Boom-CRASH! The main door had come off its hinges in one piece, it sounded like. But Fred’s attention was drawn to his left in the same instant by Devenish’s torch, to a collection of tattered white-faced ghosts which was milling in the other passage, crying out in terror.
‘GET BACK THERE!“ Devenish roared, blinding the leading ghost even as the hallway below filled with the noise of Major Macallister’s party.
Crash! Another door splintered ahead of them! ‘This way—up the stairs!’ Major Macallister’s shout from below reminded Fred unbearably of his old games-master, with its half-hectoring, half-encouraging note only a hair’s-breadth from falsetto. ‘Captain Hornyanski—are you with me? Sergeant Little—see to the American officer!’
So Major Macallister had his attendant American too: Fred looked quickly up their own passage, where torch-beams were flashing in between the silhouettes of moving figures. Was this good honest allied co-operation, or well-founded allied mistrust? Much more likely the latter!
‘Just hold it, sir.’ Devenish restrained him again. ‘Any moment now—get back there!’
With the heavy clump of Major Macallister and his minions on the stair below him, Fred resisted the urge to move. But looking to the left he saw that the flock of ghosts were shrinking back into their own darkness under the combined threat of Devenish’s gun, the major’s shout, and that metal studded tread, and felt a pang of sympathy for them: whatever they were, innocent or guilty, they were the conquered—and vae victis—the conquered had no rights!
Crash! Another door caved in—
Fred abandoned the ghosts, with the metallic taste of powder in his mouth and the old excuse in his brain, which he remembered all too well from Italy and Greece: We didn’t start this—and we didn’t make the rules … so hard fucking-luck, then!
‘Come on, sir—this way!’ Even with the sound of Major Macallister at his back Fred also remembered the snappy reply from the ferret-faced drunken gunner captain to that anodyne disclaimer: Then what’s the difference between us and your average Jerry, then? So … they obey their orders—right? Hic! And we—hic—we obey orders too!
‘For Christ’s sake, sir! Come on!’
Fred let himself be pulled, with all the commotion of Major Macallister meeting the ghosts behind him, beyond the first and second doors down the passage. And then Devenish was pushing past him into the third door, without deference, leaving him no choice but to follow.
Once again, the concentrated sweaty-clothes-and-cabbage smell assailed him, stronger in the confined space of the room than outside, even before he could sort out its contents in the combined light of Devenish’s and Audley’s torches. And then for a moment Audley and Devenish seemed themselves to be the main contents, well-armed, well-fed and well-washed in the centre of their stage, and dominating the room’s occupants huddled in its furthest corner.
There were five of them, he saw: all males—and somehow it was a merciful relief that there wasn’t another naked painted-and-smudged child like down below—all males, in varying states of dishevelled undress and standing in the midst of the wreckage of their bedding—old army blankets and stained mattresses.
‘Right then! Let’s be having you, then!’ Devenish’s voice took on something of the tones of any sergeant-major addressing an awkward squad of recruits, mixing resignation and brutality in equal parts, with only the merest Angostura dash of encouragement.
The huddle shuffled uncertainly within itself, those more at the back resisting the efforts of those more at the front to replace them, terrified by the sound of the words without understanding any single one of them.
‘Get them up against the wall, Sar’ Devenish—if you please.‘ Audley’s voice, by contrast, was conversational, edged with fastidious distaste.
‘Sir!’ Devenish took a step forward, his boot crunching on something breakable and already broken in the darkness below him. ‘Get in line there! Hands high—up—up! Come on, you buggers! In line—in line!’ The jerk of his gun galvanized the huddle into feverish activity, if not actual obedience, with those who half-understood hampering those who didn’t.
‘Come on!’ Patience exhausted, Devenish took another step forward, jabbing at the disobedient minority of the group with the combined torch-beam and muzzle of his gun to encourage them to imitate the majority. ‘Against the wall! Hands up—up—up—UP!’
All this flurry of activity seemed to stir up the smell, so that it was pungent in Fred’s nostrils, and bitter tasting in his mouth: it was as though their fears were increasing their smell, adding the sweat of terror to all their other odours, like foxes hounded to no-escape by hounds.
