No Man's Land

by Reginald Hill

  He took the proffered papers and said to the corporal, ‘Who’re you?’

  ‘Tomkins, Sergeant-Major. Orderly room corporal at Div. HQ. I’m on my way to the Squadron with some papers.’

  The sergeant-major grunted and studied the orders Shawcross had handed over which included a load inventory.

  ‘Do themselves well these fly-boys, don’t they?’ said the sergeant-major returning the papers. ‘You’ve got trouble ahead, Jock. That bit of road along the marsh, you’ll know it, I reckon? Well, it’s finally gone under.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ said the driver. ‘Shall I have to go back?’

  ‘No. We’ll get you round all right. Nice little diversion that some of the lads have been clearing all day. But it’s a bit hard to spot till you’re used to it. Move over.’

  Tomkins found himself shoved hard towards the driver as the sergeant-major clambered in beside him. The truck swayed as the other MP, a private almost equal in bulk to his sergeant-major, clambered over the tailboard.

  Shawcross started up the truck and, following the sergeant-major’s instructions, turned off the road about fifty yards ahead. Five minutes later he began to grow worried as the new route got progressively bumpier and the expected swing back to their former direction never came.

  Finally he said, ‘Are you sure you’ve got this right? It feels like we’re half way up the fuckin’ Trossachs!’

  ‘I think we’re OK, Jock, but if you stop here I’ll take a look-see.’

  Relieved, the driver brought the truck to a halt. The sergeant-major got out and walked round the truck, banging on the tailboard in passing, and coming to a halt by the driver’s door which he opened with a commissionaire’s flourish.

  ‘Are we OK, then? Can we make it?’ enquired Shawcross.

  ‘We’ve made it, Jock. Step down, cobber, and stretch your legs.’

  Shawcross with growing alarm heard the tailboard crash down.

  ‘Here, what the fuck’s going on?’ he cried.

  For answer the sergeant-major seized his tunic front and dragged him with easy strength from the cab.

  ‘I said, step down,’ he murmured. Then, putting two fingers in his mouth, he whistled twice.

  Slowly out of the gloom figures began to emerge, stepping forward awkwardly, even shyly, like animals lured from their lairs by curiosity or by hunger. Six or seven of them there were, with grey, unshaven faces, hollow cheeks, and the wide unblinking gaze of night-predators whose eyes are thirsty for every drop of light.

  ‘Come on!’ ordered the sergeant-major, ‘let’s be having you! Get this truck unloaded, sports! Blackie, when it’s empty, run it along to that nice big hole we found and sink it.’

  ‘Sure thing, Viney,’ said the man in the MP private’s uniform. ‘What about laughing boy here? Too proud to join us, Corp?’

  Trembling, Tomkins climbed out of the cab. But his legs would not hold him and he slumped to the earth where he lay, ignored by the bearded, ragged figures moving with rapid stealth despite their burdens on all sides.

  Suddenly there was an upsurge of voices, loud among them Shawcross’s shouting, ‘You’re no’ making a fuckin’ deserter out of me!’ Footsteps running, a dark shadow merging rapidly with the surrounding gloom. Then a loud bang, a momentary stab of flame, a short cry.

  Silence.

  ‘Stupid bastard,’ said Viney, ejecting the case from his rifle.

  Some of the pack of men-predators had detached themselves and gone out after the fleeing Scot. After a while one of them returned.

  ‘He’s dead, Viney,’ he said. ‘What’ll we do with his mate here? Sink ’im with the truck?’

  Tomkins felt himself being seized by the collar and dragged upright. His bowels were opening but he didn’t care.

  ‘No need for that,’ said Viney. ‘We’re not going to have any trouble with you, are we, sport? You’d much rather stay here with us than be parking your bum on a hard office chair, wouldn’t you?’

  Tomkins’s mouth was too dry for him to answer, but the man who’d travelled in the back of the truck laughed and said, ‘Sure he would, Viney. Though we work and toil and bustle in our life of haste and hustle, All that makes our life worth living comes unstriven for and free. It’s your lucky day, your lucky fucking day!’

  Viney listened to his henchman’s cheerfully violent badinage with an emotion which would have surprised the fat man. Basically it was envy. He had no illusions about Coleport’s true make-up. He knew more than any other the depths of sheer mindless viciousness the man could sink to. He was truly amoral. Nothing bothered him.

