Charlie's War

by David Fiddimore

  *

  I felt at home in Maggs’s place: it had the mid-upper turret from a Lancaster bomber in the back garden, and she was growing things in it. The aircraft’s rear fuselage now attached to the back of a small house was her kitchen. She had created another small room with packing cases, and she showed me with pride the Elsan inside.

  ‘Before that,’ she told me with a disarming smile, ‘I had to go outside come rain or shine. It wasn’t funny sitting out there on a pitch-black frosty night, I can tell you.’

  She made me laugh.

  ‘Where are you from? Originally?’

  ‘Stepney. You?’

  ‘Carshalton in Surrey. Why didn’t the Jerries round you up and lock you away?’

  ‘Dunno really, but my old man was a copper in Vichy on and off. That probably had something to do with it . . . to tell you the truth I think it was just that I amused them, an’ they thought I was ’armless. I wasn’t the only one.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Harmless.’

  ‘If you’re with Les and the Major you know better than to ask me that!’

  ‘Yeah. Just testing. Where did you get the Lancaster from?’

  ‘I woke up one morning, and most of it was in the garden. The Boche took some of it away; the engines, the guns . . . things like that.’

  ‘I’m surprised they didn’t take the rest. Haw-Haw keeps saying that every British bomber that crashes in Germany gets turned into fighters to defend it with.’

  ‘Is that what it feels like up there, son?’

  ‘Yes. The buggers are still coming up at us. How did you know I was RAF?’

  ‘Because she’s a bloody witch,’ Major England said. Like Dracula, he’d glided out from what was once her back door, into what was now her kitchen. ‘Meet Mata-Whory: the only woman in France not punished for sleeping with the enemy.’

  ‘You’ve got a bad tongue on you, Major,’ she told him, ‘. . . and one which could still get me hung from a lamp-post. Remember there’s some round here still throws their right arm up when a soldier blows off. They haven’t thrown away their Jerry flags, you know, just folded them carefully and put them in the bottom of their blanket boxes, waiting for the next time . . . and to answer your question, young man, you got the look. You don’t look Army, and we’re a long way from the bleedin’ sea!’

  I plugged on. ‘What happened to her crew?’

  ‘We stuck two at the end of the garden, poor sods, under the cabbages now. I expect your lot will dig them up eventually.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘I expect they got away.’ She set her lips in a stubborn line, and crossed her hands in front of her like a nun. I wasn’t going to get any more in that direction.

  The Major added something else.

  ‘Mrs Maggs’s husband must have heard it fall, and went outside to investigate. She found him out there the next morning too, didn’t you, love?’

  She smiled. It wasn’t exactly a smile.

  He finished off, ‘Deuced unlucky. One of the guns on the Lanc must have popped off as it ploughed in. Killed the little beggar. Smack between the shoulder blades. From the back of course.’

  ‘ ’e always was an unlucky man. I never know why I married a Frenchie in the first place,’ Mrs Maggs told me, and then kept going. ‘Mean an’ unlucky, an’ he never knew whether he was comin’ or goin’, if you foller me?’

  I said, ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then it don’t matter.’

  ‘Talking to Maggs,’ James told me, as if she wasn’t there, ‘is like wrestling with the sea: every time you think you’ve tied down what she means, you find it’s slipped out of your grasp again.’

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t,’ he insisted. ‘That’s exactly my point.’

  ‘Well; that’s all right then.’ That was Mrs Maggs. It was like trying to learn a different language using familiar words in unfamiliar places.

  The small house was a severe cottage made of large, polished, grey stone blocks in a wide avenue of otherwise enormous houses. It had two rooms downstairs, bisected by a passage front to back, and a narrow staircase leading to three bedrooms. The room I was given was small, and filled by a three-quarter-size four-poster with red velvet moth-eaten draperies. I looked in the larger room that Les and Jimmy were to share. It was the same, but the bed was bigger, and it smelled of stale perfume and disinfectant. The third bedroom was Mrs Maggs’s, and I didn’t have the nerve to look in that, but I guessed it was the same, because worn red velvet seemed to be the house’s theme. Later, when James told me that he and Les had to go out that evening and didn’t particularly want me with them, I mentioned the red velvet, and said, ‘It sort of reminds me of a . . .’

