Treason if You Lose

by Peter Rimmer

  “I’ve been trying.”

  “Keep trying. You never know. Can we sit down, Vida? Your boyfriend financed the movie I’m making.”

  “He’s no longer my boyfriend.”

  “I suppose not. You did something for him, Vida. First time I ever saw him happy that night. Max Pearl said the same. That’s the most precious gift you can give anyone. Happiness. What else is life all about?”

  “What’s your new movie about? Gregory L’Amour. I read about it.”

  “How America is winning the war. Morale booster. Since Gillian’s Bruno rewrote all the dialogue it’s going to be good. Certainly make money. Sir Jacob will make a lot of money.”

  “Same old story. Money makes money.”

  “Only if you look after it, according to Uncle Harry. They have lovely fresh oysters, Gillian. Gillian cooked last night. This is my treat. With filming tomorrow I just can’t drink. Cameras have an uncanny way of finding the hangover deep in the back of my mismatched eyes. Gerry Hollingsworth’s son was killed. Gerry was also at your dinner party.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re lucky to have got out of Germany. Hitler’s final solution for the Jews is appalling. The things mankind does to each other in the name of religion. We have the same god but that doesn’t seem to matter… Thank you, Pablo. You can tell François I don’t need my table reservation. He can give it to some lucky person. This is my favourite restaurant, Vida. They look after me.”

  “So I can see. Thank you for joining us, Genevieve.”

  “It’s my pleasure. You knowing Tinus makes me feel closer to him. You’ll have the lobster, Gillian? Good. Oysters to start. Put this table’s food on my cheque, Pablo. And whatever else the people have tonight.”

  “Not at all. Sir Jacob left me well provided.”

  “If you insist. Looks like a free supper for me tonight, Pablo…. Now tell me what you’ve been up to, Vida?”

  Smiling to herself, Genevieve watched Gillian plunge into conversation with Nathan, her eyes sparkling. By the time the oysters arrived she had Nathan’s complete attention.

  “You don’t mind?” she asked Vida, raising her eyebrow.

  “Plenty more like that where he comes from,” whispered Vida close to her ear. “It’s only money.”

  “Ah. Yes, well I suppose it is. Never looked at it that way. Maybe I should. You look happy, Vida.”

  “I am.”

  People came and went to and from the table. A photographer, with Genevieve’s permission, took a photograph. Most people knew each other. Getting a table at the Oasis without first knowing François was virtually impossible. A lucky shot like the party of four sitting next to Genevieve’s table, looking around like children at their first fair, gawping at the people they had only seen before in the newspapers. Genevieve couldn’t hear one word about the war. It was all about showing off and talking rich which for some was a career in itself. At least her grandmother in Corfe Castle would laugh at her now sitting with Vida Wagner in François’s restaurant.

  When they found out they lived just one street apart, Vida in an expensive apartment five storeys up from the traffic, it was the address that counted, like being seen having supper in the Oasis. For Genevieve being seen and smiling was part of her job. In a roundabout way what she was paid for by Gerry Hollingsworth. Good individual press for the stars was as important as a good critique for the film. Everyone fed off everyone else, the money going round and round. The trick, Gerry Hollingsworth said to her, was to make sure the money never stopped going round.

  Gillian said nothing more about Nathan Squires when they reached Genevieve’s apartment. They both went straight to bed. When Genevieve went to work in the morning Gillian was still sleeping in the small room with the single bed. The phone had not rung and no one had slipped a telegram under the front door. It was the small envelope under the door that Genevieve feared most.

  Confident that Tinus was alive, she did a good day’s filming. All of them on the set said how well the dialogue was sounding.

  “Who did it, Genevieve?” asked Gerry Hollingsworth.

  “You won’t be insulted?”

  “I’m in this game only to make money. Getting my back up never makes me money.”

  “Bruno Kannberg. On his way to the South Pacific. When the war’s over he wants to be a scriptwriter.”

  “You mean if I give him an idea he can write a script like this? Perfect. What’s he doing in the South Pacific?”