‘Faces-to-the-wall—if you please, Sar’ Devenish.‘ Audley pronounced the words carefully, one after another, as though he was concerned not to stutter.
‘Sir!’ For an instant Devenish said nothing, as he struggled with the problem of obtaining obedience. ‘ABOUT- TURN!’
The furthest man on the right turned immediately, to face the wall. And then the man next to him turned after him, as though by osmotic action.
‘Go on! Face the wall!’ Devenish jabbed at the next man, and as he followed suit at the next, down the line, until they were presented with a line of backs, in creased shirts and dirty vests overlapping crumpled trousers or hairy legs, as the last of the line conformed.
‘Yrrch!’ Audley’s torch beam fell away, momentarily sweeping over the room, over the blankets and mattresses and across scuffed suitcases and an ammunition box on which a bottle with an encrusted candle in its mouth was set. Then it came up again, and an untidily-furled umbrella stabbed along its line, towards the obedient man on the right. ‘That’s one, Sar’ Devenish—thank you.‘
‘Sir!’ Devenish stepped forward again. ‘YOU THERE!’
But then, to Fred’s surprise, he jabbed the man next to Audley’s choice in the small of the back with his gun. ‘AND YOU—AND YOU—’ He touched each man in turn, down the line ‘—OUT!’
The marked men lowered their arms uneasily, almost unwillingly, half-turning towards their persecutor.
‘NOT YOU.’ Devenish addressed the obedient man, who was also lowering his arms now, ‘YOU STAND FAST!’ The obedient man’s hands shot up again, higher than ever.
‘The rest of you—’ Devenish’s voice came down to ordinary harshness ‘—out you go, then!’
And out they went then, shepherded past Fred by Devenish, with Audley’s torch-beam playing on them, one after another, and Devenish bringing up the rear.
‘Major Fattorini!’ Audley addressed Fred for the first time since they had broken into the place. ‘Empty out the bag—on the floor, please.’ He indicated a patch of bare floorboards, on the edge of one of the filthy mattresses.
An army boot—a tangle of unfolding battledress uniform: trousers mixed up with blouse, and beret falling with them, accelerated by gaiters and belt, and another boot … but inhibited by something else, which had become entangled in them—He shook the bag again.—
Christ! It was a Sten! And complete with its magazine! ‘Don’t worry about that, old boy—it’s got no firing pin.’ Audley stirred the uniform with the tip of his umbrella, flipping out one arm from the blouse. ‘A corporal, by God!’ The corporal’s chevrons showed. ‘So it’s “Corporal Keys” then!’ Pause. ‘Right then, Sar’ Devenish—get on with it if you please.‘
‘Sir!’ Devenish grabbed the man by his shoulder, swinging him round. ‘Right then, you bugger! You get your clothes off—and you get into that British uniform down there … understood?’
The man stood still, his arms only half-lowered, gaping into the light uncomprehendingly in a moment of silence within the room, which somehow separated them from the more general world of noise outside it—a confused commotion of bangs and crashes and shouting, and boots stamping.
‘Whoof.’ The man broke their private moment with the pain of receiving the butt of Devenish’s sub-machine gun in the pit of his stomach, which bent him double, and then
muttered in agonized German.
‘Stop it!’ The umbrella rapped Devenish across the shoulder sharply. ‘That’s not the way—’ Audley caught his anger too late as the German quickly started to disprove him by stripping his clothes off even before he had undoubled himself from the pain of the blow, throwing off the unbuttoned shirt and then ripping at his trouser buttons.
‘Sir—?’ Devenish pivoted slightly between his target and Audley, but remained still balanced, ready to deliver more encouragement.
Now the shapeless trousers had joined the shirt, revealing spidery-thin hairy legs and genitals pathetically wizened in adversity, when fear out-ranked every other feeling.
‘No matter.’ All the shame and embarrassment was Audley’s from his voice. ‘Just get on with it.’
‘Sir!’ The answering growl started with Audley, but continued over the German who was already busy proving that he understood English by fumbling with the unfamiliar khaki uniform with clumsy fingers.
‘Christ O’Reilly!’ exclaimed Devenish in sudden exasperation, thrusting his sub-machine gun into Fred’s empty hand. ‘Take hold of this, sir—and keep the light on the bugger—right?’ He threw himself down on his knees in front of the man, slapping the hands away, and addressed himself to the fly-buttons urgently. ‘Stand still, damn you!’
