The Professionals

by Max Hennessy

  The driver of the Mercedes drove as though all the devils in hell were after us and the bounces made my head rattle inside as though something were loose. The wind was blowing flurries of rain against the windscreen and I could see the trees bending under the growing gale. Mercifully I fell asleep and stayed that way until the car pulled up with a jerk in what appeared to be a small town.

  A red-faced German with a spiked helmet barked at me as I climbed out. He didn’t salute me, though the driver of the Mercedes did. As the car drew away, I was led inside what appeared to be the headquarters of a German military police unit and the man in the helmet handed me over to another German. I guessed he was the town provost officer because he looked too old and too fat to be part of any fighting unit.

  He began barking questions at me at once in a mixture of English and German but I gave him only my name, rank and number as I had to, and nothing else. I wasn’t offered a chair and had to stand there stoically, aware only of an aching head from which I felt everything would spill out if I bent too far forward, and simply repeat my name, rank and number to every question he barked at me. When I didn’t co-operate, he grew angry and began threatening me. I didn’t understand much of what he said when he spoke in German but I did understand ‘Sofort totgeschossen’ – ‘shot dead at once’ – and I guessed what he was threatening me with if I tried to escape.

  ‘Never will you do it,’ he said. ‘It is not possible. Über die Gräben gehen ist nicht möglich.’

  He was telling me that it was impossible to get across the trenches and I didn’t argue with him because I guessed he was right.

  After a while, he grew tired of insulting me and barked something to a sergeant who touched my arm and indicated a door. Beyond it I saw stairs. I was in what I supposed was the clearance station for captured officers on their way further into German territory. On the next floor a door was opened and I stepped inside. There were two iron bedsteads in the room beyond, both covered by straw-filled sacking mattresses, but there seemed to be only one shabby-looking blanket and under it a man was sleeping face-down. As I appeared, he stirred. I crossed to the other bed and sat down, filled with gloom. The increasing wind was clattering a shutter somewhere and the walls were covered with peeling whitewash on which a few people who had been in there before me had written their names. There were none I knew, but in one corner were the words, ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’ and it summed up my mood exactly. The grey white peeling walls sent my spirit sinking to my boots. This was what it meant to be a prisoner, and I felt bitterly angry – not at anyone in particular but at the unkindness of the fate that had chosen me. At nineteen, life seemed urgent and there seemed a great need to hurry, and the idea of spending months, years perhaps, in prison was a grey suffocating thought that left the future empty of hope.

  Then I realized that the man on the other bed was sitting up. Slowly he turned to face me.

  ‘Good Lor’, Brat,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  * * *

  Sykes hadn’t changed a scrap – airy, indifferent, casual, scruffy for once and even, it seemed, a little batty and bored, but bursting with self-confidence.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.

  ‘Few days now,’ he said. ‘Did a sort of flat spin into the ground and stepped out of the machine just as it went up in flames. Not a scratch. Amazin’.’ He beamed at me and I wished my headache wasn’t so bad, so I could enjoy the occasion more. ‘Bolted for the trees and hid there. Rather hoped I’d be able to nip home. Didn’t work, though. Ate things like turnips and potatoes from the fields for a couple of weeks. Got a bit hungry in the end. But they knew I wasn’t dead. No body, y’see, and they were looking for me all the time. Suppose they’re waiting to send me off to the old dungeons now. How about you?’

  ‘Those blasted Pups!’ I said bitterly. ‘I conked in the middle of a fight. I spent last night dining with Richthofen.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He looks tired. Like Munro.’

  I looked round the bleak little room. It was about fourteen feet square, with bare walls and bare boards, and two small windows with leaded lights set high in the wall out of reach and separated by a slender stone mullion.

  ‘What’s it like in here?’ I asked.

  ‘Grub’s not so good. And there’s only one blanket.’

  ‘We’ll have to take turns with it,’ I suggested and he looked shocked.

