Charlie's War

by David Fiddimore

  Cummings was standing beside me, moving restlessly. He wanted to move. Something that Kilduff had said had registered with me. I told Cummings, ‘You go up to the church without me, if that’s what you want.’

  He nodded.

  I added, ‘I want to make another call while I can. This might be the only phone line in Belgium still working.’

  ‘OK, sir, but please don’t touch anything else. These spaces could be wired.’

  ‘OK, I won’t take any chances.’ But I already had, just by lifting the phone without thinking. Stupid.

  He and Doug moved down the tiled passageway, and out into the light again. I picked up the telephone handset and the same girl answered. My French sounded better than hers. I gave the telephone number for Crifton – the big house in Bedfordshire – and asked if I could call there. She asked if I had an authorization for calling England. I said I didn’t know, and she asked for my service number. She went to silent running for about a half minute, and then came back and said that that was OK. Barnes answered. I told him, ‘It’s Charlie Bassett.’

  He said, ‘It’s good to hear from you, Mr Charlie. Where are you?’

  ‘Somewhere in Europe. Is Mr or Mrs Baker at home?’

  ‘Mrs Baker’s standing alongside me, sir. I’ll put her straight on.’

  Even over a crackly line Adelaide’s voice was unmistakable. Unless you mistook her for Lauren Bacall that is.

  ‘Hello Charlie. Any news?’

  ‘No. That’s what I was going to ask you.’

  ‘No. Except that creepy policeman from London came back to visit, and leer at me. He said that she’s definitely not in London.’

  ‘She’s been in France, but she’s not there now. I found someone who met her here. It sounds as if you have a grandchild, by the way, but I don’t know the details: congratulations. I’m heading north.’

  The line was noisier now; and having phoned Grace’s home out of curiosity really, I now found that I had little to say. So I closed it down.

  ‘I must go now.’

  ‘Take care, Charlie.’

  ‘I will. Take care yourself. Look after Barnsey.’ Why did I think that she sounded odd: or that there was something different in her voice? Maybe that bastard Kilduff had spooked me.

  I stepped away from the telephone; and then back to it, and picked up the handset for the third time. After a ten-second buzz the same operator answered.

  I said, ‘This is Pilot Officer Bassett of the RAF. Somewhere in Belgium, I think.’

  ‘I know. I checked your number against our list. Serving officers are authorized for telephone traffic.’

  ‘I’m pleased. I telephoned again because I really like the sound of your voice, and wanted to know where your telephone switchboard is and if I could meet you. What town do you work in?’

  After a pause she said, ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘No. You probably shouldn’t. What’s your name then?’

  ‘Ingrid.’

  ‘Tell me where you work, Ingrid.’

  There was a ten-beat pause again, before she said, ‘Bremen. At the International Telephone Exchange. I speak four languages.’

  ‘You’re German?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘In Germany?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Crikey!’

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? Do you think that the war is nearly over?’

  ‘Yes. Yes; I hope so.’

  ‘I hope so too. I am frightened. Frightened of the bombing and the occupation. Frightened the Russians will get here first.’

  ‘So am I. Frightened, I mean. I’ll find you if I get to Bremen. What’s your other name?’

  ‘Knier. We spell it with a K and an N. That is K-N-I-E-R.’

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘Here; at the telephone offices. My own house was bombed. This is a silly conversation, Pilot Officer – you are not writing down what I am saying.’

  ‘I have an exceptional memory; trust me. You are Ingrid Knier, with a K, and you live at a telephone exchange. You are very pretty – I can tell that from your voice. You’re frightened of the bombing, and the occupation. I’m going to find you in Bremen.’ All my life I have been good at girls who are good at conversational pauses. Then she said, ‘I think not, Pilot Officer. I must go now. Take care of yourself, and live long.’

  Then there was a click. I put the handset down in its cradle, and picked it up again.

  The line was no longer live. For the first time since I had joined up I had spoken to the enemy, and the enemy had spoken back to tell me to take care of myself, and live long. Funny bloody world.

