by Alan Judd
This was an unexpected ally. ‘I don’t want to go at all but Mr Bone says there’s no more room now that mine has been condemned.’
‘Very likely.’
‘But I don’t believe him. I think he’s lying.’
Anthony nodded. ‘Almost certainly.’
‘I’d much prefer not to go.’
Anthony looked sympathetic. ‘Don’t blame you, old boy.’
‘Can’t something be done about it?’
Anthony patted Charles on the arm. ‘Awfully difficult just at the moment, Charles, with the CO here and not here, if you see what I mean. Best not to make a fuss about things. I should grin and bear it and don’t forget your ear-plugs.’
When Charles arrived in the Factory that day with all his kit he found that everything was different but that nothing was really changed. The ops room had been moved, there were more hardboard partitions, people slept on different areas of floor and there was a new subaltern in charge of Charles’s old platoon. Called Stuart Moore, he was thin, pale and quiet and looked far too young. Everyone else was pale except Edward, whose face was as red, mobile, foolish and good-natured as ever. Tiredness in Edward showed itself in bags under his eyes and an irritable nervousness that caused him to repeat himself so often that those around him, dulled by their own tiredness and his repetitions, hardly reacted at all. This made him even more exasperated. However, his basic good nature showed through. ‘Great to have you back, Charles, even if you’re not going to do anything for us except a spot of watchkeeping. Want some coffee? Two coffees, Green. You’re better off here, I tell you, than in that loony-bin you’ve just come from. Touch of reality will do you good. Is it true the CO won’t speak to anyone? Bloody Godsend if it is. We haven’t heard from him for ages. Has old Hamilton-Smith found himself a punkah-wallah yet? Jesus, what a case. Pity they didn’t blow up the whole building whilst they were about it, eh? Green, where’s that bloody coffee? People take sod-all notice of me these days. Might as well talk to yourself. D’you find that? Green – Where the hell is he? Corporal Lynch – go and find Private Green and shove something up his arse to get him moving, will you? He was here two seconds ago.’
‘He’s making your coffee, sir.’
‘He can’t be, the kettle’s here. Unless he’s looking for a bloody cow for the milk.’
‘No more milk till tomorrow, sir.’
‘Jesus Christ, what a dump this is. No milk. Have you ever heard anything like it? You were better off where you were, Thoroughgood. We’ve got no room here anyway. Moore’s got your old space. You’ll have to share with Chatsworth.’
‘Share what?’
‘His bed. Well, not literally. It’s a bunk arrangement, sort of. He made it himself. Pity about Colin, wasn’t it? Nice bloke like that. I can think of a few I’d put in his place. Nasty business, though.’ Edward then went on for some minutes about someone who had been killed in Aden, while Charles hoped that there was a mistake about his having to share a bunk with Chatsworth, and concluded gloomily that there almost certainly wasn’t. Edward was stopped by the appearance of another soldier. ‘Green – where the hell have you been?’
Green was plump and pasty-faced. He looked as though nothing in the world could interest, surprise or amuse him. ‘In the bog, sir,’ he said tonelessly.
‘What about our coffee?’
‘What coffee, sir?’
The very lifelessness of Green’s speech inhibited argument. Edward turned to Charles, his face wrinkled in exasperation. ‘See what I mean, Charles? It’s a bloody madhouse. Everyone walks around in a world of his own except me. No wonder I’m losing my fuzz.’
The noise in the Factory was undiminished. Charles had forgotten how much the building shook to the rhythm of the machines that made the bottles. He sought out the CSM and Sergeant Wheeler for company that evening. With them he found some of the down-to-earth sanity so often talked about by Edward but never by him attained.
‘You must’ve dropped a right bollock to be back here with the riff-raff, sir,’ the CSM said. Charles explained what had happened. The CSM laughed until his eyes watered. ‘He may be solid bone, the RSM, but he’s a cunning bastard, ain’t he? Trouble is, the CO don’t see him like that. The CO’s blind to a lot of people, I reckon. He gets a fixed idea about them and then that’s it like, he don’t notice them no more. Same way that Sarn’t Wheeler here don’t know he’s alive half the time. Just forgets to notice, like. Give hisself a real surprise one day, he will.’
