four candles in cheap tin containers,

flickering flames casting shadows over them all and bathing the walls of the kitchen in shallow orange light. Finlay took part in the conversation, but allowed the drink to impart the familiar melancholy within him, and volunteered little. He did not wish to become fond of any of them, to care about the fates that awaited them, for in less than two days they would be dead to him, if not to the rest of the world. With Curtis and Baker it was easy, but with Stephen it was more difficult. They had known so much together, even if it was so long ago. He thought of Peter Newbury again, of Philip. He thought of all the others; Milner and Smith and Gaskell, all left on the beach. Johnson, crying in terror, and Farrell who had saved him on the hill tops, killed in the mad scramble north. Already some of the names and the faces had gone, and others were confused. He knew that normal life was a place to which he would not return, whatever should happen in this war. And he knew it, not because of all the dead faces, but because of one very much alive, seen in a pub in Brighton, while he, the stranger, looked on. He excused himself and went to bed. Lying on the rough blankets fully dressed, one thought revolving around in his mind. The following two days might be the last of his life. He viewed the thought with abstraction, like the line of a poem or an advertisement. He remembered from his childhood the feeling of having no control over time, the way it would speed up as one approached a dreaded event. From time to time, he heard snatches of conversation, even laughter, from the farmhouse kitchen. Eventually he slept.

He dreamed a familiar dream. He was on a boat, far out to sea though within sight of land. The shore and Brighton beyond were clearly visible. He wanted and needed to get to the shore. But as he got closer, it became progressively more difficult for his arms to move to row the boat in. Eventually he realised they were broken, and the pain was unbearable. And then through the pain he could see that the town he so much wanted to reach had been destroyed. Hardly a building still stood; thick plumes of smoke arose from the shattered ruins along the shoreline. He knew with absolute certainty that no-one there would be left alive. Curtis and Baker slept on the rough stone floor of the kitchen. On each man's face, awake in the cold early morning light, were the drawn lines of fear and realisation what was to come was nearly upon them. The morning, unlike the evening, brought no hiding place. Clare made tea for them all while Finlay recapped the plan from the night before, frightened whisky might have taken its toll. Despite the empty bottle on the table in front of him, nobody had forgotten. Later, he and Stephen went to dig up the guns they had buried in a clump of trees a few hundred yards from the farm. The skin on Stephen's face, grey rather than its usual ruddy pink, seemed stretched taut with tension. The creases around his eyes had all but disappeared. "How do you feel?" Finlay asked. "Shocking. Didn't sleep a wink. How about you?" "Not much better. I stayed off the whisky. From experience."

Stephen nodded. His fear made him child-like. "Does it help? Experience, I mean." "Not really." They walked on over the sodden, partly frozen earth, without speaking. In the evening, there was no alcohol, and even less chance of rest. Clare cooked a thin stew, though no-one could manage it. Finlay felt, as he had done before, he was on a lorry without brakes, unable to get off. Hadn't Philip Newbury said much the same thing in Newhaven all those years ago? There was little talk and all wished to be alone. After a while, most made their excuses and went off to bed, though no-one would sleep. Finlay lay as he had the night before, images flitting through his mind, nothing settling long enough to be viewed and understood. Despite himself, he slept. The morning brought relief with activity. Finlay shaved in freezing water in the light of a guttering candle as the dawn slowly broke, the pain giving his mind something to concentrate on. He used the light of the candle to check the guns and grenades, nestling in a sack at the foot of his bed, one final time. The guns were of a type made famous by Chicago gangsters in the 1930s, with fat cylindrical magazines that could hold over 70 bullets. They had been shipped over in the last days of 1940, as the Americans desperately tried to shore up the crumbling British defences without formally declaring war. The guns could sustain a continuous fire for far longer than most similar weapons because of their huge magazines, but

were prone to stop when a bullet got jammed in the breech. A soldier from the Middlesex, Finlay's regiment, attempting to ambush a German motorcycle, had jumped out from behind a tree with one of the guns, only for it to refuse to fire. He had still been trying to unjam it when the motorcycle's machine gun had cut him in half. There was a thin drizzle falling, warming the air and creating a fine mist for the few yards Finlay could see. He breathed deeply. In the farmhouse, they gathered again around the kitchen table, for the last time. Their faces were haggard and drawn - they could take little more of this. He and Stephen and Baker would have the most hazardous journey, taking guns and grenades on an afternoon train that was bound to carry soldiers. They would go seperately. Curtis and Clare would go into London together and join them at the station. The four men and the woman sat around the table and silently drank the tea Clare had made for them. At two o'clock, they made their preparations to leave. Each checked they carried their necessary documents with them. Clare and Curtis were the first. They would travel together. Baker, Stephen and Finlay would be on the same train, but seperate. The three men waited for a few minutes, then set off for the station at five minute intervals. Even apart, it was the most dangerous part of the journey. Three men, all of military age, walking down a country road. At the station, they stood apart on the platform, trying to ignore each other as best they could. When the train

