Weaver

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.