The Forgotten War

by David Fiddimore

Tommo looked at Bella: the old sharp Tommo. ‘You do chickens; Charlie’s told me. I could be in the market for a thousand eggs. That, and half a ton of butter.’

  Bella said, ‘I don’t do butter, but I know a man who does. We can talk eggs whenever you like.’

  They talked eggs. I was glad that Miller had gone. She wouldn’t have liked the conversation carried out in front of her. She would have worried what her husband would have made of it.

  ‘What were you doing there, anyway?’ I asked Ming before the cider turned my brain to mush.

  ‘Report to the boss. We write a report on any of our people that end up in court.’

  ‘Even as a witness?’

  ‘Especially as a witness.’

  ‘Will it appear on my personal record?’

  ‘They’ll stick a copy in there, yes.’

  ‘Then be gentle with me.’

  For some reason everyone thought that that was funny. Tommo nearly fell off his chair, and I thought that Bella was about to wet herself. Why don’t we say that about men?

  Later, when we were really stocious, Tommo asked me, ‘What did the old guy mean about a blind summit?’

  ‘That’s a very English description of a hump in the road.’

  ‘But it was also the dead guy’s name . . .’

  ‘Don’t labour the point. He was telling a very poor joke. We English are good at them.’

  Tommo held his pint up and squinted as if he could read the future in it, found he couldn’t and drank it instead.

  Ming stayed overnight at the farm. It was the first time that had happened since I’d been there.

  Tommo found a small hotel, and in the morning took off for London while the going was good. I saw him off. He was driving the same truck. I don’t know whether that was a brazen declaration of independence, or just plain bad taste. He gave me a hug – he did that sometimes – and said, ‘Thanks, buddy. You came through again.’

  ‘That’s OK, Tommo. But I lumbered you with Piers at the same time.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I can ditch him whenever I’m minded. He may come in useful. Anything I can do fer ya when I’m over there?’

  I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before.

  ‘What do you know about the Jedburgh special units we sent over to Europe to fuck the Krauts up while we invaded?’

  ‘Americans, weren’t they?’

  ‘All sorts. Americans, Brits, Dutch, French – you name it. Seriously funny dudes.’ ‘Dudes’ was a word he’d taught me: I liked it.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘A couple are still out there, in France and Germany – gone native, and won’t come back.’

  ‘Why not? What they doing?’

  ‘Clobbering the bad guys. Catching war criminals, giving them field trials and field punishments. Fatal hangings, or the old bullet-in-the-back-of-the-neck trick.’

  ‘Is there a problem with that?’

  ‘Yeah, Tommo. Sooner or later an armistice has got to be an armistice. The opera’s not over until the fat lady sings, and a war’s not over until the shooting really stops. They’ve got to come home. They’re really scaring the Reds.’

  ‘Where do I come in?’

  ‘My little team has been asked to contact them and talk them down, but they won’t talk to me. I’ve got a sort of one-way dialogue going with them, but it’s taking bloody weeks.’

  ‘I s’pose that this isn’t unconnected with the fact that you were a little late coming in yourself?’

  ‘The bosses probably think that. If I got their names and unit identities, and knew the localities where they were supposed to have been working, is there any chance you could get a message to them?’

  ‘Mebbe: they got to get their stores from someone. Won’t somebody have already tried that?’

  ‘Probably. But no one with your contacts.’

  ‘What good would it do, anyway?’

  ‘It gives me two strikes. They might actually send a reply, and also it tells them that I can get to them when I want to, doesn’t it? That might upset them enough to make them start talking.’

  ‘Or they may just shoot the messenger.’

  ‘Send someone they won’t; that German girl with the great legs you had.’

  ‘I found her with another guy. She was a goddamned choco-lady on the side.’

  ‘What’s a chocolady again?’

  ‘Women who do it fer Hershey Bars. Maybe cigarettes or stockings.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. The only problem was she didn’t tell me – so sayonara, señorita.’

  ‘What about it then?’

  Tommo thought about it. Then he said, ‘You still got that London telephone number I gave you?’