arrived, the civilian carriage was empty save for two elderly women. The carriages reserved for troops looked empty too, as they often were in this direction, away from the coast. Finlay sat where he could see both Baker and Stephen, though Clare and Curtis were further down the carriage, near the women, who immediately began to talk to them. Finlay hoped they would be able to speak without revealing their fear. He was not sure he would have been able to do it himself. They changed at Croydon, where there were more troops on the station, awaiting transfers to the coast. Finlay pretended to study the train timetables on the platform, willing himself not to look to see what the others were doing. The bag in his hand, with the parts of the stripped gun within it, useless now, felt impossibly heavy. He felt sure the bag must look suspicious - some bright-eyed corporal was bound to notice and stop him. There would be the shouts, and the running, and the sound of a rifle cocking behind his back, and then the end. The train for Kingston wheezed in, promising deliverance from one fear only to another. The five of them, still ranged up the platform, got on. The carriages were again almost empty. Stephen, disobeying instructions, had sat next to his sister and Curtis and was talking to them. Finlay did not bother to object. They were close now, and there was nothing he could do about it. At the station, there was only the ticket inspector and a bored sentry to negotiate. The sentry did not even look at him as he passed, the first to get off the train. He walked out into the cold afternoon light, and

set off through the town towards the bridge, his heart beating a slow, pounding rythm in his chest. He willed himself to calm down, to think. There was a long time to go yet. Following the plan, Baker and Stephen were not far behind him. Clare and Curtis would walk around the town a little before coming to the house. His mind toyed with the cosily suburban street names, Wood Street, Dolphin Street. They seemed absurd. He thought for a minute of their inhabitants, with their hopes and dreams and fears and concerns. He wished he were one of them. Then he had reached the bridge and was crossing it and he could see the house in front of him. No sign of life in its windows. Just one other in a row of cosy domesticity. He walked on. He fingered the knife in his coat pocket, the weapon he would have to use to subdue the inhabitants should they resist. He hated knives - hated their uncertainty. He had never killed anyone with a knife. He slowed as he approached, to allow the other two to catch up. The house had a small, pretty front garden flanked by a low stone wall. He turned to see the faces of his companions. They were stricken with tension. "This one." He led them up the three steps to a black, glossy door, looking left and right to check the streets were deserted. They were completely exposed if anything should go wrong. There was a figure off in the distance, but it would take it minutes to get level with the house. He pulled the knife from the pocket of his jacket and looked at the others for a final time. Finlay brought the knocker crashing down three times, as loudly as he could, then three times more,

then three after that. The knock of the Gestapo, the occupation forces, the authorities. Those inside would already be terrified. The three men were partly sheltered by the portals of the doorway. They waited, breathing heavily, silent. There was at last a thin, frightened voice, an old man. "Who is it? What do you want?" Finlay didn’t bother with a foreign accent. "Open the door, now." There was silence for a long moment, then the sound of keys in the door and bolts being thrown. He made himself wait. The door began to move. He threw himself against it with his shoulder, smashing it backwards into whoever was inside and almost falling into the house as he did so. The man behind the door was elderly, with a balding head and dressed in a threadbare dressing gown over his clothes. He was hurled back against the wall by the force of Finlay's lunge, and the breath knocked from him. He looked petrified. Finlay pushed him back against the wall, one hand at his throat, ready to stifle any cry, the other holding the knife against his face so that he could see it. He fought the urge to vomit. Stephen and Baker were already past him, crashing into the house and up the stairs to find anyone else in the house. Finlay kicked the door shut as a thin scream errupted from upstairs and was stifled. "How many in the house?" he hissed. “How many?” The old man recovered some breath, but his voice came only in gasps. "Don't hurt us. We've done nothing wrong."

"How many people in the house? ’Who lives here?“" "Just me and my wife, upstairs in bed. Our daughter’s away. Please." "I'm not going to hurt you. Shut up." He felt the hammering of his heart. An elderly couple alone. Too bloody good to be true. He felt like crying with relief. Stephen appeared at the top of the stairs, looking stunned. He gave him a silent thumbsup, then indicated he should bring the old man up. Finlay grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. The man's breath was sour, and a stain was spreading down the leg of his trousers under the dressing gown. There was a red mark on his forehead where the door had hit. "Up the stairs. Don't say anything." The couple's bedroom was at the back of the house - the front bedroom would be clear. An elderly woman was still lying on the bed, Baker's hand clamped over her mouth. In his other hand, like Finlay, he clasped a knife, his face blank. The women's eyes were already bright with tears. Still holding her husband, Finlay talked to the woman, trying to keep his voice calm. "We’re not going to hurt you, if you stay silent. We’re here to hurt the Germans and we need your house. We will tie you up but we won't hurt you. Understand?" The old woman stared at him. He was about to repeat what he had said, but then she nodded, once, quickly. Finlay looked at her husband in front of him, then back at her.

"We’ll tie you up and gag you. It's for your own good." He nodded at Baker and Stephen to get on with it. Each man produced rope they had brought with them. Baker began tying the woman's hands behind her back, while Stephen started to rip one of the sheets into strips, to use as a gag. The woman's shoulders started to heave in great, racking sobs. Finlay wondered whether to bother to reassure her, but he could think of nothing apart from what he had already said. They had the couple bound and gagged within minutes, lying side by side on the bed facing each other. Stephen had gagged their mouths with socks from a drawer, then with the strips of sheet. The couple seemed calmer. Finlay took a handkerchief from one of the drawers in the room and went over to the woman. He held the handkerchief over her nose. "Blow your nose. It’ll help you breath." The woman looked at him with terrified incomprehension, then blew her nose feebly. Finlay repeated the exercise with the old man. He looked at their quiet, subservient bodies. "Try not to worry. Neither of you will be harmed." Stephen and Baker were both looking at him. "What now?" "Now we wait." "Might as well make a cup of tea, then," Baker grunted, and started for the bedroom door. Finlay laughed out loud. He felt the tension slip. Suddenly he was desperate for tea, for a cigarette, for anything. Stephen was looking at him in wonder. "Did you think it would be like this?"