  He rubbed his bony nose and offered me a cigarette from a crushed packet. ‘German,’ he pointed out. ‘One of the guards gave them to me. Smiled at him like a Dutch uncle and he seemed to feel guilty and pressed them into my hand.’

  I wasn’t surprised. He had enough charm to cajole the Devil himself.

  For a long time we sat in silence, then I looked up. ‘I can’t stay here,’ I said. ‘I’ll go sprat-eyed in a prison camp.’

  ‘Got any plans?’

  I shook my head. ‘Where are we?’ I asked.

  ‘Lambres. Near Roubaix.’

  ‘How far from the trenches?’

  ‘Twenty kilometres. Ten to fifteen miles.’

  ‘It’s not far to walk.’

  He smiled. ‘Forgotten the old battle,’ he pointed out. ‘Front’ll be teeming with troops. Much better to head for the coast and pinch a boat.’

  ‘Well, we’ll worry about that when we’re out of here. Got any ideas?’

  ‘A few.’ He indicated the window. It was set in a deep recess, higher up than we could reach.

  ‘We can’t get up there,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, we can,’ he said. ‘I’ve been.’ He gestured at the two iron-framed beds. ‘Put one of those on top of the other. Like a ladder. Took the old boots off. Hard on the toes, but you can do it.’

  I looked up at the window. ‘Isn’t it locked?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That makes it easy.’

  ‘Not all that easy.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He grinned. ‘It’s nailed.’

  I could have hit him with the bed. ‘That’s that then,’ I said.

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ He was still cheerful. ‘The Germans obviously never had to nip in home after the Old Man was in bed.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Often as a boy. Went poaching. Father’s pheasants. Chap in Hathersett used to take me and show me what to do. Always thought it rather funny, me pinching my own father’s pheasants.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with the window?’

  ‘He’d once done a bit of burgling in his spare time. Showed me how to get in when I got home. Leaded lights, y’see. All you need is a penknife.’

  He fished in his pocket and produced a spoon. ‘Swiped it,’ he said. ‘When they weren’t looking. I’ve been rubbing it against the stone there ever since I arrived.’ He indicated a square of flinty stone showing through the whitewash, and I saw there was a long mark on it. ‘Got quite a point on it now.’

  I stared at him in admiration. ‘Are you sure you’ve not done time for burglary?’

  He grinned and I looked up at the window again. ‘What’s on the other side?’ I asked.

  ‘A roof.’

  ‘Far down?’

  ‘Twenty feet.’

  ‘We can’t drop that far,’ I said. ‘We’ll go clean through it. The row’ll be enough to wake the dead.’

  ‘Not really, old boy. How long’s the choker you’re wearing?’

  I stared down at the scarf Jane had knitted for me, and then for the first time I saw that he was wearing one, too. I’d seen it before but I’d never really noticed it.

  ‘Jolly near seven feet, I should think,’ I said. ‘Jane knitted it. I asked for a good long one to keep the draught out. How long’s yours?’

  ‘Seven feet.’

  ‘Same as mine.’

  ‘Didn’t have to tell her the length. She knew it.’

  He grinned and I reali
zed that Jane had knitted that one, too, after she’d shifted her allegiance.

  ‘What’s in your mind?’ I asked.

  ‘Tie ’em together,’ he said. ‘Gives us around twelve feet, give or take a bit. More if we tie ’em to the blanket and the blanket to the mullion there. Should be enough to get us down to the roof.’

  ‘Are they strong enough?’

  ‘Jane was a good knitter.’

  I grinned. ‘Good old Jane. When?’

  He blinked. ‘Tonight?’

  * * *

  We waited until the place was dark and, although my watch had been broken and Sykes’ had been stolen by the men who’d captured him, we guessed it was somewhere in the early hours of the morning. The wind had grown stronger and the loose shutter I’d heard was clattering constantly.

  ‘You awake?’ Sykes said.

  ‘I’ve never been asleep.’

  ‘Let’s get going. I’ll put the glass in my pocket.’

