‘Anything I can do, sir?’
‘I don’t know what,’ the Major snapped.
Harry thought that his protector was looking old and beaten. ‘I could ride around a bit. See if I could see him. You see, sir, I can’t understand why he should run off. He was dead chuffed being here. He thought someone would do him in at the hospital. And saying he wanted to desert from the German Army would have put the kybosh on him anyway.’
The Major puzzled this over. Of course the man should have been properly guarded, but then the Major had the same impression as Harry: that he had struck lucky to be taken over by the British Army.
‘Well, yes, if you think it might do any good. I’ll have to report it anyway, but it would do the world of good if we could find him.’
Harry’s nimble mind raced to find a tactful way to disagree with his superior. If the matter were reported it would soon be out of the Major’s hands. ‘Can you give me a couple of hours, sir? I mean, before you let on.’
The Major looked at Harry. He knew that he was a rogue and was only thinking of his own interests, and yet in these matters he did seem to have a superior instinct. He could say that he was writing a report. ‘All right. I’ll sit on it until the afternoon. Say, fourteen hundred hours.’
Harry went for his van. He didn’t know where he was going to look, but the silly bugger couldn’t have got far. He wouldn’t have the nerve to hitch-hike, and he had no money for the train.
As soon as he got into the driving seat he knew that something was wrong. The seat had been pushed back to accommodate longer legs than his. He checked the mileage. He was scrupulous about this. When he was out on his own he did a bit of freewheeling to conserve petrol, which, when it got to a canful, he could siphon off and sell. There was the record of a twenty-mile trip. The keys were in their usual place on the rack in the garage which was supposed to be locked but often wasn’t. In any case, you could blow the door down it was so flimsy with rotting wood. The Major was right. Things had got very slack lately.
The thing was that if the van had gone just twenty miles overall it had gone only ten miles away from the barracks. The road from the gates led into town, which was three miles away. This meant that the driver must have gone around the outskirts. There was a sort of ring road, which linked up some housing estates, patches of moorland and straggly villages, rural islands trying to cling on to aspects of rustic life but surrounded by arrested developments. Harry turned left into it, noting that he had clocked three miles. He drove slowly, his eyes swivelling from right to left, trying to cover the whole territory. There were a few kids about, intent on destroying everything in sight, workmen patching up the road and a couple of desultory walkers. Harry somehow felt that God was on his side. He felt confident. He knew that if he didn’t find the missing German his life would change drastically.
He came to a patch of scrubland with some derelict factories with all their windows broken, rusting machinery outside nestling in weeds and gorse. Suddenly his eye registered a movement. Somebody running and waving about a quarter of a mile away. He drove towards the excited figure. It was the German. Harry pulled up, and the man reached the van, gasping.
‘No drinken,’ he said.
‘What are you doing out here?’
The German was still short of breath, but he looked relieved. ‘On guard,’ he spluttered.
Harry stared. Was it April the first? ‘Guarding what?’ he said.
The German was shaking. ‘Cold,’ he said. ‘Very.’
‘Climb in,’ said Harry. ‘Who brought you here?’
‘Soldiers. In British Army now. I desert.’
‘I know,’ said Harry. ‘I might do the same myself.’
Slowly Harry extracted the story that the German had been brought to this spot by two soldiers. One had a lot of bubbly hair, the other was dark. It was almost a snapshot portrait of two men he knew well. But the important thing was not punishment but how to keep the matter hushed up.
He drove back to the barracks weighing up the options. He took the prisoner into the Major’s office. Mixed emotions raced across the Major’s face, relief and anger being the most prominent.
‘He hadn’t got far, sir.’
‘But why? Why did he run off? Does he speak English?’
‘A bit.’
‘Well, ask him.’
‘He says he was taken in an army van.’
‘What!’
‘Just a lark, sir.’
‘A lark! A lark that’s going to get someone a long stretch in the glasshouse.’
Harry hesitated. This was the awkward bit. The old man had had a terrible fright. Could he be relied on to see which side his bread was buttered, even if it were upside down?
‘The thing is, sir, if anyone were charged they would have to be charged with taking him from the barracks.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And that will mean that he wasn’t properly guarded. It will almost amount to the same thing.’
The Major looked stunned. ‘That will mean that whoever did this will get away scot-free.’
Harry adopted his wooden-faced look. ‘It’s in your hands, sir. After all, we’ve got him back.’
The Major paced up and down. The German prisoner looked weary and puzzled. This was a funny army, as bad as the Germans, who at least had seemed to know what they were doing. But these English had funny ways. Their sense of humour was notorious. Always playing jokes.
‘Take him back to the sick bay. And tell the duty sergeant to put a sentry outside.’
‘Sir!’ said Harry smartly.
Now Harry was faced with the problem that everybody had been involved in turning the place over to find the missing prisoner. Some explanation had to be advanced to explain his return. He sidled into the sick bay where one of the medical orderlies was playing patience.
‘Ten on the jack,’ said Harry. ‘Is he all right?’
‘Who?’ said the orderly.
‘The German. I heard that he had to go back to the hospital.’
‘Did he?’