Sergeant Wheeler squatted on an upturned ammunition box. He looked tired and did not smile. ‘I’ll notice I’m alive when I get home,’ he said, without looking up.
‘Yeah, but will anyone else? Don’t know when he’s well off, do he, sir, with blokes like you and me around to cheer him up? Best time of your life, this is. Think about that.’
‘If I did I’d bloody shoot meself.’
‘No need to be generous, we ain’t asking for no favours. Cheerful bugger you are. If you’re going to do it take someone with you for company, starting with old Bone-head. Mr Thoroughgood here will put a good word in for you in the next world then, so you might get your heavenly stripes back despite having done yourself in. He might even stand you a pint of nectar when he gets there, eh sir?’
‘How about a couple of pints now?’ said Charles. ‘In case I don’t go to the same place.’ The CSM was never a man to turn down an invitation and it soon turned out that Sergeant Wheeler’s depression was not beyond the reach of even canned beer. By the time Charles had gathered his kit and turned with a heavy heart towards Chatsworth and his bunk he had at least accepted his new situation, though he knew it would not be a good one.
Chatsworth was unchanged. Indeed, it was difficult to imagine that he could be Chatsworth and different. It was clear that he had achieved an easy dominance over Moore, whose kit and sleeping space were squeezed into a narrow area just by the sacking that made do as a door so that people who entered when he was there had to step over his head. Tim now shared Edward’s partition. Chatsworth’s famous bunk was a curious and unstable-looking construction of odd bits of wood and canvas, except for the lower bunk that comprised a sheet of corrugated iron. His kit was piled on this and he slept on the canvas top bunk. He was appalled when Charles mentioned the matter of sharing. ‘Who says you’ve got to?’
‘Edward.’
‘Bugger Edward. I made this thing myself. It’s not the Army’s, it’s mine. The bottom bit is a rack for my kit, not a bunk. Who’s he think he is, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Go and ask him if you want but that’s what he said.’ Chatsworth was one of the few people with whom Charles felt he could deal without compunction.
‘There must be somewhere else. What about the roof? It’s mild enough weather and there’s plenty of room.’
‘I’m not sleeping on the roof.’
‘Why not? It’s not bad. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?’
‘You go there if it’s that good.’
Chatsworth took a kick at the absent Moore’s kit. ‘Or Moore’s space. You could use it when he’s not in it.’
‘What about when he is?’
‘He isn’t very often. He’s dopey, he’s asleep on his feet half the time. He probably wouldn’t notice.’
‘And then there’s all my kit, of course.’
‘You’ve got kit?’ Chatsworth’s tone and expression were as near to moral outrage as was possible with him. He put on his belt angrily. ‘Right. I’m going to see Edward. And don’t you go sneaking on to the bunk when my back’s turned.’
The struggle was brief and decisive. Edward’s shouting could be heard above all the other noises of the Factory. Chatsworth returned less than two minutes after setting out, looking like a man most grievously put upon. ‘When I run this army there won’t be room for people like Edward. Dead wood. It’s that that stops us from getting ahead. Mentally unstable too. Not fit to command, in my opinion. D’you know, in the Israeli Army everyone, no
matter what rank, has to retire at forty? Good idea, I think. All this balls about having to provide a career till you’re ninety-three – just pay them off, that’s all. Anyway, they wouldn’t all last that long.’ He started moving his kit from the top of the corrugated iron sheet and stowing it on the floor underneath. ‘Well, don’t blame me if the whole thing breaks. It wasn’t designed for brutes like you. And my kit’s going underneath. There won’t be room for yours. You’ll have to find somewhere else.’
Chatsworth’s resentment was the matter of a moment, like most upsets in military life. People endured trouble, misfortune, dressings-down and insults either because they were inevitable or because there was nothing personal in them. It was all a question of form. If you had transgressed you were shouted at or punished in the same way that anyone else would have been in your position, and it was then forgotten. The man who bawled you out one minute would share his water-bottle with you the next. Very soon Charles’s moving into Chatsworth’s bunk was just another fact of life, something to be coped with and thought about no more, rather than the gross violation of territorial integrity it had been at first.
