Pauline Rowson - In for the Kill

Now, come to think of it, I was curious too.

Suddenly I had the strange sensation that someone was watching us. I glanced behind; there was only a woman in one of the bungalows pottering about in her front garden. I felt uneasy.

‘Perhaps it was because her grandfather was here at the start of the war. Now about –’

‘Was he? She never said,’ Percy said surprised.

‘Maybe she didn’t like to. Not to you, Percy.

She was German and her –’

‘She were German?’ Percy cried.

His rheumy eyes were wide and I felt sure he had lost even more of his colour. His hands began to tremble in his lap.

‘You didn’t know?’

He shook his head vigorously. ‘She never said she was a Jerry.’

‘It’s all right, Percy, you didn’t tell her any secrets,’ I said, smiling, ‘The war was a long time ago.’

‘Not to me it isn’t. It’s yesterday. And it was to your mum too and poor old Ruby.’

He looked as if he was about to cry. Hastily, I said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think. Of course there must be painful memories for you. It’s just that Deeta is… was young.’ I was about to add that she was also a historian, only I was beginning to doubt whether that were true. I said, ‘The war is history to a lot of people.’

‘More’s the pity,’ he replied sharply. ‘As you get older, young man, you tend to live in the past because there’s more of it than the future. Are you sure she was German?’

‘Yes. I think her grandfather must have been too: Maximilian…’

I didn’t think Percy could go any paler but at the mention of that name his skin was almost transparent. Now I was very curious.

‘What is it, Percy?’

He removed his grubby white baseball cap and ran a hand over his silver hair. His eyes shifted from right to left. It would have been comical if it weren’t for the fact that I could see he was genuinely upset.

‘I’d never have told her if I’d known she was German.’ His voice was barely above a whisper.

‘She was so good at listening. Bugger her.’

He startled me. I didn’t think I had ever heard him swear before. He fiddled with his cap in his lap.

‘Don’t upset yourself, Percy. You didn’t do anything wrong.’ I tried to reassure him, but he wasn’t having it.

I reeled back at the intensity of the look he turned on me. Only then did it click that there was more going on here than I had realised.

Despite all my problems I found myself interested, and deep down somewhere inside me a sixth sense was telling me that there was something I should know about. Why and what I could do with the information I had no idea.

‘Percy,’ I began slowly and steadily. ‘Did you know Maximilian Weber?’

‘Weber?’

A loud explosion filled the air and sent the Canada geese and seagulls squawking. Percy clutched his chest and almost jumped out of his seat whilst I didn’t do much better. I put my hand on his arm, ‘It’s only the call for the lifeboat.’

Percy knew this but I hoped my touch was reassuring. He took a deep breath and swivelled to look at me.

‘Who was he, Percy?’ I asked quietly. ‘Ruby knew him.’

‘Reckon we should walk for a bit.’

‘OK.’ I rose, curbing my impatience. Before we had gone far I could hear cars screeching into the car park and turned to see men race down to the lifeboat station.

We stood for a moment watching the lifeboat launch, its orange bow thrusting through the blue green sea heading towards the Cardinal Buoy and a container ship, above which hovered a helicopter. Slowly we began walking towards Whitecliff Bay. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hurry Percy. I guessed this tale had been a long time coming.

‘There were three of them, only he weren’t called Weber then. Maximilian Webb was his name, but I guess it was the same man.’

I could see from Percy’s manner that he knew it was.

Percy continued, ‘Max, Hugo and your grandfather, Edward.’

Ruby had been right. Nevertheless I wondered why she had mistaken me for Hugo instead of my grandfather.

‘I looked up to them. Thought the sun shone out of their backsides,’ Percy added. ‘I was only a boy, just a bit older than your mother, Olivia, or Livvy as me and Ruby called her. She and Ruby were about thirteen when the war broke out. I was fifteen. We used to lark around on the beach in the summer or in your grandfather’s gardens at Bembridge House. It was a lovely place and me and Ruby thought we were in heaven being special friends of them up at the big house, like.

But Livvy was never stuck up and neither was your grandmother.’ He paused and gazed around fearful.

‘What is it, Percy?’

‘One evening I was behind those rocks over there and the three men were walking along the beach. I weren’t following them or anything, just larking about.’ He hesitated. I could see that wasn’t the truth. He continued. ‘They came round the bend and I ducked out of sight. They stopped about where we are now.’

And we did the same. I gazed out to sea. The lifeboat had almost reached the container ship.

‘I heard Edward say. “It’s got to stop.” Then Hugo said, “We’ve only just started. The situation is getting worse in Germany by the day. There are hundreds of them wanting to get out. We’ve got it all set up.” Your grandfather said, “I don’t think it’s right, taking their money like that.” Hugo laughed. “We’re doing them a favour, and the Nazis a public service. The Nazis want the Jews out and the Jews will pay anything to get out. You just bring the boat across to France. Max and I will do the rest.” Percy paused and took a breath.

‘What year was this?’

‘It was winter. Must have been either late 1938, or early part of 1939.’

I thought of that diary again. ‘My mother was with you, wasn’t she? Here on the beach. She overheard them?’

He looked sheepish and nodded. ‘We weren’t up to nothing, just talking.’

I believed him; times had changed.

‘We didn’t understand what they were talking about. We were just kids. It wasn’t until after the war it all came out what Hitler did to the Jews.’

But my mother had written it in her diary. Was that all she had written? Was it still on the houseboat, or had Deeta found it? Was that why she was killed? Was that why she had searched my houseboat? I couldn’t see how it mattered?

There was nothing wrong with what the three men had been doing, unless of course they had been helping the Jews to emigrate illegally for a fee, which seemed likely. Even then history had shown they had been saving them from a terrible fate. I said as much to Percy.

He turned to stare at me. I could see there was more.

‘After the war had started, and the radar station had been attacked in 1940, I was back here on the beach, walking home. It was dusk. There’d been an attack on the mainland and you could see the sky alight with fire. I remember thinking poor buggers. I stumbled on Edward and Max.

They were arguing. I don’t know what about. I heard Max say, “I’m going to the authorities.” Your grandfather strode off and that was the last anyone saw of him. He disappeared along with his boat. Drowned, though they never found his body.’

That had been a constant concern of my grandmother’s. What Percy was telling me had all happened a long time ago, but the past, as Percy had reminded me, is never very far away.

‘What happened to Max?’

‘No idea. Never saw nor heard of him again.

But if you now say he was German…’

‘I don’t know if he was for sure, but Deeta was and Weber is a German name. Perhaps Max was English, went to Germany after the war, married and settled down there.’