  ‘Yes, Tommo.’

  ‘Phone it if you get the names. He’ll tell you what to do with them.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t get me wasted now.’

  ‘OK, Tommo, strictly business.’

  ‘I knew you were learning things from me, Charlie. Be a pal and find me some butter, won’t you? I got a coupla base customers in Lin-coln-shire who can take a lorryload in a coupla weeks.’

  The way things worked out my Jedburghs made the first move anyway. Pawn to my king’s knight. That was after I’d phoned Piers and asked him to get me the Jedburgh names. He laughed and put the phone down on me. Dead end.

  19. Bye-bye, Blackbird

  The next day Miller walked into my shrine, waving the old brown-paper envelope. The office seemer larger now that I wasn’t sharing it with Alice, although it was scruffy because the cleaners still wouldn’t venture over the threshold. I was hung-over.

  ‘When?’ I asked her.

  ‘Cheer up: tomorrow, but it’s not what you think.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘Fly from CFS to Thurleigh. Transport laid on to drive you to a police station near Bedford.’

  Bollocks. I didn’t want to tell her that I’d been in this movie before. ‘Why?’

  ‘A man walked in there yesterday and asked for you. He’s come from France. He says he’s with our Jedburgh.’

  ‘Want to come with me?’

  One of her six-beat pauses. Then, ‘OK. Yes.’

  ‘Number ones, then, and bring an overnight bag.’

  She did it again – six-beat pause, then, ‘OK’ – and turned on her heel.

  Just like that.

  Alison scowled at Miller when she opened the door to her. I could see that from the back of Alison’s head: I had been a bit slow off the mark. Miller was driving the jeep, which meant that she’d already been into the station. I wondered what she had told Watson, and whether he’d care. He must have used the jeep himself from time to time, because his battered panama lay in the rear-seat footwell. Miller was collecting me from the Abbott farm: she was in her WREN number ones with regulation sheer dark stockings. My oh my. I was in my walking-out blues, and wore my US raincoat over them to give the RAF a twitch.

  Bella gave me a quick peck on the cheek when I left, and said, ‘How long?’ She probably thought that I was going out to pay the piper again.

  ‘Back tomorrow, probably; but if I’m not here don’t put anything in the oven for me.’

  In the jeep Miller asked me, ‘Has her daughter got a crush on you?’

  ‘No, not yet. I’ll move out if that happens: too complicated.’

  ‘Do you always work things out in advance?’

  ‘No, almost never. I wait for things to happen – never a dull moment, me. Do you like that?’

  ‘To be with, yes; to live with, no.’ That was me being told, wasn’t it? ‘What do you do when you go up to London to work with Piers?’

  ‘We’re rewriting a signals manual. You knew that already.’

  Long pause. Then Miller said, ‘Saying that you’re not going to tell me something would be better than lying to me.’ Her lips were set, and her mouth looked so small that I couldn’t have forced even a pencil through there.


  ‘Are you looking for a fight this morning, Mrs Miller?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘Stop the car, won’t you? There – that will do.’

  ‘There’ was a narrow strip of common, opposite a long row of picture-book country cottages. Smoke speared thin and vertical from a couple of chimney stacks. As soon as she stopped I could hear the sounds of the birds and the bees. That’s what you could hear in the jeep as well, because even as we stopped I pushed her back, kissed her and touched her knees. They moved apart as if they were spring-loaded. I took a breath and said, ‘I know this is difficult for you, but don’t think it’s easy for me either.’

  ‘No?’ Her voice was so quiet that I almost couldn’t hear her. Sardonic.

  ‘No, but you can get off whenever you like. It won’t matter.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Drop me off at the guard block at Little Rissington if you want, and then go back. Take the jeep. I promise you it won’t make things any more difficult between us – and what’s more, I’ll behave myself until they demob me.’

  She actually laughed as she pushed me away. Then she said, ‘I’ve had better offers than that, Charlie!’ Yeah. You guessed it. Odd creatures. It was as if a sharp summer storm had passed. ‘I can be a proper bitch at times.’

