Charlie's War

by David Fiddimore

Then there were the other places. Where the walls of the buildings still stood: more or less. But instead of containing functioning houses, flats, offices and businesses, they were filled by rubble and burnt or smashed beams, and open to the sky. Buildings with a wall cleanly removed so that you could see the contents of the interior: like looking into doll’s houses. One three-floor house had a top-floor bedroom, now open to the weather, with bright yellow patterned wallpaper, and a bed with a green and red eiderdown. It was like a garden in the sky. There was a red cross daubed crudely on its front door. I asked, ‘What’s that mean? Plague?’

  James: ‘No, that will come next month. Probably cholera and TB . . . and syphilis, of course, once the Frogs get here.’ He’d been snotty about the French ever since spending a night in one of their cells. He went back to his thoughts, and they were probably too lofty for the likes of me and Les.

  Les said, ‘The red cross means unexploded bomb. A Jerry we had a couple of months ago told us that. It explains why there’s anything still left in that house.’

  There were more folk moving around in these recognizable ruins. The roads were more heavily cratered, and the craters hadn’t been filled in with rubble, as they had been in the areas of total devastation. A lot of infantry soldiers as well, thankfully all belonging to Scottish regiments, and not dressed in field grey.

  One road we attempted was so badly cratered that we couldn’t move forward. Les started to back Kate up. A young brown job Sergeant with a Gateshead accent came sprinting from the cover and threw a sloppy one at James, although it was to Les that he spoke.

  ‘Would you mind backing up as quick as you like, chum, and getting off the street? Then I’ll explain what’s going on.’

  The Good Soldier Finnigan. The Sergeant seemed a cluedup type, even if he was in a Scottish regiment. Les backed Kate between two shagged-out houses without roofs. The infantryman said, ‘Thanks. You were in harm’s way, and all that.’

  James: I haven’t seen any fighting Germans yet.’

  ‘Neither you will, sir. It’s those fucking Canadians. It’s like the gunfight at the OK Corral down there.’ He waved vaguely in the direction we were travelling. ‘Where were you hoping to get to, anyway?’

  James asked, ‘Charlie?’

  ‘The main telephone exchange, and the hospital in the Hanseatic Hotel. Doesn’t matter in which order. Befehl ist Befehl.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Then he spotted my collar crosses and added, ‘Sir.’

  ‘An order is an order. It’s a German saying. They use it to explain something about themselves.’

  ‘You speak German? Good. It will come in handy.’

  That was a bloody laugh, wasn’t it? Les thought so: he smiled.

  The Sergeant then said, ‘You’ll never get the car through. The Canadians are using anti-aircraft guns and mortars against anything that moves; particularly if it’s khaki. Someone has told them they’ve been infiltrated by Werewolf units dressed as British soldiers. My boss has said that Horrocks has threatened to call up air support if the fighting doesn’t stop soon. You wouldn’t want your transport to be caught in the open with a Tiffie up your arse. Begging your pardon, Padre.’

  Then he examined James’s old prewar street map and showed us where we were, and where the telephone exchange had been, and hospital was. The telephone exchange had fallen down after one of the American daylight raids a few days previously. Les put Kate in somebody’s front room and stayed with her. We followed the Sergeant for a couple of minutes to find his platoon HQ set up in another. A spiky Highland Lieutenant confirmed our position, and showed us on his charts where the Canadians and the Americans were. As we left the little platoon he observed, ‘You’ve got a bit of a problem with the car. I don’t suppose you’d care to wait until the rough stuff’s died down?’

  ‘How long is that likely to take?’ I asked.

  ‘About this time tomorrow would be about par for the course once the Allies start shooting at each other. I don’t suppose you can wait that long?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to leave your wagon. You’ll never get any closer in that. The roads are fucked up. Full of big holes, burst water mains, and swimming in sewage in some places: don’t forget to take your tablets. You can leave your car inside the house next door, and then proceed on foot, although you’ll have to leave someone with it. Otherwise all you’ll have left when you get back is a bag of bolts. They’ll steal everything. The telephone place is about two miles away, and the hospital another mile or so beyond that.’

