There's No Home

by Alexander Baron

  At last, when the time for their evening meal drew near, they made their way back to the billet, grubby with sweat and tired out by an afternoon’s walking in the sun; and Geoff Jobling spoke for all of them when, passing through the porchway, he said, ‘Oh, well, it was a lovely day.’

  §§§§

  After supper Craddock came out into the street. There was a Sergeants’ Mess at Battalion Headquarters at which he might spend the evening, but he was content to lounge in the sunshine, smoking. Children at play were swarming over the air-raid shelter, and their shouts echoed as if among fine glass. From the dark interior of a house came the voice of a woman singing, rising and falling in a savage plaint. In his mind Craddock dismissed the wordless and alien song as ‘queer’, but as he listened to the hard, flat wail, something more profound in him responded to its changing moods, its sensual waverings and its piercing outcries of woman’s misery, and he was stirred.

  Two doors away a young woman was sitting with a baby at her breast. He noticed with approval that her legs were clean. Most of the women had by now washed their faces and combed their hair, but their bare legs were still dirty.

  It was time to try out his Italian. He pointed to the baby and said, ‘How old?

  ‘Two years.’

  He thought that he could not have understood her. The baby did not look more than a few months old. He repeated, ‘How old?

  ‘Two years.’ Her downcast eyes gave a quick, upward flicker, gleamed at him and fell again. She raised her head and looked at him, this time without flinching, and he became aware of her eyes, scared and sombre but with a deep light in them. ‘Here,’ she touched her breast, ‘there is no milk.’ She spoke slowly and carefully, choosing simple words, for she realized that this soldier was scarcely able to understand her. ‘But the child sucks, and he does not weep.’

  ‘I’ – Craddock was rummaging in his mind for the Italian words – ‘have baby. Girl. Twelve months old. Her name is Joy.’ He did not show her the photograph he had in his pocket. It would have been too cruel a contrast with the pasty face, idiotic with hunger, and the soft, undeveloped limbs of the child she held.

  ‘Ah,’ the woman sighed, ‘Gioia. È bella.’ A quick smile of delight crossed her face; then the gravity returned. ‘Married a long time?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘You were a soldier when you married? Your wife has not seen you often?’

  ‘Not often.’

  ‘Ah, la poverina!’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘A soldier. Missing. All the men from here are away. Missing. Killed. Prisoner. Still fighting. We do not hear any more.’

  Craddock said, dutifully, ‘It is bad, war.’ He did not mean it, but he knew that these people liked to hear it.

  ‘Where do you live?’ she asked. ‘Town or country?’

  ‘Town. Slough.’

  She tried, without success, to repeat the name. They both laughed, and she leaned forward and touched the back of his hand with her fingertips for a moment.

  ‘It is near the countryside,’ he added. ‘My father,’ – he could not find the Italian words, and went through the motions of digging – ‘works. Country. My wife, girl from village.’

  ‘And you? Where do you work?’

  ‘Factory. Radio.’ He tried to indicate in mime his work on the assembly line, but her dark, heavy face showed only amused bewilderment.

  ‘How old are you?’ She was asking all the questions.

  ‘Twenty-six. And you?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  He had thought of her as older; not because of her face and body, which were young, but because of something undefinable in her attitude which compelled him all the time to behave as to a woman older than himself. He studied her to find what it was; perhaps it was her eyes, charged with experience. There was something in her eyes which he could not reach, watching from behind their submissive gaze, cat’s eyes gleaming from the depths of a cave.

  She looked up, startled, as a raucous voice came to them from the street corner, a man’s voice singing, ‘I was drunk last night, I was drunk the night before, Oh, I’m gonna get drunk tonight if I never get drunk no more.’ He recognized the man as one of his platoon, a private named Broom who had gone off on his own for the afternoon.

  Broom came lurching down the street, shouting, ‘Vino! Vino!’ He stopped and thumped at a door. ‘Vino! Gimme some vino or I’ll come in and cut your hearts out!’