‘Must be all right though. They’ve let him come back, haven’t they?’ Having carefully sowed the seed Harry retreated and made his way back to the Major’s office. ‘The prisoner has returned from the hospital, sir.’
‘Eh?’ The Major looked blank. ‘Oh. I see. Good.’
Harry still stood stiffly to attention.
‘That’ll be all. The next time make sure someone knows if he has to go for treatment. By the way, you were called back from your weekend pass, weren’t you?’
American military police, known as Snowdrops because of their white helmets, swarmed over the town as soon as the news of the GI’s death was known. They stayed on into the evening, marching into pubs, interviewing people in the street, outnumbering the local police who had been put on the case. The Americans felt affronted by the incident. They had come all these thousands of miles to help these Limeys out of a spot and found themselves set upon by the very people who ought, by rights, to feel grateful. In fact the British people resented their presence, treated them like an invading army and, worst of all, thought that their main purpose was to breach the flower of Britain’s maidenhood, who, after all, were queuing up for the privilege. And now one of their number had been found dead with his head smashed in. Why?
Later that day the local police made a second visit to the barracks.
They had interviewed a young girl who said that she had seen two British soldiers fighting with the GI. They requested an interview with all the soldiers individually. The Major had to agree, although he asserted stoutly that he had every confidence in his men. So the police set up an office in a storeroom and set about interviewing everybody in the camp.
There was a queue outside the makeshift police station. Names were ticked off from a list; Chalkie was one of the last, which gave him the maximum time to sweat. Jock went in earlier.
‘What did you say?’
Jock enjoyed seeing Chal
kie looking so anxious.
‘I told him you did it.’
‘You bastard!’ said Chalkie.
‘Don’t shit yourself. I told them that we were out together. That we had a few drinks and came back early. And that we didn’t see any fighting.’
‘Yeah,’ said Chalkie, licking his dry lips. ‘That’s right.’
‘Of course,’ said Jock, ‘they don’t have to believe me, but they will when you tell them the same thing. I told you, if we back each other up it’ll all be OK.’
‘You wouldn’t fuck about, would you? On a thing like this.’
‘Of course not. You’re all right. Just tell them you were with me.’
It was well into the evening before Chalkie had his interview. It was the detective and the constable.
‘Mr White –’
‘Private,’ said Chalkie. ‘Look, I was out with Jock –’
‘Jock who?’
‘Private Patterson. We didn’t see anything.’
The detective leant forward, and Chalkie’s stomach turned over, causing him to fart. He was sweating like he was in a Turkish bath.
‘What are you so nervous about?’ said the detective. ‘Nobody is accusing you of anything. We’ve got to do this to satisfy our American cousins. Did you have a fight?’
‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t see anything. Ask Jock.’
‘Oh. We have. You went to the Beehive public house, had two pints and walked home early.’
‘That’s right,’ said Chalkie eagerly.
‘Your two stories fit. Dovetail nicely, you might say.’
‘Well, then. Can I go now?’
The detective stared at him as if he was trying to read his mind. After a while he looked away, as though he had discovered that there was no mind to read.
‘That’s all … For the moment,’ he added carefully.
Chalkie went out, feeling uneasy.
When the door was shut the detective said, ‘I don’t think we need to go any further. It was him and the Scot.’
‘Yes,’ said the constable. ‘He was shitting himself.’
‘I know. I could smell it. But they’re covering for each other. It’ll be hard to break them down. After all, it’s only a bloody Yank. We’d better see the others. How many more?’
‘Two. Are you going to get the girl up?’
‘I don’t think so. Let the Americans sort it out if they’re so bloody clever.’
Harry Boy Fortune knew that he had crossed the line. He would have to watch it. The Major was in his hands. Harry knew that it was a dodgy situation to have something on someone who was your superior. It undermined authority.
The Major wasn’t just grateful for being helped out of a hole. He had put himself in the position of being blackmailed. If he felt threatened it would be simple to remove the threat by getting Harry transferred somewhere, and he didn’t want to go anywhere. He was comfortable where he was.
So he was extra deferential to the Major, at pains to build up his confidence, to remove any possible suspicion that he would take advantage of the situation. He had heard that Betsy and May were back. He could spend a weekend there. But before that he had to fix Jock and Chalkie. He found them in the canteen, drinking tea from pint mugs, looking like the wolf that had eaten Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. He sat down with them and spoke out of the side of his mouth.
‘You know what you bastards have done? You’ve put all of us in the shit. Me, the Major, the whole bloody unit could be turned over. Did you really think that anyone would believe that that poor little bugger would try to escape, especially as he’s wounded with a bloody great hole in his back?’
Chalkie and Jock stared at the floor.
Chalkie said, ‘We didn’t mean –’
‘Shut up!’ snapped Jock.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Harry. ‘Don’t bother.’
Chalkie looked alarmed. ‘You ain’t got nothing on us.’
‘Shut up!’ said Jock. ‘Can’t you see? He’s leading you into it.’
‘It looks as though you might get away with it this time,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve fixed it. Not for your sake but for all of us. We’ve got a quiet life here.’
