by Simon Raven
“And so will my Platoon Sergeant,” Fingel snarled at Sweenie Mack; “I promise you that. So if you don’t want to find yourself back in the Men’s Canteen, Sergeant Mack, drinking thin brown beer with never a chaser of whisky in sight and flushed out by the Orderly Corporal at 9 p.m. sharp every evening of your miserable life, you’ll scour up those Scottish wits of yours and think what we’d better do next, before both of us are swimming in shit.”
“Glad those guns of yours have got here at last,” said the Colonel to Fingel at luncheon in the mess; “looks much better than having those silly wooden jobs.”
“I’m afraid there’s been a hitch, Colonel,” said Fingel glumly.
“What hitch? Your orders were quite plain: you were to go and see that German Bahnhof chappie on the jilde and bring those guns back to barracks. Then get ’em cleaned up, and all thik hai.”
“Things weren’t quite thik hai at the station, Colonel. I went off to see that German Bahnhof chappie within fifteen minutes of receiving the order. The guns weren’t there.”
“Weren’t there?”
“Weren’t there, Colonel. Jolly bad show.”
Fingel lifted a silver goblet (presented by Captain Percival Boffingham-Bramble in Seringapatam in 1889), held it briefly in front of the Colonel’s face as if toasting him, and took a long swallow.
“I’ve got a letter of apology from the Bahnhof chappie,” Fingel went on as he lowered the goblet. “He’s in a terrible flap, looking high and low. He swears they’d come in yesterday evening, when he notified the Adjutant’s Office about them, and of course he’ll let us know at once if he finds them again.”
“All I can say is, he’d better find them in time for the Inspection.”
“Perhaps he will, Colonel; and then again, perhaps he won’t. We must hope for the best. Here’s his letter of apology, by the way – just for the record.”
“All right,” I said to Fingel later that afternoon, having dropped in to warm my bottom at the stove in his office, “what really happened?”
“What I told the Colonel, old bean. That Bahnhof chappie couldn’t find me so much as a single gun in his station; so eventually he had to give up and write a grovelling chitty of confession.”
“But it’s incredible. He can’t just have lost five Anti-Tank guns.”
“You wouldn’t think so, old bean. But I rather think there’s been an unfortunate misunderstanding over the goods wagons. You see, while I went to the Bahnhof chappie’s office to open up negotiations, Sergeant Mack did a little recce round the place, and there in a siding was a wagon labelled British War Department Stores (BAOR) NACH GOETTINGEN. Our baby, thinks Sergeant Mack; so now we know where it is that label had better come off. Bad for security, he thinks, because some casual spy might fancy a peep at those British War Department Stores, and we can’t have folk like that spotting our new Rocket Launchers. And just to make security doubly secure, he thinks, I’ll pop on another label I happen to have with me which says STUHLEN NACH FRANKFURT. No spy will want to look at a wagonful of chairs, he thinks, and even if he does, and finds our guns instead, he’ll think they’re going to Frankfurt and that will confuse him. So then Sergeant Mack suddenly has to go for a strain in the Herren, and as he hurries back he sees a wagon labelled STUHLEN NACH FRANKFURT being attached to a long line of other wagons also labelled FRANKFURT. Oh dear goodness me, he thinks, I hope that’s not our wagon; but lo and behold, when he gets back to the siding, our wagon has gone.”
Fingel paused and gave a long, sorrowful sigh.
“Poor silly Sergeant Mack! He has not been very adroit, I’m afraid, but since he so evidently took his precautions out of good will and a sense of duty, I cannot find it in me to make a fool of him by reporting him to the Colonel or explaining what has happened to the Bahnhof chappie. Meanwhile, however, I greatly fear that this wretched misunderstanding will considerably hamper the search for our guns, and I must sadly predict,” concluded Fingel, “that they will not be delivered to us in time for the Annual Inspection – if indeed” – he rolled his eyes to heaven – “they have not been lost forever.”