  I realized that I’d been holding my breath, because what I wanted to say was ‘I want you more than I’ve wanted any woman in my life: you make me tremble.’ I let the breath out slowly. ‘I think that I like women who can be bitches at times.’ I swung my feet out of the jeep, and got out. The grass was still wet with dew. I had to duck my head to miss knocking my cap off on the canvas. When I went around it to stand alongside her she was repairing her lipstick. I said, ‘Shove over. I’ll drive. It feels a bit poncy having you drive me everywhere.’

  ‘Order?’ she asked. The smile was back. I wanted to kiss the lipstick off her again – I loved its taste.

  ‘Order.’

  ‘You’re getting better at giving orders, sir.’

  ‘Then get used to it; and if you come with me get ready to get on your back tonight, and stay there until the sun comes up.’

  Even that didn’t wipe out the smile. I looked around the sky before I got behind the wheel. There should have been a rainbow somewhere.

  The SPs in the guardroom at Little Riss kept us waiting until after they had made a call; then they waved us through without any paperwork. I got a very smart salute. I think that they were trying to impress Miller. She stayed in the jeep, and held on hard to the seat frame. It would have been difficult to prize her off it. It was time to get things settled so I told her, ‘This is where you get off. It’s all right; I meant it. I wasn’t put on this world to turn your life upside down. I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe.’

  Miller looked away over the airfield. All she said was, ‘I wonder where our aeroplane is?’

  As I drove us down to the Transport Command hangar I couldn’t believe where she put her hand. After I collected the jeep from the double zigzag it had somehow got me into, I pulled Miller’s hand away. Sometimes the old phrases are the best ones: actions do speak louder than words.

  There was no sign of the silver Hudson, but there was that familiar unmarked olive-drab Airspeed Oxford sitting in the Hudson’s spot. It matched the familiar olive-drab pilot in his battered US flying jacket who was sitting on its step . . . and I had a familiar fluttering in my stomach. I parked up, and we went over to him. I tried to take Miller’s bag as well as mine, but she took it firmly from me, and smiled as she did so. Later she told me that it was like taking control of her own life again. I didn’t exactly see what she meant, but I understood there was something behind the words that made sense.

  The pilot settled us in. Me alongside him; Miller at the radio training station behind us, facing a well-used 1154/1155 rigged set-up. She asked me, ‘Is this what you used, sir?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re not as good as the American jobs we use on station, but they are more robust, and easy to repair.’

  ‘It’s hard to imagine you here, over Germany at night.’

  ‘I wasn’t. The aircraft I worked in were larger than this – it makes the radio sets appear smaller, although they’re not.’

  The pilot coughed. He said, ‘When you’re ready? You both strapped in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Miller, was bloody hamming it up for all she was worth. She was right. She could be a proper bitch at times. When I looked back her knee was cocked, giving my eyes the come-on, and her own eyes gleamed.

  The pilot was either navigating by the railway lines or the roads. Grace had once told me all about that. I suddenly wondered how Grace was without the flying. It had been all her life to her. I asked him, ‘How long?’

  ‘Less than an hour. They have a nice new runway at Thurleigh – long and wide.’

  ‘Not like that grass strip near Inverness.’

  ‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir?’

  ‘I could swear I’ve flown with you before.’

  ‘Not me, sir. I’d have remembered you.’

  ‘Didn’t you fly me from Twinwood to Ringway in 1944, and from Croydon to Scotland earlier this year?’

  ‘Not me, sir. You got me mixed up with someone else.’

  ‘I don’t do that often.’

  ‘First time for everything, sir.’

  ‘Isn’t your name John Morgan?’

  ‘Nossir. It’s Randy, sir. That is Randall. Randall Claywell. I’m just a contract pilot for your War Department. I drive VIPs in a hurry.’

  ‘I’m not a VIP.’

  ‘But I guess that you’re in a hurry, sir.’ Then he looked briefly over his shoulder, saying, ‘Enjoying the flight, miss? Have you flown before?’

