Charlie's War

by David Fiddimore

  ‘A dot like that one?’

  ‘Yep,’ he said, and half climbed out of the window and into the slipstream, sighting his Sten forward as if it was a rifle. Light twinkled around the rapidly growing black dot, like fireflies, and I started to weave Kate, with my foot jammed down on the throttle. Part of me was saying, This isn’t fair. Another part of me was urging Les to kill the bastard. Les didn’t shoot back. Bullet and cannon shells kicked up the road and ploughed the verges on either side of us. A sudden crash coincided with the car filling with tiny cubes of shattered glass.

  James said, ‘Oh my!’ but it was muffled by his panzer cape.

  By the time that Les fired, the aircraft having a go us at was clearly identifiable as one of the three Americans. I don’t know how Les managed it, but in between the time that the Yank was within his range and passed over us, he got two full Sten mags off at him: I saw the pilot jink his beast left, right, left, and then jerk the nose up. I think that Les had either laid bullets on him, or scared him. After all, if you’re trying to murder your Allies, you don’t expect one of the bastards to murder you back, do you?

  Les shouted, ‘Don’t stop; don’t stop,’ as he slid back into his seat, and immediately changed a third mag into his gun. ‘I’ll spot for you. Weave again when I tell you.’

  But he didn’t, because the Yank didn’t come back. The actual attack was over in less than a minute.

  Kate was full of pieces of glass. They tinkled like water in a stream as they fell from the Major’s cape when he resurfaced. An American cannon shell or bullet had hit the mirror mounted on Kate’s driver’s door, blown it through the driver’s side window, and out through the rear window. When I got out of the car later I glittered with glass fragments and glass dust, like a snowman in a garden. I had a scratched cheek. That was our only honourable wound from the fight.

  We pulled off the road at the next farm. It was deserted. The house had been fought through: it was pretty burned up. There were five mounds marked with crude wooden crosses by its busted front door. Three of the names and ranks were German, two were Allied: American I think. The Major and I stood off in a neglected field, and brushed each other down until the glass and its dust were gone. I remember particularly that he wouldn’t let me rub my eyes, but cleansed them very gently with clear water from the farmyard pump. He said that if I rubbed them with glass dust I’d scratch the retinas. I probably owe him my sight. I did the same for him. We even had to comb each other’s hair out, like a couple of girls. His hair was grey with dust, making him look like an old man.

  Les, hanging half out of the car, and shooting back at the Yank, hadn’t collected much glass. While the Major and I checked each other up, he cleared the crap out of Kate, and by the time we came back he’d got a brew-up going, on the desert stove he carted around in the boot. That was dry earth, or sand, mixed with petrol, and crammed into a large bully beef can. Once you lit it, it burned on a low flame until you tossed it out. I remember that fresh char in a big ally mug, so hot you could hardly hold it – with milk I’d probably pulled from a cow myself not long ago, and three spoons of sugar – as one of the finest cups of tea in my life. The right thing at the right time. Eventually my hands stopped shaking.

  Some time Les asked, ‘Anyone know what the fuck that was all about? Those bastards have been looking at us for days, just to make sure. Even the tankies said, I wonder what they’re looking for? Remember? Is there anything I should know?’

  I remembered, and I felt shifty.

  ‘For some reason the Yanks haven’t exactly taken a shine to me, have they? Look what they did to me in Paris. But I honestly don’t know what I’ve done to them.’

  ‘Nuffink,’ Les said. ‘Not official, anyway. You surely irritated that Snowdrop Lieutenant, though . . . what was his name?’

  ‘Kilduff.’

  ‘That’s right. I’d be surprised he took whatever it was personal enough to order their bloody Air Force out after you. Anyway, how would he know where we were?’

  I said, ‘He could have worked it out. He knew where we were heading.’ Then I gulped and took the plunge. ‘. . . and I phoned him from that telephone in Brond and pissed him off. It seemed funny at the time.’