  “Trying not to get himself killed. Accredited to the marines on a US destroyer. They want him to land on the beach with the troops and take photographs. Stanley, his photographer on the Mirror, taught him how to use the camera. They only want one newsman from a British newspaper on the destroyer. Something about space and security.”

  “This war never stops.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Gerry Hollingsworth put a comforting hand on Genevieve’s shoulder and walked away. Both knew what the other was thinking without having to say.

  When Genevieve went home early she could smell the sex as she opened her front door. The afternoon shooting had not required her character. The word ‘nymphomaniac’ for Bruno’s wife came to her mind. Neither of them said a word. Nathan Squires must have left minutes before she opened the door. She would have to have a word with Jim at the security desk. The man must have tipped off Gillian by phone when Genevieve entered the building.

  Going straight to her window she looked down onto the street seven storeys below and waited. He had to still be in the building. When he came out soon after and hailed a cab Genevieve was not sure whether to clap her hands or be annoyed.

  When Gillian appeared, Genevieve was still looking down onto the street. What other people did in their lives was none of Genevieve’s business. In a way it was like putting horns on Gregory L’Amour, making Genevieve feel better about Gregory’s infidelity with another woman that wasn’t her. Human emotions were indeed strange. She was as bad as the rest of them with no right to get up on her own high horse. The one-night stand with William Smythe came to mind, along with the consequences for the poor man. She just hoped he would stay happily married to his secretary. That when they met again the pain would have gone from William’s eyes. Uncle Harry had written Betty Townsend, now Betty Smythe, was pregnant with their first child. That Uncle Harry had been asked to stand as godfather. In that strange roundabout way they would all be related for the rest of their lives.

  “He’s gone,” said Genevieve. “No matter. Gregory sends his love. My part didn’t have to shoot this afternoon. Go back to your nap. I’m having one. I always take a nap when I get the chance.”

  Gillian said nothing which for both of them was the right thing to do. As they said so often, there was a war going on. During wars the rules for some reason were different. Genevieve thought it was likely the primal instinct to procreate when the species was threatened. That if the men died the women would still have their children to carry on the human race. Tinus was wrong and she was right. Unlike Betty Townsend she had been a fool not to get herself pregnant by Tinus when she still had the chance. Then she made up her mind. When the film shoot was over she was going to England to get herself pregnant. Tinus would never have to be told it was deliberate. That way, whatever happened, she would not spend the rest of her life on her own.

  3

  The word reached Horatio Wakefield in London before it reached Gillian Kannberg in Los Angeles. Bruno Kannberg was missing in action. Billy Glass, the editor of the London Daily Mail had heard the news first from Arthur Bumley at the Mirror and called Horatio into his Fleet Street office. It was the last week in May and the trees in London parks and along the side streets were green with the new leaves of spring. Life was renewing itself after the cold, bleak winter.

