The German Numbers Woman

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘Slit its gizzard,’ Paul said, ‘and gravel pours out.’

  ‘It’s not a London pigeon.’ Waistcoat stirred his little silver swivel stick around the bowl of his purple stemmed fluted glass. ‘I know the difference. They taste fucking awful. I once ate one as a nipper. Knocked it down with a catapult, and made a fire on some wasteground. We all nearly puked. Garbage it was, tasted like the back end of a twenty-four bus.’

  Howard sat on the sofa, only Richard left standing: ‘Maybe it would have been better cooked in a stove.’

  Ted cackled. ‘With olive oil and garlic, and a couple of bay leaves. You’d think it was grouse then. Wouldn’t know the difference.’

  ‘They didn’t show us how to do that sort of thing at school,’ Waistcoat said. ‘I wasn’t very good at domestic science.’ At which remark they had a good laugh, a booze party in the offing. Unusually gallant, Waistcoat took the vodka bottle from the freezer compartment below the table and poured a good wallop into Howard’s glass. ‘Knock it back, old son. You might be able to see in the morning, eh?’

  ‘Unlikely,’ Richard said.

  ‘Don’t fucking tell me. We’ll need every eye we’ve got in a couple o’ days. Even a fucking glass eye would be better than nothing.’

  Richard wondered whether AIDS, syphilis or cancer would finish Waistcoat off, and hoped for a powerful dose of all three. He wants us to believe he’s deteriorating, but we all know he’s only dangerous when he stops effing and blinding. ‘We’ll cope,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t need to say so. I know we will.’

  Jack Cannister wobbled Jamaica rum to the top of his glass. ‘I’ll be a month in the Bahamas after we’ve done. I’ll need to wind down. I always do. Trouble is, when I’ve done winding down I’ve got no money left.’

  ‘They taught us fuck-all at the school I went to.’ Waistcoat followed the submarine cables through his own mind, which could put anyone in despair who thought to try and find out how his mind worked. ‘I learned to read and write, that was all.’

  ‘Same for the rest of us,’ Scud said. ‘Except I suppose for Richard, and Mr Cleaver, who learned trigonometry at their posh schools.’

  ‘I taught myself,’ Cleaver said.

  Richard laughed with them. ‘I learned to tell the time, as well. It was a grammar school.’

  Waistcoat stood, as a sudden thought occurred. ‘If you’re in here, Mr Cleaver, pardon me for asking, but who’s running the fucking boat?’

  ‘It’s on auto at the moment. Better be on my way back though.’ He finished the cucumber sandwiches, and what was in his glass, and went.

  ‘I’m fucking well self made,’ Waistcoat said, fingers stuck in his pockets. ‘Every bit of me.’

  ‘Our mums and dads must have had a hand in it somewhere,’ Scuddilaw said with a giggle.

  ‘Yeh, but none of you’s as fucking self made as I am. Some are more self made than others, let me tell you.’ He turned to Howard. ‘How about you, blind man?’

  Howard held his glass towards their voices. ‘Pure grammar school, Higher School Certificate, then into the Air Force. Trained as wireless operator, aircrew, Bomber Command. I’ve been blind over thirty-five years. Caught a packet over Germany.’ The floor to himself, he stopped all talk. ‘It wasn’t long after the bombs had gone and we turned for home. I’d done a dozen raids, and we knew the war would soon be over, and thought maybe we’d get out of it all right, though we didn’t talk about it, just hoped against hope. The chances were a lot higher than what they’d been a year or two before. We had two selves, the other one gung-ho and wanting to bomb Nazi Germany back into the stone age.’

  Waistcoat broke in. ‘How much did it weigh?’

  Howard seemed to stare him out. ‘What weigh?’

  ‘The bomb load, fuckhead.’

  ‘Oh, anything up to six tons. More, in some cases.’

  ‘You dropped six tons at one go!’ Waistcoat sat down to enjoy the picture, envious of a man in their midst who had been involved in such mass destruction, and wondering if you could ever trust a chap who’d been part of something he’d have given both arms to have been party to.