Fingel in the Field
“You hang around here tonight,” said Fingel, “and you’ll see some fun when the retreat begins. I’m going to need you.” There was a loud, crackling bleat; Fingel turned with a pout of distaste and picked up a pair of earphones. “Fingel here,” he said, disdaining every known law of correct wireless procedure, “what’s the matter now?”
Fingel and I were sitting in a kind of caravan, which had been dug into a hole in the middle of a copse and was heavily draped with camouflage nets. The interior of the caravan was plastered with maps of West Germany and comprehended a battery of radio transmitters, over one or the other of which Temporary Captain and Adjutant Fingel would from time to time relay a languid instruction or improvise an evasive answer.
We were in the middle of Exercise Broomstick, which was the climax of our mid-summer manoeuvres for 1954 and was to take the form of a retreat by night from our present position to the Lüneburg Heath to a destination as yet unknown. The Colonel had just been summoned to Brigade HQ to receive final orders, the Second-in-Command, an old India hand, was having his siesta, and thus our entire battalion was for the time being under the somewhat dilettante control of Fingel.
“…How should I know where your rations have got to?” Fingel was saying on the set. “Perhaps they’ve been captured by the enemy.” A harassed voice started to reply, but Fingel pulled a plug out from somewhere and the set went dead. “I think we’ll have radio silence for a while,” Fingel said; “all this silly chatter over the air is bad for security. What was I saying?”
“That you’ll need my help tonight when the retreat starts. But what about my guns?” Being the new commander of the Anti-Tank Platoon, I was personally responsible, as Fingel well knew, for gathering up my six anti-tank guns from their outlying positions and getting them into their correct place in the retreating column.
“Bring them in now,” said Fingel; “I’m going to need them too.”
“But they’re not meant to be brought in till after dark. That’s the whole point of this exercise.”
But Fingel had already put the plug back into the transmitter. “Attention all sub-units,” he said. “Instruct anti-tank guns in support to withdraw and RV at Battalion HQ immediately.” He pulled the plug out again. “When they get here,” he said to me, “hide them in that hollow beyond this copse.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Only have faith,” said Fingel, “and all will be made plain.”
The afternoon went on. One by one my guns arrived and were duly concealed, with the heavy-tracked vehicles that drew them, in the hollow adjacent to the copse. The Second-in-Command stirred in his deck chair as they rumbled past but did not wake. Later on the Colonel arrived back from Brigade HQ. Fingel hurriedly replugged the radio transmitter. The Second-in-Command was woken at last and sent off, sweaty and disagreeable, to reconnoitre the area to which Brigade had now ordered us to retreat. Company commanders were summoned to an O-group, and all complained that they had been unable to contact HQ on the wireless for the entire afternoon.
“The set went kaput,” said Fingel. “I’ve just finished mending it.”
Orders were given. Darkness would fall at 2142 hours, at which time precisely companies would commence withdrawal. A Coy to pass through the checkpoint at 2157 hours, B Coy… etc., etc., etc. The company commanders dispersed. Evening came on. The Colonel had a quick and nasty sandwich, and went off to supervise the manning and organisation of the checkpoint (a crossroads about a mile away).
“Remember,” he said to Fingel, “you and the command trailer and the other HQ vehicles are due through the checkpoint at 2225 hours. You’ll have your hands full getting them all dug out in time, so get started at once.”
“Yes, Colonel,” said Fingel.
“Now,” he said to me over a bottle of hock and a large dish of stuffed q
uails, which were elegantly served to us by his batman a few minutes after the Colonel’s departure, “it is 2105 hours. At 2145 we shall have visitors.”
“Visitors?”
“That beastly Brigadier and his sycophants will come snooping round to see how we are getting on with our preparations to withdraw. His great object will be to make sure that all officers assist in digging out the vehicles.”
This sounded likely enough. The Brigadier, a lean, mean, ambitious officer, was well-known for his modishly “democratic” approach to soldiering. Officers, he insisted, must do their full share of menial labour in the field and must dress exactly as their men did, in ammunition boots, steel helmets, webbing equipment and all.
