That hit home. The hotel was popular with German officers, who had more to spend than the Danes. Peter flushed with anger. “While your father gives inflammatory sermons,” he retorted. It was true: the pastor had preached against the Nazis, his theme being “Jesus was a Jew.” Peter continued, “Does he realize how much trouble will be caused if he stirs people up?”

“I’m sure he does. The founder of the Christian religion was something of a troublemaker himself.”

“Don’t talk to me about religion. I have to keep order down here on earth.”

“To hell with order, we’ve been invaded!” Harald’s frustration over his blighted evening out boiled over. “What right have the Nazis got to tell us what to do? We should kick the whole evil pack of them out of our country!”

“You mustn’t hate the Germans, they’re our friends,” Peter said with an air of pious self-righteousness that maddened Harald.

“I don’t hate Germans, you damn fool, I’ve got German cousins.” The pastor’s sister had married a successful young Hamburg dentist who came to Sande on holiday, back in the twenties. Their daughter Monika was the first girl Harald had kissed. “They’ve suffered more from the Nazis than we have,” Harald added. Uncle Joachim was Jewish and, although he was a baptized Christian and an elder of his church, the Nazis had ruled that he could only treat Jews, thereby ruining his practice. A year ago he had been arrested on suspicion of hoarding gold and sent to a special kind of prison, called a Konzentrazionslager, in the small Bavarian town of Dachau.

“People bring trouble on themselves,” Peter said with a worldly-wise air. “Your father should never have allowed his sister to marry a Jew.” He threw the newspaper to the ground and walked away.

At first Harald was too taken aback to reply. He bent and picked up the newspaper. Then he said to Peter’s retreating back, “You’re starting to sound like a Nazi yourself.”