‘That could ha’ been Potter’s Wharf,’ Phossie said, squinting up at the dust cloud.
‘What do they store there?’ Vic asked.
‘Food,’ Phossie said, still squinting.
‘Might be worth a look then,’ Vic said. ‘What you think?’ glancing round at the others. This was getting really exciting.
So they scrambled into their cars and drove off before the doors were shut, just like an American gangster film.
‘If it is Potter’s,’ Phossie explained as he drove, ‘we’ve got ten minutes at the most, then the civil defence’ll be there. It’s been a noisy night so with a bit a’ luck they might be busy somewhere else, but we can’t bank on it. We’ll have to work like stink.’
The wharf was shrouded by clouds of brick dust and couldn’t be seen but it was obviously the centre of the dust storm so they all plunged straight towards it. By now they were wild with excitement and heedless of the danger, scrambling over piles of broken brick, dodging smashed pipes, crunching over broken glass, eager for loot.
There was plenty of it, for although one side of the warehouse had vanished, as far as they could see, there were packing cases everywhere, looming out of the dust like a herd of humped beasts, some smashed open, some lying on their sides spilling tins, some virtually intact. But all of them too heavy to carry.
‘We need a wheelbarrow or something,’ Victor said, peering round wildly. And saw a tarpaulin, thrown across yet another heap of cases. Perfect. Grab it quick before the others see it. Then it was simply a matter of filling it with tins and lugging it back to the car, passing two of the others as they staggered out of the dust under the weight of half a broken packing case.
They’d made three trips and were on their way back for a fourth when there was a spurt of fire directly ahead of them and part of the building was suddenly ablaze, belching black smoke and scarlet flames behind dust clouds which were now eerily and dramatically brick-pink.
‘Scarpa!’ Phossie yelled and they both hurtled to the car. It was packed to the ceiling and very heavy to drive. But they got it away and the civil defence hadn’t arrived and nobody could have seen them, thanks to all that dust. What a success! Fucking marvellous! They laughed and swore all the way home.
It wasn’t until they were inside the house that it occurred to Vic to wonder what had happened to the others.
‘That’s their look-out,’ Phossie said. ‘It’s every man for himself in this business. Let’s have a look an’ see what we’ve got.’
So they wiped the dust from their looted goods and found that what they’d ‘liberated’ was tinned food from the USA, corned beef, peaches, jam, rice pudding and stewed steak, all of it eminently saleable.
‘We’ll make a fortune!’ Phossie predicted happily. ‘A fortune! And we don’t even have to pay a cut to the Skibbereen. That’s the beauty of it. It’s all Freeman’s. Courtesy of Adolf Hitler. How d’you fancy a tin a’ steak for supper?’
‘Good old Hitler!’ Victor said. Now he’d be able to buy that car. Then he’d find Spitfire – there couldn’t be that many tram depots even in London – and he’d take her a box full of goodies or some nylons or something and see if she’d like to go out for a spin. Anything was possible now. Somewhere deep in the more honest recesses of his mind he knew that what they’d just been doing was stealing and that it was against the law, but there was no point in thinking about that now. If they hadn’t taken the things, someone else would have done. Or they’d have been ruined by the fire brigade. In fact, when it came down to it, he and Phossie had shown a lot of guts running into a bombed building. Not many people would have done that. ‘What a night, eh?’ he said.
‘That’s war for you,’ Phossie said happily opening a tin of steak. ‘There’s a lot to be said for it. Gives people an appetite. They want better things. We supply better things. Profit all round. I’m all for it. They can keep it going as long as they like.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Where the fuck are we?’ Dusty Miller growled, turning a filthy face to Steve, as they scrambled out of their troop carrying vehicle. ‘I can’t see a fucking thing in all this fucking dust.’ Like everybody else in the company he was taut and irritable, afraid that they were lost or off-track, afraid that the Germans were alongside them, or ahead of them, or behind them – Christ no! Not behind them! – afraid that everything was going wrong, just plain afraid.
