Collaborator, p.7
Collaborator, page 7
‘It’s not as easy as it sounds, and this region’s especially difficult to jam because of its terrain, say the experts.’
‘Do we even know exactly who owns a wireless set?’ asked Glass.
‘No, that’s part of the problem,’ barked Stolz.
Tickell ran a finger under his wing collar. ‘I’m afraid the electoral lists and council rating schedules are out of date, sir. Many men are still . . . away, but on the other hand we’ve had a huge influx of refugees.’
‘We need a comprehensive household register detailing informative like name, age, sex, occupation and religion.’ Stolz’s eyes burned with enthusiasm. ‘Together with possession of things like a wireless set or a car.’
‘That still doesn’t solve our immediate problem.’ Glass opened a small gunmetal container and put two white tablets side by side on his desk. ‘Sergeant, write this down. Reichskommissar von Ribbentrop has been pleased to grant a seasonal gift to every residence as a token of Anglo-German friendship: a Christmas present of ten cigarettes or a bar of chocolate, a kilo of potatoes and one hundred grammes of tea per household - to be collected at the nearest junior school. Got that?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I scribbled desperately in my notebook.
‘All I have to do now is to get it approved by Militärbefehlshaber London,’ muttered Glass, almost to himself. ‘Sketch out a poster announcing the gift, Penny. They’ll be printed this evening and put up throughout the region overnight. The announcement will be read out tomorrow morning on BBC Western Region .’
‘That’s very kind, sir.’
‘Remember to call von Ribbentrop “The Protector” - not Reichskommissar.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘One last thing, sergeant. The offer is only open only from three to three-thirty tomorrow afternoon.‘
The Germans could be terrifyingly efficient when they wanted to be. Within an hour, supply staff at Zufuhrstelle food depots were beginning distribution to the main Nebenstelle and far-flung Außenstelle across the Province.
I had a rough outline of the poster ready for approval by the time Hauser delivered Joan’s chocolates.
‘What do you think of the general’s idea?’ He demanded. ‘Clever, eh?’
‘Very.’ I kept my views to myself.
‘He knows you never win over people by terrorising them - only by kindness. That man’ll go right to the top, as long as he remembers to bite his tongue about the Party.’ Hauser was a big fan of the Kommandant’s. Perhaps he hoped to rise on his coat-tails. He’d have to learn discretion first. As if to prove the point, he started to tell me about how much pain Glass was in.
‘His missing arm hurts like hell, all the time. That’s why he takes those tablets. Mind you, he shouldn’t be washing them down with cognac. That doesn’t do him any good. Is this the poster? Good. I’ll show it him. Don't go away yet.’
I wasn’t going anywhere. I began to wrap my presents. Images of Christmas drifted across my mind. Crisp snow on deep starry nights, carol singing, crowded pubs with happy laughter, the midnight service, the last goodnight kiss and fumble, creeping home to the scent of resin from the Christmas tree. Images - that’s exactly what they were. Images. You seldom got snow in this part of the country. There hadn’t been any carol singers this year. It was almost indecent to laugh nowadays, and the tree I’d taken home was still out in the garden. Joan wasn’t interested in decorating the house. And I wouldn’t be getting a goodnight kiss from Vee. She was sorry, but she was tied up visiting her parents all over Christmas.
I made a dog’s dinner of wrapping my presents. I’d usually been able to call on the help of a girlfriend - or even Roy’s mother one year. Now I had to do them myself. I couldn’t understand why a rectangular box of chocolates ended up looking like a wrapped pullover.
The door opened and Glass came in carrying a bottle of cognac and two glasses. I leapt to attention. He kicked the door shut with his heel, perched on the edge of the table and poured two measures. He’d been drinking continually since I’d last seen him.
‘You did a good job with that poster. Have a drink. It’s the season of goodwill.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about your King’s speech?’
‘You knew already.’
‘Actually, I didn’t. Reichssicherheitshauptamt London only put out a priority signal at midday. So?’
‘No-one told me either.’ It hurt that no-one I’d spoken to while shopping had trusted me enough to tell me.