  The woman rose in alarm and backed towards the door of her house. Sergeant Craddock held her arm to restrain her. He felt her quiver under his grip, and the heat of her arm came to his hand through her sleeve. ‘Stay here,’ he said, ‘he will not do you harm.’

  Broom approached them. He was a big man with a bad record. The platoon had tolerated him until an incident which occurred on their first day in Sicily. They had left the beach behind them and were following a rutted, white lane when they came upon their first corpse, a dead Italian soldier sprawling face downwards by the wayside. The men had looked curiously, one after another, and gone on their way. Broom had stopped and plunged his bayonet into the corpse. In that moment the other men had drawn apart from him, and hardly a word had been spoken to him since. He saw the sergeant and halted, a dozen yards away. ‘Whoa, back!’ he shouted.

  ‘Well, come on by, if you’re going into the billet,’ said the sergeant. ‘I won’t bite.’

  ‘Who’s goin’ into the billet?’

  ‘I don’t care whether you are or not, but cut out the bloody hullabaloo. Get inside or go an’ do your drinking somewhere else.’

  ‘Ah-way! I ain’t frightened of you or no one else.’ Broom belied his words by staggering backwards for a few paces as the sergeant moved towards him. ‘We a’n’ got ter be in till nine o’clock. See!’ He stood swaying for a few moments, daunted, snarling and mumbling to himself in drunken self-consolation. ‘Ah-way! I ain’t frightened, frightened, me? I’m frightened o’ no one!’ He turned and went reeling away in retreat.

  ‘To be thus,’ the woman said as she watched him go, ‘it is dirty. There are many like that. Everywhere in the streets, drunken soldiers, shouting for vino, vino. The women are frightened.’

  ‘Not many,’ said Craddock. He was hampered by his lack of fluency. ‘They seem many, but out of an army, they are few.’ He lapsed into pidgin-Italian. ‘Never – before – drink wine. Not know how strong. Drink too much. Wine and sun make – zigzag.’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Wine, and sun and misery. Ah, fa niente. Poor brutes!’ She relaxed in her chair again and settled the baby on her lap. ‘You – Catholic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In England, Protestant?’

  ‘Not me. My wife.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Why?’ she muttered, shocked.

  He made a little gesture, and hesitated as if afraid to reveal himself; then he said, ‘Too many bad things in the world. Where is God?’

  She sighed, and did not answer.

  He stood over her, made shy by the silence that had come between them. His appearance betrayed the contradictions in him. His smiling eyes quarrelled with his bitter, compressed lips; his bearing was a strange amalgam of awkwardness and authority. ‘Tomorrow I will bring milk and chocolate for the baby.’

  She smiled up at him. ‘Grazie. What is your name?’

  ‘Joe.’

  ‘I am Graziella.’

  He turned self-consciously away, and as he walked back to the billet he could feel her looking after him.

  §§§§

  Long after Lights Out it was noisy in the billet. Most of the company were in bed, but latecomers were coming in drunk all the time – Captain Rumbold had told the guard commander not to worry on this first occasion about bringing charges against them as long as they arrived back safely – and were making the night hideous with the clatter of boots on the stone staircases, snatches of maudlin song and soliloquy and the sound of vomiting o
n the landings.

  Craddock’s platoon had the top corridor. The men were all in except Broom, and as soon as Sergeant Craddock heard the laggard shouting defiance in the yard below he went to bed.

  The men lay on the floors rolled in their blankets and listened to Broom’s erratic progress up the stairs. They heard him collapse heavily on the landing and guessed from the shuffling and grunting that he was moving along the corridor on all fours. Using the wall as a support he propped himself up into a walking position and propelled himself headlong through the nearest doorway. There was a thud, curses from Broom, and another man’s angry voice, ‘Go to your own bloody room!’ Again the sound of Broom’s steel-shod boots, and of his snarling challenge, ‘Gerrup an’ I’ll fight the lot of you.’ There was the minatory crash of a rifle’s brass butt-plate on the floor and the words, ‘You’ll get this if you don’t clear out.’ Now he was in the corridor again, and the men heard his boots in a kind of drunken dance; they inferred from his mumbled monologue that he was sparring up to his own shadow. Another door swung inward and the men sat up angrily in their blankets as he swayed threateningly over them. A voice, with authority in it, shouted, ‘Where’s his bloody mates? Why don’t they bloody collect him?’ Two men of Broom’s section reluctantly came out into the corridor in their underpants, took his arms and dragged him to his room. He was still mumbling and singing, and resisting feebly, as they put him to bed.

