sir. Four marks, and we’ll say we’re even.”
Neumann gave him a mirthless smile and stared at him for a second. Schmidt couldn’t have paid more than a mark fifty for the lot.
Outside, Neumann stood up and stretched. Nothing had gone right today. He reached back into the car and grabbed his Tyrolean hat, the expensive one with the grouse feathers and boar bristle plume. He liked that hat. It was a hat that made a statement. When dressed in civilian clothes, most Gestapo officers wore a green leather trench coat and a dark, wide-brimmed fedora, pulled down low over their eyes. Neumann thought they were imitating the gangsters in American movies. This hat was clearly Austrian and Neumann privately resented it that so many “German” SS officers half-jokingly ridiculed him for being Austrian. After all, the Führer was an Austrian, and when he was in civilian clothes he frequently wore a Tyrolean hat. Nobody dared make jokes about the Führer’s clothing.
Behind Neumann’s Opel was a requisitioned Daimler bus filled with uniformed police officers. He gave them only a passing glance. He didn’t want to appear too interested in them. Better to exude confidence in front of his men.
Some of the men on the bus tried to read in that fading light, some were sleeping in uncomfortable positions; others smoked and stared vacantly out at the world, thinking their own thoughts. The war pulled them away from their normal jobs, their families, and the routines they had once known. His car and the bus accompanying them made up the first police contingent designated to go into Amsterdam. They were assigned to occupy the police headquarters. In his briefcase, Neumann had a long list of priority tasks they were to accomplish on their first day in the city. They were going to be busy.
By midnight, the rain stopped and the clouds blew away, leaving wisps of vapour trailing across a crescent moon. Neumann had managed to sleep fitfully for a few hours; Schmidt, despite being crammed into the driver’s seat, was sleeping like a baby. In one of the trucks farther down the street, there were cigarettes glowing, and Neumann could see the silhouette of troops in helmets with rifles slung. They were talking in low tones. He wondered when they would all be going home. But another problem nagged at Neumann. Tonight he wasn’t quite sure where his home was.
Maida had moved back to Vienna. He had got the letter from her the day after he left Berlin. It was the last he had heard from her. It was so matter-of-fact, a heartless, one-page note informing him of her move. There was none of the old chatter about the children. He wondered how Klaus and Monica were doing. They were probably in their pyjamas, fast asleep, still clutching their teddy bears at this time of night.
It was no use asking Maida to wait for him back in Berlin; she wasn’t going to stay there. She said in her letter she was going to be staying at her parents’ house; she had already asked her mother to put the children’s names down for an expensive private school. The implication was clear. She had no intention of following Neumann in his career. Even worse, there was no suggestion that he should come back to Vienna when this was over. He rubbed his hand across his mouth. What the hell was going on with that woman? What could have caused the change in her? This was all so sudden. Did it mean she wanted a divorce? She had no grounds. The party didn’t take kindly to that sort of thing. Families in the Third Reich were meant to stay together. It hurt. And on top of it all, it didn’t look good. It was humiliating.
The only good news in all this was that Maida’s father had been retired prematurely. Maida had offered no explanation. She simply wrote that Daddy was now retired from the police force. That was good news. It meant he would never have to feel beholden to her family for anything again. Not that they had ever done much to help him. It was his participation in party activities that had given him the boost he needed. Besides, the party didn’t like these old-guard families anyway. Now, no one could ever say his future achievements were anything but his alone. Still, he had to admit that the tension between him and Maida’s family never did anything to help their relationship.
He exhaled deeply. It sounded more like a sigh. Maida had never shown the slightest interest in his family. Not that Neumann was much of a family man in that sense. He hated his father, who he had not seen in six or seven years; and he had never been at any great pains to be close with his mother, or his sister and two brothers. He wasn’t sure where his brothers or his sister even lived now. He fumbled for his cigarettes. He should quit these; they made his throat sore. But in a funny sort of way, he’d hoped to have had a better life with Maida and his children than he did growing up. He didn’t understand Maida sometimes. There were times when she could be a proper little bitch; then he chided himself. He didn’t want to be angry with her. Whatever it was, perhaps it would blow over.
He turned and tried to make himself comfortable. All this would have to wait until the war was over and he could go back home on leave. With any luck, he might get home before the end of the summer. He couldn’t do much to fix things from here. But maybe in late August or early September he could convince Maida to join him in Amsterdam if things improved. Who knew?
Shortly after one in the morning the first flight of aircraft roared overhead. Neumann was surprised at how low they were: wave after wave flying low and in formation, all of them making a tremendous din. The noise of their engines reverberated in the box-like street. It was a disturbing and frightening sound, but at the same time it was strangely thrilling. In the dark it was hard to tell what kind of planes they were. They had big engines, that was certain. Neumann thought they might be bombers, but, then again, maybe they were transports carrying paratroops. Whatever kinds of planes were ploughing overhead through the night, Neumann knew that the soldiers in them were soon going to be killing Dutchmen who were probably now sleeping. That didn’t bother him. He hoped that if they were bombers, their bombs rained down on Dutch soldiers, inflicting massive casualties. Better to have the Dutch army suffer than our own troops.
The soldiers in the truck forward of him jumped out of the back of their vehicle and began shouting and slapping one another on the back and waving up at the sky. The prospect of the coming violence was invigorating. Neumann smiled at their enthusiasm. Another flight of planes thundered above them, and the windows and shutters in the buildings of the village shook.
As energizing as this moment was, Neumann didn’t regret that he had never been a soldier. He didn’t care for the possibility of getting killed or wounded in battle; who did? By the same measure, Neumann didn’t like the discomfort, or the discipline, and he didn’t like living and working at close quarters with so many others. That kind of life had never appealed to him. In fact, when he really thought about it, Neumann didn’t like the idea of spending time in groups. He was more of a solitary man. Police basic training was something to be endured, but since then he rarely had to work in a team. It was just as well, too. Neumann didn’t want anyone else taking the credit for his work.
Although he certainly never wanted to be a soldier, he revelled in the sense of power that the German army infused in the nation. He was proud of the Third Reich’s military. Those planes overhead, these young soldiers in front of him, even those menacing Feldgendarmerie troops made Germany a nation to be feared; and tonight they were going to seize Greater Germany’s rightful place in the world. Even Austria – as much as he loved its slower pace and unassuming character, he knew in his heart of hearts that it was stronger and more vigorous now that it had fulfilled its destiny as a part of a greater Germany, and the German army was somehow inseparably bound up in that sense of destiny.
He smiled as the soldiers in front of him whooped and cheered and made obscene jokes about the unsuspecting Dutch. Tonight, even some of the military police who wandered over to the vehicle lines were smiling. No one should ever get in the way of the might of the Third Reich. Tonight he was proud to be a part of that new nation.
8
Northampton, 10 May 1940
STILL SWEATING from his morning exercise, Rory Ferrall walked around the flower beds of Ramsford House. The old estate no longer had its small army of gardeners, maids, and footmen. Everyone under forty had left for military service, and those too old or unfit for the army had been drafted into better-paying jobs in the munitions factories. Rory noticed that the weeds were already winning in their fight against the perennials. He enjoyed it out here in the countryside. He took a deep breath of the cold, damp air. He