  Les went very still. Froze with his tea mug half to his mouth. When he moved he stood up. He said, ‘I’m going to have a waxer in my char. Anyone else?’ He produced a rum bottle from Kate’s capacious boot, and we all got a dollop. It was all theatre to disguise how angry he was. The Major got me off. He sloshed his fortified tea around in his mug and observed, ‘There could be another reason. You remember when we first saw that flight of Lightnings?’

  I said, ‘Yes. There were four of them. Our first stop after Laon. They crossed that town square when we were at a cafe.’

  Les recalled, ‘One of them had a sun painted on it. He waggled his wings as he crossed. I thought he was a flash git.’

  ‘One of us said so,’ I told him. ‘I remember.’

  The Major filled it in.

  ‘The Flash Git’s girlfriend was the waitress at that cafe bar. She asked me about the obligations of Allied servicemen if they got local girls pregnant. I told her how to stake a claim.’

  Les asked him, ‘When did she ask you that?’

  ‘While I was rogering her.’

  He looked away in one direction, and Les looked away in another. Les took a deep breath, held it for a lifetime, and said, ‘. . . And her boyfriend never came back, did he? Only the other three. Yes: I can see that pissing off his pals!’ He got up and threw the dregs of his tea into the hot can. They hissed like angry vipers. On the other side of Kate from us he opened the front passenger door, and slammed it violently shut. Then, across her bonnet, he said in a deceptively calm tone, ‘One of you two stupid bastards almost just got me killed . . . and fer nuffin’.’ No exclamation mark. No sirs. Less than full marks for sentence construction, but it was down-beat, which is why it drove home.

  I looked at my drink, and did the same as Les, throwing the dregs on the makeshift stove. The snakes hissed again. I said, ‘Sorry,’ and felt it.

  What surprised me was that James said the same.

  ‘Sorry, old man.’ Then, ‘My mistake.’

  Les said OK, but sounded subdued; and then we were back on the road. Les drove – to make up time he said – but I think that it was so he didn’t have to speak to us. I understood: when I was a Sergeant in the RAF I used to think that most officers were stupid. I think that I must have begun to doze. I turned up the collar of my jacket to deflect the gale blowing through Kate’s cabin. James sat stoically upright in the back, his cheeks reddened by the icy blast.

  I awoke with that dreadful start of your chin hitting your chest as your neck muscles finally relax. Les said, ‘Blijenhoek about ten minutes. This is just about as far as we got last trip. Should be a checkpoint in about a mile.’

  There was.

  Thirteen

  It didn’t look like an R & R station for tired troops to me; it looked like a sodding battlefield. The checkpoint was a staggered twin-barrier job, with a nasty great Sherman tank looking down its 75 at you from the second one. There were too many soldiers about, and they all looked edgy. We were in a queue behind another staff car and three small trucks whose bodies stood high off their wheels. The front one had a big Red Cross on a white ground painted on its hood. The soldiers scurrying around it had Red Cross arm bands.

  Les told me, ‘Don’t like this much. The war had missed here and moved on the last time we were here.’

  ‘Is this Blijenhoek, where Grace might be?’

  ‘No. This is Ganda. Blijenhoek’s a few miles on. It’s just a few houses around an old castle: quite pretty, if I remember it right. This place was all right when we were here last month.’

  It wasn’t all right now. Ganda had probably been a pretty hamlet, built on either side of a broad curve in the main road. All of the houses had been fought through. Snowdrops worked their way methodically down the vehicle
s. Les asked one, ‘What happened to this place?’

  His white helmet was a size too small: he had half a cigar, and did the trick with it; moving it from one side of his mouth to the other, then speaking around it.

  ‘Fritz happened. This was the little brother of the Battle of the Bulge. The old man reckoned there musta been half a division of them. Kraut paratroopers. The hard guys.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Say ten days ago. They ripped back through the R & R area down the road like a knife through butter.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Holed up in a friggin’ castle, laughin’ at us.’

  James decided it was time to put an officerly edge on the conversation, and made a mess of it as usual. He leaned forward and asked, ‘Can we still go up there – to the rest area? We need a quick word with one of your tank commanders, if he’s still there.’