Steve had to spit grit before he could answer. Not that any answer was possible. Officially they were back with the 11th Hussars again and in the front line, in open country north-east of Caen, but at that moment it looked as though they were lost. ‘Could be anywhere,’ he said. ‘Anywhere else preferably.’
The operation, code-named Goodwood, had begun in the standard way early that morning with a massive air bombardment. More than two thousand planes had been used, half of them RAF heavy bombers, so the destruction had been formidable – entire streets flattened, guns twisted in their mountings, fuel tanks and ammunition dumps exploded like firework displays, German tanks hurled bodily into the air. The brigade had watched with great satisfaction, saying it was ‘enough to soften anyone up’. But there was a price to pay for it, especially in the long rainless days of mid July and the price was more dust than they’d ever seen in their lives. By the time the planes left the area, it was inches thick and every time the tanks advanced they blew up such a storm that the troops following in their TCV’s were temporarily blinded and cut off from one another.
Even the old campaigners said it was the worst they’d ever experienced. They’d driven through sandstorms out in the desert and stirred up a sand-cloud with every yard they travelled, but there the terrain had been open before them and the clouds had soon settled behind. Here the dust was incessant and pernicious, swirling perpetually before their eyes, thick, rust-red and foul-tasting, clogging their eyelashes and filling their mouths with grit. It obscured the road, turned trees and troops to looming ghosts, even masked the massive outline of the tanks and the TCV’s. It burdened their helmets and kit, turned their boots to stone and their guts to water, for it was the perfect cover for snipers and sudden death could lurk behind every evil swirl of it.
And now the column had ground to a halt and the TCV’s had caught up with the tanks and nobody seemed to know what direction they were supposed to be travelling in. And Steve and Dusty had been sent out to reconnoitre.
‘A fat lot a’ good this is,’ Dusty said, kicking the dust with the toe of his boot. ‘How’re we supposed to see with all this muck in the air?’
All around them intercoms crackled with bad temper and swearing mouths spat back, tense with fatigue and fear. Apparently there was a traffic snarl-up somewhere in the rear. ‘Yes, I can read a fucking map. I just can’t fucking see, that’s all.’ ‘Up yours!’ ‘If you did your fucking job we wouldn’t be fucking stuck.’
It alarmed Steve to hear what a state they were all in. They were tense and afraid, which was fair enough, but they were taking it out on one another, which was frightening. Even the major was irritable. ‘Well pull your bloody finger out,’ he said into his intercom. ‘We’re a sitting target out here. We need some info and we need it quick.’
Steve and Dusty could just about make out the outline of the tank immediately ahead of them. It was inching forward again, its tracks grinding, and the tank commander had his head out of the hatch in a vain attempt to see where he was going. They watched him as he adjusted his earphones, his right hand pale below the dark cloth of his beret. To the left, the dust had cleared enough to show that they were on a flat stretch of plain, to the right they were passing woods. But they’d hardly taken it in before they were suddenly and violently under fire, the shells landing much too close – bursts of black smoke with a brilliant scarlet centre – red-hot shrapnel flying up and out in large jagged chunks. Before the major could be given his answer, the tank commander was hit, blood and brains spurting backwards from his head and spattering the turret.
> The major was in the field standing beside Steve and Dusty, swearing and giving orders. ‘Get him out, for Chrissake! Get that bloody hatch clear! Come on! Come on!’ And they obeyed with the instant response of men under fire and in utter terror, scaling the tank, tugging the lead from the commander’s earphones, hauling him through the hatch, lowering him to the earth, working so quickly it was all done in one movement. He was unconscious and extremely heavy, his body floppy and hard to lift, and as they lowered him to the ground, his head left a smear of blood and brains all down the side of the tank.
Waves of nausea rose into Steve’s throat and he turned his head away and was sick into the dust. It was always the same when one of his mates was hit but he knew how to deal with it now. There was no point in trying to control it. The best thing was to get it over with, quickly and without making a fuss, and then he could return to the job in hand.
