A Blind Man's War

by David Fiddimore

  As I started to change the magazine she hoiked me to my feet by my elbow, and got us sprinting for the farmhouse door. Now I knew why she always wore low lace-ups on her feet: she had hoisted her skirt, and ran like Emil Zátopek, beating me to the door by six clear feet. The mad cow was actually laughing as we bundled through it. A tough-looking sod from the Lancashires booted it half-shut behind us. We careered clear to the other side of the room. I saw a scared family hunkered down behind a heavy overturned table, and Tony Warboys trying to tie a narrow bandage around one of his biceps, pulling the knot tight with his teeth.

  Thirdlow said, ‘I’ll do that,’ and crawled on hands and knees to help him.

  He grinned at me, and waved the other hand. A bullet came in through an already glass-free window, and smashed a piece of plaster from the wall. A small child behind the table cried out in fear. Then half a dozen ill-aimed rounds of automatic fire; they seemed to hit the roof tiles. A lot of noise. That smell of burned propellant in the air. Gun smoke visible in the blocks of light coming through the window. Fights are like that: your brain absorbs thousands of impressions in split seconds, and when you try to remember them afterwards, you can’t believe you’ve seen so much in so short a time.

  There was a child’s rag doll lying in some spilt wine on the floor, its arms and legs akimbo. Pat Tobin had looked like that when I’d last seen him. I put that thought out of my mind and sat on the floor with my back against the stone wall one side of the door. The Lancs squaddy was on the other side. He raised an eyebrow in enquiry.

  ‘Charlie Bassett,’ I told him. ‘Thanks for asking me to your party.’ At least that raised a few grins. ‘Who’s in charge?’

  ‘Sar’nt Chatto. Don’t give him any lip.’

  I nodded, and asked, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Upstairs wiv the radio. Our radio op copped it after he sent out our situation.’

  ‘Can I get up there?’ The staircase was at the back of the room, but it had a ruddy great square of sunlight shining on the bottom steps which meant they could be seen from the outside.

  ‘I’ll cover you if you like, son, but what makes you think he’ll welcome you?’

  ‘I’m another bloody radio op,’ I snarled. ‘God’s just sent you his second choice.’ I wasn’t being brave or manly. I was being unpleasant. Most of the men I know tend to get very unpleasant when they are as scared as I was. I got up to a squatting position, my back still against the wall, and when he bounced half a dozen rounds along the hillside overlooking the yard – the best he could do, because no one could see who they were shooting at – I dived for the stairs.

  And, like a clot, tripped over the bottom one.

  I sprawled flat out across them in the sunlight, which just about saved my bloody life. The bullet from the sniper, sighted on that square of visible stair, went a foot above my head, and I was up, and around the curve of the stairs before he could get another in. He tried though. The top of the staircase emerged directly through the floor into a bedroom. I didn’t see much of it initially because I was mesmerized by the muzzle of a big ugly service automatic grasped in the big ugly hand of a big ugly man. It was about a foot from my forehead.

  ‘Name?’ he shouted.

  ‘Bassett, sarge. Radio operator.’ In one word he’d taken me straight back to my basic training in 1943. Name? . . . Name, rank and number. He moved the pistol out of my line of sight, and I heard a click. The bastard thing had been cocked and ready to go. I collapsed, still on the stairs, and let my chin rest against the floor.

  ‘Get up ’ere then, son. See what you can do wi’ that. It took a whack – so did Charlie.’

  I looked at Charlie. Another proper Charlie; another radio man, like me. He was propped up against a wall. His uniform was cut about and torn at its right shoulder. Bloodstained. A lot of blood. A field dressing had been competently applied to his shoulder, and he was holding it compressed in place with his other hand. He smiled and nodded, but didn’t speak. His face was as pale as a swan’s back.

  The hit the radio had taken wasn’t all that serious. These big, heavy army portables were built like tanks anyway, but the mic, which the operator held up to his mouth – the new one looked like a small, curved inverted speaking trumpet – was the weak point. They smashed far too easily. The damaged radio was leaning against the wall alongside damaged Charlie, and the mic had taken the second bullet – which had blown it apart. I picked up the earphones.