“Lewson from Brigade warned me,” Fingel went on. “‘2145 hours he’s got your HQ scheduled for,’ Lewson said, ‘and he’ll come in battle order and tin hat himself so as to mingle unnoticed with the crowd and get a closer look. So make sure you’re in there digging with the troops’.”
“And shall you be?”
“No. I have an amusing plan for a Brigadier bate. He particularly loathes me and will be particularly keen to catch me skiving. On that the plan turns.”
“And where do I and my guns come in?”
Fingel told me. I then went over to the hollow to pass on his instructions to my sergeant and returned to the caravan, where Fingel, now in an advanced state of excitement, had changed from battle dress into a sleek service dress tunic and highly polished Sam Browne belt. He was carrying a riding whip.
“Rather overdoing it?” I said. “That whip?”
“As Adjutant, I am a mounted officer.”
“Temporary Adjutant.”
“Then at least temporarily mounted.” Fingel went to the caravan door. “Sergeant-Major,” he called, “have the men start digging out this trailer.”
“Sir.”
“You’ve left it rather late,” I said to Fingel.
“Part of the plan…”
A party of HQ clerks started digging away one end of the hole, in order to form a ramp up which the caravan might be towed. Meanwhile some dim figures, all hung about with straps and packs and pouches, had appeared at the far end of the copse. “That’s him,” said Fingel, peering through a window. He opened the window and stuck his head out like a jack-in-thebox. “Hurry up, you chaps,” he called to the diggers: “I want to get away before the Brigadier and his toadies come crawling round to spy on us.” He shut the window with a snap. “That,” he said to me, “was so that the Brigadier will think we haven’t seen through his disguise and don’t know he’s here.”
The Brigadier and his party advanced in a casual way and soon became absorbed into the mêlée of scurrying soldiery – not a difficult matter, as it was now almost pitch dark and no lights were allowed because of “security”. After a few minutes, doubtless devoted to expert nosing, a high voice as of a Sealyham in season was heard: the Brigadier in person, complaining.
“Now,” said Fingel: “signal your sergeant.”
“Too-whit-too-whoo,” I called and felt very foolish. But the agreed answer came back (“Too-whoo-too-whit”) and within a few moments my anti-tank guns began to roll up out of the hollow. The Brigadier went on griping away at the edge of our hole, obsessed with his subject, heedless of all else.
“Slack, slovenly, incompetence,” he yapped. “No effort, no method. Where is the officer in charge?”
“Here,” said Fingel, marching up the ramp. “Who are you, interfering with my men?”
“I’m your Brigadier.”
The Brigadier’s staff began to gather behind him.
“No, you’re not,” said Fingel. “Our Brigadier is a very civil fellow. He doesn’t squeal at people like a banshee.”
My guns moved on, drawn by their armoured carriers; but no one had ears for them.
“Why aren’t you digging?” yelped the Brigadier. “The officer should set the example.” And then, at last taking in Fingel’s dainty accoutrements through the darkness, “Why are you dressed like that?” he screeched at Fingel.
“Why are you dressed like that? Brigadiers don’t dress like squaddies on punishment drill. Not our Brigadier, God bless him. You’re an impostor.”
And still the anti-tank guns rolled on across the copse, ignored by all in the excitement of the altercation. It began to rain, very suddenly and very hard.
“Right, S’arnt-Major,” Fingel called.
The vehicle to tow Fingel’s caravan backed towards the ramp, routing the Brigadier and scattering his staff. At the same time the anti-tank guns at last reached the far end of the copse, and the massive carriers smashed through the Land Rovers (concealed, as Fingel had rightly calculated, behind a prominent clump of bushes) which had brought the sneaky entourage from Brigade HQ…all the officers from which, hearing the hideous grinding and stoving, now swam desperately through the almost solid rain towards their mangled vehicles.
“Your men won’t stop, I hope,’ said Fingel, as we moved off in the caravan and swiftly skirted the wreckage.
“Oh no. I was very firm about that, as you told me. They’d be scared stiff of being left behind when the battalion moves out.”