  For five minutes there was a blessed hush, and some of the men fell asleep. Then the drunken voice was audible again, singing discordantly, ‘Oh, I painted ’er, I pai-HAINTED ’er.’ The song died off into a low monotone, ‘Swindling swine, dirty, stinking, Eyetie swindling devils. After your money, that’s what they are, after your money, your money, that’s all they want.’ The voice rose again, thick with indignation, ‘Your money. Laughin’ at yer, they are, laughin’ at yer. Laugh! I’ll give ’em laugh.’ He shrieked, ‘Kill ’em! Kill ’em all! Kill ’a bastards! I’ll give ’em laugh!’

  There were shouts from all along the corridor of ‘Shut ’im up!’ ‘Shove ’im in the guardroom!’ ‘Do ’im, someone!’ His companions succeeded in subduing him.

  There was another hush; then, from all the rooms, groans and curses as Broom’s voice was heard again and the thump of his bare feet. ‘Lemme alone!’ The hiss of a bayonet coming out of its scabbard. ‘Ah! That shook yer! Don’t like the ol’ baynit, do yer? Now gerraway from that door. I’m warnin’ yer. Gerraway!’ The thick shriek again. ‘Gerraway!’ He was in the corridor again. He entered another room, and the men shrank back in their blankets as he raised his bayonet above their heads and laughed wildly at them. He staggered across to the French windows that gave on to the balcony and struck at the pane with the hilt of the bayonet. There was the sound of glass breaking and falling, of the bayonet wrenching in the woodwork, of a scuffle between men; a thump, a clatter – he had hurled the bayonet at someone across the room – and a triumphant shout. He was free, and out on the balcony.

  Geoff Jobling, in the next room, cried, ‘Oh, my God, he’s got outside. He’ll hurt himself’ He jumped to his feet and hurried barefoot towards the balcony. Harry, struggling out of sleep, sat up and shouted in alarm, ‘Get back to bed, you little fool. If he wants to kill himself it’s his own business.’ He was too late. Geoff was out on the balcony, padding after Broom, remonstrating with him. Harry hurled his blankets away and strode towards the window. He was halfway across the room when there was a loud cracking sound from outside. The clear, boyish voice rose suddenly to a high-pitched shout. There was a rumbling, a cry of alarm echoing distantly up from the sentry in the porch; then a terrible crash, and silence.

  The balcony had given way. Broom hung over the balcony rail of the storey below, limp and moaning. The men who pulled him in found that he was unhurt, and in a few moments he opened his eyes, grinned stupidly up at them, bawled a snatch of ‘Nellie Dean’ and began to curse his rescuers. Geoff Jobling lay on the pavement of the courtyard, and even before the men of the guard had removed the half-ton of rubble that was piled on top of him, they knew that he was dead.

  There was the flicker of candles being lit, a babble of voices, the noise of movement in the rooms, a thunder of footsteps on the staircase. The men came crowding out into the courtyard. One group brought Broom with them, holding him imprisoned with his arms twisted savagely behind him. Sergeant Craddock was there, in command, for the officers were away at their quarters. ‘Stand back, lads,’ he said. He motioned the men back, but he did not interfere with Harry Jobling who stood over the body with a puzzled glint in his eyes. ‘Get a stretcher. And get the truck started up.’

  There was a loud and derisive belch from Broom, and the men closed in on him, murmuring. There was a shout of ‘Murderer!’ and another of ‘Lynch the bastard!’ Harry Jobling raised his head. He looked bewildered. He saw Broom, and heard him singing indistinctly, and his expression changed. The sergeant pushed through the crush. ‘That’s enough! Get back to bed!’ He pushed one man in the chest and sent him reeling back into the crowd. He swung another by his shoulders and flung him away. ‘I said, get to bed. I won’t tell you again.’ He signed to the guard commander and indicated Broom, ‘Put this in the bloody guardroom.’