  ‘Brothel. Well done, Charlie. Mrs Bassett had a bright baby, didn’t she?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Major, it’s not an area I’m particularly familiar with.’

  ‘Well, you bloody should be. The only alternative’s getting married, and you’ll find that too expensive, although old Les has strong views on that.’

  ‘If that’s where you’re going tonight, perhaps I should come with you then: in the interests of acquiring a well-rounded education.’

  ‘Nice try, Charlie.’ He grinned. ‘But no go. We’re looking up old pals. They wouldn’t be old pals any longer if we took new pals along with us. No offence intended.’

  ‘None taken,’ I told him. ‘Not much, anyway.’

  ‘The witch’ll feed you, and anyway I need someone to look after Kate. We won’t be moving her tonight, and if I leave her here alone Maggs would probably have a couple of friends round and have the wheels off her. Think of yourself as on guard duty.’

  We were standing at the bottom of the stairs in the geographical centre of the house. Before I could say ‘OK’, Mrs Maggs’s voice needled out of the kitchen, ‘The witch heard all of that, so you can make your own bleedin’ breakfast in the morning.’

  If James was embarrassed it didn’t show.

  Supper was a surprise, as it turned out; dark brown, spicy onion soup, and a potato dish called stovies, which she said she’d learned from a passing Scots soldier. She didn’t say passing Scots soldier, she said, ‘Fucking great Highlander.’ I guess it meant the same thing. This stovies thing didn’t look too appetizing when it hit the table in a steaming serving dish; grey food never does. It was a small mountain of mashed potato, flecked through with small pieces of potato skin and small red lumps. The red lumps were smashed-up corned beef. She slapped it on my plate with a dollop of soured cream on top. I thought that it looked like something served up in the poor house a century ago, but was shamed into a first forkful. After that it was roses all the way. Bloody brilliant; a load of pepper, which was supposed to be as scarce as hens’ teeth, just topped off the flavour. We finished it between us, in the narrow kitchen that had once been a Lancaster, and washed it down with the last of Les’s cider, which I swiped out of Kate’s boot. It was strange, sitting comfortably and eating a meal inside the sort of aircraft I’d been over Germany in so many times. Swords and bloody ploughshares. I’ve told you before: what goes around, comes around. Mrs Maggs didn’t speak with her mouth full, so it was a peaceful kind of meal. Even though we were paying I felt obliged to offer up something. I offered to do the washing up. The old lady threw up her hands, and laughed. Then she lowered the laugh to something respectable. But it was still a laugh. She shook her head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘One of the girls will do it in the morning.’

  ‘Why not me?’

  There was a pause for a three-beat before she told me, regretfully, ‘You wouldn’t do it to our satisfaction,’ and that was that.

  She had neither tea nor coffee, she told me, but made us two stone mugs of a herbal infusion from something she grew in the gun turret. She said that it could be a tender plant, and that during the frosts she sometimes left a shrouded oil lamp in there to take the edge off t
he cold. We took it to the smaller of the two front rooms, which had a small iron stove. The combination of a glass of cider and this strange spicy tea relaxed me. I was comfortable: the conversation flowed naturally. It was like being with an old friend, or a favourite aunt.

  ‘What really happened to Mr Maggs? The Major was talking so much tosh earlier, wasn’t he? He and Les talk in some sort of code around me sometimes. It’s like parents talking in front of a child.’

  Mrs Maggs’s accent had changed. Either that, or I had become attuned to it. She was still London English, but most of the East End had gone. She said, ‘Mr Bonnet, pronounced Bonnay. I shot the swine, took up with a Jerry an’ opened a brothel.’

  ‘So how did you meet the Major?’

  ‘A few days after the Liberation. My Jerry – he was a Major by then, too – was hiding here, looking for someone to surrender to. The Resistance wanted to hang him, but Major England knew he was here an’ came an’ collected him. Surrounded the house with a patrol o’ Redcaps at about six in the morning, and then knocked on the door as bold as brass. I hit ’im with a skillet. You can laugh about it now.’