Fred watched, fascinated, as Devenish pulled and pushed and buttoned and tightened the man into the uniform, cursing and blinding in a continuous monologue undertone as he did so—
‘Christ O’Reilly—hold still!—if I hadn’t been born unlucky I wouldn’t be here—hold still!—where’s the other boot, then?—I had a good wife, and good kids, and I left ’em all—lift your foot then, for fuck’s sake—and a good job in a safe reserved occupation—where’s the sodding gaiter?—but I was born stupid, as well as unlucky, wasn’t I!—that’s the bloody left one—where’s the bloody right one?—oh no! I wanted to be a soldier didn’t I!—could have been building aeroplanes, I could—sleeping between sheets every night—drawing good money—give us your bloody arm then—what am I doing, then?—I’m fucking-dressing fucking-Jerries in the middle of the fucking-night, is what I’m doing?
Finally he stood back and surveyed his handiwork for a moment, before stepping forward again to readjust the beret, tugging it round and down savagely until the cap-badge was at the regulation level above the German’s left eye.
‘I beg your pardon, sir!’ He glanced at Audley, and then bent down and came up with the Sten. ‘Best I can do, in the circumstances. Everything’s a size too big, but I’ve laced the boots up tight—and the belt too. So he’s not going to come apart right away, any road.’ He plucked the Beretta out of Fred’s grasp with his free hand and held up the Sten with the other. ‘Shall I give it to him, sir?’
‘Thank you, Sar’ Devenish—yes.‘ Audley spoke with curious formality as he moved to get a better view. ’Yes-esss … he doesn’t look exactly like the spearhead of the British Liberation Army. But I’ve seen worse. And it’s a dark night.‘ He sighed.
‘Huh!’ Devenish grunted throatily, and thrust the Sten towards the German. ‘Here you are, Jerry—take hold of this then!’
The ersatz Corporal Keys stared at them uncomprehendingly, breathing heavily as though he’d been running to keep up with a forced march which had left him behind. And suddenly Fred felt for him, in his incomprehension.
‘Please—?’ He spoke in English, ‘What is this—?’
‘Go on, Jerry—take it.’ From the slight change in Devenish’s voice, from rough to gruff, there was also some human understanding. ‘We’re going to get you away from here, is what we’re going to do—understand?’
The German took the gun unwillingly, looking at Audley as he did so.
‘Not like that!’ Devenish’s harsher voice came back as the German accepted the weapon. ‘Hold it properly—not like a bleeding lavatory brush!’
‘Please—?’ The German fumbled with the Sten, as though it was too hot to hold, blinking at them. ‘But … ’ Then he took hold of it and himself, squaring his shoulders. ‘But I do not understand, I am telling you, sir—captain!’
‘Of course not.’ Audley accepted the appeal. But then he nodded to Devenish. ‘Jacko—get outside and see what’s happening … Look for Major de Souza—’ In the half-light of their torches, he lifted his arm (with his umbrella hooked over it now) to consult his wrist-watch, shining his own beam directly on to it ‘—we’re two minutes over schedule. So he should be in the offing out there now—right?’
Fred realized that he had lost track of time altogether, ever since they had first moved out of the safe darkness of the forest into the naked light and confusion of the assault on the hunting lodge: there were, as always, two separate times—the fast time of pleasure and happiness, and the slow, elongated time of pain and fear, which seemed to last forever. And they had been in the stretched concertina of it, within this room, with six hundred seconds to every minute.
‘Now then—’ Audley addressed the German with that curiously formal voice of his ‘—the sergeant is right, of course—as always: we are going to get you out of here, sir. Which is for your own good and safety—you have my word on that. Do you understand?’
What Fred understood was that, with Audley’s flashlight shining straight into the man’s eyes, never mind that British officer’s promise, the German could understand nothing at all—and least of all because of that strangely deferential ‘sir’ which Audley had thrown in. Better by far, at this stage, to have stuck to Devenish’s approach.