  The Snowdrop took in the Major’s bits of brass, and threw him a quick and sloppy salute. James did the same. His was worse. The American said, ‘You wouldn’t be the Englishmen chasing ’cross the war zone after some English girl, sir? We were warned to watch out for a couple of Limeys – sorry, sir – and a priest.’

  I suppose that there was no point in denying it; I still had the crosses on my collar. Les had been caught off guard for once. The American had a firmer grip on his tommy-gun than Les had on his beloved Sten. James gave his winning smile. The one that fooled nobody at all.

  ‘Yes. Hands up. I suppose that’s us. Only you could have caught us, Officer.’

  The American wasn’t amused. That was the downside. On the other hand he didn’t seem particularly concerned. He told us, ‘Would you mind pulling out of the line, sir. My officer will want a word with you. That way we can clear the traffic behind you. You can park it up over there, sir.’

  He indicated with his machine gun. The end of the short barrel made circular motions which hypnotized me with fear. I was distracted enough to notice that it had a flat, round magazine, like you see in gangster movies. As he manoeuvred us out of the line, and over to the small checkpoint hut, Les murmured, ‘Another fine mess you’ve got us into.’

  James said, ‘Sir.’

  ‘Another fine mess you’ve got us into, sir.’

  The American Lieutenant who came out of the small hut was thin and tired-looking. He was talking on a battered portable handset as he walked towards us. He had red mud on his boots and trousers, and a tear in his wind jacket. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. As he approached the car he didn’t so much as glance at me or Les: he shifted the radio to his left hand, came to a nice attention, and flicked James a very neat salute. There always has to be an exception. James wound down the rear window: he was lucky he still had one. The young American asked, ‘Do you mind if I get in, sir? It’ll be more comfortable.’

  A wrong-footed James: I could see it in his eyes. He said, ‘I suppose so,’ rather grudgingly, I thought, and moved to make room. The American joined him in the back. I turned to watch. So did Les. Up close the Yank looked like a bit of a fighter. He said, ‘James Oliver. Provost Service, sir,’ and held out his hand.

  Our James said, ‘James England.’ They did the handshake thing.

  The American said, ‘I know, sir . . . and this is Private Finnigan,’ He smiled at Les. ‘. . . and . . . your priest.’ He didn’t smile at me. ‘I received a signal from Paris. They said to watch out for you, and give you any assistance you asked for: that’s within reason, I expect, sir.’ He tried a tired grin.

  I asked him, ‘Who did that order come from, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Somewhere up high, I expect, Padre, although not as high up as the guy you’re speaking to.’ He gave me a smile then: one that was hard not to forgive. ‘A Mr Kilduff sent the signal; you know him? He said to pass you through, and report back.’

  ‘We met.’

  ‘He an’ I were at college together: law. I just spoke to him over a relay. He said that you and the US Army had got off on the wrong foot, Padre, but that it was behind us now. I guess that means that he got his arse felt, sir.’

  He turned the conversation back to James, who said, lamely I thought, ‘Quite. These things happen.’

  I wasn’t as ready to forgive and forget. The bastard had kept me padlocked to a bed for a day, and I still half suspected that he had a finger on that P-38 which tried to kill us.

  England asked him, ‘What is the situation forward of here?’

  ‘Stabilizing, sir. A few days ago you wouldn’t have liked it at all. This was supposed to be a back area. Colonel Gatcombe reckoned that at least half a company of Jerry parachutists counter-attacked across a river and the canal. Raids like this are just to slow us down, make us think, and buy themselves time to dig in. They’ll fight us on the Rhine. That’s what I think, sir.’

  The Major gave his wry smile. I could sense him relaxing. He asked, ‘What does this Colonel Gatcombe think?’

  ‘No idea, sir. The Colonel started to pray as soon as the Krauts came over the hill: they’ve shipped him Stateside in a strong jacket laced up with tapes. The fight-back at Ganda was organized by a Quartermaster Sergeant and a black cook.’

  ‘And they stopped a half-company of Paras?’ That was Les.

  ‘Well, Mr Finnigan. Maybe not a company. The Colonel might have got excited.’

  ‘So can we go through to what was the rest area?’ James asked. ‘The Padre here needs to speak to a Lieutenant . . .’