  ‘I can hear their signals,’ Chatto said, pointing to the earphones, ‘but I can’t respond.’

  ‘Give me a minute,’ I said, and crawled over to it. I smashed the mic off completely, and freed up the wires. The sergeant frowned. Who was this bastard destroying army property? I could see it in his face. Then I put on the headphones and began crossing the wires, sending a sparky kind of Morse. How long I could keep it up would depend on what was left in the batteries. It only took the army operator on the other end about thirty seconds to realize he was getting Morse, and another fifteen to begin to read it.

  ‘What do you want to know, Sarge?’ I asked the big man. ‘And what do you want me to send?’

  He grinned a slow grin and said, ‘Ask them where t’hell they’ve been, an’ how long we have to wait ’ere?’

  I translated that into Service-ese, and when the guy came back told him, ‘Twenty minutes, Sergeant. They can hear the gunfire, but they’re on foot now coming over the hill behind the enemy. They hope to sandwich the insurgents between them and you, and take a few prisoners.’

  ‘Insurgents?’

  ‘That’s what he called them. He asks you to fire a few rounds every five minutes, so they can orientate on you.’

  ‘Orientate?’

  ‘That’s what he said. What’s the matter?’ The sergeant had suddenly looked pained.

  ‘Those long words. It must be the Mad Major. It’s all right for you lot, but I’ll have to ride back with him, and listen to him all the way back to camp.’ But I could see he was chuffed really. He asked, ‘You got a first name, Bassett?’

  ‘Charlie, Sergeant, same as his.’ I nodded at his wounded man, who smiled again, but still didn’t attempt to speak.

  ‘Well, Charlie Bassett . . .’ Chatto suddenly reached for a Sten he had under one hand, pointed it over his shoulder and out of the window, and fired off three rounds. Half a dozen came back by return. Plaster dust exploded around us. ‘Well, Charlie Bassett, which regiment did you have the honour to serve before you put on the funny clothes?’

  ‘None, Sergeant. I’m a RAF operator, or was. Lancasters.’

  ‘I’ll be damned . . .’

  ‘What?’ I asked him.

  ‘You seem too clever for that.’

  Warboys’s voice called from below, ‘Mr Chatto, what’s your situation?’

  ‘Under control, sir. Major Cussiter will be here in fifteen minutes. Then we can hammer the bastards.’ I didn’t like the little bit of American history that sprang to mind, but it was Cussiter, not Custer, so that was all right.

  ‘You OK, son?’ Chatto asked his proper Charlie.

  ‘Yes, Sar’nt.’

  ‘Just stay put. We’ll soon have you out of here. Right as ninepence.’ I’d often wondered what was particularly right about ninepence. This time all the boy did was nod. He looked about eighteen years old. Chatto turned his attention on me.

  ‘Well, Charlie. What shall we talk about while we wait then? You fond of music?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

  ‘I like a touch of Edmundo Ros. You like Edmundo Ros?’

  Another bullet bounced off the tiles above our head. I winced. I could hear gunfire, but most of it was no longer coming in our direction.

  Then it stopped.

  It stopped because the EOKA men outside must have been as surprised as us when a naked man on a racing bicycle freewheeled through the farmyard, carrying the United Nations flag raised on a stick in one hand.

  Less than a minute later another four or five naked pe
ople on cycles followed him through, and out of sight. In the middle of the bunch was a tandem, and the man on the back of the tandem gave me an idea I couldn’t get rid of. Most of the cyclists were as pale skinned as proper Charlie’s blood-drained face. The guy on the tandem wasn’t. He had a suntanned face, forearms and calves. He had spent a lot of time in short sleeves and shorts out in the sun. It didn’t take me long to work it out, and it won’t you either.

  The firing didn’t resume. We waited another quarter of an hour before a dusty file of soldiers came in from the south. Trailing them was a small ambulance, and a Champ mounting a heavy-cal machine gun. They must have left their heavy transport down the hill. That didn’t surprise me. I’ve always been impressed by the way the Brown Jobs are willing to shoulder loads that would crush the average market porter, and then walk ten miles with them.