  I walked out onto the road, and caught Cummings and Doug outside the church talking to a man who was about eleven feet tall, and thin and blond. His hair was unfashionably long. It needed a good wash. Come to think of it, everything about him was long, and needed a bit of a wash.

  Cummings said, ‘Meet Henk. He’s the Pastor here. The Dutch Unitarian Church.’

  I said, ‘They’re Lutherans, I think,’ and our new friend said, ‘That’s right. I am very pleased to meet you. I’m Henk Lammers.’

  He held out his right hand for a brotherly clasp. When we shook hands his fingers wrapped around me like small pythons. He wore the dress black cassock of a French Abbé – which didn’t look terribly Unitarian to me. Doug and Cummings were smoking his cigarettes. They said that they’d found him in the church, asleep on a pew near the door. His English was very good – better than Doug’s come to that – and I asked him about it. He paused before saying, ‘Cambridge. Then I went to a church school in Wales. Do you know it?’

  I said, ‘No: not even the Welsh know Wales. It’s not knowable.’

  At least he was bright enough to recognize a joke when he heard one. Either that or he was a halfwit: because he smiled. Every time you spoke to him there was a small deliberate pause before he answered. Then he smiled.

  Cummings asked the question.

  ‘What happened here?’

  The Pastor drew deeply on his cigarette, exhaled, then ground his cigarette butt out on the church step before replying. He said, ‘I don’t know.’

  I asked him, ‘All the people? Their animals?’

  Pause.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Their vehicles? Their furniture?’

  Pause.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  Pause.

  ‘Nothing. I arrived yesterday. It was like this.’

  Cummings tried again. He was a more sympathetic interlocutor than I. He spoke gently. ‘Where did you come from, Father?’

  Pause.

  ‘Den Haag. My Bishop sent me. He didn’t say that all of the people had left. I came by bus and walking. It was a long journey. Last night I waited, but nobody came, except the Americans. Did you see the four Americans?’

  Cummings said, ‘Yes, we saw them.’

  Pause.

  ‘They wouldn’t speak to me.’

  ‘They wouldn’t speak to us either. So no one came back last night?’

  Pause.

  ‘No. This morning I knew that I would have to decide what to do next. I was hungry. So I slept – I get a better decision from a rested mind. Then you came.’

  Doug had moved into the church. When he came out he said that it looked untouched, but empty. He brought out three suitcases tied up with string. Two were those nice leather travelling jobs that moved all over the Continent when people still travelled for pleasure. The third was smaller. I’d seen one like that before. Doug dropped them at our feet on the church steps. I was standing slightly behind Cummings facing the big Dutchman. I gave Cummings a small dig in the back before I spoke.

  ‘Sergeant, I think that the Pastor should come back with us to the squadron, don’t you? It’s not safe for him here.’

  Lammers asked, ‘Squadron? You have aircraft near here?’ For the first time he hadn’t paused.

  Cum
mings didn’t want me to answer, but I said, ‘No. Tanks. We can take care of you there.’

  Lammers had taken a pace away, which put him a step above us, with Doug to his right on the same level. He replied, ‘Thank you, but no. I should wait for my people to return.’

  I spoke softly, ‘I am afraid that I will insist.’

  He said, avoiding eye contact this time, ‘It is not possible. I cannot come with you,’ and as he spoke his right hand dropped slowly. Maybe he was going to cry, and was going for his handkerchief. I got an eyelock on Doug, and dropped my glance to the pastor’s hand. Doug was bright enough to pick up on it. He let the hand almost disappear into the pocket before he casually swung the .303 he carried. Casual, but fast, and with some force. The brutal impact noise made me wince. Flesh and bone against metal. Doug said, ‘Sorry, sir. My mistake.’

  The Dutchman screamed. That’s just the sort of noise I’d make if a clumsy Tommy had just crushed two of my fingers between the barrel of his rifle and my own gun. Doug’s hand dived into the pocket, and came out with a small pistol. He said, ‘How very naughty,’ and then, ‘Nice job. German Walther .30. Good souvenir.’