  ‘Mind you,’ Howard went on, ‘if you think about it, it was wrong to carpet-bomb women and children, but that’s how it had been at the time, no feeling for what you were doing, or you couldn’t have done it. Or maybe some of them could. Not that I feel guilty. They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. But the best part of a raid was always when the bombs were away and you felt the kite lift, so much lighter to get you home.’ He was shooting a line, had drunk too much, stuck in his maudlin planisphere and seeing comets passing each other for the second (and in some cases the third) time.

  Waistcoat fell silent, as did they all, awed by Howard’s experience of violence, that they could never hope to match. And he had got away with it – almost.

  Waistcoat was the first to break silence. ‘Hey, how old are you?’

  ‘A big flash,’ Howard said, ‘when a cannon shell from a JU 88 ripped through the fuselage. Sight gone forever.’

  ‘So that’s how it was?’ Scud said.

  ‘I’m pushing sixty.’ Howard dropped a year or two so as not to alarm them about his ability to manage on the boat.

  Waistcoat poured another drink. Maybe he too had lost count, if ever he had kept one. ‘I’d never have thought it. You look about forty-five.’ He came close again. ‘So how was it you rumbled this trip to the Azores, as Richard conned me into thinking you had? And then getting us to bring you along?’

  ‘He’s a radio wizard,’ Richard said. ‘He found out.’

  ‘I want it from the horse’s mouth.’

  ‘There isn’t much to tell,’ was all Howard could say. ‘Anyway, it’s in the past, and almost forgotten.’ The boat rocked, half across Biscay by now. They wanted more from him. ‘I heard two yachts in the Mediterranean talking to each other. They gave nothing concrete away but I put two and two together. Guesswork and intuition, you might call it. I can’t prove what I heard, or say exactly how I did it, because I burned the log books before I left, in case somebody found them. You don’t keep things like that.’

  ‘I’d give a fucking million to know who it was who gave us away.’

  He knew but for some reason was trying to trap him. ‘No names were mentioned. I told no one else. Not even my wife. Only Richard.’

  ‘And you thought you would come with us, just like that?’

  ‘I won’t say I didn’t want to.’ He laughed. ‘I blackmailed Richard, didn’t I? But if he had refused I couldn’t have done anything. Nor did I want to. What would be in it for me? Who would believe a blind man?’

  ‘We could take no chances,’ Richard said. ‘I told you, and you said bring him. So we did. He’s in it up to the neck like the rest of us, obliged to keep mum forever to save his skin.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Howard said quietly.

  Waistcoat put his glass down, came across to Howard, and pulled him upright. He looked into his sightless eyes. ‘Listen, Howard, we’re the “Matter-of-Life-and-Death” brigade, and the slightest sign of fucking around on your part, and you go over the side. No messing. Ask ’em. They’ll all tell you. You won’t be the first, and you wouldn’t be the last. Nobody stamped your passport, and they won’t be waiting for you to come back. And if they start to look for you they won’t know where to begin.’

  Howard wasn’t unhappy at this moment to be blind. ‘You don’t have anything to fear from me,’ he said with guiltless calm.

  ‘So let’s enjoy ourselves,’ Waistcoat said, topping up Howard’s glass. ‘We’ll drink to a good haul and a safe return to our loved ones. Come on, let’s see you swill it down.’

  They needed no second telling.

  Howard fell into his bunk, though not before whatever was in his stomach had gone over the wake, which he hoped would make sleep more willing. For a while nothing could, the glare of incomprehensible lamp signals from shore to shore, from one corner of his brainb
ox to another. Hard to tell whether he was in sleep or not. From just under the surface a snorkel-periscope cut through to air above, like a wartime Atlantic submarine keeping an ear cocked for a communication from base. There was no base, and an unstable place it was, as the boat indulged in more motion than he thought the sea warranted. Not to have drunk much would have made them think he wasn’t one of them, that he had something to hide, was biding his time.

  An hour may have passed, no way to tell whether he was going into sleep or being wrenched from a few minutes of it, but the boat turned ninety degrees to starboard, done by a skilled hand at the wheel, calm, inexorable, well planned, onto a westerly heading. Either planned, or the sharp eyes of the helmsman had noted something on the radar screen, or he had seen a glow in the spray ahead, a light, some obstacle to avoid at all cost, though he had time for a deliberate manoeuvre to avoid it. Impossible to decide, unless he put on his trousers and went up to find out.