Not that it was without problems. Charles had to pile so much stuff on the corrugated iron, including his sleeping-bag, to act as a mattress thick enough not to conform to the corrugations, that there was very little room between that and the top bunk. Once again, he found himself unable to sit up in bed and compelled to wriggle in and out on his elbows and knees. Every time he or Chatsworth entered or left the bunk, or even when Chatsworth turned over, the whole structure creaked and wobbled. Charles was in constant fear that the top would give way and Chatsworth would come crashing down on him, although most of the time their periods of sleep did not coincide and whoever was trying to sleep would be woken by the other returning. Even when they did coincide Charles’s rest was often interrupted by Chatsworth’s climbing in and out on unexplained personal missions throughout the night. Chatsworth denied a weak bladder or a history of sleep-walking. He even attempted to deny the mysterious missions but in the end conceded that he might very occasionally get up during the night in order to ‘keep an eye on the place’ for the benefit of everyone else. No more could ever be got out of him. Indeed, Charles gave up questioning him altogether after being awoken one night by a painful blow on the side of the head, caused by a Browning which had fallen from beneath Chatsworth’s pillow when he turned over. Angry, and feeling a swelling already forming on his head, Charles had wriggled out and woken Chatsworth, only to see another Browning clatter to the floor when Chatsworth sat up. Chatsworth was unapologetic but did promise to put the Brownings ‘with the others’.
Overall, though, Charles’s new life was only moderately unendurable. He was better off than many people in that he was expected to be in two places – the Factory and the battalion HQ – and so had good reason for not being in either and was accountable to no one. It also meant that he was not really wanted in either place, except for watchkeeping, and so led a largely purposeless and peripatetic existence. There was just over a fortnight to go before the battalion was due to leave, and so the quiet week following his removal to the Factory was very welcome. With every day that passed he felt his chances of survival were better. He saw no journalists and even heard nothing from Beazely, though Van Horne claimed to have taken a call from an incoherent drunk that could have been him. The CO went back to England for five days, Anthony Hamilton-Smith took command and a torpor fell upon Belfast that was every bit as persistent and universal as the rain.
Whether the events of the Sunday that ended the week could have occurred if the CO had been there was a matter for discussion by the more thoughtful for some days afterwards. There was no doubt that his presence would have made a difference, as it did to every occasion, but whether for good or ill it was impossible to say. The fact that all had turned out well could not in all fairness be attributed to Anthony’s being in charge, though it was difficult to imagine them happening in the way they did without him. It would probably have been fairest to describe him as a necessary though not a sufficient condition.
It began at about two in the afternoon with an anonymous telephone call to the RUC which warned of a landmine in a tunnel beneath the Factory. To the RUC, who spent their lives dealing with such matters, this was a run-of-the-mill business that would have to be heeded but which was no cause for real alarm. There were many hoax calls every week and this smelt like one. Edward, however, had spent months worrying about just such a possibility and to him the call was confirmation of his worst fears. He had regarded the first search of tunnels beneath the Factory as almost criminally superficial and had at one time attempted to establish a permanent presence down there. He was thwarted only by not having enough soldiers to go round. With regard to Anthony and others in battalion HQ the warning was something to occupy them on a dreary Sunday, and it was very obviously just this for the local people, who turned out in force to watch the search teams arrive, and the ensuing confusion. Very likely the caller was among them, finding it a better way to pass the time than anything else within the scope of his imagination.
Edward immediately ordered the evacuation of the Factory. Without actually refusing to obey the order everyone within hearing pointed out to him that this would render the company non-operational and that once this were known they could expect similar calls every day. He compromised by insisting that only essential personnel should remain on duty in the Factory and that all others should assemble in the yard outside. The argument that they were no safer there than in the building as there was no knowing where unknown tunnels went – if anywhere – carried no weight with him. He also insisted that all vehicles be moved into surrounding streets and guarded. As the company was under strength it fell to Moore’s platoon to do this, despite their having had no more than four hours of proper sleep in the last fifty, and they moved into the streets like youthful zombies. ‘Perfect for snipers,’ Chatsworth remarked quietly.