  I was stiff when I stood up, and went downstairs. Getting older, Charlie. Thirdlow was standing by a window. Warboys was with the GC family, jabbering away in their lingo, and helping them set the place to rights, as much as a farmhouse that’s just been shot up can be set to rights. The table was back on its feet, and I heard the farmer laugh at one of Warboys’s jokes. The small girl hugged the rag doll, as if she had thought she would never see it again. I went over to Thirdlow.

  ‘Do you want to travel back with them?’

  She still looked out of the window, not at me. ‘No. I always go home with the man who takes me to the dance, Charlie. One of my rules.’

  ‘OK. Shall we walk up and get the car?’

  ‘I already asked the corporal to recover it.’

  ‘I have the key.’

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll manage.’

  Then I remembered that she’d managed as well. She had been in the car when I had come down that morning. That morning: it seemed like weeks away already.

  I drove her back, tailing the small convoy. We had had to wait for an armed one-tonner to crawl up into the hills and back, recovering Pat’s body, which meant, of course, that we finished the journey in the dark. As we settled into the bench seat of the battered Humber she said, ‘I can’t quite believe what’s happened. It wasn’t long ago that we were all drinking with Pat – it seems like months ago – don’t you remember?’

  ‘No.’ It was my turn.

  ‘A party at Pat’s place. After that stupid girl was brought back.’

  ‘Did I behave badly?’

  ‘No, I think you went to sleep. Pat was very happy that night. He was a good organizer.’

  ‘What did the civvy police want him for?’

  ‘Loads of things – sleeping with the enemy.’

  ‘Christ, was that all? We all do that sooner or later.’ The faces of all the women I’d known went briefly and bitterly through my mind. It didn’t take long, because there weren’t that many of them. But, then again – maybe she’d meant something different.

  ‘Did Collins send you up here to kill him?’

  ‘No, of course not. It was an accident. I saw the gun and reacted the way I’ve been trained. I would have helped you to get him out if I could.’

  ‘Will you get into trouble?’

  ‘Mm . . . I expect so. Court-martial job.’ She didn’t sound all that concerned. ‘Some smart little boy from the Solicitor General’s office will try to prove I’ve got finger trouble . . .’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Trigger happy. Even if I get away with it they’ll send me home.’

  ‘Then don’t argue with them. Anywhere’s better than here.’

  She laughed, and I asked her, ‘What’s so funny?’

  After a pause she said, ‘You ever been to Aldershot, Charlie?’

  I expected her to get off at Wayne’s Keep with the rest of them, but she stayed put, and on the road back to Famagusta we were flagged down by a cop car. The British policeman who walked back to us sounded like a west coast Scot. Firm, prepared to be friendly, but not prepared to take any shit. He explained that the lights on the Humber did not pass muster. We’d lost the driver’s-side front wing and its lights with it, and the one on Thirdlow’s side was flapping up and down like a WAAF’s sneakies.

  ‘We were in a shoot-out with EOKA, Constable. The car got hit.’

  ‘Then you should have left it where it was, laddie, and found an alternative means of transport.’ The last few words came out as if he had learned them by rote. Then he started writing me a ticket. Life must go on, I suppose, even when you’re in the middle of a bloody civil war.

  The RAF regiment corporal in charge of the gate detail at the RAF compound gaped when he saw the state of Watson’s car. I knew I’d get it in the neck in the morning. Wasn’t that stupid? I had already forgotten about Pat, and was worried about the car. We unloaded the small arsenal we seemed to have collected into my hut.

  Thirdlow said, ‘I’m going to bunk here tonight, but don’t get any ideas. OK?’

  ‘Too tired for ideas. I want a shower, and I want to go to sleep, and wipe today from my memory.’

  ‘That sounds good. Do you have anything to eat?’

  ‘Pete usually keeps something in his locker for emergencies.’ I pointed out Pete’s bed. It still hadn’t been slept in. She found a tin of Fray Bentos, and we split it. Then I showered. When I came back into the bunk room she was already in Pete’s bed. Her shirt and skirt were folded neatly on a chair, and her dirty shoes were tidily beneath it. I turned out the light, and unfurled the mosquito net around my bed. Then I did hers: maybe they didn’t have insects on her part of the island. As I climbed into my bed it creaked, and she said, ‘Thank you.’