  They were still drinking, voices sometimes angry, occasionally merely rabid. Then came laughter, maybe complicity at past activities, certain remarks rising to hysteria. The change of course stopped his sleep, and because no other occurred it was obvious that the boat had altered direction by prearrangement. He wondered about the reason, but would have to wait to find out, uncertainty drawing him at last into unconsciousness.

  Ted Killisick in the galley stirred a large cast-iron pan of bacon and scrambled eggs. ‘You’re an early bird.’

  ‘I slept well,’ Howard said, ‘after we changed course.’

  He filled a plate, put knife and fork into his hands. ‘You noticed it?’

  ‘Couldn’t not do. Heading for Florida, are we?’

  Which brought a laugh. ‘No, it’s a scheme of Richard’s. We were set for Spain, to throw anybody off our back who might be interested. In an hour we get in line for the Azores again. We’ll be going south-west. Cunning, eh?’

  He ate from the plate on his knees. ‘No business of mine. I’m just here for the trip.’

  ‘We all are, in a manner of speaking.’ He adjusted the upper set of his teeth. ‘Best to think so, anyway.’

  Scud picked a piece of overcooked bacon from the pan. ‘The others were up till four last night, so they won’t be wanting their scoff yet, which is all the more for them as does.’

  At eight o’clock Richard took the wheel from Cleaver, and altered course to two-three-five, dead set for the eastern coast of São Miguel island. The wind shifted, warm from the south-west, a clear sky, promising for sunsights. The sea was still lumpy, but the boat cut through at a dutiful twelve knots.

  He saw Howard at the stern, feeding Jehu, who had come back out of nowhere (a streak of crap down the windscreen on its flightpath) leftovers from the galley under its discriminating beak. With less than three days to the longest night all was going well. Complicated manoeuvres of navigation would be called for when they got close, and the slightest whiff of change from any unexpected quarter could make an abortion of the trip, though he had no misgivings. Success lay on his and George Cleaver’s shoulders. They had sweated blood over the charts, fuel and range, tides and winds, and presented the package to Waistcoat who was leery at putting himself in the hands of mere chance, and who could fault that?

  Richard had said that to make sure of success they should enrol George Cleaver, a navigator who knew his worth, and was worth all he knew. When the amount for hiring was named Waistcoat did a going out of his mind performance. Richard said that Cleaver in the smuggling trade was as priceless an expert as a safe cracker in the burgling game, and though never guaranteeing success knew they might have difficulties without his expertise. A wizard with the sextant, his dead reckoning was second to none.

  ‘We either go without him,’ he went on, ‘with the prospect of a balls-up, or we take him and have more than an even chance. With millions involved, what’s the point arguing about a few extra thousand? If we hit that beach on the nose at just past midnight of day six without him we’ll be lucky, but with him it’ll be no problem. If we don’t get clear days and nights as we get further south we’ll still ding along because he’ll give us latitudes and longitudes to the split second. I’m not even sure we can get him. He may be tied up. But I’ll call as soon as I can and, if he’s free, put him on standby. He’ll ask for half the money to be put into his account by banker’s order, and the other part when we get back. He’ll have it no other way. Any day now we’ll be getting satellite navigation, but until that time Cleaver is our man. Luckily he wants to make all the cash he can rake in, because when we do fit ourselves up with satellite like everybody else he’ll be well and truly superannuated, and his easy days will be over.’

  ‘Yeh, I’ll see to it. Paying a navigator that much’ll ruin me, though.’

  Richard smiled. ‘There’s one more thing. George Cleaver’s mad about cucumber sandwiches. He has to have a constant supply. Don’t ask me why. Maybe he likes to think he’s still master of his own big ship. I’ll tell Killisick to keep it in mind when he’s getting the stores.’

  Howard talked to Jehu, but in silence. Waves had ears. Beggars can’t be choosers, as he had often heard. He registered the second alteration of course, at eight o’clock precisely, over thirty degrees to port, an increase of sound as the creaming foam objected to an arrogant push into another direction.