But once the commander was lying on the ground, it was all too horribly obvious that there was nothing they could do. He was dying, his legs twitching and his breath making a dreadful quacking noise in his throat, on and on and on. Poor bugger! Steve thought, as he crouched beside him. What a God-awful way to go, with half your head missing and making a noise like that. He ached with anguish at his inability to help. But what could he do? What could anyone do? They could hardly put a field dressing on a wound like that and it was pointless to call for the stretcher bearers.
He glanced up at the major for orders but he was simply a shadow in the dust-cloud. And at that moment, a tank four hundred yards ahead of them was hit by a mortar and brewed up.
It was the first time Steve and Dusty had been close to a tank that had taken a direct hit and they were so horrified by what they saw and heard that neither of them could move, even though they were in grave danger. Everything was exploding at once, the petrol tanks ablaze and sending tongues of flame high into the air, ammunition erupting from the sides of the tank in long glowing beads of fire, black smoke billowing in every direction. But much, much worse was the mind-numbing noise they could hear, as the crew screamed in their last terrible agonies inside the inferno.
Steve knew he was screaming too. ‘Somebody get them out! Somebody do something! Christ Almighty! Somebody do something!’ But it was useless because there was nothing any of them could do. The heat was searing them at four hundred yards.
And then all the tanks were on the move, the entire company was out of the TCV’s and they were in the middle of a battle. There were commands to be obeyed and mortars to be fired, instantly and as accurately as their shaking fingers would allow. They were robots again, doing what had to be done, with no time for pity and no space for compassion, their only reality action and terror. And the dying man had to be left.
The exchange went on for a very long time but eventually the German fire diminished and a few seconds later they seemed to be retreating. The British tanks moved on, hosing the woods with precautionary fire as they left. Steve could see tracer glowing among the dust-clouds, then it faded and cut out and the tanks were gone, their motors just a distant hum. The dust finally began to settle and the brigade was left with the carnage. And the tank commander was dead.
No matter how many times he saw the aftermath of a battle and no matter how glad he was to have emerged unscathed, Steve was always shocked by the dreadful waste of it. And this time, as well as dead and wounded infantrymen to be attended to, there was also the burnt-out hulk of the tank and the horror it contained, which he couldn’t avoid because it was directly in his way.
It was so badly burnt that all the paint had flaked from its sides in long ash-grey strips and the impact hole of the mortar was clearly visible. It looked like a jagged porthole and gave a dark view into the interior, a dark view he had to take whether he really wanted to or not.
Lying on the floor of the turret was what was left of the crew, five gruesomely blackened, grotesquely twisted corpses. The heat had been so intense that their flesh had melted to a black oozing tar that had fused them to the floor. Their heads were burnt to the skull, white bones pathetically visible, their teeth bared in a horrifying grin. These were men he’d known since the King’s Lynn days, men he’d joked with and trained with and got drunk with – and he couldn’t recognise them. The pity he felt for them was beyond sickness, beyond compassion, too far into anger to be expressed in any way at all. For a second he thought he was going to faint, but then Dusty crunched up alongside him to say that the stretcher bearers had arrived and they were detailed to assist. And having a job to do kept him going.
The stretcher bearers were professional and cheerful.
‘Here we are, mate!’ they called to the wounded. ‘The Sheriffs bleedin’ posse always gets through! Let’s be ’avin’ yer!’
Drips were set up, wounds given temporary dressings, fags lit and relit, and the casualties were borne away, drips and all. ‘Room for one more on top! Fares please! Have the exact fare ready if you please! Regimental Aid Post and all stops to Blighty.’
Steve had never admired them so much. They were so stolid and dependable. So normal. Fancy being able to joke after such a battle!
When the wounded were gone, the mood changed abruptly. Now there were graves to dig and comrades to bury, and although they did it all as quickly and neatly as they could, it was still a sombre business. The battery carpenter made the necessary wooden crosses, the regimental padre said what he could, a few shots were fired in a last salute. And then they obeyed the next order, climbed into their TCV’s and moved on.