‘I thought that must be why you looked as if you had a guilty secret when you came in.’
Christ! Had it shown so clearly! ‘Everyone looks like that in the presence of the Standartenführer, sir.’
Glass laughed. ‘Prost.’
‘Prost.’ I coughed as the liquid flowed down my throat setting my empty stomach alight.
Glass drained his cognac in one. ‘Stolz doesn’t like you. I’ve told him I understand your loyalty to your country, but as long as the country lacks a focus for opposition, people like you are harmless. That is why we must stop people listening to the broadcast.’ Glass held out the half empty bottle. ‘I envy you, Penny. You’re home. You have your family, friends. Was that attractive blonde I saw you with outside the cathedral your girlfriend?’
‘Not really, sir.’
‘No?’ Christmas was making Glass nostalgic. ‘Tonight, at home in Prussia, my mother will give dinner for the estate workers. My father was killed in November 1918, just one week before the armistice. On what you call Boxing Day, relatives and neighbours will hunt boar and gather for drinks in front of the fireplace.’ He sighed. ‘Do you know, Christmas is the only time of the year when I wish I had children. The satisfaction of sneaking into my son’s room to hang his stocking at the foot of the bed and, in the morning, see the wonder in his eyes.’ He took another gulp. ‘I fear I am being romantic.’
‘Are you married, sir?’
‘No. My second cousin Emma and I have known each other all our lives. The family expects us to wed, but I do not want to marry in wartime. It reeks of a desperation.’
This was getting embarrassing. I did not want to listen to Glass’s half-drunken confidences - especially as there would be the inevitable reaction when he sobered up. But I sensed he wasn’t acting this way just from drink. Maybe his pills were reacting with the alcohol? I was saved further awkwardness by Hauser returning with a finished poster.
‘Very good,’ announced Glass. ‘Just put Merry Christmas on the top. Now, how many do you think will take advantage of our generosity, Penny?’
I did not reply.
‘All right, how many will fall for it? How many will give up the chance of cigarettes, chocolate and tea just to listen to a broadcast from their departed King, which we’ll do our best to jam anyway?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I really don’t.’
‘Nor do I, Penny. What will you do?’
‘Me? Well, they say one can’t live by fine words alone . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘But a man without a soul is a beast of the field. I’ll be very close to the wireless.’
‘I rather thought you would be.’ He poured himself another drink.
Glass did not say so then but he had a very unpleasant surprise in store for me.
I was a little drunk when I arrived home. Joan had not put up the Christmas decorations. The tree was still leaning against the garden shed.
‘It just doesn’t seem right,’ she explained. ‘It’s been a bloody terrible year. What’s there to celebrate?’
‘Just being alive, sis.’
‘That’s the point. Some aren’t.’
I put my presents in the front parlour. I’d promised to take young David to the pictures as a Christmas treat. I was worried about the boy: he was too quiet, staying in his room for hours on end. He used to be so boisterous and outgoing. He was obviously grieving for his father but he never said a word. Instead he bottled up his feelings. He was tucked away in his room even now. The old David would have been badgering me as soon as I walked in. I called up to ask if he still wanted to go to the cinema. Yes, he said, but he did not sound that enthusiastic.
Cinemas had been allowed to re-open a month ago although the national anthem was still forbidden. The German forces’ cinemas - Soldatenkino - were strictly segregated, and British films were heavily censored. Any story touching on Britain’s military or imperial history was banned, leaving us harmless second-rate comedies and old Westerns. Tonight the Odeon was showing Stagecoach along with a couple of Laurel and Hardy shorts.
David laughed aloud at their antics, then bounced up and down as the Indians chased John Wayne across the desert. I suspected he had seen the film before but it cheered him up nonetheless. Afterwards I bought us a threepenny bag of chips and a fried patty each to eat on the way home.
David used to be so easy to talk to. Now I didn’t know what to say to my nephew. ‘How are you getting on with your German studies?’
‘All right, thanks. I’ve got some prep to do over the hols. Will you help me?’
‘Of course.’
We munched our chips in silence until David asked suddenly, ‘Uncle Nick, why did you learn German?’
