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Quail’s great map of the North Sea was taken from the Map and Sail. It had hung there for thirty years, becoming indistinct under a layer of smoke and dust. But it was a fine map, with a glorious compass rose in the German Bight, fathom contours, anchorages, wrecks, parallels and meridians. And though it needed updating with the hazards of several million tons of wreckage sunk in two world wars, it was still a working chart, and Hands wanted it, even though Germany was pockmarked with dart holes.
    It had probably been put up there in the first place so these Norfolk men would know where the German Empire was, but now, in the dying months of the Second World War, the map itself was causing trouble. Two months earlier, on a Saturday night, Captain Mayfield (retired) had downed his pint, wiped the smears of froth from the tips of a moustache limp with beer, and told Arthur Quail to take down the map . A threat to national security. Information in wrong hands. Helping Hun get to Norwich quick and all that.
    Arthur Quail had a problem with authority and a great liking for his map, so told the retired captain that if Herr Goering fell through the ceiling on the strings of a parachute the only direction he’d learn would be the way to Mayfield’s cottage. A showdown, which Quail - the pint puller - easily won, due to the weary cheer from the other men in the pub. Mayfield stormed out to ‘inspect the sandbags’.
    Hands, my grandfather, had watched all this from his poker table. A man of few words, and with a clear reason to keep silent, he was a natural card player. Regulars at the Friday-night lock-in: Sammy Craske, oysterman, good with a low hand but liable to panic with a queen or ace - estranged relationship with his mother was said to be behind it; Albie Smee, a good liar, but too mean to capitalize on his natural skills; Soggy Brean, a ‘weeper’; and Will Langore, a wealthy farmer and authoritarian, whose two great-nephews - one of whom is my father - Hands will never know.
    I have a photo from one of these nights in 1945. The bar looks empty, but in the corner beneath the stuffed pike that brought Hands his luck sit the six men. It’s a bad picture, scratched on the journey from pocket to pocket over the years, smudged by each finger that has smoothed it flat, surviving under grease and dust, turning the shadowy men into the ghosts they became. It’s been passed around a good deal. My grandfather - if that’s him - possibly sensed the scrutiny of coming years, so has turned his back to the lens.
    There’s Arthur Quail’s great map of the North Sea hanging over the bar. It’s been hung upside down to spite Captain Mayfield, so the photo must have been taken in the first few months of 1945.
    And here’s Hands, sitting on a royal flush in the Map and Sail. Over the baize, Arthur Quail’s sweating, defeated, too broke to carry on, but too weak to walk away. He calls. What with? the others join in. You ain’t got nothin’ leff, Arthur. Shut it! Go on, as a mate, show us, he implores Hands. The man’s silence has him riled. You got an ace an’ king, ain’t you? - It’s too late - I said shut it, Sammy! Juss let me know, eh? And that’s the moment my grandfather points to his prize - the map that has hung above the bar for thirty years.
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    The longshoreman looks hard at Arthur Quail, glad that his comment about the map has brought back all these painful memories. The others in the bar stare into their pints. They know each time the bloody map is mentioned it’ll end in tears. The longshoreman lights his pipe and gazes into the smoke, as if practising the cloud skills Goose has been teaching him.
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    From beyond the horizon Hands pulls a final volte-face. May 1949, and an article appears in the Eastern Daily Press titled ‘We Just Love Them German Tunes’:
    What is better now the evenings are drawing out than to take a hearty