"What?" asked Finlay. "I don't know. Anything. Everything. The war." "Good God, no. Did you?" He clapped Stephen's shoulder and managed to smile. The front bedroom was obviously the absent daughter's. The walls were a feminine pink, although the room did not look as if it had been lived in for years. He wondered how old the daughter could be. The couple must have been in their sixties, and obviously comfortable to afford such a house. He risked a look out of the front window. The thing had gone off fairly quietly, in the end, and the days of neighbours coming to investigate disturbances were long past here. The view over the river and bridge and down the street to his right was a pleasant one. There was no sign of Curtis and Clare. Down the street to his right was something even more welcome. He could not understand why he had not seen it before. About two hundred yards up; a bench, one of the few left in London after most had been ripped up for their metal and wood. Sitting on it would make Curtis much less conspicuous - a man sitting on a bench, reading a paper, might be mistaken for something normal. It wasn't so very long since it had been. The house was warm after the drizzle of outside. He took off his overcoat and pulled the gun from the bag, assembling it quickly on the bed. The metal gleamed blackly in the soft pink of the bedroom, incongruous. True to his word, Baker appeared with a mug of tea. "Do we keep them tied up all night?" "Yes. Check they’re comfortable from time to time if you like. But they stay tied and gagged."

"Do you think people heard us next door?" "Doesn't matter if they did. They won't come looking. They'll assume it is Gestapo. Who else would be knocking on doors?" He sipped the tea and lit a cigarette, tipping the ash into a china bowl that must once have contained flowers. The tea tasted unfamiliar. It had been years since he had had it with milk. He wondered where the old couple got milk from nowadays. He pulled an upholstered armchair from the corner of the room and placed it to one side of the window, a few feet back and shielded by the light blue curtains. Then he went downstairs to check the back garden. They would need an escape route through the back and away from the road. The house's garden was large and well-maintained - the old man was a gardener. Most of the flower beds had been given over to vegetables, as in every other garden for those lucky enough to have them. But what caught his eye as he looked out of the back window, not daring to venture into the open, was the gate at the back of the lawn. It led to a walkway that ran along the backs of the gardens. He nodded to himself. It would be enough, if any of them were lucky enough to use it. Their luck was holding. From the front of the house he heard the five distinct knocks that told them Clare and Curtis had arrived. After he had greeted them, Clare wide-eyed and pale, Finlay went back upstairs to sit in the window. They had timed it well - it was getting dark. The street outside was eerily quiet. To imagine what might happen tomorrow was impossible - he could not contemplate it. He pulled from his pocket the rough,

crumpled picture he had cut from the newspaper Curtis had brought. He looked again at the thin, cruel face with its psychopath eyes. He imagined bullets smashing into the face, destroying it bit by bit in a haze of blood and brain. First the eyes, then the thin mouth, all reduced to pulp. The Duke and the Duchess too. He stared at the picture for a long time. The others downstairs had settled themselves as best they could on armchairs and sofa, if not to sleep then at least to rest. The elderly couple had their gags removed and were given water to drink, still dumb with fear. The gags were put back. Finlay stayed upstairs as long as possible, staring out into the street. He had waited like this before. But the odds, and so the fear, had never been as bad as this. He lit another cigarette, sucking fiercely on the tobacco, pleased to see his hands still steady, so far. From time to time his heart would quicken, hammering as if to be released, then as suddenly it would quieten again. The silence was like a blanket. All night he sat staring out. At one point, deep in the night, he felt tired, as if he might sleep, but the feeling passed. He wondered if he should write a letter, though he could not think who to write to, or what to say. They had waited like this on the beach at Newhaven years before, but then they had not known when the Germans would come and it had been easier. This was worse. Perhaps this was how his father had felt. Waiting to go “over the top”, forward to death at some prearranged signal. This is how he must have felt. The thought provided no comfort. He was alone.

At last there came the sound of birds in the trees, and a dog barking, and the first hint of light muddying the black of the sky with streaks of grey. The tiredness and tension of the night hit him and he felt suddenly exhausted. The day ahead, with all that it might bring, seemed unendurable. He wanted to be elsewhere, some quiet and warm place, buried, able to sleep forever. He went downstairs. The others were sitting around the living room, faces white and watchful. No-one had slept. They stared at him questioningly. The clock on the fireplace said 6.20am. "I'll make some tea," he said, his mouth dry as dust. He took water to the old couple up the stairs. The woman appeared to be asleep, but the old man watched him with careful eyes. When he took the man's gag off, he groaned. "What are you trying to do?" "Don't ask," Finlay said. "It’s better for you not to know. It will be finished soon enough." He did not wish to speak to the old man, to have his self-control tested any more. Ignorance would be the couple's only chance. He re-tied the gag in place before the old man could speak again. He went back into the front bedroom and sat again by the window. It was nearly seven o'clock now and there was the occasional passer-by outside; delivery carts crossing the bridge, the occasional military truck passing, making him flinch. He watched as three office girls secretaries or typists - went past, grim in the early