Chalkie had a sudden rush of blood to the head. ‘You’ve got no right,’ he spluttered. ‘Same as us. You’re only a lance-corporal. That’s nothing.’
Harry got up. He tugged his tunic jacket down. Somehow he looked smarter than he should in standard uniform, a tribute to Daft Charlie’s ministrations. He straightened his shoulders. The contrast between the spry and alert operator and the two clumsy conspirators was striking. ‘The same as you,’ he agreed. ‘Do me a favour.’ He went to the door and came back. ‘Just for curiosity, why did you do it?’
The two braves looked at each other dumbly, as though each thought the other might think of something feasible.
Finally Chalkie said, ‘It was a bet.’
‘I bet you won’t do it again. Or anything else. If either of you two slommocks step out of line I’ll have you in the guardroom before you can get out of bed.’
Jock stared at the floor as though he wished he were comfortably dead and out of this mess, while Chalkie had his usual expression of an overindulged child who had turned petulant at his first brush with reality.
When Harry finally left them Chalkie was shaking.
‘He’s all wind and piss,’ said Jock.
‘I know,’ said Chalkie, shaking himself into a vainglorious pose. ‘But he don’t know about –’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Jock interrupted.
That night Chalkie and Jock played a desultory hand of rummy. Chalkie was shaking and Jock was gravely silent.
‘What if we –?’
‘What?’ said Jock. ‘You’ve got an idea?’
Chalkie was annoyed at the stream of contempt emanating from his companion. ‘Suppose we volunteered for active service?’ ‘What! Are you mad?’
‘You see, they’d never take us. With my eyes and your chest, but it’d look good, wouldn’t it? I mean, if we’re willing to go over there and fight. Well …’ he finished lamely.
‘You mean that if we showed how patriotic we were it would divert suspicion away from us?’
‘It was just an idea,’ said Chalkie.
That night his bed collapsed. The springs had been cut. Wearily Chalkie made the best he could of it. Whatever Jock might do was nothing to what might happen if the truth about the GI was discovered.
The unit had a regular assignment in a factory that made lard and shampoos, washing powder and bleach. They went in once a week to scrape the pipes of the machinery, which became encrusted with by-products of the various processes. It was an idea originally suggested by Harry Boy and negotiated via the Major. It was an easy number, and Chalkie and Jock always used the occasion to steal a box of lard, which was swiftly loaded on to the transport van and sold to a chip shop. But this time Jock shook his head. ‘We can’t take any risks,’ he said, and Chalkie, although heartbroken at the lost opportunity, agreed. The two were much quieter, and the others who shared the same room were puzzled.
‘You all right, mate?’ said Alf to Chalkie.
‘No,’ said Chalkie. ‘I’m bloody browned off. We don’t do anything. We just fuck about. I’ve a good mind to volunteer for overseas. Get out of this dump.’
‘Christ!’ said Alf. ‘If the Germans get to hear that you’re going over they’ll surrender in droves.’
‘We ought to be getting on with it,’ said Taffy. ‘The fact is that the government don’t really want to be fighting against Hitler. They’d much sooner be having a go at Stalin. They were hoping that the Germans would wipe out the Russians. Then we would have made peace with Hitler and given him a bloody great medal for ridding the world of them bloody Bolshies.’
It was Taffy’s idea that Britain had a secret pact with Hitler and that when Hitler found he couldn’t finish off the Russians on his own he had asked Britain for help, and when Churchill refused to join in, h
oping that the two extremists would cancel each other out, Hitler turned nasty. ‘Churchill thought that he could take Uncle Joe for a ride, but Stalin’s nobody’s fool.’
Corporal Gross was genuinely puzzled by Taffy’s reasoning. ‘I can never make out whose side you’re on.’
‘He’s on my side,’ said Alf. ‘I hope.’
The corporal had an invitation for tea that night. A girl called Flora, who had played the lead opposite him in The Desert Song, had invited him to have tea with her parents.
It was a small house in Blackley, and Gross fancied his chances. They had got very close on the stage. He had hugged her in her harem costume and kissed her in the course of the production, and her eyes had signalled that she was willing to carry over the romance into real life.
But off stage she was a reserved, bookish girl. It was as if the acting released a tide of repressed sexuality but after it was over she crept back into her modest persona. She allowed him to peck at her cheek at the door, and then he was ushered into the front parlour, which was obviously shut up most of the time, only being opened on what might be thought appropriate occasions. Flora’s mother was standing in the hall, her eyes shining with positive welcome, and somewhere in the background, in a baggy brown cardigan, was her father, looking like he was trying to think of an excuse to absent himself from the domestic scene.
‘So glad to meet you,’ said Flora’s mother, ‘after seeing you on stage.’
‘Yes,’ said Corporal Gross, wondering how he could get rid of the old couple or whether he should suggest that he and Flora went out for a walk.
‘Put some coal on the fire, Father,’ said Flora’s mother, and Flora’s father, looking as though he had been accused of extreme meanness, built up the fire like he was getting ready to roast a suckling pig. Then the mother brought in something she called ‘balm cakes’, which they ate with blackberry jam. There was a complete farce in the handing round of cups and saucers.
Long and the Short Page 10