“Good. This rain is a real bonus,” Fingel said; “I hadn’t dared hope for that…”
“And of course,” said Fingel to a crowd of admirers a day or two later, “they’ll never know who did it or how it happened because they weren’t paying any attention and by the time they’d assessed the damage the guns and the whole battalion were off into the night.
“Not only were the Brigadier’s Land Rovers unable to move an inch – and him fifteen miles from anywhere in the middle of the heath – but they weren’t even any good to shelter in, because he’s got this fad about fitness, and his own order forbids the use of hoods on Land Rovers to stop us getting soft. He must be the only officer in his Brigade who obeys it, and I hope he feels the fitter for it now.”
Fingel Adjutans
“Three quid a day,” said Fingel; “it’s the standard rate for full subalterns.”
“What discount for cash?” I asked.
“None. Only cash is accepted.”
“Special terms for old friends then?”
“Balls to that. I happen to know,” said Fingel, “that you had a nice little win at Ludlow Races the other day, about which you have been keeping studiously quiet ever since. Hardly the behaviour of an old friend, would you say? Three quid per diem, old bean, and that’s flat.”
“Very well.” I passed Fingel six quid (the filthiest I could find) across his desk. “From after duty Tuesday till reveille on Friday?”
“Done.” Fingel reached for the Leave Book. “So what’s your story?”
This conversation was taking place during the early summer of 1955. Our battalion, at present encamped in transit barracks in the West Midlands, was to embark for Kenya in seven days’ time. Now, Army Council Instructions state very firmly that no one is to be allowed leave of absence, except in the most urgent cases of compassion, from a unit that is within ten days of embarking for foreign service. Or at least that’s what they stated in 1955. But Captain Fingel, who was enjoying one of his periods of trial and error as our Adjutant, was disposed to accept as “compassionate” any case which could be supported by folding money. Three pounds a day for full Lieutenants (as I was then), a fiver for Captains, and a tenner for Majors; for even Field Officers required Exeats from the Adjutant (who supposedly issued them on the authority of the Colonel) if they wished to leave barracks while under orders to sail.
“What’s your story?” Fingel repeated now. “I’ve got to enter something in the bloody book.”
“Grandmother’s funeral?”
“For Christ’s sake.”
“Father facing bankruptcy and suffering from delirium tremens?”
“We’ve got young Milne down for that.”
“Younger sister being expelled from Convent School for dancing in dorm naked?”
“Why s
hould I let you away for that?”
“As you very well know,” I said, “you’re letting me away for six quid.”
“But your story’s got to be plausible. I mean, if the Colonel or some other nosey-parker comes round and says, ‘Where’s Raven?’, and I say, ‘He’s been allowed off on leave because his sister did a naked dance in her Convent’, I’m going to look exceedingly silly.”
“The point is,” I said, “that she is being expelled. I am going home to soothe my parents in their sorrow and help them get the balance of the term’s fees back from the Reverend Mother.”
“It just doesn’t have the right feel. Let’s say…” Fingel thought for a moment. “Let’s say your sister has got engaged to an errand-boy without telling anyone, and you’re going home to horse-whip him for his presumption, your father being too senile to attempt the task.”
“Sounds too dated, somehow.”
“Yes… What about a dangerous abortion?”
“Too near the knuckle.”
“Don’t be so faddy.”
“It is my sister.”
“You didn’t mind her dancing about naked.”
“That was different. Rather jolly. I don’t want anything sordid.”
“I’ve got it,” said Fingel. “She’s fallen so hopelessly in love with her gym mistress that she can’t keep her grub down, and the psychiatrist says she needs her favourite brother to cry on.”
“Too soppy,” I said.
“They like something soppy; that’s what ‘compassion’ is all about. Anyway,” said Fingel, “it’ll bloody well have to do. I’m much in demand just now. I’m letting Sergeants and Warrant Officers in on this racket, and there’s a queue of them all down the corridor. So be a good bean and bugger off. ‘Lieutenant Raven, S.,’” he said, writing in the Leave Book; “‘A/Duty Tue. to Rev. Fri. Sister…in moral crisis and needs brother’s help and advice’.”
“But that could cover anything,” I said.