‘Jacob Jenner got me interested. He used to help me with my homework and lend me his books. He had a magical knack of making German sound wonderful, the language of poets and philosophers.’
‘And Nazi invaders.’
‘And Nazi invaders. But Jacob only spoke of the good side.’
‘He’s the man who owns the bakery and those cafés in town?’
‘That’s right. We used to live next door.’
‘Until the Germans took your house away.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did we go to war?’
‘To protect Poland.’
‘But we didn’t. The Germans conquered Poland.’
‘We had to do the decent thing.’
‘Why did we lose the war?’
‘Basically, we weren’t prepared. We didn’t have enough aeroplanes or tanks. The Germans caught us on the hop by invading before they’d made peace with France . . .’
‘All Frenchmen are cowards,’ declared David.
‘You can’t really say that.’ Although, God knows, I’d heard the same sentiments expressed in far more forceful ways during my time in the PoW camp. If the Frogs hadn’t run . . . If they’d pulled back into the Breton bastion . . . If they hadn’t handed over their fleet.
‘The Fifth Column blew up the radio detection finding station on the Isle of Wight, so we couldn’t see the invasion coming. We were stabbed in the back.’
‘Who said that?’
‘A boy at school. His father was in the RAF.’
It was a popular rumour but I doubted it was true. It was hard for a nation to accept defeat so it made up excuses. Ironically, most Germans believed they had lost the First War by being stabbed in the back. That myth had led directly to the Second War.
‘German planes destroyed the RDF stations and the airfields,’ I replied carefully. ‘I’ve not heard of saboteurs.’
‘We need saboteurs to blow up the Germans. If we kill enough of them, they’ll go home.’
‘What happens if they take reprisals and shoot innocent people here.’
David crumpled up his chip paper and drop-kicked it along the road, as if testing me to tell him to pick it up. ‘I don’t care about innocent people. I want to kill Germans.’
The current regulars in the Three Horseshoes were largely made up of those who had stayed behind. Unlike the old bunch, they did not buy rounds or share cigarettes. I didn’t pretend to like them but at least I could have a pint here without being made to feel a traitor.
‘Thanks for your help today,’ said Roy as we sat by ourselves in the snug. ‘I thought that one bloke’s arse was going to fall out.’
‘Who were they? Or shouldn’t I ask?’
Roy leaned forward. ‘Norwegians on their way to set up a government in exile.’
I shouldn’t have asked.
In exchange, I told Roy of the hand-out designed to lure listeners away from the King’s speech. For good measure, I threw in something else Glass had said. ‘What do you think the Gestapo’s number one priority is?’
‘Dunno. Crushing the Resistance movement?’
‘No. They’re desperate to find the Crown Jewels. They think they’re down here in our neck of the woods. Shit, are you all right?’
Roy had gone white - literally white.
‘Say that again.’
‘What? The Gestapo’s priority is to find the Crown Jewels.’
‘How do you know?’ He was staring at me in a mad way.
‘Glass told me this afternoon, when he was half cut. He hasn’t much time for the Gestapo.’
Roy chewed his lip, a sign that he was thinking hard. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ He got up.
‘I’ll get us a couple of pints,’ I volunteered.
I was standing at the bar when Med strode in, bringing the cold in with him. He warmed his hands in front of the small fire.
‘There’s a frost out there. Might even have snow.’
‘Thanks for the pheasant.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘My mother loved the card.’
‘Gloria did it all herself. Spent ages on it. Mind you, it’s a funny world when a six-year-old draws Messerschmitts on a Christmas card.’
‘It’s got reindeers, too.’
‘Ay.’
Roy reappeared. ‘Nick, let’s go down the smoker. There’s someone I want you to meet.’ When we were in the corridor, he whispered, ‘Just to prove to you the resistance movement does exist . . .’
The smoker was a small, intimate room with a bare wooden floor and a low nicotine-stained ceiling, tucked away among the pub’s nooks and crannies. A stocky man in a sports jacket stood by the chimney breast. I’d seen him before, on my first visit here. Roy closed the door behind us.