  Someone called, ‘What’ll happen to him?’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ replied the sergeant. ‘He’ll get what’s coming to him.’

  ‘Will he?’ Everyone was startled by the low voice of Harry Jobling. ‘What’ll the charge be? Drunk and disorderly? Breakin’ a window? They can’t do nothing else to him.’ He pointed at the body. ‘Look!’ His voice shook. ‘Look at this. After…’ Without warning he lunged across at Broom. ‘I’ll kill you!’ His hands were on Broom’s throat. No one interfered. Two men still held Broom’s arms behind his back. Broom uttered terrified, strangling noises. Vomit and saliva trickled from his mouth, and his eyes bulged.

  Sergeant Craddock wrenched Jobling away from the other man. ‘Leave him to me.’ He was holding both of Jobling’s arms. He said, more quietly, ‘You can’t do nothing now, Harry. I’m taking the boy to headquarters. I know it’s no use, but the doc’s got to see him. You’ll want to come along with us, eh? I’ll get you a hot cup tea up there. It’ll do you good.’

  Jobling was shivering now under Craddock’s hands. ‘Hot cup o’ tea! I’ll kill him. I’m not a man to threaten, but I swear by Jesus Christ Almighty I’ll kill that drunken beast!’ He relaxed in the sergeant’s grip, then suddenly tore himself free and dived at Broom once more. The sergeant seized his arm. Harry turned and struck at the sergeant. Craddock flickered out of the way of the blow, jabbed his right fist into Jobling’s stomach and chopped with the left at his jaw. Jobling sprawled at his feet. The men were quiet. Jobling had done a serious thing. But the sergeant only said, ‘Take him away, someone, before he gets into trouble.’

  As Jobling was being helped to his feet, the sergeant said to him, ‘Listen, Harry, I know it’s hard, but try to listen. Don’t be a fool. If you can’t think of nothing else, think of your old lady. If you was to swing for a piece of filth like that,’ – he pointed to Broom – ‘it’d be the end of her.’

  Jobling said nothing. He allowed his comrades to lead him away. As he was nearing the foot of the staircase he jerked away from them and reached Broom with a leap. He bore the drunkard to the ground, and began to trample with hobnailed boots on his chest and head. This time it took the sergeant and three of the guard to pull Jobling away. He fought with insane obstinacy and smashed the nose of one of the sentries.

  ‘Put him in the guardroom,’ ordered the sergeant. ‘Better lock him up till the morning. For his own good. We’ll see what’s to do with him then, when the captain’s back. I’ll take the other one down to headquarters. Further apart they are, the better. Corporal Honeycombe. I’m going down with the truck. You get the men to bed.’

  The body was carried to the truck. Private Broom was flung over the tailboard by the two men who were his escort. The injure
d sentry climbed aboard, and the sergeant mounted beside the driver.

  When the truck had driven away the men dispersed and went to bed. One by one the lights went out. The talking died away, and after a while there was silence.

  It was a hot night. The sound of shelling came from the hills inland and from the coast to the north. All night long the bombers passed overhead. But the men were used to the sounds of war, and they slept. Only Harry Jobling remained awake, crouching till the dawn like a caged beast in the corner of his cell.

  Chapter Four

  ON the way next morning from his sleeping quarters to his company’s billet in the Via dei Martiri, Captain Rumbold considered what was to be done with Jobling. He had not expected such depths of anger from so stolid and undemonstrative a man. It all went to show, the quiet ones were the ones you had to watch. Still, Jobling was a good soldier, with a clean conduct sheet. He could hardly be blamed for his behaviour. He would probably be more reasonable this morning; upset, perhaps, now that grief had come to take the place of rage; but ready to listen to sense. The sentry with the broken nose was a decent man; he would be certain to agree if the captain were to let the matter drop. Yes, that was the thing to do. Everybody was entitled to one blow-up. He would talk to Jobling and send him back to duty.