‘Aye, like I said, he were always after a tale.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘He knew most of it,’ said Loz, taking a hand off the wheel to rub his chin. He didn’t look strong enough to control the big car. ‘Opened in ’44. Garrison for the Yanks. Didn’t have that many pass through, thank God. Then they went off for D-Day and the prisoners started arriving. Italians at first and then we started getting the serious buggers. Real hard-case Nazis. The ringleaders went to Nuremberg and it felt like every bugger else came here. Black, grey and white. That was how the camp commander divided them up. Thousands of the sods over time. The Black Nazis were the ones you had to fear and I don’t mean black like the colour of their skin. I mean that’s how they was labelled, like. The Black Nazis were the ones who believed in Hitler to their bones. These were the U-boat crews and the Western Front heroes who had worn the brown shorts and shirts and Heiled Hitler all their lives. It were up to the camp to make them decent people. How did you do that, I ask? But it worked, near enough. Treated ’em fair and they appreciated the respect they were shown. Was a decent enough place. They got good meals and a nice view and went out to work the land. There were a couple of escapes and the odd pagger now and again …’

‘Pagger?’ I said, gripping on as we swung left moments before we were going to plough into the churning white-peaked waters.

‘Fight,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Odd scrap with the locals and between themselves but they were just people really. We got letters from a few lads after they went home. Said how much their time here meant to them. They went home to all kinds of hell. There won’t be many folks around here that didn’t get a letter or two from somebody they used to know. They wanted food parcels and the like. Berlin was just rubble. No work. There were plenty who envied the lads who stayed.’

‘And there were lots of those?’

‘No shortage. Married a few of the locals. Even wrote home to tell family they should come and give our part of the world a try. Your neighbour for one.’

I was about to ask him to elaborate when he suddenly hit the brakes and the vehicle slid to a halt on the soaking, muddy grass.

‘There ye are,’ he said, waving a hand. ‘Not much, like I said.’

I followed the sweep of his arm. He was right. There were long, rectangular humps in the grass and a handful of tumbledown outbuildings but if I hadn’t known what once stood there I would have presumed it was no more than the ruins of a farm.