  Carefully, moving slowly so as not to make a sound, we stripped the two beds of the mattresses and placed one of them against the wall. Then we stood the other one on end on top of it, its legs to the wall, and knotted the two scarves together and tied them to the solitary blanket.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He wrenched off his boots and, while I steadied the beds, he dug his toes into the angles of the bed-springs and made it to the top. He had to wriggle over the bar at the head of the bed to get to the recess where the window was but he made it and I could see him levering away with his sharpened spoon at the lead that held the glass. After a while I felt a draught on my face and saw he had removed several panes and was sawing at the lead. He had soon made a hole over two feet square in one window and a smaller one in the other.

  ‘Chuck us the blanket end.’

  I handed it up to him and he knotted it round the mullion through the openings he had cut, then he pushed the scarves and what was left of the blanket outside.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shove my boots up.’

  I handed them up to him and he glanced outside. ‘Better come up now,’ he said. ‘I’m going out.’

  I saw him struggle through the window to the ledge outside, then I took off my flying boots and began to scramble up the bed after him. Half-way up, the lower bed moved with a scrape along the floor and, thinking the whole lot was going to come crashing down, I made a quick grab at the mullion and hauled myself up. It was an awful job getting over the bed-head and the hole didn’t seem big enough for me with my boots tied round my neck, and outside the wind hit me like a blast and nearly unbalanced me. A whisper came up from the shadows below.

  ‘Where’ve you been, you ass?’

  I didn’t bother to reply and lowered myself down. The blanket and Jane’s scarves did their job well and I felt Sykes’ hands guiding my feet to the ridge of the roof. They slipped at first and a tile was dislodged and went sliding down the roof to the guttering with a clatter. We crouched against the wall, holding our breath, but the wind was rattling the shutter again and there was no indication that anyone had heard.

  ‘Where do we go now?’ I asked.

  ‘Haven’t the faintest,’ he said. ‘Haven’t been out before.’

  Plucked at by the gale, we edged down the roof and along the guttering. There was another small roof sloping away just below at the end that we hadn’t seen, and we lowered ourselves to it and slithered down to the next guttering. It brought us another ten feet nearer the earth. Fortunately the wind hid all the little scrapings and slitherings we made.

  ‘How far up are we now?’ I said.

  We peered cautiously over the edge. The clouds had covered the moon and it was hard to see in the darkness but we still seemed to be pretty high off the ground. We were looking down on a stableyard and Sykes smiled.

  ‘Over the dungheap,’ he said.

  I remembered as a child at the Widdow’s farm jumping off the roof into the spongy pile beneath and grinned. It had been soft and had absorbed the shock. Below us was a small walled enclosure filled with the soiled straw.

  ‘Anything’s better than sitting about like a sack of wet spuds,’ I said.

  ‘Not half,’ Sykes murmured and before I knew what had happened he’d gone.

  I was just going to jump after him when I realized my boots were still round my neck and I sat on the edge of the guttering to drag them on. It was surprisingly difficult on the steeply sloping roof and once I almost lost one of them.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ I heard Sykes’ whisper float up from below. ‘Come on!’

  I got the boots on at last and jumped. As I landed I fell sideways and cannoned into Sykes. We both fell against the wall, and as we lay there, I heard a door open and a voice say something in German. I was over the wall in a flash and diving for the shadows. The door closed again and I was able to creep along the side of the stable to the open gateway. Outside there were some bushes and I dived behind them in a panic of fear.

  I’d lost Sykes and stared around in the dark, frantic.

  ‘Lulu,’ I hissed.

  ‘Here, old boy!’ The voice came calmly from alongside me and made me almost jump out of my skin.

  ‘You sure you’ve not done time as a burglar?’ I said.

  ‘Three years. Hard labour.’

  He began to mutter and seemed to be feeling his rear.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘The glass,’ he said.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Sat on it. Cut the old behind, shouldn’t wonder.’