  “You’re a friend of Kannberg. Doesn’t look so good. Went ashore on one of the islands near Guadalcanal and hasn’t been seen since. Heavy fighting. Japanese soldiers don’t believe in sur
render. Fight to the end. Honour before life or some such tripe. Amazing how you can indoctrinate the average sod to lay down his life for his country which isn’t his anyway. Only the buggers at the top gain. The troops are fighting nine times out of ten for the privileged who never hear a gun fired in anger. All tied in with religion. For God and country. Bullshit. For the people with the money and their cronies. Brainwashed. The whole damn lot of us. In Africa they sent the missionaries first. When the locals put the missionaries in the pot to boil them, we sent in the troops. If the missionaries didn’t end in the pot they told the locals to kneel down and close their eyes. Whichever way they opened their eyes they found the Union Jack flying above them in the name of Western civilisation. Just a fresh approach to man’s eternal quest for conquest. No one’s ever satisfied with what they’ve got. Anyway, the empire’s finished. The moment we lost Hong Kong and Singapore to the Japs, the empire was finished. Once you’re seen as vulnerable and lose face you never get back on top. No one believes you are invincible anymore. They’re not frightened of you. Even if we win the war India will want independence. And why not? Like the Chinese, they were civilised thousands of years ago when our ancestors were still climbing trees. Poor Kannberg. Another sacrifice on the funeral pyre of empire. After Asia, Africa will want to break its colonial shackles. The Americans can’t wait. All those lovely new markets just waiting for American business and the mighty dollar. Do you know, we just had to pledge the Bahamas for those defunct and out of date destroyers the Americans gave us on lend-lease. We haven’t got a bloody dollar left in the bank. Were it not for Rhodesian tobacco, none of us could get a smoke. The Yanks want to be paid in dollars for their tobacco. Can you believe it? A poor sod can’t even have a smoke. They only came over here in droves to protect us because we owe them so much money. The old story. Borrow twenty quid from the bank and you’ve got a problem, Wakefield. Borrow a million and the bank’s got a problem if you can’t pay it back. After this damn war’s over the Americans will have to get Europe’s economy going again or they’ll never get their money back. We’ll all be working to pay back the Yanks for the next fifty years.”

  “With respect, Mr Glass, you sound like William Smythe.”

  “His secretary just had a son.”

  “I know, sir. I told you. Maybe Bruno Kannberg will come out of the fog of war. I liked him. We sent two hundred and twelve bombers over to Berlin last night. The American Flying Fortresses have gone over again this morning. The Germans have to break some time.”

  “We didn’t. They’re all underground. You’ll only kill a few when you knock down the buildings. There’s a lot more to go in this war, Wakefield. We’re fighting our way down Burma now. Jungle fighting. Man to man. The Japanese are going to find out what we British are made of.”

  “Is there any point if the empire’s doomed?”

  “Pride.”

  “Mr Glass, you just said the Japanese were brainwashed.”

  “That’s different.”

  Shaking his hand, Horatio left his editor’s office. Bruno was the first friend he had in newspapers to go missing. For years he and Janet had envied Bruno and Gillian living in America out of harm’s way.

  Back in his office, Horatio began to mutter behind his closed door.

  “Must have been given the boot by his latest girlfriend. His poor wife. At least I didn’t get the usual diatribe on the virtues of Karl Marx and communism.”

  Then Horatio picked up the phone to give William Smythe the bad news about Bruno and hear about the new baby, Ruth. Once again, as he waited for the call to come through, Horatio thanked his lucky stars for being happily married. With the daily bombing of London a thing of the past, some of Janet’s patients were coming back again. Her appointment at Harrow School had been renewed for every Tuesday in the afternoon. Chuckling to himself in the certainty the boys would no longer spit cherry pips at his wife, as they had done on her first day before the war, Horatio leaned forward to get a cigarette from the wooden box on his desk.

  “What are you chuckling about?” came a voice down the phone line. “Have you heard about Bruno Kannberg?”

  “I’m phoning you about Bruno, Will. He’s gone missing on one of the islands in the South Pacific.”

  “There, but for the grace of God, went I,” said William Smythe.

  “Can we have a drink together? It’s made me feel hollow.”

  “We’ll have a wake.”

  “Don’t tempt fate. He’s only reported missing. I’ll meet you in the Duck and Drake at five o’clock. How’s Ruth?”

  “She’s fine. Just fine. Do you know, Horatio, I’m actually happy.”

  Across in Whitehall, while Horatio was putting on his overcoat to go out against the bitter east wind despite the month of May, Ding-a-ling Bell was giving the same news to Harry Brigandshaw in his office at the Air Ministry.

  “You know that young reporter who found you in the Tropical Disease Hospital when you got back from the Congo, Bruno Kannberg? Gone missing in the Pacific Islands. Waded ashore from a landing craft with the US Marines and hasn’t been heard from since. That was days ago. Fierce fighting. The Japs are holding on to every small island with grim determination. Whatever you think of them for abusing our chaps in Burma, they are brave men. The Americans are having to go in with fixed bayonets to winkle them out of their foxholes. Fine, well-trained soldiers, the Japanese. Very old tradition.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No one knows. Nothing. A Captain Delany lost sight of Kannberg in the surf, according to my source. Delany is the press liaison officer.”