  ‘What happened to your Jerry?’

  ‘I had a card from Beauvais last week. He’s waiting for transport to England, with his wife and son. Turns out he’s a spy been sending information to England since 1942. There was I, part scared and part ashamed because I’d thrown my lot in with the Jerries, an’ my Jerry was spying for our lot all along. He was sending them details of the food that the Nazis were moving around France: from that they could work out what kind of unit, and how big, was being supplied. Silly, isn’t it?’ I noticed that ain’t was now isn’t.

  ‘Why did you shoot Mr Bonnet?’

  ‘For what he was doing: he was rounding up Jews and poor folk for the Black Riders. I wasn’t standing for that. What a tosser!’

  ‘Who are the Black Riders?’

  ‘The SS. Freemasons with a bad attitude. They’re a mad, bad bunch keen on black underwear, and cloaks down to the ground. Stay away from them.’

  ‘How did you meet your Jerry?’

  ‘He came the morning after the Lancaster dropped into the back garden: to take it away. Fancy another cup of this stuff, or a little glass of wine?’

  ‘The wine would be good.’

  The small stove radiated heat, and I felt very comfortable. It’s the only word I can use. The wine she brought back with her was thick and heavy and sweet. Like port. She said that it was Madeira, or from Madeira; I can’t remember which. You drank it in small half-glasses with thick stems. Mrs Maggs said, ‘Your turn. What’s the fine Major and Mister Finnigan up to?’

  I can’t remember any more. Until the morning.

  It was a Hollywood hangover, but not a classic. My head felt as if it was full of cotton wool. There was a nasty dry taste in my mouth: a mixture of the herbal tea I had taken the evening before, and that heavy wine. Raffles wasn’t best pleased with me. In fact I was almost certain that he was angry. I knew that from what he did and said. I must have slept on my back fully clothed. Les scooped me up by my shirt front with one hand, dropped me on the floor and snarled, ‘You’re an effing idiot, Mr Charlie; officer or not.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it, Les.’ I just wished that I could care.

  I noticed that the stale perfume I could smell from his clothes wasn’t the same stale perfume I noticed in his room. Somewhere in the house Sam Browne sang ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’ from a reedy radio. The Major looked a bit washed out. He was sitting at the table in the aluminium kitchen, with a glass of water in front of him, trying to work up the nerve to drink it. He said, ‘Good morning, Charlie,’ then winced, and added, ‘We owe you an apology, Private Raffles and I. Sometimes we fail to take account of the fact that you and we have been fighting different wars.’

  ‘Sorry, Major. I don’t quite follow you.’

  ‘Not like you followed Evelyn’s herbal tea last night?’

  ‘Evelyn?’

  ‘Maggs.’

  ‘I still don’t follow.’

  ‘Les and I should have warned you about her herbal tea: it’s not quite what you imagine. Her husband, Bonnet, was once a Legionnaire, and brought the plants back from North Africa when he settled down. I understand that jazz musicians are quite attached to it.’

  ‘You mean . . .?’

  ‘ ’fraid so, old boy . . . that interesting and profoundly illegal stuff you’ve seen the War Ministry film about. Don’t worry: it won’t make your knob drop off, or anything like that, but it does make you unco’ chatty.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘This morning. Mrs M told me all about your little errand, then asked me a favour – you’d been babbling like the proverbial brook. Donald Peers. That worries me, because you must have picked up bits and pieces about us, if you’ve half a brain. Les and I are seriously secretive about our business affairs.’

  ‘That had occurred to me. Can I have that water, if you’re not going to drink it?’

  ‘Get your own.’

  Les said, ‘I’ll do it. Sit down before you fall down.’

  I asked them, ‘Where’s all this leading to?’

  ‘A decision about whether Maggs lives to collect her Légion d’Honneur, or joins the other two, under the cabbage patch.’ That was Les.

  ‘You cannot be serious,’ I told him.

  England said, ‘I quite like that. I might write it down later.’

  Les came back at me with, ‘Try me.’