morning cold and rain. He wanted to reach out to them, to share in their intimacy, to once again feel the trappings of a normal life. Then the girls had gone, crossing over the bridge to their offices somewhere in the town and it was quiet again. At nine o'clock they could wait no longer. It was time for Curtis and Clare to take up positions on the road. Curtis would be nearest, reading a newspaper on the bench. The signal would be him standing up as if to move off, then dropping the paper. The convoy would appear, and it would be Finlay's decision whether to hit it or not. His mouth was dry as he spoke to the two of them. "Whatever the level of protection they have - you signal anyway. We’ll decide to attack or not. If you’re challenged by a policeman or patrol, you walk away in this direction and signal that that has happened as you pass. If all goes to plan, we meet back at the farmhouse tonight." He shook hands with Curtis who was looking at him with the fear wild in his eyes. He made to do so with Clare, who seemed calmer, but she stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek. She smelt of soap and her lips were ice cold. After they had gone, he went back upstairs. The urge to be alone was paramount. Up the street two hundred yards away, he could see Curtis arranging his lanky frame on the bench. He looked terribly conspicuous. But if challenged, he could at least show that he was resident in London, could even conceivably be here to survey the journey of Heydrich

and the Duke as some form of research for an article. It was Clare who was in the greater danger, with no cover story at all and far from home with a forged travel permit. She had disappeared up the road and out of sight to him, though not to Curtis. He wondered if he would see her again. They were on the final stretch now. It might be only minutes. He prayed silently that nothing would go wrong, that they would take this route, that the level of protection of the convoy would not be too great. Having come this far down the road, he was not sure he could do it all again. Like before, in the pillbox at Newhaven looking out to sea, he felt insulated, studying things in some parallel dimension, things that could not touch him. The fear came in knowing that they could. Stephen came up the stairs to the bedroom. His voice was strained. Its quiet intensity startled Finlay. "It's been half an hour. Any signs?" "Nothing. Go back downstairs." His voice seemed to come from a long way away it did not seem to be his own. He went back to staring out of the window, focussing with such intensity on Curtis that the image swam before his eyes. Still he sat there, still he read. Another half hour somehow passed. And then time stopped. There was the familiar rushing in his ears and his heart seemed first to slow, then accelerate wildly. Curtis was standing up, exactly as planned, making as if to fold the newspaper, then letting it slip to the

ground. The pages, caught by the wind, began to separate. Finlay's actions were automatic, honed by hours of imagining nothing but this. He jumped from the chair and ran across the room, clicking the gun's safety catch off as he went. There was no time for prayer, or thought, or reflection. Only the small questioning voice at the back of his mind, wondering how it would be... Baker and Stephen had heard him clattering across the room and were waiting by the front door as he crashed down the stairs. Their weapons were in their hands, their eyes wide and staring. He did not look at them, but pulled a grenade from his coat pocket. The bomb felt cold and heavy in his hand. "Come on." His voice was no more than a whisper. He opened the front door and stepped out. There was still a light drizzle. It was cold. To his left there was a horse-drawn cart moving away in the distance, away from the bridge, and a few pedestrians walking towards it, still a hundred yards away. He looked to his right. The road was empty save for what had just rounded the bend and was approaching them at speed, only two hundred yards away. A motorcycle and sidecar, in front of two huge black saloon cars, gleaming like beetles. From the wings of both, pennants and swastikas flew. The convoy had already passed Curtis. Finlay made his decision. "Concentrate on the lead car first."

He could hear Stephen swearing quietly to himself, his voice shaking. After the calm of before, his heart had now started to beat so terribly it was painful. The fear, as he had always known, was worse than anything reality might bring. He stepped forward and down the stairs, and took up position behind a tree a few yards from the house, keeping the gun behind him hidden. He had thought there might still be seconds left, but as he looked out, he saw the convoy had slowed little and was almost upon them. In slow motion, he took a step to his right, swung the machine gun up and aimed. He pulled the trigger. The motorcyclist had seen him, but had no chance. Even with the sound of the car engines, the clatter of the gun in his hands was shocking in the quiet of the morning. He opened up directly at the motorcycle, then started to rake the fire back and forth across the windscreen of the car in front. In the split seconds before the first bullets hit him, the driver of the command car had braked to avoid the motorcyclist in front, thrown back off his machine by bullets smashing into his chest. As his own vehicle was hit and bullets hit him in the face, the pressure on the brake pedal increased, as the car began to skid. With a huge crash of tearing metal, the car behind smashed into the one in front at the same moment the now riderless motorcycle combination ran into the railings on the other side of the street. Finlay was already pulling the pin from a grenade as Stephen and Baker started to rake fire across both cars, now joined together, as they slid forward. The

