Ernst stood, furious. 'That is enough.'

Irma pushed herself between them. 'For God's sake, Fred! Please, Obergefreiter-'

Viv came running down the stairs. 'Ernst – Dad – there's somebody coming. I saw them from upstairs. Cars and torches and dogs. There's shouting. They're coming here, Dad!'

XXIII

Fred paced around, limping heavily on his damaged leg, punching one fist into another. 'Oh Christ Jesus. One from every house, that's what they take. Oh Christ bloody Jesus, not here, let them not come here.'

Viv peered out of a chink in the blackout curtain. 'They're walking down the drive. One fat man just slipped in the slush.' She actually laughed.

'You stupid little baggage!' Fred would have lunged at her.

Ernst caught his arm. 'Fred! We must get the children away, out of sight. And the women.'

'I'm not going anywhere,' Irma said. But she was shaking, her face empty.

And anyhow there was no time even for that. There was a hammering on the door, a shout, in German, 'Open up! Out, out!'

Viv screamed and ran upstairs. Irma grabbed her baby from her cot, and went to Alfie, who was still clutching his OWS papers, as if they were a shield. Fred just stood there motionless, hands bunched into fists.

Ernst made to go to the door.

Claudine got up and grabbed his arm. 'No,' she said in German. 'Let me go.'

'You? But-'

'Maybe I can confuse them. I will start shouting in German, and demand to see the oberleutnant in charge of the closed house, or something.' She managed a small smile. 'You know how you Germans are. Bureaucratic to a fault. If they're confused they might forget why they came here.'

'But-'

There was another slam on the door, like the heel of a boot, and dogs barked.

She flashed him a smile. 'I do this for you,' she said. She made for the door.

Ernst glimpsed an officer and an enlisted man, both in SS black, with a dog on a rope leash. When it smelled the roast pork the dog went crazy. Claudine spoke softly to the SS men in what sounded like English, not German, and showed them a bit of paper that to Ernst looked oddly like a British identity card. The officer inspected the paper. 'Good. Come.' He grabbed her arm and pulled her away, so roughly she stumbled.

Fred stood, unmoving. 'Is it over?'

Irma was patting at her apron. 'My identity card is gone. She must have- I thought what she showed them looked a bit familiar. How did she do that?'

In an instant Ernst saw what Claudine had done, that she had taken Irma's place. 'Claudine!' He lunged forward.

But Fred stood in his way and grabbed his arms. 'Let her go,' he said. 'She did it to spare us. For God's sake-'

Through the open door Ernst saw they were dragging her to a truck, in which a dozen people already stood passively, their heads bowed. He struggled. 'Get your hands off me!'

'Please. I'm begging you.' The man was crying, Ernst saw. Fred wrapped his big farmer's arms around him, as if he was hugging him rather than restraining him. 'Let her go! Oh, God, let her go.'

XXIV

It was an hour before Fred would let Ernst out of the house.

They all sat in the kitchen, as if stunned. Irma cut Alfie some of the pork. None of the others could eat.

When the hour was up Ernst pulled on his greatcoat and boots and ran out of the door. It had stopped snowing. The sky was full of cloud, but the air was cold, clear.

Ernst went to find Alfie's bike, the one the boy rode every day to school, the only transport available. The bike was a bit small for him, but Alfie's legs were long, and Ernst was able to make it work. There was a little dynamo that powered flickering lamps front and back.

The bike was hard work, the slush and the mud dragging at the wheels. It was pitch dark aside from the light of his lamps, but he was able to follow the tracks of the truck easily enough. As he passed more farmhouses he saw where the footprints of the men and dogs diverged from the main track.

As he rode on he began to hear the shooting, rough volleys clattering through the still air.

The killing site was at a place called Netherfield, little more than a road junction a couple of miles north of Battle. The only light came from the trucks' headlights; the vehicles' engines were running, rumbling. He saw people being lined up, ten or a dozen at a time. There seemed to be more SS men than captives. The men stood around, helmets of smoke around their heads in the cold air. One man bent to pat his dog. He heard laughter.

A man, an SS-schutze waving a torch, stopped him a hundred yards from the site. 'Halt, Herr Obergefreiter. You have your card?'

Ernst got off the bike, and fumbled in his jacket pocket for his papers.

The schutze inspected them by torchlight. 'What are you doing here, Herr Obergefreiter?'

'There is somebody here I know,' Ernst said. 'Not British – French. A mistake.'

Another volley of gunfire.

'I wouldn't go down there if I were you,' the schutze said. 'It is nearly done, the work. If your friend was ever there, well… The einsatzgruppen are not fond of being interrupted.'

Ernst took a step forward. 'But-'

The schutze put a gloved hand on his chest. 'Please.'

Another group was lined up. They stood at the edge of a pit. Ernst wondered how it had been dug out, for the ground was frozen. Perhaps it had been prepared in advance; the SS were nothing if not efficient. Ernst saw the silhouettes of the men with their pistols, standing behind their targets. When the order came to fire there was a spray of blood and brains, you could clearly see it, vivid crimson by the glow of the trucks' lamps. Some of the victims fell cleanly, others quivered and trembled before they dropped, and some screamed, not yet dead. Men stepped forward and pistols cracked, as the work of clean-up was finished.

The schutze watched this impassively. 'Would you like a cigarette, Herr Obergefreiter?'

'No.'

'Um. Then, do you have one to spare?'

Ernst dug a packet out of his greatcoat pocket.

The man took a cigarette gratefully. He lit it within cupped fingers, and the glow illuminated his face. He was very young, Ernst saw. 'It is not as easy as you might think,' the schutze said slowly, 'to kill a man.'

'It is a mistake,' Ernst said. 'She should not be there.'

The schutze nodded. 'Such things happen. I once read of a pope who, when receiving complaints about the unfairness of the Inquisition, said that he would leave it to Saint Peter to sort out saints from sinners. Do you believe in God?'

'Do you?'

'Not any more, Herr Obergefreiter.'

The men dispersed from the edge of the pit, and the trucks' engines roared.