Charlie's War

by David Fiddimore

  I thought that it was about time somebody introduced them to the idea of verbs, pronouns and adjectives. Les turned and grinned at me.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘They’ll get down to business eventually.’

  Breakfast was taken alongside a curious tank without a turret. When I asked about it a tankie sergeant said, ‘It’s a Kangaroo: that’s a Sherman without a turret. The Canadians make them. Our Skipper got it out of a Canadian squadron. We use it for dragging our nappies round in.’ He put a mug of tea in my hands that was so large I needed both my mitts for it. It was sweetened with condensed milk: wonderful. The tankies had rigged an awning out from the side of the Kangaroo to cover the field kitchen they cooked on: the officers – the Captain, two Lieutenants and Major England – stood underneath it. Les caught my eye, and flicked his head towards it. He was saying, You’re a bleedin’ officer; behave like one, and mix with the buggers! The plate of grub their cook pushed at me looked grey and familiar. I had to balance my mug of char on the Kangaroo’s track before accepting the food. The Captain told me, ‘I know that it looks like fifty-seven varieties of stewed snot, but it’s really quite tasty.’ It was a tankie joke. I smiled for him, and asked the cook, ‘Don’t you call this stovies?’

  He said, ‘Aye, sir. How did you know that? A Scottie showed me how to cook this up, some place out of Caen. He was wandering on his own, and trying to join up with his unit. We lost him somewhere along the line. I wonder if he found them.’

  I thought, He got as far as Paris, anyway. Another tank had fired up its engine. It differed from the others in that it sat in the geographical centre of the field, on a small hump. The rich smell of its exhaust drifted back towards me. I asked, ‘Why is it doing that?’

  ‘Dodgy engines. We have to run them up every few hours, otherwise the gremlins get into them.’

  ‘Why is it sitting in the middle of the field? Surely that’s a bit risky – every one else has hidden against the hedgerows.’

  ‘That’s the Judas Goat. If we get bounced by the Jerry fighter-bombers they get just one chance to hit us at three hundred knots before we start to shoot back. If you was Jerry, sir, who would you choose to go for in that split second – an easy target in the middle of a field, or indistinct, uncertain targets dispersed around it, who are going to start shooting back as soon as you circle to line up on them? The Captain is willing to sacrifice the one in the open for the others.’

  Hard bastard, I thought.

  James told Les, ‘Get the car undercover when you’ve finished your scran. Then you can get some rest. You might have forgotten you’ve been driving all night, but I haven’t.’

  Les’s shoulders suddenly dropped.

  ‘Aye. You’re right.’ There was a pause that wasn’t quite long enough for insubordination before he added the ‘sir’ that we waited for, and sloped off.

  He produced a camo net from Kate’s cavernous boot. It had coloured canvas leaves sewn all over it. He cut two long staves from a pollarded willow in the hedgerow, and standing them out from the wheels at forty-five degrees, draped the net between them and the car. That gave us cover, and an awning of our own. Les curled up on the back seat under James’s German cape, and was soon snoring.

  James and I sat on Kate’s running board and smoked: the sun through the netting over us splashed us with shadow patterns. I was really getting the hang of the pipe now, but was worried about running short of tobacco. I hadn’t brought near enough with me. We talked war, and we talked personal. I felt comfortable with him the way I had never felt with officers before, so I didn’t mind when he said, ‘The trouble with being an Intelligence Officer – even if you’ve got a speciality like mine – is that you get asked to pick up any other intelligence tasking that might occur wherever you might find yourself. That’s how I picked you up. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Sorry about that, James. I try not to get in the way.’

  ‘Know you do, old boy. Don’t mention it. You’ve actually been an amusing diversion, in a naive sort of way.’

  Behind us Les gave an enormous snort in his sleep. James abruptly changed the subject.

  ‘How are you getting on with that pipe? Never got round to one myself.’