motorcyclist disappeared under the wheels of the front car, and it reared up as it rode over his body. Finlay moved forward, determined the grenade would find its target. Behind him, Stephen and Baker had to move along the pavement as they fired, to avoid hitting him in the back. He ran to within twenty feet of the lead car, then threw his bomb. It landed against the right side of the car, exploding with a deafening crash. Finlay was already running around the front of the now stationary convoy when the blast caught him and threw him off his feet. He got up again to run to the other side, pulling another grenade from his pocket as he did so. He could see soldiers getting out from the car at the back, only to be hit by Stephen and Baker's fire. In front of him, the back door of the lead car opened as he pulled the pin of the second grenade. He had an impression of faces he had seen before, had studied for so long. In the back of the car, on the side nearest him and making no effort to get out, the thin, haunted face of the Duke, slumped to one side. Two other figures were also in the lead car, their backs to him. And already half out of the car - Heydrich. The face was as he remembered, thin, pale and cruel, but now one side was blackened and glistening with blood. The eyes that stared were smiling, the lips drawn up and back in an unmistakable snarl of pleasure. The head went down to sight along the barrel of a pistol held in his right hand. Finlay felt a savage kick in the stomach which threw him backwards. He hurled the grenade as best he could. He was closer to the car this time, and the

bomb had only to travel some fifteen feet. It exploded right in front of Heydrich, smashing him back into the armour plated door of the car with savage force. He died. Lying on the street, dazed by the blast and winded by the bullet that had entered his stomach, Finlay felt removed from everything. The voice in the back of his mind now seemed to have taken over, allowing him to view things with detachment. He felt warm. The noise of firing broke through again. There were still soldiers in the rear car who were protected by its armour plating as long as they stayed inside, and he had to get cover from them. He got to his feet - impossibly slowly - and stumbled back across the road towards the gateway of the house he and the others had come from. As he came back round the front of the cars, he saw Stephen, his back against the wall of the garden of the next house along, feet stretched out in front of him. His gun lay on the ground beside him. Stephen's face was unmarked, and he seemed to be studying the pavement between his legs with interest. There were black marks on his chest. As Finlay looked, his face dissolved in red mist as a bullet caught it, smashing his head back against the brick and rolling his body to the floor. Finlay thought: Now even he has gone. Baker was still firing, sheltering behind the stone of the gate of the house. Finlay ran doubled up across the street, firing blindly to his left as he went. He had an impression of soldiers lying on the road by the open door of the rear car, though whether they were alive or dead he

couldn’t say. He screamed at Baker to get back into the house, then crashed to the ground to seek shelter behind the wall and cover the other man's retreat. Baker needed no second bidding. He ran up the stairs into the house, dropping his now empty machine gun behind him. Finlay lay behind the wall, firing blindly at the remains of the convoy. His stomach felt impossibly warm, like something burning had been set upon it. As he watched, two soldiers jumped from the door of the car to assume firing positions. He pulled his gun up again and fired a burst at them. He saw one soldier blown backwards by the bullets, but the other jumped back behind the rear of the car, stepping on the bodies of his fallen comrades as he did so. The last bullet the soldier fired caught the stone wall in front of Finlay's face, smashing concrete and brick into his unprotected eyes, blinding him completely. He fell back behind the wall on his side. And still there was no pain. Instead, the warmth of his stomach was now all over his face. He lay stunned, shaking his head. After a while, some blurred reddened vision returned slowly to his left eye. From the destroyed right eye, there was nothing. The voice inside his head spoke more clearly now - he could hear it plainly. Stephen was dead and he was alone. Finally alone. The voice urged him to go. All his energy seemed to have left him. He remembered the exhaustion after a battle, after Newhaven - this was worse. He got staggering to his feet, fired a last burst in the direction

of the convoy he could no longer see, and ran up the stairs for the doorway. He ran and ran. As he was almost through it, there was a tremendous shove as if someone were giving a helping hand, far too strong. He was thrown forward, to sprawl on the floor of the hallway, out of sight of the soldiers in the street. Now the burning was all over him. The voice drove him on. He managed to get on his hands and knees and crawl along the passageway. The instinct to escape had taken over his concious mind, driving him forward with an imperative that was automatic. Only his unconcious mind - the voice inside his head growing fainter all the time - still functioned, viewing what was happening with dispassionate interest. In the kitchen, he levered himself up on to his feet using the table. Baker had disappeared. He staggered out of the back door and across the garden to the back gate. He stumbled through it and tried to make his way along the passageway that ran from left to right. He was banging from one wall to the other and energy seemed to be slipping away from him by the second. He would have to rest soon. The alleyway opened out on to a quiet residential street. His one-eyed vision was clouding red again, and he felt more and more tired. Soon he would sleep. As his view diminished, he could more clearly see the face of Ren instead –Ren! - and he was happy. He could see her dark, glinting eyes, that furious barking laughter. He smiled at the thought of it. It would be nice to see it one last time. He turned right, in what he thought might be the direction of the station.