  The churchman held one hand in the other. Blood dripped between his fingers. Cummings had drawn his own pistol by now. I’d once seen what an American Colt could do up close. He was refreshingly formal when he said, ‘I’m taking you into custody, Mr Lammers. My Captain will want to talk to you. If you answer his questions satisfactorily I’m sure that you will be allowed to return.’

  The Dutchman looked at Doug and his .303, then looked steadily at Sergeant Cummings and his Colt pistol, then looked at me. He lifted a lip in a sneer, and spat on the step between us.

  ‘Piss off, yer gouk,’ he told one of us. I never worked out which one.

  Before we left, Cummings asked me, ‘Would you mind going into the church, and saying a few words for those Yanks, sir? Don’t worry about chummy here. I’ll drop him if he so much as twitches.’

  The church was dark and cool. They had left nothing but the pews. The altar was now just an uneven block of stone. I walked up to it, put my hand on it aware of a hundred years of prayer in this place, and silently asked the forgiveness of a being I didn’t believe in, for four American soldiers whom I didn’t believe I had seen. The sudden move into the sunlight out of the church made my eyes water.

  Outside, Lammers had a bruise starting to show around his right eye. He was prodded off in front of us carrying his large cases. I took the smallest one because I didn’t want to let it out of my sight. It was a high, bright sun again, and I stopped at the fountain in the square for a drink, but it was dry. Cummings urged us on.

  I sat on the ground in the shade with my back against Fred’s front plate. Twenty feet away from me Charteris sat with James under the awning that stretched out from the Kangaroo. Between them, and slightly forward, an old drum with a blackened skin was sitting on a small stool. There was a small book resting on it. Doug told me that it was the KRs. Lammers was sitting on the ground in front of them, his arms clasped around his knees. His fingers had been cleaned and bandaged. He wore iron handcuffs. Cummings stood at ease in front of the officers, clearly giving his report. From time to time I caught Lammers looking around the field. Counting us, I thought. He still expects to get away with it. Every time someone addressed a question to him he shook his head. I still had the small suitcase under my left hand. Eventually they waved me forward. Lammers didn’t even look up at me. James asked me, ‘What was the problem, Charlie?’

  ‘He was. He’s not right, sir. The village is like an army of cleaners have moved through it.’

  ‘That’s hardly his fault.’

  ‘Every time I asked him a verifiable question, where he went to college, where he trained for the church, he told me – then asked, Do you know that? I think he’s trying to work out how detailed his lies need to be.’

  ‘Well done, Charlie. I like that.’ James was being sincere, but he sounded bloody patronizing. Charteris frowned. I told them, ‘He says he’s a Lutheran, and then says his Bishop sent him here. I’m not sure that Lutherans have bishops in their mob. I’ll have to check that, sir.’

  James asked me, ‘What else?’

  ‘He had this in the church.’ For the first time I gave him a decent butcher’s at the small suitcase I had lifted. ‘To me, it looks the same as the one you have: and you said that you got yours from Jerry.’

  The Major’s eyes gleamed.

  ‘Well, well, well.’ I think that he addressed that to Charteris, not me. ‘What have we here?’

  Charteris had Cummings open the suitcase.

  ‘. . . over there somewhere, old chap: just in case.’

  He waved him over to the centre of the field. Doug went with him, without being asked. That impressed me. It was locked, but responded to one of several small keys found around the Dutchman’s neck on a piece of string. We waited for the discreet explosion that never came. After a decent interval they brought the case back to us. His papers and ration book had looked OK, and the other larger cases had just contained civilian clothes: some of them for a woman – that was interesting. It was the small case that got James’s attention, of course, but he fretted over it. He asked me, ‘Come and have a shufti at this, Charlie. If it’s a radio it’s like none I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I said, when I got alongside him. It was electrical all right, with ammeters and a voltmeter, and a small integral glass-cased battery, but James was right – it was never a radio.

  ‘I wonder what that does?’ Charteris asked us, and depressed what looked a bit like a Morse key, but wasn’t.