Usually, when they were in transit, there was a buzz of talk, as they played cards, ate their ‘compo’ rations, told foul jokes and kidded one another. But this time they were all subdued. The air sentry sat on the roof, his feet dangling from the circular lid for the Bren gun and the rest of them crouched on their tip-up seats facing one another, smoked incessantly and miserably, and didn’t talk.
By the time they leaguered for the night, the light was going. There was gunfire booming in the distance but it was too far away to bother them. Away from the dust, it was a beautiful summer’s evening, the sky the colour of opal, the air gently warm, and somewhere across the fields the birds were singing.
They sprawled on a grassy bank above a ditch that would give them cover if they came under sniper fire and with their rifles close at hand, ate an unappetising evening meal. In the confusion of dust and misdirections, the supply column hadn’t caught up with them, so they ate what they could find. In Steve and Dusty’s case, it was cold rice pudding from a tin. They were tired and covered in filth of all kinds and their hands were still gory with dried blood and brains but there was no water to wash with and hunger reasserted itself despite the horrors of the day.
We’re growing callous, Steve thought. But how could it be otherwise? When you’re stuck in a situation like this it’s inevitable. You fight, you bury the dead, you eat, you sleep, you fight again. Always in the present. It’s not that we forget the dead – none of us will ever do that – it’s because we’re too weary to remember.
‘If I get through this bloody awful war,’ he vowed, ‘I shall want to see some pretty drastic changes. We can’t go on in the old way, not after this.’ He looked at his hands again. ‘They can’t expect us to stand in a dole queue and rot without work. Not now. Not after all we’ve seen and done. I tell you Dusty, there’ll be no ex-servicemen standing in the gutter selling matches, the way they did last time, poor sods. We’ve won the right to something better.’
Dusty was busily writing between mouthfuls. ‘I can see you on the hustings,’ he teased and began to sing, ‘Vote, vote, vote for Private Wilkins …’
His oppo’s mocking tone made Steve aware of how dangerously fragile his feelings were. He changed the subject quickly. ‘Writing home?’ he asked.
‘Nope,’ Dusty said, and he held up a little card for Steve to see. ‘Doin’ me sums.’
It was a snapshot of a sweater-girl, dark hair piled above her forehead, smiling sideways at
the camera. ‘Who is she?’
Dusty barely gave her a glance. ‘Some bint,’ he said. ‘I took her out for a coupla weeks when I was called-up.’
‘Looks nice.’
‘She was all right. Give me that when we said goodbye. Never wrote though.’
The mass of dark hair made Steve think of Barbara – for the first time that day. ‘She’s pretty,’ he said.
‘She’s just a bint,’ Dusty said casually. ‘There’s plenty more where she came from. Look on the other side. That’s me sums.’
Steve turned the photograph over. The reverse side was covered in pencil marks – six vertical strokes and one across, like six-barred gates.
‘Marking off the days,’ Dusty explained. ‘One more I’ve got through in one piece. One more to the end of this bleedin’ war. It’s my good luck charm sort a’ thing.’
That was something Steve could understand. Another day still alive. Wasn’t that what he told himself every evening? Another day nearer going home. And he suddenly remembered Barbara in the most vivid and erotic detail – lying beside him with straw in her dark hair and love in those green eyes, running down the slope towards their little house, waving goodbye on that hateful station, glimmeringly naked in the gaslight, her head thrown back and her beautiful mouth lifted for kisses. He missed her so painfully that his face was anguished. And missing her brought anxiety into focus. The papers were guarded about the new flying bombs but reading between the lines it was obvious that they were very, very dangerous. There was no way he could protect her – or anyone else he loved come to that – but that didn’t stop him aching to be able to do it. If there’d been some sort of bargaining counter where he could offer to take their risk into his own life and leave them free of it, he would willingly have done it. My darling girl, he thought, remembering the courage of her letters. Don’t get hurt. I couldn’t bear you to be hurt. I love you so much.
Chapter Fifteen
Avalanche of Daisies Page 18