He could get a train to the coast, to Brighton! If he could get there, he might see her again. They could go for a walk together. Along the beach. First he would rest. He did not want her to see him like this. He lowered himself to the pavement, his back against the wall. If he waited, perhaps his strength and his vision might return. He was aware of some disquieting feeling he did not understand, then realised it was pain. He seemed to hurt almost everywhere. Ren looked at him. She was all he could see as he slumped against the wall. His hands reached down to the cool, wet surface of the pavement to steady himself, although he was not aware of the rain falling on him. Her face – so beautiful - was serious now, the dark eyes staring with that intensity he could remember so well. She was speaking to him, although he could not make out the words. It did not matter. He would ask her when he found her. His arms gave way and he slumped to the floor, his head hitting the concrete although he did not feel it. Everything would be all right. He would rest for a while, sleep a little even, then set off to find her. They would walk on the beach and hold hands together, like in his dreams. He smiled.

1945‘

It was time for the class to be dismissed for lunch. Ren Amsden surveyed the ranks of tousled, tenyear old heads bent as they sat, cross-legged, labouring. She had never known classes so wellbehaved. She had no watch with which to tell the time, but she could hear the clanging of the bell which announced the break. Heads shot up expectantly. The meal would be no more than soup and bread, but it would be hot and served in the main hall of the school, the only room that was heated. She would be glad to get out of the

freezing winter of the classroom herself, with its stone floor and cracked windows. She collected up the work. Forty scraps of paper crowded with unreadable writing. It would have been nice to have more paper but that was impossible. She would be working into the night again to mark them. When the last of the children had tumbled out of the classroom door, she sat for a moment at her desk, trying to read the top sheet of paper. The writing blurred and swam in front of her eyes for a second, and for a moment she thought she would faint. It was a sensation she was used to and it did not frighten her. Hunger did it. The hunger and the cold. After a while it passed and she went down to the school hall. The lunchtime ritual was a mixture of the familiar and the bizarre. The usual babble of children's voices; the unusual sight of boys all eating from tin bowls balanced on knees as they sat on the floor. The benches and tables were long gone, burnt for firewood. The bowls were army surplus - a triumph for the scavenging skills of the headmaster. Ten teachers, mostly women older than Ren, had their meal after the boys had finished and gone out reluctantly - into the cold. They sat at the only table, on two wooden benches. As usual, the soup was thin and the conversation as stale as the bread. Moreland, the headmaster, a thin, energetic man with protruding teeth and bright eyes behind thick spectacles, turned to Ren. "That Scottish lad in your class, Miss Amsden Ballater, isn't it?"

She thought for a second. The boy was unusually quiet. He never complained about the food, or the cold. His work was adequate. "Something wrong?" "Not at all. Good news for him. The DPO have been on this morning. His father's coming back from Germany. Arriving this afternoon. The mother insists on bringing him here to collect the boy. Against my advice, of course. If you could make sure the other boys don't see him, in the usual way." There had been a steady trickle, over the summer. Soldiers who had survived returning from camps on the Continent. The DPO was the Displaced Person's Office, which handled the wrecks who came back. The school had seen a few return but most boys still knew nothing. It was policy not to let the ones still waiting see the other, luckier ones. Moreland was still speaking. "Keep him behind as usual. The others should be out of the way by the time I bring the parents up." In the afternoon, she detected no trace in the boy's behaviour that he knew what awaited him. Although some fathers had returned, she had never had the child of one in her class before. She was filled with an excitement which seemed disproportionate. She ached to tell him, looking at his quiet face; like so many, old beyond his years. Much of her excitement had nothing to do with the boy himself. A month earlier her mother and brother had moved down to Brighton to be near here, moving into the room that Jean had vacated after being

offered a job in Liverpool. Her mother had brought her own DPO note. John Derek Amsden No. 4759309/Believed Died 1944 Hamburg /Cause of Death: Allied Bombing/Unknown" “ She had handed it over wordlessly. There had been shock, then perhaps a more surprising emptiness. Neither had spoken of it since. Now it was four o'clock and the bell to end the day had sounded. Ren dismissed the class and asked Ballater to stay behind. There was a murmering and looks at his unexplained detention. It was usually the sign of news, bad or good. The boy himself retained a calm watchfulness, in keeping with his character. He seemed more adult than any child Ren had ever known. He had red hair and long eyelashes. His dead white skin seemed to have grown paler at being singled out. It was the only indication of emotion. Ren talked to him as she gathered her books, grateful to unburden the secret. "There's wonderful news, John. Your father is coming back. He's not in Germany anymore. He's here at the school to collect you." She was aware of the door opening and figures appearing. Ballater's face changed slowly as he looked towards the door. The blank watchfulness disappeared. The expression that came over it was not elation. It was more like a puzzled fear. Moreland had already entered the room. Behind him stood a tiny woman with pinched features dressed in a threadbare coat. Her eyes were smiling over deep shadows. She was very thin, and had obviously been crying. As she looked at her son, the tears came again. The boy got

up and came towards her hesitantly. His eyes were not on her, but on the figure behind her. The man was of medium height, but even in the bulky army coat, impossibly thin. His eyes seemed to have shrunk back into his head. The skin on his face was stretched so taut the bones of his cheeks seemed to be in danger of breaking through. His hair was cut savagely short and there were sores at the corner of his lips. He stared with uncomprehending eyes at his son, as if he had never seen the boy before. The mother was trying to speak. "He's back, John. Back from Germany." She came forward to take the boy's shoulders, pushing him towards his father. The boy moved only reluctantly, suspiciously. He walked to his father with slow measured steps. When he was in front of him, unsure of his reception, he put out his arms and embraced the man around the stomach. Neither said anything. The man looked down at the son he had not seen for five years. There was still blank puzzlement on his haunted face, but in his eyes there was a glitter of some tormented emotion at last. Slowly his arms came round, like an automaton. The mother, perhaps through exhaustion, was calm. Only Ren wept. Later, her feet crunched through the snow that had fallen overnight and through the day. She headed down the familiar High Street through Lewes to the train station, and home. At Brighton, she walked out from the concourse and up the hill, trying not to slip on the icy pavements. The station and the buildings around had been further smashed by the sabotage