  ‘I like it better than fags now, but you can overdo it. It can sort of lie heavy on your stomach.’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’ He asked me about after the war. A lot of folk were beginning to talk about after the war these days. I remembered that Cliff had told me he didn’t believe it: he saw a bigger war around the corner. I told James England about wanting to emigrate to Australia to be a sports journalist. He asked, ‘Why? What started that?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to stay in the services and be ordered around for the rest of my life, and because the Aussies speak English, the sun shines, and sport’s the only thing that interests them outside of beer and sex.’

  ‘But you’d have to spend the rest of your life among Australians. Difficult.’

  ‘Yes. There were a few on my squadron.’

  ‘Ghastly, aren’t they?’

  ‘I suppose they were, come to think of it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t consider Wales, say Glamorgan or somewhere, would you?’

  ‘Christ, no! Have you ever met anyone from Wales, James?’

  ‘From Glamorgan, myself, matter o’ fact.’ He sounded moody, so I said, ‘You see my point then?’

  ‘I suppose so. Depressing, isn’t it?’

  I asked him about his after the war. He said, ‘You’d probably laugh at me.’

  ‘So what? You laughed at me.’

  ‘There’s a small port near Chichester, in Sussex. All the yachty types anchor there in the summer: crumpet everywhere. It’s called Bosham; heard of it?’

  ‘No, James. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t say sorry all the time. You don’t have to.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘There you go again.’

  I opened my mouth, but shut it again with a small pop. He said, ‘Don’t worry. Not many people know it: it’s where King Canute ordered the tide to turn. Anyway, I want to buy a small place there, and open a really good restaurant. I want to serve meals so good that people will talk about them the other side of the Empire.’ James added, almost as an afterthought, ‘You shouldn’t say Christ, no, you know; not while you’re a Padre. God won’t like it. Not seemly. Out of character.’

  Before I could reply the tankie Captain mooched over. His name was Charteris, and naturally there was a white matchstick-man with a halo painted on the side of his tank’s turret. Before he could speak we were disturbed by the sounds of high-pitched aero-engines in the air near us. Until then the tank laager had had a languorous, sleepy air about it. Now everything changed. From the turret of the Judas Goat a head wearing a bugle poked up, and blasted a two-phrase bugle call: then it popped down again. Charteris spun to face the field, and used a fifty-foot voice.

  ‘Stand to! Stand to!’

  He was behind the action though. Most of the tanks had Brens or Fifties mounted on their turret tops, and there were two on flexible mountings on the Kangaroo. Now each was manned by a trooper in a battle bowler. Some hadn’t had the time to put jackets on, but no one had missed his steel helmet.

  They swept across the field: the three American Lightnings we’d seen the previous day. They were all hooked up with wings full of rockets. They were so low that when one of the pilots looked in my direction I’ll swear we had an eye lock. They were so low that they couldn’t miss the stars on the turret tops of the Comet tanks if they looked for them. In an eye blink they were half a mile away, but then they circled back.

  ‘They’re looking for something,’ Charteris murmured, but that was more for his benefit than ours. They circled slowly out of our Brens’ effective ranges, and when I sensed a relief and lessening of tension among the tank gunners, Charteris racked it up again by shouting, ‘Fucking stand to, I tell you.’

  The Lightnings did another
run near the field but their noses were angled up. Whatever their point was, it escaped me. When they were another blink away some nervous sod caught his finger in a trigger guard and pumped three or four rounds after them. Charteris said, ‘Bastard!’ and then bellowed, ‘Stand down! Stand down!’ in his parade-ground voice.

  The bugle attached to a small head popped back up out of the Judas Goat again, and gave us the benefit of the two-phrase call once more. This time it held on to the final note until it died of air starvation. I could immediately sense things calming down. Except the fiery little Captain, who bellowed, ‘Sarn’t Cummings. To me. Sarn’t Cummings.’

  Cummings, who’d been the first of the tankies to unwind to me, doubled over from a hedgerow Comet. He was obviously Charteris’s first man, even though there were two Lieutenants. Cummings skidded, and saluted.

  ‘Who was the cunt then? The one with finger trouble?’

  Cummings looked pained; he blinked before he answered, ‘Trooper Wyatt, B troop, sir.’