  ‘Everything going well,’ he said, on the third day out, ‘but if they knew what we knew – eh, Jehu, my pretty little pigeon – they would be running about like ants in a jam jar.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  By the fifth day Howard felt he had been born and bred on the water, at one with the wind and the sky that had turned blue. Everyone was seemingly content with work and prospects, not a snappish word anywhere. From his bunk after midnight he noticed the increase in speed. ‘I would guess we’re doing fifteen knots instead of twelve.’

  Richard came outside with his breakfast plate. ‘I’m surprised you could tell.’

  The extra noise and lurching power of the engines, as if one of the shafts led through him, had been unmistakable. ‘Things seemed different.’

  ‘By midnight we’ll be there, or pretty close, all being well. I haven’t seen that pigeon lately. What did you call it?’

  ‘Jehu. He took off again. Maybe he smelt land and, as you say, had a plump little Portuguese sweetheart in São Miguel’ – unless, as he hoped, it was flying on a Darwinian beam back to a plumper girlfriend in England, with the neat piece of cigarette paper folded into its container, on which he had written their course and ETA at the island. Trouble was, even if it was picked up, their boat would get there sooner, and be away before anyone could intercept them.

  He had done his best, a long shot, stupid to think a pigeon could fly all that way. If, too exhausted for the journey, it landed in France, there might be a chance of someone finding the clue and following it up. A telephone call to the Azores needed only the time it took to dial.

  Weather prospects came in morse from CUG, Punta Delgada, louder by the hour, pleasing Richard and everyone because conditions were good: light winds, calm seas, almost clear sky. ‘In one way, better than we might want.’

  Howard lifted his hand, and typed out that Tempo promised a slight deterioration around midnight, maybe somewhat worse for tomorrow.

  ‘Stick at it.’ Richard took the paper. ‘See what else you can get.’

  ‘I’ll try VHF soon.’

  Radio silence meant not even breathing near the microphone, hands away from switches. But he listened, lulled by static, took a traffic list from Chatham, Massachusetts, then swung onto Judy’s old frequency but heard nothing, as expected, since she would be already waiting for their boat to arrive at the Azores. After loading, supposing it took place (despite his efforts, however futile, to put the authorities on the alert) she would get back onto the Daedalus, and out of the danger zone by following a track to the Straits of Gibraltar.

  If the powers that be – bigger than any of them – were clever, the
y would allow Waistcoat’s boat to be loaded, and apprehend it with the incriminating material on board before they were beyond the exclusion zone. By then the Daedalus would be safely away, and Judy out of peril. He didn’t want her to be in trouble with customs or police, only to hear the sound of her voice while the stuff was being put on board. Perhaps in the future, at a less risky meeting, they would reminisce about past adventures.

  She was the reason for him being on a trip that would have been unimaginable a few months ago. But the second purpose which had entered the equation filled him with anxiety, had come in without him being aware, a mistake demanded as payment for the luxury of becoming himself again. One or the other purpose should have been kept in mind, and rigidly followed, because passion and the laws of morality could never join to advantage. Both were now in train, and he had a glimmer as to how it would end, though afraid and full of doubt.

  In his weakness – as he saw it – he thought of Laura, and the picture was wistful, even tragic, a face left behind in another world. Her features were indistinct, hard to recollect, as if under the sea and corroded by salt spray. Even when together the memory of her face had been an effort of the imagination. And now the face was wiped clean and replaced by the supposed one of Judy’s, longish and competent features belonging to someone who was easily hurt and vulnerable, making her liable to sudden actions which overwhelmed her before she could try to control them, or take account of the consequences.

  Woe betide anyone who gets close to her, he thought, yet whoever did wouldn’t find life dull, and once out of her orbit would have plenty to remember her by. He was sure that her relationship with Carla couldn’t go on forever. He had picked up nuances in both voices indicating that the affair was coming to an end, the passion diminishing beyond what such natures were able to accept. Their final parting made him both sad and happy, unsure which was uppermost, only aware that they, like he, were controlled by a force impossible to resist.