and fighting the year before, but it still functioned. Her shoes were hopeless against the cold and her feet soon became numb. She was used to the feeling. She was immune to discomfort in a way she had never known before. After Linz had been stabbed under the bridge two years before they had tortured her, convinced she must have assisted in his killing. They had beaten her. But she had known nothing. Eventually, they had let her go. She had been surprised. Others had not been so lucky. When the school at Lewes had re-opened six months ago, she had without thinking applied for a post and been accepted. All the previous teachers had gone. Whitworth had died just after the invasion in 1940. She had noticed the stark conditions now and contrasted them with the happiness of before, but the distinction did not reach her. She survived by instinct. She’d watched the last of the Germans withdraw the year before in an orgy of destruction, and seen the wave of recriminations and hangings that followed. There was a new, different brutality, with even greater shortages, but it could no longer affect her. There had been the return of the King and the government, but it had been a muted affair. Until today, she had not cried at all. When she got home, she knocked the snow from her shoes. The block was freezing even when she opened the front door. None of the rooms had either heating or running water. Some did not even have windows, yet still people lived in them. The water had to be collected from a faucet outside the back door in the building's yard. She remembered how it had been when she had shared with Jean. The time when the

Germans had been here seemed luxurious by contrast. She climbed the stairs wearily, looking forward to sitting down with a cup of tea from the one luxury still left them, the stove. Her mother and Keith would not be home from work for at least two hours. After she had boiled water, she put her shoes into the oven to dry them out. It was an old trick that made the oven stink, but there was not much to cook in it nowadays. She settled herself in the sparsely furnished room, without carpet or curtains and with only the one large mattress for her, her mother and Keith to sleep on. Instead of falling into a doze as usual, she was unsettled and could not relax. The day had disturbed her, had unsettled some unconcious equilibrium of whose existence she had not been aware. It was to do with Ballater and his father's return, but she could not fathom what it was. Only as she heard the sound of her mother and brother returning did she realise the sensation was hope. She marvelled at the new feeling. Perhaps the deadness within her was about to lift. She thought of her father, and of all those who had gone, and she felt guilty at the very thought of it. She did not wish to bring such a painful experience up with her mother again, but the idea that had been planted within her grew untrammelled. Later, as the three ate potatoes and fish her mother had been able to acquire from work, she could hold back no longer. "I'm going to the DPO, the Displaced Person's Office, to trace someone. I don't know how to do it."

At first she thought her mother, whose thin face stared into her food without expression, had not heard. Then she thought she would refuse to answer. Ren had not gone with her to the office for her father. Her mother had not forgiven her. "Who do you want to find?" "Just... someone. I wondered if you needed authorisation from somewhere. That sort of thing. And where do you go." Her mother shook her head. "You don't need papers. There's an office in Brighton, at the town hall. If you ask, they send up to London for information. But you need details of what you are looking for. The Yanks and the Russians run the office in London and they don't care." "Oh." "You won't tell me who you are looking for?" Ren picked at her food. "Someone I knew before the war." "Not the German, then?" "I told you, the German died. He didn't matter anyway." "So who is it?" "No-one, like I said. Just something at school set me thinking, that's all. Let's forget about it. I'll make some tea." All the following day she tried to drop the subject in her mind. It was absurd. Ballater had not appeared that morning, unsurprisingly. But however far-fetched the question in her mind, she could not deny it. At lunchtime, she gave up and went to see Moreland, asking to have the

afternoon off, pleading illness. In truth, she did not feel well and found it easy to pull off the subterfuge. Moreland raised no objections. When she got to the station, she walked down towards the town hall as her mother had directed. Some of the shops were still open on North Street, others had closed either through a lack of supplies or bomb damage still unrepaired. The streets were eerily quiet in the mid-afternoon snow. There was no traffic, apart from the occasional army truck. The trucks had been abandoned by the Germans and still had their markings on. She walked on and her heart sank as she saw there was a queue at least a hundred yards long. She knew it would be for the office she wanted. She shivered in the snow and the rubble and debated turning back and going home. But something drove her on down the road, and she took her place at the back. The pinched faces of those in front told their stories clearly enough; women who looked for sons and brothers, husbands and fathers. Almost all women. She tried to comfort herself. It was no worse than any of the other queues she was used to, for bread or milk. Just different. What was here was too important to share with others. The people in front of her did not speak, but shuffled forward in grim expectancy. Her feet were in agony by the time the queue had shortened enough for her to anticipate entering the building. More people had joined behind her. She wondered how her feet could be so numb and yet so painful at the same time. The faces around her were pictures of pinched anxiety. Eventually, she moved