‘Is it true the major’s got sponge in his boots to absorb the blast?’ asked the CSM. ‘Looks more like hot nails from the way he’s hopping about.’
Search teams arrived from Brigade to help with the known tunnels, and those in the company who had been down them before wearily prepared for another futile and grubby descent. Anthony and what was normally the CO’s Rover Group arrived with good humour and a lot of unnecessary revving of engines. He jumped out of his Land-Rover. ‘Glad of a chance to straighten the old pins after lunch,’ he said to Edward. ‘Does ’em no good to be folded under you all the time. When’s liftoff, d’you think?’
Edward’s puckered face looked hurt and serious. ‘This is no time for flippancy if you don’t mind my saying so, Anthony. It could be the real thing.’
‘Shouldn’t think so, old boy. It was the real thing up at our place last time and no one bothered telling us about it in advance, did they? Wouldn’t have thought they would this time.’
‘You never know. It might be a ploy to lure more troops into the area and get us all at one go.’
Anthony looked at the disconsolate and weary soldiers hanging around in the yard and lounging by their vehicles in the streets. ‘In which case they reckoned without your precautions. Dispersal in the face of nuclear attack. Is that it, eh? That’s the stuff to give ’em.’ Anthony laughed and strolled away to talk to some of the soldiers, his hands behind his back and his moustache bristling cheerfully.
Nigel Beale followed him like a neglected and irritable terrier. His sympathies were clearly with Edward. Since being shut up at breakfast his conversation when in Anthony’s presence had been relatively muted, though he made it plain from his tone and attitude that he regarded Anthony as unforgivably flippant. ‘You can’t be too sure,’ he said to Charles. ‘Anything’s possible in a case like this. We could be standing on a whole bed of gelignite.’
Charles, like most of the others, had been looking forward to a nap that afternoon. ‘So why are we hanging around here?’
&nbs
p; ‘Because there’s nowhere else to go, is there? We can’t just abandon the area to the enemy.’
‘Exactly. So we might just as well go back inside and lie down.’
‘If it goes off while we’re inside, the building might come down on us.’
‘So it will if we’re outside. It’s big enough.’
Nigel buttoned his flak jacket up to the neck. ‘Strikes me you have a rather over-casual attitude, Thoroughgood. One has to be alert.’
‘You intend to die with your boots on, I suppose?’
‘Yes, frankly. Don’t you?’
‘I’ve never thought about it.’
‘Well, there you are then. Time you did.’
Henry Sandy and his ambulance arrived, summoned unnecessarily. He was pasty-faced and bleary-eyed. ‘Bloody well woke me up,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t think where I was and I forgot my pistol. Thank God the CO’s not here. I’ve stuffed my holster with shell dressings. Anthony won’t notice. I need my afternoon kips to get me through the evening. Where’s Chatsworth? He owes me money.’
‘Haven’t seen him. Try the ops room. He might be able to lend you a pistol. He seems to have three or four.’
‘Sell me, more like. Where is the ops room in this place? I keep forgetting.’ He wandered off towards the Factory, one boot undone and his holster bulging with shell dressings.
To everyone’s surprise, the sun came out. The pale faces of the soldiers looked even paler in its light. It was a gentle, warm sun and it was oddly moving to see so many very tired, very young men in uniform dozing, leaning and waiting, squatting on the ground with their rifles across their knees and their heads hanging down. Waiting formed a very large part of military life. However, on this occasion the soldiers were not the only ones, as a crowd of about a hundred local people had now gathered and they too sat good-naturedly on the road and pavement, peering in through the Factory gates and even making the odd remark to the soldiers guarding the vehicles in the street. The crowd seemed to know all about the reason for the search and to be quite unworried by any possible consequences. They seemed glad of the spectacle, and the sun improved everyone’s humour.