  But it sometimes bothered Viney that he should have power over such a man. And it bothered him now that he felt a passionate upsurge of desire to be as uncaring as his lieutenant. There was a careless ease about Coleport’s attitude to life and all its circumstances which Viney envied. Give him a drink and a warm berth and he’d be happy anywhere. There’d been a box of Scotch in the Crossley, and Blackie even now was pouring down the odd couple of ounces and making contented little schlurping noises as they made their way through the dark with their loot.

  But at Viney’s centre there was a blackness which no amount of drink had ever been able to wash away. Sometimes it seemed to swell up and fill his mind, like pustules of swamp-gas eructating on the smooth surface of a pool. There was melancholy there, and weakness and failure, and hate and shame. There were times when he felt like two people, sometimes more than two. There were times when his body acted without his mind. He had raised the rifle and put a bullet through the Scotch driver’s head without a thought. He felt no guilt in the act, yet he felt bewildered that such an act was possible for him without thought.

  In the beginning he had welcomed the war. Here at last was proof that his condition was not unique but part of humanity’s common chaos! Gradually, however, he came to realize that war, far from being chaotic was in fact just a symptom of that same order which told him what he ought to be, and do, and think. So he had at last turned against war itself and taken refuge in a situation and landscape which echoed the desolation at his core. This was no pacifist declaration. The enemy was the War and all those who wished to continue in it. The Scottish driver had deserved death because he had fled towards it.

  They were back at the Warren. Contact was made with the sentry who had strict orders that without an exchange of agreed signals, anyone approaching the Warren was to be shot – ‘even if it’s me and you can see that it’s me!’ added Viney. ‘’Cos if you don’t, I’ll bloody well shoot you, believe me!’

  The men had believed him.

  Safely below, there was a general gathering in the largest of the chambers, the former general control chamber of the HQ and command post. A successful raid was more than just a way of replenishing supplies. It reconfirmed the Volunteers’ belief in their capacity to survive. And when, as now, it brought in a fresh ‘recruit’, there was a chance of catching up on news of the world at large.

  The chamber was jam-packed. Viney realized with a slight shock that his strange force had now almost outgrown its adopted quarters. There were about forty of them, men of almost all nationalities involved in the War except the French, whose natural inclination when ducking out was to head for home or disappear in the nearest large town. The only man from the French army with the Volunteers was a jet-black Moroccan who spoke next to no English. There were two other coloured men, light brown Indians from a Punjabi cavalry regiment which had fought as infantry and suffered hugely. To all the other horrors of war, distance of space and climate and culture had added an extra dimension for them. One was a hook-nosed middle-aged man with a single stripe, the other a youth, classically handsome with dark liquid eyes perpetually clouded with bewilderment. Their names had been elicited, discarded as too long and foreign, and they were addressed with rough familiarity as Dell and Nell.

  As for the rest, the British predominated with a good admixture of colonials.

  The Volunteers were in cheerful mood tonight. Vin
ey had permitted three bottles of whisky to be opened, reserving the rest against future need, and also careful to ensure no one was going to get stupidly drunk. The stores removed from the truck were of excellent quality and made a welcome change from the diet of canned beef and Maconachies which recent lean pickings had reduced them to.

  Tomkins found himself treated as father of the feast and reacted with nervous relief, gabbling out answers to the rapid-fire questions as quickly as he could.

  Lothar, standing by the chamber entrance, observed with curiosity that the men still seemed interested in the progress of the war, as though its outcome would somehow alter their situation. Others spotted this irony too, and when one man expressed disappointment that Tomkins could report little more than ‘no change’, Taff Evans said, ‘What’s it to you anyway, boyo? Just because we win this fucking war don’t stop you from being shot for a deserter, do it?’

  ‘Aye,’ added Hepworth, whom Lothar now knew to come from Yorkshire, a kind of English Saxony. ‘Mebbe it’s best for us if Jerry wins. Then we’d all be prisoners and get treated the same, would that be right, Fritz?’

  Lothar shrugged and did not reply and Viney ended matters by saying, ‘Right. Enough gabbing. Anyone got anything sensible to ask?’