forward once more and entered blissful warmth. It was true what they said - only the army was warm nowadays. Up ahead she could see a line of desks stretched across the back of the marble entrance hall. It had once been a grand building, though now every possible part of it was being used for some administrative purpose. Those reaching the head of the queue had to go to one of five desks, behind which sat military officers. They looked bored just as the Germans had once looked, though their faces and uniforms were different. From time to time, officers would get up from their desks and go into a room at the back, inside which figures could be seen working at more desks, surrounded by paperwork. Feeling foolish and selfconcious, she wondered again whether to forget her quest and go back to the cold, dark rooms across the other side of Brighton. She had no place here. The army was as suspicious of everything as the Germans - often more so. But then she had reached the front of the queue and the desk on the far right of the line was available. She walked to it and sat down, aware of eyes behind her that stared intently, wondering if she would steal their luck from them. The soldier stared at her without expression in his thin face. He looked very young and very tired. "I'm looking for someone." The statement seemed stupidly obvious but she could think of nothing more to say. She felt her face colouring in the warmth. "Yes?" "He was in the army, in 1940."

She panicked as she realised it was nearly the extent of her knowledge. She should not have come. She wracked her brains for more details, and something came to her. A fragment of a letter, years before. Stephen had read it out to her. It had been before the war. She seized on it with hope. "I think he was in the Middlesex Regiment, or something like that." The soldier looked at her, his expression a mixture of boredom and insolence. "Do you know where he was stationed, and what his name was?" Ren swallowed and took a deep breath. "His name was Derrington. Finlay Derrington. I don't know where he was stationed." The soldier flicked a form across to her from a pile by his side. It was printed on rough cardboard paper. Displaced Persons Information was printed at the top above some incomprehensible letters. "Fill the form out at the desk over there. Then hand it in to the sergeant." His face softened and there was the hint of a sad smile. Then it was gone. "Come back in a week." She did as she was told, trying to beat down the feeling of hope that had caught in her. They had all gone - she knew it. She knew this last try was ridiculous, but she could not stop herself. She had grasped the hope as a drowning man would. She walked back towards her home. Within minutes, her feet were numb and throbbing again.

She returned the following week as she had been told to, to face the same waiting in the same queue. Only the weather was different. There had been a thaw from the previous week, but only sufficient to make the dirty snow more wet and uncomfortable. Eventually - it seemed to take longer this time - she reached the head of the queue, and this time she went to the desk in the middle. The soldiers were different from the week before, though with the same bored, neutral faces. She explained to the soldier opposite her mission. She could not throw off the feeling of foolishness, even though she was one of thousands making similar requests. Her heart hammered in her chest as she spoke. "Name?" "Ren Amsden." "Not yours. The deportee's." "Sorry. Finlay Derrington." "Regiment?" "The Middlesex Regiment, I think." "Last known station?" "Nothing really. Only that he was on the south coast in England in 1940." The soldier stared for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Wait a moment." He got up and went into the room behind the desks. She could see the ranks of men and women working inside before the door closed. She waited for what seemed an age, trying to control the beating of her heart. The soldier came back, a sheaf of papers in

his hand. He sat down and leafed through them, unsure of what to say. Eventually, he spoke. "There’s no trace of a Finlay Derrington in the German records of prisoners of war that we have from the occupation. And no record of him before the invasion either." He stared at her. "That's it?" "Yes. We had a request to trace him from a sister who lives in London, three months ago. There was nothing." "But what does it mean? Is there no way of tracing him?" He shook his head. "The army destroyed its records in 1940 to prevent them falling into enemy hands. All we have are records of soldiers who surrendered to the Germans after the invasion. His name is not on those." "What does that mean?" He shrugged again and smiled sadly. "It means he was not part of the formal surrender. Either he was killed in the invasion, or captured later, and, well, killed then. He was not captured with the formal surrender and he wasn't sent to Germany later, to the camps. The Germans kept very good records. I’m so sorry." "You mean he’s dead?" "Almost certainly." "I see." She swallowed tightly. "You can have your form back if you wish. Or we can keep it if we receive any further information." "Do you think it's likely?" "No."

"I'll keep it, then. Thank you." She got up, feeling suddenly tired and claustrophobic in the huge room, with its ranks of people. The soldier was already looking past her to the next person to be dealt with. The people behind looked at her, hoping to see in her face some clue. She walked out of the building, into the cold, and turned right, towards the seafront. She could hear the cry of the seagulls in the distance. No other sound interrupted the swishing of her feet as they kicked the snow in front of them. She walked on down to the shore, breathing in the cold mist rolling off the Channel. She walked across pebbles to where the water broke in quiet, consoling waves. It was the end. In her hand she still held the rough form on which she had written Finlay's name and her own, with her address. She looked at it for a long moment, then crushed the paper into a ball and threw it as far as she could into the sea. It bobbed on the surface of the dirty water before a wave caught it and the tide began to take it further down the shore. She imagined it carried for miles out to sea, perhaps to the Atlantic and beyond - who knew where? - the water washing away the already faded writing - the names together - until nothing was left. She was cold after the warmth of the building. She shivered and pulled her coat around her to do the buttons up. She looked down momentarily, taking her eyes off the crumpled paper floating in the sea. When she looked up again, a second later, she tried to find it among the gently rolling waves, but it had vanished into the mist.