  That was that, then. Except.

  Except that when we moved back into the space between the houses there was a jeep parked in front of Kate, and Cliff was sitting on its bonnet talking to Les. The bastards actually looked pleased to see each other.

  Addressing a superior officer as if he’s a bit of dog dirt you’ve found on your shoe is called insubordination. It’s what I did then. The only surprise was the grudging look of approval Les shot my way. I snarled at Cliff, ‘And where the fuck did you spring from; Fairyland?’

  He ignored my tone, and lack of respect. I don’t suppose he wanted to charge me.

  ‘Your Pole’s aeroplane. He gave me a lift. We landed on a big dual-carriageway road around the town. Did you know that foreign bugger outranks me now?’

  ‘Only in the Polish Army: I’m not sure that it actually exists.’

  ‘Hello, Cliff,’ James said, and (meaning me), ‘Hasn’t he turned into a rude little sod?’

  Cliff grinned. His grimy moustache twitched. I’ve told you before; he was actually another who it was impossible to dislike when he smiled. He said, ‘Must be the company he’s keeping.’

  Les took a cigarette from his hat, and lit up. I tried again with Cliff.

  ‘How did you know where I was, sir?’

  ‘They told me. The same way my message got to you. You did get the recall, by the way?’

  ‘They told me I could stop, and come home. Having chased Grace and her baby into the arms of the Russians I can come back now.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you?’

  It wasn’t as easy to answer as all that. We were standing on big grey flagstones between the smashed houses. Two aircraft roared by at house height about two hundred yards away. They flinched automatically. It was the engines that told me.

  I said, ‘Mossies,’ and didn’t even bother to look up from the brick dust I was scuffing with my boot. Then I answered, ‘I never wanted to chase Grace away. I might even still want her back, which sounds stupid, but it’s true; you don’t stop loving her because she’s shagging somebody else. Loving someone doesn’t depend on them loving you back.’ I think that I embarrassed everyone with that revelation. I needed somebody on my side. I asked Les, ‘What do you think, Les?’

  It was very odd. It should have been me who sounded tired and defeated, but it wasn’t. It was Les. He sighed, ‘You reminds me of meself when I was young.’

  ‘When you were twenty-one?’

  ‘No: when I was sixteen.’ Then he asked me, ‘You still want to find that ’ospital?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  Les just said, ‘OK. I’m on for it.’

  Cliff’s neat little mouth turned down at the sides. Out bloody voted; I knew that he wouldn’t pull rank, but he had a last try.

  ‘If you don’t stop now I can’t guarantee to keep you out of trouble once we’re back in Blighty.’

  ‘You never could, sir,’ I told him.

  I used the sir again because the negotiation was over. But it didn’t turn out like that. James came over majorish, and insisted that Les remained there to guard Kate. Having manipulated the rest of us into scrambling through Bremen on our hands and knees, Les actually looked a bit smug about being left behind.

  *

  After an hour at the crouch or on our bellies, we slid into a bomb crater, only to find it already occupied. There was a single infantryman – one of ours – and four scared civilians.

  Clif
f said, ‘Bloody fine foxhole, this. Any port in a storm.’

  A mortar round or light artillery shell landed up about fifty yards away. I crouched under the shower of mud and brick pieces it threw at us. I said, ‘I think you’ve said that to me before, Cliff. At least, someone did. About a woman.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ the soldier said. ‘It’s not a foxhole. Not a proper one. It’s a bomb crater. The Americans gave it to us a couple of days ago – that’s why the heap of bricks is still warm.’ Another Scot: it was their sector now.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ I asked. There was this thin, familiar smell. Once it was in your nostrils it never seemed to go away.

  ‘I thought Les had taught you that.’ From James. ‘It’s what dead people smell like. Your lot probably did it.’

  There was another dull thud of a nearby explosion.

  Cliff asked James, ‘We’ve shared a foxhole before, haven’t we? Where was that?’

  ‘Caen, I think: it must have been in July or August. Les got shot in the arse again.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’ It was the Scottie again. ‘It isna a foxhole.’