  The wind was still rattling the shutters above us and making a roaring sound through the trees, and somewhere in the building, where I imagined the guardroom was, I could hear a piano and a man’s voice.

  We got our bearing from the stars and set off westwards out of the town, moving along the walls in the darkness, but as we turned the corner, we were horrified to see a group of soldiers lounging under a light in an open gateway in front of us. It looked like the entrance to a warehouse they were using as billets. We froze into the shadows, but just at that moment, a man appeared from a doorway just inside the gate, and started shouting and the men hustled into a group. There were more orders, and they sloped arms and began to march off down the street in the direction we’d intended taking. After a while, we heard more shouting, and the clatter of rifles, then we saw matches flare and realized they’d been halted again and allowed to fall out – right across our path.

  ‘That’s torn it,’ I said.

  ‘Have to try a different way,’ Sykes said, and melted into the shadows again so that I almost lost him.

  He’d turned down an alley and was glancing up at the stars. ‘Heads north,’ he said. ‘If we walk far enough, we can reach the coast. All we have to do then is swim the Channel.’

  We were soon in the open countryside, where we could hear the thudding of guns to the west. After a while I began to grow hungry and could feel a blister on my foot. I realized that flying boots were never made for marching in but I struggled on as the pain grew worse.

  ‘Lulu,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a blister.’

  ‘Me, too,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Two. One on each foot.’

  I felt ashamed of my complaint but felt sure my blister was bigger than both of his put together. Sullenly, I tramped on, always a step or to behind him. There wasn’t much of Sykes. He was so slender we always used to say that if he turned sideways he became invisible, but he had an immense store of whipcord strength, and his pace never seemed to slacken. We must have put twenty or thirty kilometres behind us before we began to see the first streaks of dawn.

  ‘Better hide for the day,’ Sykes said.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘I’ve got two blisters now.’

  ‘Funny how they multiply,’ he said. ‘I’ve got four!’

  I felt like hitting him over the head for his cheerful optimism and indifference to discomfort, but I knew it was all put on for my benefit
. He came from a family which had always produced leaders and it was his job to lead – and leading didn’t just mean walking in front.

  We found a big barn just as it began to grow light. It was part of a group of buildings that seemed to be attached to a country house – as though the owners had been wealthy farmers of some sort. But the place looked deserted and we decided that, because of its nearness to the front, they had long since vanished.

  ‘This’ll do,’ Sykes said.

  We crept into the barn which was full of straw and felt warm after the cool of the autumn night. I flung myself down and began to wrench off my flying boots. To my surprise Sykes seemed to have fallen asleep already. He’d covered himself with straw and disappeared from sight. I did the same and lay back.

  I was asleep within seconds.

  * * *

  I came to life with a jerk, certain I was being attacked. I’d heard a yell of anger and as I sat up, scattering straw, I saw Sykes emerging also, his face a picture of indignation. In front of him, holding a pitchfork, her face as startled as mine, was a girl. She was about eighteen and pretty in a dark foreign way and, though her clothes looked good, I noticed she wore wooden clogs on her feet and a heavy apron.

  ‘Messieurs,’ she whispered. ‘Vous êtes anglais?’

  Sykes was rubbing his rear but he recovered his composure sufficiently now to answer her. ‘Oui, Mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘Pilotes anglais.’ He turned to glance at his trousers. ‘Spiked the old behind,’ he muttered. ‘Same place the glass got me.’

  ‘Monsieur, excusez-moi, s’il vous plait. Je ne’ – the girl halted and blushed and fought to find the words in English – ‘I do not know you are here.’

  Sykes was on his feet already, being gallant. I was being what I considered more practical and was looking for an escape route, but I hadn’t reckoned with Sykes’ charm. He was chattering away now in French, only parts of which I could grasp with my limited knowledge of the language, and the girl was answering him. She looked frightened but then I saw her give a little smile.

  She jammed the pitchfork into the straw and turned away. Sykes turned to me as she vanished through the door.