  ‘Then Trooper Wyatt just became the Judas Goat, didn’t he? Get those bloody tanks switched over, if you please.’ He gave a quick little salute. Cummings didn’t move fast enough for him, so he said, ‘Sergeant?’

  Cummings snapped out of it, saluted, and doubled away. By way of explanation, Charteris said, ‘Wyatt is Cummings’s gunner. Now he’s out in the middle until someone else drops one.’

  James didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to respond with. The little Captain looked briefly puzzled. He muttered, ‘They were looking for something, you know.’

  It may have been my imagination, but I thought that he looked at us with a quizzical interest . . . but the moment passed. Behind us Les let out another great snort in his sleep. He’d slept through the whole damned thing.

  Some time later the Major fell asleep as well, his head on his chest. One crew scoured out the barrel of their tank’s gun with a solution of hot water and piss, and others slept by their tanks. Cummings walked around on an informal inspection. Someone had tuned in to the services station and Vera Lynn was quietly doing her stuff. I never liked her singing, but like everyone else I fancied her to death. That’s an unfortunate phrase for a serviceman, isn’t it?

  After Cummings had returned to his own tank he couldn’t seem to keep still: every few minutes his head would stick out of the lid, screw three-sixty degrees around and then jerk out of sight again. After my second pipe of the morning I tapped it out on my heel. The saliva in the stem made a hissing sound as it ran into the hot bowl. I cleaned it out with a screw of grass, buttoned it into my jacket pocket, and wandered over to the Cummings vehicle. It had the name Fred painted on a cast steel wing above the track, alongside a cartoon picture of a hound with floppy ears. The dog appeared to be taking a crap. Cummings didn’t see me the next time his head popped up – he was looking north-east, towards the enemy. When it got round to me I said, ‘Hello,’ and he jumped out of his skin. I remembered then what Les had told me about the Elephant on the Bois de Boulogne: he said that tanks were blind to what was happening directly alongside them.

  The Sergeant gave me a weak grin, and responded with, ‘Oh . . . hello, Padre.’ Then there was a pause which embarrassed both of us. Eventually he said, ‘That may not be the best place to stand, Father. If Jerry comes over we’re likely to be the first one clobbered.’

  ‘So I heard. I thought I’d stroll over and maybe bring you the luck of the Devil.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but it would be best if you just moved on.’

  I sensed that he was just about to shake his head when his little Captain did something to prove that he was psychic. Or maybe he just heard us. We both heard his voice booming across the field at us.

  ‘Mr Cummings . . . move that fucking tank into cover before Jerry gets his sights on you, and does the bold Padre a mischief. Look lively now!’

  I felt it was prudent to get well out of his way. The Comet’s engine gave great bellowing gouts of sound and smoke as it turned in its own length, and got niftily under a thick willow. Blackbirds and larks sang; they hadn’t paused for a minute. Fred’s smoke drifted away on the breeze. Cummings was out and on the ground as I pushed into the shadow of the great tree. The hatch above the driver opened; he leaned into it and said, ‘OK boys, secure her please. Then you can get some air.’ To me he said, ‘Thank you,’ again.

  ‘Don’t mention it. I was getting bored.’

  ‘What I will mention, sir, if you don’t mind . . . is that you’re a bloody odd sort of Padre.’

  ‘It’s a new line for me. Six months ago I was a wireless op in a Lancaster. I probably flew over your head a couple of times. Who’s Fred?’ I pointed at the picture of the defecating dog. Cummings laughed.

  ‘My dad’s dog. Shits anywhere; like us.’

  Before his crew dismounted he leaned towards me and said quietly, ‘There’s a village less than a mile away. I was thinking of wandering over for a looksee. It will help to kill the time.’ When I failed to respond he added, ‘You said that you were bored, sir?’

  ‘Good idea, Sergeant.’ I shoved out my hand, feeling a bit stupid. ‘My name’s Charlie Bassett, what’s yours?’

  ‘You know it’s Cummings. It’s Alfred. Alf, or Fred. Like the craphound.’