  Cliff said, ‘Does it make a difference?’

  ‘Aye, sir, it does. A foxhole wouldnae been large enough for the eight of us. I woulda denied you entrance.’

  ‘With that horrible rifle?’

  ‘It would be sad if it hae come to tha’, sir.’

  There was something about these bastards who wore khaki, carried guns, and walked everywhere: when they made threats you tended to believe them. The eight of us were me, James and Cliff, the Scottie, two women and two children. The children were both girls of about ten. One of them had fair hair and wore a pink plastic patch over one eye. There was a pad of grubby cotton wool behind it. Most of the time we clung around the sloping sides of the bomb crater. From time to time the Scottie scuttled out to the bottom of the depression to check on the meal he was cooking, and slot more wood into the solid fuel stove that stood there. It had a short chimney that smoked a clear thin smoke you couldn’t see from six feet. It must have once been in a kitchen in the pile of bricks alongside us. Something evil was bubbling in an enormous greasy black saucepan on it. Lying around it were piles of broken wood ready to feed its red maw, potato peelings and empty bully cans.

  The Scottie had told us, ‘It’s for them. They haven’t eaten for days . . . ye can have what’s left over.’

  ‘If you’re the Stovie man,’ James told him, ‘we’ve followed you around for weeks. Aren’t you trying to rejoin your unit?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We have a nice phrase from where I belong, which is part and part.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ James got out his book and scribbled it down.

  ‘In my case, sir, it means that I am trying to catch up with my platoon, but not too quickly. I prefer cooking up feasts for lost civvies.’

  Cliff told the Major, ‘That sounds like your sort of soldier, James, why don’t you adopt him?’

  We all ducked instinctively as another round went off. Nearer this time, I thought. The girl with the eyepatch whimpered. One of the women – who had a lock of blonde hair escaping from a scarf tied over her head – hugged her. Mother and daughter, I thought.

  ‘We’ve chased your bloody feasts across Europe,’ I told the Scot.

  ‘And now he’s probably saving lives with it,’ James said. ‘Potatoes, corned beef or spam if they’re lucky, is all that anyone will be eating here for months. At least someone’s showing them what to do with it.’

  The Scotsman looked mollified. He said, ‘I put in a handful of ground oatmeal when I can get it: you can stir in a great gobbit o’ clotted cream if you hae’t. The kiddies go for that.’

  ‘Will you give me your recipe?’ James asked. ‘I’m going to open a restaurant in England after the war: it could be a novelty dish.’

  The Stovie Man said that the Canadians hadn’t got any heavy stuff, so they were using Bofors light anti-aircraft guns to keep our heads down, and he said, ‘. . . an’ they’re being a bit half hearted about it. I don’t think they want a proper scrap. I’m thinking they’re waiting for someone to come and sort it out. Just like us. Excuse me a minute . . .’

  He slid down to the stove at the bottom of the pit, and returned with two ally mess tins of grey and pink goo, which he handed to the kids. Every time I saw it, it had a different consistency. This time it looked like jellied dogs’ brains. They scooped it out with their hands, wolfing it down like, well . . . wolves. Maybe they were the Werewolf soldiers the Canadians were worried about, disguised as ten-year-old girls. They had nearly finished the food before he got back with two more, on big wide soup plates, for the women. One of the plates had lost a great chunk of rim. The girl with the eyepatch held her mess tin back out to him. A Bofors shell exploded with a sharp crack maybe a hundred yards away. The Scottie smiled at her, but shook his head.

  He asked James, ‘Can any of you speak the lingo properly, sir?’

  ‘Les and I can get by; Charlie’s still a bit green . . .’

  ‘Les is not here,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Then that leaves me, I suppose. What did you need old boy?’ James.

  The soldier smiled at the women again before he asked, ‘Can you tell them that there is more food, but that it would be wiser to wait half an hour before their second helping. I’m thinking they ha’en’t eaten for a couple o’ days. Too much in one go will mak ’em sick.’

  James said, ‘OK, soldier . . . I can manage that.’