  And the Major explained, ‘It depends on what you told her. I know you told her all about you, and your bint, but I don’t know what you told her about us.’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t know anything about you, do I?’

  ‘That was what she said. I don’t know whether or not to believe it. Did she ask?’

  A light went on behind my eyes.

  ‘Yes. I told her I didn’t know.’ I drank the water Les had stuck in front of me. It was icy and sweet.

  The Major went on, ‘She told us she didn’t ask.’

  ‘She’s scared of Les,’ I told him.

  ‘So am I,’ he said.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Safe. Locked in her bedroom contemplating her sins. Bugger it, Les: what do you think?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Toss you for it, or leave it to Charlie? He was here. We weren’t.’

  England started in on his water, wincing with each sip. I decided to let him lead. He asked me, ‘Look, is this thing we’re sitting in still a Lancaster bomber?’

  ‘No; it’s part of someone’s kitchen.’

  ‘It’s an example of nothing being what it seems, Charlie. Mrs Maggs is not just a friendly old Madame. Nor is she only a sad old murderess, collaborator or Resistance fighter. She’s all of those things, and more besides. She swaps information for favours, with anyone she needs to. That includes me, the Yanks, the Maquis – in other words the Commies – and the Folies Bergère, for all I know. What you have to decide for us is whether you’re happy that what you gabbed out to her last night ends up with a third, and possibly unfriendly, party. Because it will do. In other words are you, or are we, compromised?’

  ‘And if my answer is Yes, then Les kills her?’

  ‘If you don’t want to do it yourself, yes. Although I am firmly of the opinion that one should take responsibility for one’s own decisions.’

  ‘I won’t kill her, or let Les do it,’ I told them.

  ‘Decided by default then.’ That was the Major. He sneezed, and after a production with a grubby khaki handkerchief muttered, ‘Let her out, Les. She can rustle up a bit of breakfast, and count her stars lucky.’

  Mrs Maggs looked a bit dishevelled, but not scared. Les said, ‘Charlie says you can live.’

  ‘If that’s what all the fuss was about, Mr Raffles, you coulda asked me. He ain’t no lad to go killing old ladies.’

  England said, ‘No. He’s the type that turns his back on them: far more dangerous.’ They actually
smiled at each other.

  She’d made up enough stovies for all of us the night before, and hadn’t used them. Now she fried what was left as thin meat and potato pancakes. They were delicious.

  *

  I was the last to get into Kate. Maggs had the nerve to give me a peck on the cheek, and whisper, ‘Good luck, Charlie.’

  Driving back to the ARC I had the chance to sort a few things out with the Major. One was, ‘The man she refers to as her Jerry was one of yours, wasn’t he? You and he are both in the food business. That’s how you knew where to come to fetch him.’ I turned in the passenger seat to look at him. He looked up from his notebook, and smiled. That was all.

  The next was, ‘And he was the German at that cafe table in Beauvais; with the woman and child.’

  This time he looked out of the window. He was still smiling. Raffles said, ‘Well done, Mr Charlie.’

  And the last was, ‘What was the favour Mrs Maggs wanted from you?’

  ‘She thought that they’d hung about in Beauvais long enough. She wanted them safe in England: today. Said it would probably be safer for you, too.’

  ‘What did that mean?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Already made the call. They’re on their way. I was going to save them for a trade later. You’re an expensive friend, Charlie Bassett.’

  I asked him again, ‘He was your spy, wasn’t he?’

  This time he answered me. He was still smiling, but there was something else in there somewhere.

  ‘He’s my cousin, Charlie. On my mother’s side.’

  What do they call it? Endgame. I guess that there was something he hadn’t needed reminding of: the look on his face said that it would stick around all day. The two policemen weren’t at the cafe, so we drove on. As Les drew the big car up to the kerb outside the ARC he told me, ‘Things to do myself. Meet you at the cafe along the road about 1900 hours; OK?’

  ‘Yes. If I get bored I’ll go sightseeing, or shopping.’

  ‘Buy yourself a gun,’ Les murmured as I opened the car door. They were moving before I had turned away.