  That was my lot.

  It was one of those flights when no sooner have you reached your operational height than you are descending again. That’s what it seemed like. Claywell was a big man, and an enormously competent pilot. You also got the impression that you wouldn’t want to cross him. He left the aircraft before we did, but not until it was on the ground: anything other than that would have been irresponsible. Claywell was not an irresponsible man. He helped Miller down from the small ladder, and she gave him leg up to the stocking top. I was momentarily angry, but then I smiled, because I realized why. Jealousy. Our transport had come around the peri-track: it looked like we had jeeps to spare these days.

  Claywell touched my arm to delay me briefly as Miller went to the vehicle. He grinned. ‘Glad it worked out for you, bud.’

  Then he climbed back into the aircraft, pulled up the ladder, and shut the door – leaving me on the other side of it. Just before he shut the door he winked.

  The guardroom at Thurleigh wasn’t interested in paperwork for us, either, although we had to sign for their jeep and promise to bring it back. The civilian who had driven it out to the Oxford shook my hand and said, ‘I’m very pleased to have met you, sir.’ I was getting used to that.

  I asked Miller, ‘What did Pete write about me?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even in the papers?’

  ‘No.’

  She laughed. ‘You’re a bit of a fool sometimes. Remind me to show you when we get back.’

  They’d given us a map to St Neots but I could have driven the route with my eyes closed, because I’d flown my war from around there. As I turned down towards Thurleigh village Miller asked, ‘What was all that chat with the pilot, about having met before?’

  ‘He’s not who he says he is. I flew with him before. He was piloting Glenn Miller then.’

  ‘In that case isn’t he supposed to be dead? Weren’t they drowned in a plane crash in the English Channel?’

  ‘I can’t answer you, but now I think that I saw their aircraft too – in France in 1945: a bit smashed-up but definitely not wet. That’s interesting, isn’t it? One day, when I’ve time, I’m going to think about it. Maybe go
back and look again.’

  Eventually Miller held on to the grab handle with her right hand, and held her cap on with the other. The air rushing through the open jeep ruffled the skirt around her knees. I concentrated on staying on the road, and tried not to think about them. It didn’t work. It hardly ever does.

  The St Neots police sergeant remembered me. So did his wife. She made us cups of tea and fussed around me. I could see that Miller was mystified, but I wasn’t prepared to go into explanation mode so I asked the copper, ‘When did your new guest arrive?’

  ‘Day before yesterday, sir. He walked in off the street bold as brass and told me that he was an AWOL British serviceman; just like you did.’ We both smiled at the memory. It must rank among the more stupid things that I’ve done in my life, and we both knew it.

  ‘And he asked for me?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘How did he know that I’d been here?’

  ‘He hasn’t said, sir. In fact he hasn’t said anything else yet.’

  ‘When are the monkeys from London coming to pick him up?’

  ‘After you’ve finished with him, sir. I have to make a call.’

  I sipped my tea. That was to buy thinking time. Eventually I said, ‘Nice tea. I suppose that we’d better finish it and see the bugger, then.’

  I wonder if I’d looked as bad as he did when I’d come in. If I had it wasn’t surprising that no one had believed me. I was looking at an emaciated, uniformed twenty-three-year-old who looked at least seventeen years older. I suppose that that wasn’t all that unusual in the Forties, if you think about it. His greasy brown hair needed washing, and cutting, and someone would have to do something about the rash I could see on every exposed part of him. It even went up into his hairline. I said, ‘You need a doctor.’

  His voice was cultured: thin, like him. Slightly accented. ‘I saw one this morning; courtesy of our kind jailer. She said that I was starving, and need nourishment. I’d rather have a cigarette.’

  Miller coughed quietly. It was to attract my attention. When I looked at her she raised one eyebrow, and when I nodded she produced an unopened packet of Players Navy Cut cigarettes and a box of B&Ms. They were making a comeback now that Norwegian spruce was becoming available again. Our man pounced on them and didn’t say anything else until there was a layer of thin blue smoke in the air above us.