  There was silence, broken by Lothar who said, ‘Among these stores, were there any medical supplies?’

  Viney glanced at Coleport, who grinned and held up a whisky bottle.

  ‘Only this, but you can’t beat it!’ he called to general laughter..

  ‘Sorry, Fritz. Anything special in mind?’ said Viney.

  Lothar said, ‘Everything. Dressings, disinfectant, drugs – we have nothing.’

  ‘Who needs ’em except that fucking cavalry officer?’ called Strother. ‘Better just to let that bastard die, says I.’

  ‘Mebbe you’d like the pleasure of killing him yourself,’ said Hepworth.

  ‘Wouldn’t say no,’ said Strother, baring his rotting teeth. ‘And there’s plenty of others here as feel the same.’

  Foxy (this had turned out to be merely an extension of the man’s name, Fox, but it fitted his pointed predatory face very well) agreed with vicious force. ‘Kill the cunt straight off, no messing,’ he said vehemently.

  There were one or two grunts of agreement. Viney said, ‘All right, stow it. Let Fritz have his say.’

  ‘This is nothing to do with Lieutenant Cowper who is much recovered,’ said Lothar. ‘Every man here is at risk every day. Even cuts and scratches are dangerous. Break a bone and you will probably die of gangrene. You, Foxy, need a proper dressing for that sore on your face. Perhaps even our friend Strother might get an ache in his one good tooth.’

  This brought a laugh except from the Cockney, who screamed, ‘I’d let the fucker ache rather than let a dirty Hun come near it!’

  ‘I said stow it!’ boomed Viney. ‘I’ll not stand that kind of shit. We’re all together in this, you’d better understand that, sport. No enemy, except them as don’t agree with us. Fritz here’s done more to make life tolerable round here in the short time since he joined us than most of you jokers could manage in fifty bloody years. Ain’t that right?’

  He glared at the men, defying contradiction. In fact there was no way of denying the improvements Lothar, with the technical expertise of Taff Evans, had made to ventilation and general hygiene.

  Patsy Delaney defused the situation by saying mildly, ‘He ain’t got round to fixing the lights yet, Viney.’

  Viney smiled and everyone relaxed.

  ‘Yeah. What about that, Fritz?’ asked the big Australian in an almost jocular tone.

  ‘We need power supplies for electric lights,’ said Lothar. ‘Perhaps you brought the battery from the truck which you held up? No? A pity. It would have been a start. The toolbox then? Or some pieces from the engine? Certainly at least you brought some oil and some gasoline? No? Such a pity!’

  What made him reply in this provocative fashion, Lothar did not know. It had been always thus. Since he was a child, whenever the sense of security and privilege accorded him by his birth and background had pressed too heavily upon him, he had reacted by some act of physical or verbal violence. Now it was Viney’s public defence and approval which produced the response.

  Viney’s smile had faded and his more usual darkly brooding look had returned, many degrees intenser than before. Lothar regarded him with a light, superior smile on his lips and awaited his response. The atmosphere was one of surprise, rapidly, in the case of those like Strother who resented the German’s favoured status, turning to delight.

  Blackie Coleport drank some whisky and said slowly and apparently irrelevantly, ‘What are you going to do with that fucking officer, Viney? We’ve got enough to do without wasting energy and grub taking care of a fucking prisoner.’

  Viney did not appear to have heard, but after a long moment he said softly, ‘What do you say, Fritz? What do you think we ought to do about the lieutenant?’

  Lothar regarded Coleport with a new respect. There was a mind at work there after all.

  He picked his words carefully.

  ‘I think he should be dealt with as we would all hope for ourselves,’ he said. ‘With true justice, with true compassion, according to our true deserts.’

  ‘Some fucking hope of that!’ called out Harry Taylor, the ginger man who’d been reproved by Viney for making jokes about Josh and Lothar being lovers.

  Viney ignored the interrupter and said, ‘Fritz, I don’t know if you speak English better than any other cunt here, or just tie things up like you was speaking German, but I reckon what you mean is we’d all want a fair hearing, right? A fair hearing at a fair trial?’

  Feeling himself being irresistibly manipulated, Lothar nodded.