  The concussion almost knocked me over. The sky went black. The noise deafened me. The wind stripped leaves from the willows, the awning from the Kangaroo, and wrapped Kate up in her own camouflage shroud. I had instinctively crouched, and when I looked to the source of the explosion saw a massive black cloud boiling over Brond. A shower of fine rubble, dirt and dust fell on us like a summer storm. Lammers must have made his move, because he was flat on his face with Doug astride his shoulders, pinning his neck to the field with his rifle. Cummings, crouched by me, said, ‘Effing hell!’ which seemed appropriate at the time, and James, picking himself up and dusting his uniform down, said, ‘Detonator, I think. It’s a remote detonator. Very sophisticated.’

  I said, ‘I forgot. When I wouldn’t let him go the bastard swore at us in English. Something north-eastern. Gateshead or Newcastle.’

  Charteris didn’t say anything. He’d gone white. Then he spoke quietly to Cummings. He said, ‘Peg the bastard out, Sar’nt.’

  And that’s what they did. The military often seems to have a monopoly on cruel and unusual punishment. Two squaddies spreadeagled the poor sod in the middle of the field, and secured him with tent pegs, and Charteris threatened to have a tank driven over him. I remember the tank was named Rachel’s Dream.

  Charteris said, ‘Come over with me, Padre. Maybe he’ll speak to you.’

  When we were at Lammers Charteris squatted down to speak to him.

  ‘This is the way it works, old boy. I will signal the tank forward. It will move very slowly. Its starboard track will run right up the middle of your body. The first pain you will feel will be the pressure of it on your inner thighs, then it will crush your balls. It’s all downhill from there, I’m afraid. I understand that your head will stay alive until the tank runs over it. That will take about five minutes if my driver is very careful.’

  Lammers was taking fast deep breaths to pump himself up. He spat.

  ‘Won’t say nowt.’ He still sounded like a Northerner, but said to me, ‘Give me absolution, Father.’

  I said, ‘You’re a Lutheran. You don’t need it.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m a Catholic, Father. Please give me absolution.’

  ‘No,’ I told him.

  ‘That’s not allowed,’ he squealed. ‘You can’t refuse.’

  ‘Try me,’ and we walked away.

&n
bsp; Charteris said, ‘That was a bit hard, Padre.’

  I thought that that was a bit rich, coming from someone who was getting ready to drive a tank over someone else. He waved his hand at Rachel’s Dream, its driver revved it unnecessarily, and began to inch it forward.

  England strolled over to join us: he seemed to have recovered his composure. Cummings’s driver doubled over to us and saluted. He’d been sent to look at what was left of Brond. He was out of breath, but reported, ‘The town square has disappeared, sir. Just a bleeding great hole. There aren’t many undamaged houses left. If the squadron had been driving through . . . well, they would have got most of us, sir.’

  Charteris said, ‘Thank you, Trooper. Get yourself a cuppa, and try to ignore the screams.’

  James asked me, ‘You were there. How much explosive would it have taken to do that much damage?’

  ‘We used four-thousand-pound blast bombs called cookies in the RAF. One of them couldn’t have managed anything that big.’

  Charteris looked quizzically at me. James asked him, ‘Didn’t you know the bold Padre was in the RAF before he saw the light?’

  ‘Wireless Op,’ I said ‘. . . but now I’ve found Jesus.’

  ‘Good job someone has.’ That was Charteris again. ‘Fuck knows where he’s been for the last few years!’

  Lammers had guts. He didn’t shout until the tracks touched him. Then he babbled fast and loud. Charteris waved a stop, and James told us, ‘My side of the business, I think.’ He took his time about strolling over. He returned about fifteen minutes later. Doug had come back, with char and a wad for Charteris and me. James had filled half a dozen pages of his small notebook with that fine script of his.

  He told Charteris, ‘Three thousand kilos of high explosive under a fountain in the main square apparently – what’s that in pounds? They emptied the village in the path of our advance: deliberately stripped it bare, and didn’t booby-trap it with anti-personnel mines. Best result for Jerry was that we moved a field HQ in there. Next best was that we just advanced a column up the main street because the street was clear. Either way we would have been blown to bits. Our friend on the grass out there would have set it off from the church steeple.’