  “Did Kannberg have a gun?”

  “That’s where the muddle starts. The Japs held their fire until the marines were clear of the landing craft and opened fire with well-placed machine guns in the dunes above the beach. Delany says men went down in the surf all round Kannberg. Some dead, some getting down to make smaller targets. Everyone who got up after that and stormed the shore was carrying a rifle. Kannberg was not armed when he left the landing craft making Delany think he died in the surf. Delany for some reason stayed with the navy on the landing craft. Said it was difficult to pick out who was who from the distance to the shore where the marines took out the enemy machine gun nests. The idea was for Kannberg to take close-up pictures of the troops landing and get back to the landing craft with his pictures. Why Delany stayed on board, I suppose. Once the marines overran the machine guns they carried on into the interior of the island. Each island had to be cleared out one by one, man to man, often using hand to hand combat. There’s one hell of a fight going on in the South Pacific. They never found Kannberg’s body in the surf when the firefight died down.”

  “So he might have picked up a dead man’s gun?”

  “Delany said Kannberg was terrified before he went ashore. That he had never been in any kind of military situation.”

  “Shot pheasants with a shotgun at Hastings Court. My staff said he was a damn good shot. They were writing a book about Genevieve. I lent them the Court for a couple of weeks. A 12 bore has a kick worse than a rifle if you don’t pull it into your shoulder. He could shoot all right. When people start shooting at you things change inside your head. Adrenaline pumps and the whole body goes on survival mode. At that point fear’s the last thing you are worried about. You want to kill the other bastard before he kills you. Basic instinct of man is to survive. No one wants to die. What happened to the marines?”

  “Some were picked up by other units to hit the next island before the Japs could prepare another defence. They rolled on. Those Yanks can fight, Harry.”

  “Then he could be alive. Has anyone told his wife in America?”

  “I’ve no idea. Thought you’d like to know. We hit Berlin again last night. Two hundred bombers plus. Like the Americans, the RAF are starting to drop incendiary bombs to fireball the German cities.”

  “Makes me sick.”

  “Not if it makes Hitler stop the war.”

  “Still not r
ight burning civilians. Aren’t we meant to be civilised? I’d like sometimes to phone Klaus von Lieberman and see if his family are all right. Just because Hitler exterminates Jews in concentration camps doesn’t make our case for burning civilians alive. Poor sods are cowering underground like we were in the Blitz. I hate war. It’s always the same. Tit for tat, getting worse and worse. We’re all a bunch of bloody savages. Is Anthony still grounded?”

  “His leg is still a mess.”

  “Thank God.”

  “The CO has put him up for a DSO for getting his aircraft back to Boscombe Down.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Was going to tell you when it was confirmed.”

  Vic Bell saw visible signs of relief on Harry Brigandshaw’s face.

  “I took an interest in Bruno Kannberg when he kept his word not to give me away to the press before I got out of that Paddington hospital,” said Harry. “Keep me informed. Are you coming down to Hastings Court for the weekend? Gets lonely on my own. My nephew is back on active service at Tangmere. Haven’t seen him or his Polish friend in weeks. I think they slip up to London on their forty-eight hour passes. They have mutual friends in the theatre. I wish he had married Genevieve and not waited. Girls are girls in London, especially in the theatre. Everybody grabs what they can while they can. Oh, well. What can an old man do? I miss my wife and children.”

  “I’m sure you do, Harry. I’d enjoy a weekend out of London. We can go and get happy in the Running Horses. Always have such pretty barmaids.”

  “You should have got married.”

  “Oh, you know how it is. Too late now.”

  “Never too late to put on the old ball and chain. Those were good days at 33 Squadron. Despite the war. The last war still had a spark of chivalry. These raids over Germany are mass murder.”