  ‘Well, that’s what we’ll give him,’ announced Viney. ‘You say he’s on the mend? Right! What do you say, sports? Let’s see that we give Lieutenant Cowper a fair trial, shall we?’

  There was a general outburst of laughter and agreement. Only Lothar’s voice was raised in open protest.

  ‘You cannot do this!’ he cried. ‘You cannot drag this man in here and pretend to try him! It is a mockery.’

  ‘Don’t tell me anything I decide is a mockery, Fritz,’ said Viney savagely. ‘We ain’t dragging him in here, like you put it. He’ll be brought to trial tomorrow, right? That’ll give him twenty-four hours to prepare his defence. Will that be long enough, Fritz?’

  ‘I do not know,’ protested Lothar.

  ‘What is the charge?’ ‘Warmongering. Accessory to murder. That’ll do for starters,’ said Viney. ‘And you ought to know if it’s long enough, Fritz. Because I’ve just appointed you Lieutenant Cowper’s defence counsel!’

  6

  Twenty-four hours proved more than enough for the preparation of Cowper’s defence.

  The young officer looked at Lothar with horrified disbelief as he explained what was to happen. Most of his cuts and abrasions had begun to heal, but the gash on his head where Viney had struck him after his escape attempt really needed stitches and remained a gaping wound beneath the makeshift dressing the German had applied. His young face was pale and haggard, good for sympathy in a civilian court perhaps, but not here in the Warren where such ghastly features were the norm.

  ‘They have no right. No right!’ he protested.

  ‘They have the right of all men in uniform,’ said Lothar. ‘The right of strength.’

  ‘I shall not answer them,’ said Cowper.

  ‘Please, you must consider seriously,’ said Lothar. ‘I fear that these men, some of them, would like an opportunity to have you killed.’

  His plan to shock Cowper into cooperation failed. The lieutenant merely replied, ‘Let them do what they will. I will not flatter such a travesty with speech.’

  Perhaps he was right, thought Lothar. What was there to say which could possibly blunt the hatred in his accusers’ hearts?

  ‘One thing I should like,’ said Cowper hesitantly. ‘You
seem a decent sort of chap …’

  He hesitated once more.

  Lothar laughed and said, ‘For a Hun, you mean? How kind! Perhaps if I tell you that I am a graduate of Heidelberg, that one day I may be, perhaps already I am, the Graf von Seeberg, and that I have spent many happy holidays with our relations, the Drew-Emmersons of Suffolk, you will be even more willing to admit I may possibly be a decent sort of chap!’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Cowper. Lothar’s little speech had the desired effect of relaxing the young officer considerably. He now sees me as a real ally, one of his own class, instead of both another rank and a foreigner! thought Lothar as he listened to Cowper’s suddenly animated voice as he sought for common acquaintance. But at the end of it he was still adamant that his response to the socalled trial would be silence.

  His request turned out to be for a pencil and paper. Lothar provided him with these and the following day when he visited the man in his makeshift cell, Cowper diffidently put the paper folded into an envelope into his hand, and said, ‘Look here, von Seeberg, it’s silly I know, but better safe than sorry. I’ve scribbled a few words to my wife. If it became necessary, and always supposing you yourself ever got the chance, could you do me the kindness of sending it to her? I’ve printed her address on the back.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Lothar.

  ‘Here, Fritz, you’re wanted in the court-room,’ said Strother behind him.

  ‘Very well. Come, Lieutenant Cowper,’ said Lothar.

  ‘Nah. Prisoner comes in separate. Don’t you Huns know nothing?’ mocked Strother.

  Cowper held out his hand and Lothar shook it.

  ‘Jesus fucking wept,’ said Strother. ‘All pals together!’

  Between the cell dug-out and the main chamber where the trial was to be held, Lothar paused and rapidly unfolded Cowper’s letter. He felt a pang of distaste at the act but this was no time for the squeamishness of good breeding. He scanned the scribbled lines, then replaced the paper in his tunic.

  In the trial chamber, the Volunteers were assembled and the atmosphere was almost festive. He saw Josh sitting near the entrance, looking relaxed and cheerful. The boy was responding daily to the almost universal kindness he received and for the last couple of days had shown himself willing to be separated from Lothar for longer and longer periods. He smiled broadly now as he saw his friend appear and Lothar smiled back.