‘No!’ The German dropped one hand from the Sten to shield his eyes. ‘Please—’
‘Sir!’ Devenish barked the word from the doorway. ‘Major de Souza is here, sir—now! He is with the American officer, and he says to tell you that he has a prisoner for us to escort to the assembly area … sir!’ The bark increased to a stentorian military shout, raised to reach the other side of any parade ground.
‘Thank you, Sar’ Devenish.‘ Audley matched Devenish’s shout. ’The corporal and I have processed everyone from here. So we’ll take the major’s prisoner!‘ Then his torch came back to the German. ’We have to go, sir—now! So … you are a British NCO—non-commissioned officer … You are “Corporal Keys”, if anyone asks you who you are—“Corporal Keys”—?‘ He stepped forward and caught the German by the arm. ’Come on, sir—we must go—‘
‘No!’ The German resisted him, pulling away. No!‘
‘What the devil—?’ The beam of Audley’s torch gyrated over the room, across sharp angles and damp-stained walls, down to the tangle of blankets in which a uniformed corporal in the British Army was now rummaging desperately.
‘My spectacles! My spectacles—!’ The corporal was on his knees beside the ammunition box, scrabbling desperately with searching fingers in the blanket folds. ‘Without my spectacles … I cannot see!’ The search stopped suddenly. ‘I have them! Gruss Gott!’ The German held something up high, fumbling with it.
‘Don’t put them on!’ Audley’s voice cut through the man’s action decisively. ‘You mustn’t look like yourself, sir—we can’t risk that! Put them in your pocket—don’t put them on: that’s an order!’
A light came in from the doorway, silhouetting Audley and the German before blinding Fred himself.
‘Sir … ’ The slight pause encompassed Devenish’s surprise on finding Fred among the probably flea-ridden bedding ‘ … if you please, sir—?’
‘Right, Sar’ Devenish.‘ Audley started to move. ’Major Fattorini—Corporal Keys—MOVE!‘
Fred moved all the faster, to be free of the bedding before he inherited its inhabitants, pushing Corporal Keys ahead of him all the more unmercifully.
The corridor outside was crowded with people. And there was David Audley, using his size and weight to shoulder his way through them—bulldozing an opening down the passage to the entrance hall, with its an tiered trophies and cobweb-drooling heads at the top of the staircase—And there was Major Maca
llister too—or was it the Crocodile?—with British and American soldiers in attendance, and a crowd of ghosts dressed and half-dressed, but all outraged and protesting their innocence as Audley smashed through them regardless—
God! It was like Paddy’s Market on Quarter Day! Except that he caught sight of Major de Souza suddenly, at the head of the stairs with the hint of a smile on his face, holding back all the criminals and deserters, and displaced persons, and homeless bombed-out refugees who had found this roof over their heads, when there were so few roofs anywhere to be found umbombed in Germany; and alongside Major de Souza, larger and wider, and built like a brick shit-house, was Sergeant Huggins, with one meat-plate hand grasping the shoulder of one of the ghosts—a terrified ghost, draped in a field-grey blanket—
Audley reached the de Souza-Huggins block, and Huggins released his prisoner to him, and Sergeant Devenish accepted the prisoner, pushing him down the stairway just ahead of Corporal Keys and Major Fattorini: and Audley’s incongruous umbrella was lashing out ahead of them, to clear the way for the snatch-squad; and Fred could hear Sergeant Devenish swearing as they cut into the maelstrom of the hunting lodge with British and American uniforms like currants and sultanas in a swirling suet pudding of civilians—
The black opening of the main doorway gaped ahead of them, at the foot of the stairway where the main door had come off its hinges. But Audley wasn’t going that way: he was turning back round the last carved banister, to lead them again towards the passage to the rear entrance, through which they had come: that had been the way in, so now that was the way out—right? Right!‘ And … right, because Devenish was urging their new prisoner in that direction, relying on Major Fattorini to encourage Corporal Keys, with his useless Sten and clumping over-sized boots. And whatever blurred images of chaos and panic were left to Corporal Keys without his spectacles, whatever they were, they didn’t matter. What mattered was that their way was not impeded: either the inhabitants of the rooms in the passage were still inside them, or they’d been chivvied out to join the terrified crowd in the entrance hall—all that mattered now was that the passage was empty …
A New Kind of War Page 18