‘John Mills, Nick Penny.’
‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ said Mills extending a hand. ‘You’re Roy’s oldest friend.’
‘One of them.’ I put Mills in his late thirties, with a firm jaw and dark slashes for eyebrows. Army officer was stamped through him like a die.
Mills regarded me with an uncomfortably direct gaze. I held his eye.
‘You put your neck on the line for Roy today . . .’
‘It was nothing.’
‘In spite of saying you weren’t interested in joining the Resistance.’
‘I didn’t quite say that.’ I didn’t know whether Mills was deliberately twisting my words or if Roy had misreported me. ‘I said I’d not been back here long. Everything’s changed. I need time to get my bearings.’
‘And once you’ve got your bearings?’
‘Then I’ll plot my own course.’
Mills smiled. It was a cold smile but it lifted his heavy features and made him look younger and more approachable.
‘You’re rather a belligerent young man, aren’t you? Willing to meet trouble head on. Not at all how Roy described you.’
‘Am I?’ I was surprised. Roy’s usual description of me was along the lines that I was the bright one who could sometimes be as daft as a brush. Maybe war had changed me.
‘Roy’s been on to me to meet you ever since you got back.’ Mills’s smile seemed genuine this time. ‘Your actions today rather show where your loyalty lies, even if you don’t want to admit it.’
I said nothing, thinking it was a strange world when I could confess my patriotism to the German Military Governor but not to this man.
‘Roy says you mentioned the Crown Jewels,’ continued Mills. ‘Can you remember what Glass said - as precisely as possible.’
I described how Glass had brought the bottle of cognac into my office, the talk about loyalties and the King’s broadcast.
Then, out of the blue, Glass had asked, ‘I don’t suppose you know where the Crown Jewels are, do you, Penny?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir.’ I wondered if I’d heard him correctly. ‘Don’t you have them?’
‘No. Your country’s gold reserves and securities were shipped to Canada . . .’
‘Really!’
‘The cruiser HMS Emerald left with the first 900 gold bars and 500 boxes of securities on 23 June. By the end of August your Government had transferred £637 million in gold and £1250 million in negotiable securities. The gold is in Ottawa and the securities in the vaults of the Sun Life Insurance company in Montreal. But someone slipped up with the Crown Jewels. They’re still here in England.’
I hadn’t known about the gold reserves. I kept the smile off my face.
‘Two days ago there was a Triple A signal from Reichssicherheitshauptamt Berlin to RHSA London and the six provincial Gestapo HQs, setting out the seizure of the Crown Jewels as the absolute and total priority over all other operations. There are unconfirmed rumours that they are hidden down here in the West Country. There’s a £10,000 reward for any information leading to their discovery. You could be a rich man, Penny.’
‘I prefer to be a poor patriot, sir.’
When I finished, Mills was quiet for a long time. ‘I wonder how Glass knew about that signal? You are in a unique position to gain inside information, Penny, you know that, don't you?’
‘As I told Glass, I’m just a poor patriot . . .’ The room held its breath, ‘who will do his best by his country.’
‘I always knew . . .’ Roy put his arm around my shoulders.
‘Good man.’ Mills shook my hand. The room became a warmer and friendlier place.
There was a tap on the door. Roy flung it open. The young woman with short sandy hair and elfin features, who’d been with Mills before, stood in the doorway. She wore a pale raincoat and was playing with a cigarette holder. She made a silent inquiry of Mills with raised eyebrows.
‘Fine. Everything’s fine,’ he reassured her.
‘Good.’ She looked at me as if taking a mental photograph, before turning abruptly away, her footsteps fading towards the back gate.
‘Nick, let me explain a little of what we do.’ Mills pinched the bridge of his nose, as if his sinuses were painful. ‘When it became clear that the battle for England was lost, the War Office decided to put in place the skeleton of an underground Resistance. A handful of us stayed behind and went under cover. At the moment, most of our work is concerned with smuggling people out to Canada, where they can help continue the fight. We’re at the end of the Western Line escape route here. The two men you helped past the Germans this afternoon will board a British submarine later tonight.’