  He turned so that he was facing them, and said about three sentences, speaking clearly and slowly. Both women smiled weakly. Eyepatch pulled the outstretched mess tin back, and cradled it to her body. There was a rattle of small-arms fire which seemed further away. A single multi-engined aircraft droned high overhead.

  I said, ‘The firing’s getting further away. Are you ready to move on, James?’ I wasn’t going to call him sir, sitting in a bomb hole waiting for the next shell to catch us.

  ‘Give it ten, old son . . . let ’em get a bit further.’

  I rolled over to face Cliff. He was about six feet from me. He had his revolver in his hand. He had had it in his hand since we’d left Les with Kate. I still don’t know who he didn’t trust – me, the Canadians, or the odd scraps of Scottish soldiery we came across from time to time. Most of those had been in cellars, shell holes and bomb craters just like the bloody Somme battles thirty years earlier. Cliff must have picked up on that, because as I turned to him he said, ‘Don’t you think that this is the better ’ole, compared to our last one?’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean . . .’

  The Scot guffawed, and James gave his silly little giggle. The Scot told me, ‘Dinna mind them, sir. The Better ’ole was a musical entertainment from the First War. My father took me down to Glasgow to see it. To the music hall. You’re too young to ken that.’ Sure enough; he was closer to James’s and Cliff’s age than to mine. Then he started to hum, and then quietly croon a song that I took to be connected to it. It was ‘What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?’ Possibly not the best thing to be singing to a ten-year-old girl who maybe only had one left, but she didn’t understand the words anyway. She smiled at him through her fear, and hugged her mess tin closer, as if it was a doll.

  I asked Cliff, ‘Will you be straight about something with me, sir?’ Perhaps the truth would make me strong and joyful. Pause. Maybe five-beat.

  Then he said, ‘Only possibly. There are always other considerations.’

  This time the five-beat was mine. I could always choose not to ask.

  First of all I told him, ‘The Major and I have already worked out that I’m not supposed to catch up with Grace and bring her and her baby back to England. I’m supposed to chase her into the welcoming arms of Mother Russia, where she and the baby will disappear into the snowy wastes for ever.’

  Cliff eye-wrestled with me: he didn’t blink. I asked, ‘Did you know that when you sent me out here?’
r />   ‘No, Charlie. I didn’t.’

  ‘Would you have still sent me if you had known?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie. I rather believe I would.’

  ‘What did you know?’

  There were three rifle shots. Two from in front of us and far to the right, and one answering shot from what I presumed was our side. It seemed even further away.

  ‘What I told you: although I suspected that there could be alternative plans that I knew nothing about.’

  ‘And you didn’t ask?’

  ‘Always better not too, old son.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to mention that to me or James?’

  ‘No. I kept it nice and simple, my ear to the ground, and my eyes wide open. For what it’s worth, I think that the Bakers actually wanted them found and brought back to begin with. It would have been messy, but they could have dealt with it. Then, when Grace moved so determinedly east, another solution presented itself.’

  ‘Did you ask the Americans to stop me?’

  ‘No, it must have been them. It’s how it works in old man Baker’s factories. He compartmentalizes: keeps people and their tasks in separate boxes. The person making the bullets in one part of the factory doesn’t need to know about someone rifling gun barrels in another. The parts only come together in the gun.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I understand . . .’

  ‘Power, old boy,’ That was James. ‘Keep what the individual knows to the minimum, but know the whole picture yourself. No one can challenge you then, and you get to do whatever you like, because no one else knows enough to do it better.’

  ‘. . . which is why he told the Yanks to stop you, but didn’t tell me. It wasn’t about not telling you, it was about not telling me. So that I couldn’t disagree with him, or learn enough to start worrying at it, and work out what’s what. Do you see that now?’ Cliff.

  ‘Maybe.’ I didn’t respond immediately; then, ‘Two more questions.’

  ‘No promises.’

  ‘OK. How did they get to the Yanks?’

  ‘Probably through that Captain that Addie is shagging. I don’t think that he’s done much flying since he took up with the old lady. He probably knew someone who knew someone, and so on. All of a sudden the Yankee police all over Paris are falling over themselves to lock you up.’