  I turned on my side so that my back was to her even though we were fifteen feet apart. ‘Goodnight, Ann.’ Using her first name sounded odd, but I was too tired to talk about it. I wondered if Watson already knew what a hash I’d made of things this time.

  ‘Goodnight, Charlie.’

  I had an odd final thought that I was sleeping in the same room as a mass murderess, which was quickly replaced by the realization that anyone who knew what I’d been up to over Germany in 1944 probably felt the same about me. The fan on the ceiling clicked. It moved the mosquito nets as if people were brushing past them. I went to sleep, and dreamed that I was on a sunny slope somewhere, lying down alongside my lioness.

  Chapter Twenty

  Last Orders, Please

  Watson handed me a hefty glass of cheap Greek brandy. I’d glimpsed over his shoulder: he had at least a dozen bottles in his cupboard, and I asked myself where they had come from. In case you’re wondering, it tastes like silver polish. Thinking about it, being handed a glass of something heavily spirituous by Mr Watson had been the prelude to most of the good or bad events of my life. But it was barely 0830, and this was going it some, even by his standards.

  ‘Sit down, Charlie.’

  I sat. He sat. He looked uncomfortable. It was possible that he was about to explode.

  ‘I’m sorry about your car . . .’ I said.

  He did explode.

  ‘Bugger the car. It’s only a fucking car.’

  I was too surprised to be surprised.

  ‘And I’m sorry about Pat . . . Corporal Tobin.’

  ‘Ah.’ He held the glass up to the light, and squinted through the amber liquid. That’s something that men, in particular, do when they don’t know what to say next. Women don’t have that problem.

  ‘Yes. Poor Pat. He’s been with me since Suez.’

  ‘I know. I was there with you.’

  ‘So you were . . . so you were. Did you see the GC who got him?’

  I picked up the clue fairly quickly. Watson and Collins must have cooked up a story between them.

  ‘No, we were just getting out of the car when it happened. It was over in seconds. Collins’s woman got a few rounds off in the general direction. I don’t think she hit anyone, although she’s very good.’

  ‘I know . . . and this hermit chappie? Involved?’

  ‘No, nothing like. He fought for Pat’s life
afterwards.’ I’ve told you before. When you lie to someone you like, it’s important to do it well.

  ‘Did Corporal Tobin say anything?’

  I cast my mind back for anything Pat had ever said to me.

  ‘He wanted to say sorry to someone called Mary Walters, but I think in his mind he had gone back to being a teenager again. We’d better forget it.’

  ‘Fine by me. Both parents deceased, no siblings, so it will be a service funeral at Wayne’s Keep in a few days. You’ll be there?’

  ‘Of course. My duties permitting.’

  ‘Your duties will permit. From now on you won’t have much more to do. You can clock on to Ibn Saud occasionally so we can verify that the system’s up and running. Apart from that, Cyprus is your oyster, as long as you keep out of trouble. I plan to send you home in a few weeks anyway. Cheers.’ He drained a quarter-pint of brandy in a oner.

  ‘Cheers, sir.’ I sipped mine. What I was thinking was, That was quick. All of a sudden they wanted to get rid of me. Get me off the island perhaps, before anyone started asking questions. I sipped my drink because Watson looked determined to get drunk, and that worried me. Just as the words the system had worried me. You noticed them of course. He splashed himself another drink. Something else was coming.

  ‘You have a son Carlo, don’t you? Mother called Grace? Grandfather Lord So-and-So-Something-Baker, the arms manufacturer? Trust you to keep bad company.’ I half rose from the chair, but Watson said, ‘Bloody well sit down, Charlie, and now do what you’re told. Swallow your drink.’ I did both. He poured me another whopper.

  When I had my breathing back under control, and decided that I didn’t need to cry until I was on my own, I asked him, ‘What?’ And then, more sensibly, ‘What’s happened to Carlo?’