  ‘Grayling. Albert Grayling. Albie. I met him once at the American Red Cross Officers’ Club in Bedford.’

  ‘Yeah, Padre. Albie’s there. Acting Captain now. They’ll need to find him a few more tanks before he moves on.’

  ‘Is he OK?’

  The Yank paused before replying. He seemed like a straight guy.

  ‘Yeah, Padre. He’s OK. They’ve taken a hell of a pounding moving up to the river . . .’ There was only one river on people’s minds these days. ‘He lost half the squadron, so they went into R & R to wait for reinforcement. There ain’t much for them up here, but they’ve set up a half-decent bar, and a couple of chow tents. One of our Entertainments Officers found some films. There’s a bathing unit up there as well. They were OK until the Jerry came marching down the road behind them. It spoiled their party.’

  ‘That’s happened to us,’ Les offered. ‘It never does seem fair, does it?’

  I asked, ‘So what are you telling us?’

  ‘That you might find Albie and his pals are a mite nervous just now.’

  ‘And a big mob of Germans are still in a nearby castle overlooking their position?’

  ‘Not overlooking, sir; but near enough to make you feel antsy.’

  The Major asked him, ‘Is there any good news?’

  ‘The Bath Unit, Major. They stood and fought: saved the day. When they ran out of soap, they threw facecloths and scrubbing brushes. The Jerry turned and fled.’

  ‘Into the castle.’ It was James again. ‘. . . and they’re still there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the American said, and suddenly looked his age, which wasn’t much. ‘It’s a bit of a pisser, isn’t it, sir?’

  Fourteen

  Oliver came on with us. There were two more checkpoints to pass through. The Yanks must have believed in capital punishment for the politically radical, because his directions to Les were peppered with hang a left here, and hang a sharp right, now. Once the idea was lodged in my head I snorted each time he used the phrase. He began to look at me as if he thought I was a bit touched.

  James said, ‘Don’t mind the Padre: God puts him under pressure now and again.’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Major, the Padre is going to be the only one of the three of you that’s welcome down there.’ He probably had an IQ of about seven. Command material.

  I revised my opinion of him as we turned into the olive drab campsite we had come so far to find. It looked like a Boy Scout jamboree, but with mud. He said, ‘I’m sure that we can find you a rear saloon
window to replace the one you lost, but I’m not so sure of the one on the driver’s door. We may just have to cut a sheet of Clear-Vu, and rivet it in. That OK?’

  ‘Whatever you say, Lieutenant.’ That was James. ‘God says we should be grateful for small mercies: I’m not going to argue with that; the Padre wouldn’t let me.’ He chuckled. The bastard was taking the piss again. He was also taking the piss out of God. That’s not so clever. God has a really long memory.

  Albie’s R & R area had become tacked on to the biggest field hospital Les had ever seen. (He told me that later.) Tanks and armoured vehicles were holed up over a huge area that had once been a dozen fields on a gentle hillside. It was churned to buggery, and soldiers in fatigues with mudcoloured legs were moving around on wooden-board pathways. My old man would have felt at home in something that looked as much like a First War back area as this. There was no guard or checkpoint, just a field gateway on high ground: the camp stretched down away from you and above you, smothering the bloody hillside. It was the first bit of Holland I’d seen that wasn’t flat, and I didn’t fancy it one little bit.

  Our Yank, Oliver, asked Les, ‘Would you mind leaving your car up here, soldier? You’re as like to get bogged in down there, as not. I’ll send a Maintenance Unit up here to have a go at the busted windows.’

  Les stuck it in close to the hedge, and we all decamped: he kept his Sten, and strolled like I’d seen him do before, with his arm resting on it, as if in a sling. When we reached wooden-plank pathways Oliver said, ‘Welcome to Boardwalk City. The problem is that I don’t know where Albie is likely to be. Would you mind if we split? If the Major and his driver would care to move down among the tanks, and ask for Albie’s unit, I’ll take the Padre up the hill to the hospital and the recreation tents. We could meet you in the Quonset – that’s the bar, the wooden thing with the flag over it – in say, an hour. One of us should have had some success by then.’