  After a hesitation he shook my hand. It’s bloody socialism for you; I called him Fred, and his driver Doug, and they called me sir, and it was me that was supposed to feel uncomfortable. Doug toted an empty pack, an empty gas-mask case, and a .303 short Lee Enfield rifle with a full magazine. He looked as if he knew what to do with it.

  *

  The village was called Brond. It had its own road sign.

  ‘I knew a fat Scotchman called that, once,’ Cummings told me. ‘We could be in luck.’

  We walked into it from the south. It was a single wide street which was split by a spired church into a narrow Y at its north end. Cummings waved us back, and Doug and I fell in behind him, a six-foot gap between each of us. Cummings walked the walk, and we matched him. I hoped that no one was watching. What the hell had my curiosity got me into this time? Halfway up the street it opened out into a small square containing a huge and ornate bronze fountain. A big house on the square had been the Gendarmerie. It was burnt out; the rest of the place was relatively undamaged, if empty.

  When I looked up I saw the other soldiers. They were moving down the road towards us in open order. Four Yanks. They closed to a single file to pass us, but never looked up as they walked through. No eye contact. Their uniforms were clean, and they were freshly washed and shaven. Even so, I knew immediately there was something not right about them. Something that made me shiver.

  Doug said, ‘Aye, aye chums,’ to them as they trod warily past, but they ignored us.

  Cummings muttered, ‘Eyes front,’ as if he bloody meant it. Then, ‘Don’t look at them. Don’t look back.’ The last bit was in an urgent undertone. I’ve had to do this before: write down something I’ve seen, and still don’t believe in. I’d seen something like it before, you see, so I knew what they were, that American patrol with the faded red triangles sewn to the shoulders of their uniform jackets. I knew they were dead men, walking to nowhere. Some people call them ghosts. I suppose Cummings knew that too: I suppose that he, too, had seen something like them before. Twenty paces further and Cummings said, ‘OK, lad,’ to Doug, and to me, ‘You’ll say something for those Yanks, Father? Once we reach the church, if it’s safe to go in?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ I told him.

  We went into three houses, and then gave up on it. The houses weren’t knocked about at all; just empty. No furniture, nothing. Early vegetables in the back gardens needed thinning, and front gardens were overdue for attention. In the third and largest house we went into there was a modern Bakelite telephone in the hallway. I picked it up, there was that activity sound, and a sweet woman’s voice asked me in halting French which number I wished to reach. I told her I didn’t have the number, bu
t could she connect me to the ARC Grand Central Club in Paris? She asked me where I was calling from. I told her Brond, and gave her the number on the phone cradle. The girl who answered at the ARC was a cheerful American. I asked, ‘Is Emily back yet? Miss Emily Rea. This is Pilot Officer Bassett, RAF. She asked me to contact her.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie.

  The girl said, ‘The Programme Director is still out of Paris, sir, can anyone else help?’

  ‘How about Mr Kilduff? He’s a Lieutenant with your Military Police I think.’

  ‘We have no one with that name here, sir, but if you’ll wait a few seconds I shall connect you.’

  Kilduff was laughing as he picked up the phone. He said, ‘You’re a cocky little bastard. I can’t believe that you’re still running around loose. What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing. I just picked up a telephone to see if it worked.’

  ‘They all do. Right across Europe. If you have the number you can phone up the bunker and speak to Goebbels.’

  ‘Have you done that?’

  ‘We all have. It really pisses them off – they’re still trying to fight the war. I’ve been doing that a lot since I met you: trying to piss people off. You give people really bad ideas.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

  ‘You were born with the words I don’t understand dribbling out of your mouth; probably in a talk bubble, like in the comics. You remember my Scotch nigger McKechnie?’

  ‘Yes, I do. What happened to him?’

  ‘Done a runner, just like you, Charlie. The bastard even left me a letter, resigning from the war. You found that woman yet?’

  ‘I’m getting closer. When I do I’m coming back for you and your lunatics.’

  He laughed at that, ‘Maybe they don’t want you to find her any more? Ever thought of that?’ Then he laughed again. Really laughed, and put the phone down on me.