Behind the old lady he saw Barrington, in the uniform of a Home Guard officer, approaching. He sighed inwardly. Mrs Mahon-Feavor caught the glance and turned. ‘Captain Barrington,’ she said, ‘Colonel Schorner is worried that marching up and down the hill will be too much for everybody.’
Bluntly Barrington saluted Schorner. The American returned the acknowledgement. ‘Our chaps will be fine,’ said Barrington, as stiff as his salute. ‘I hope you Americans will be.’
‘I think they’ll be going to try their damnedest,’ said Schorner. He was feeling weary of the slow battle by now. ‘They’re just now marking the toes of their boots.’ He smiled at the English puzzlement. ‘You know, a letter R on the right and a L on the left. So they don’t get mixed up.’
Barrington stepped back a military pace and appeared to be about to make a reply. He thought the better of it and threw up another wooden arm, this time in the direction of Mrs Mahon-Feavor. ‘I think we are ready to assemble, madam,’ he said. Without glancing at Schorner he added: ‘Our side.’
‘We’ll be off then,’ said the lady in Schorner’s direction. ‘We move away in ten minutes sharp. If your chaps have turned up by then stick them on the end, will you please? After the Brownies.’
Further salutes were flung up and the pair strode back towards the motley, Barrington’s backbone so erect it seemed it might fracture, Mrs Mahon-Feavor’s rump swinging under the uniform skirt like the back of an overburdened mule. Schorner turned to Evans, grinning sympathetically as he leaned on his fence.
‘And I thought we had come to fight the goddamned Germans,’ said Schorner.
‘They’ll change,’ forecast Evans. ‘They were like that when we arrived and we were only Welsh. In the end they’ll come to know the Americans for what they are.’
‘Right,’ said Schorner turning away. ‘Their salvation.’
Waiting to bless the parade, the Reverend Eric Sissons stood in the February breeze, his vestments blowing mildly around and about him like limp white wings. His father, his medals from the First War burnished on his chest, stood stiffly at the side of the road while Cecily, the vicar’s wife, slightly and secretly supported herself with a wind-bent tree.
Colonel Schorner stood by Sissons, watching the parade form into its assembly order, the children more composed than the adults. He could hear Mrs Mahon-Feavor shouting at the far end of the quay. The Wilcoombe band were tuning gastrically.
‘It’s a pity they can’t play “The Grand Old Duke of York”,’ mentioned Sissons, squeezing up his eyes against the sunny wind.
‘I’m not familiar with that,’ said Schorner.
‘The band’s not actually familiar with anything, I’m afraid,’ continued Sissons grimly. ‘They have a sort of nodding acquaintance with the National Anthem and they play a mangled version of “Blaze Away”. They’re very tedious I’m afraid.’ He looked at Schorner as though he had just heard his previous remark. ‘Don’t you know it over your side?’ he asked. To Schorner’s surprise he began to chant. The tone was hollow, ecclesiastical.
‘The Grand Old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.’
The American officer smiled widely. ‘Right, I get it,’ he said. ‘It certainly does seem a pity we can’t hear that. Maybe our band will know it.’
Sissons reacted sharply: ‘You have a band, colonel? In this parade?’
Schorner glanced at his watch. ‘It’s nothing. It’s only a little, quiet, US Army band. They just got ashore from a troopship, but I received a message that they had arrived at their post and they’d be right along here. It should add a little … well … colour, I guess.’
The clergyman appeared visibly brightened by the news. ‘Oh, that’s good,’ he said, but keeping his voice low. ‘It will be a change from these miserable puffers and blowers. They’ve never been able to learn the simplest Christmas carols to play in church. Half of “Away in a Manger” and they run out of technique.’ His smile dropped. ‘Does Mrs Mahon-Feavor know? About your American band?’
‘Not exactly,’ admitted Schorner easily. ‘I thought it would only complicate matters.’
Sissons frowned so deeply his nose seemed to close over his upper lip. ‘If any woman could be described as manic, then it’s Mrs Mahon-Feavor,’ he confided. ‘Hitler in knickers.’
‘A tough cookie,’ agreed Schorner, stemming his laugh. ‘This routine of marching up and down the hill seems pretty oddball to me. Okay, so the coastal road is closed and the villages off limits, and there’s nothing but fields to the north, but the road goes west as well. What about the places I’ve seen on the map? Brinhope and, what is it, Tolling Cove?’
‘No good,’ Sissons told him firmly. ‘Not at all. The inhabitants here in Wilcoombe have had nothing to do with the Brinhope people since before the First World War. Some matter of stolen pigs I think. Things like that tend to rankle in this part of the world. Perhaps it’s because, up to now, nothing else has ever happened. If we sent the parade through Brinhope, even if they would agree to go, which they wouldn’t, the Brinhope people would turn out and probably pelt us with slops. There was a cricket match once that ended in bloodshed.’
Schorner listened attentively, but he was watching for the arrival of his platoon of troops. The parade was now almost formed and the contingent from the anti-aircraft site were marching bootily from their compound to the front of the procession immediately behind the Wilcoombe band. ‘I still have a lot to learn about folks in these parts,’ he said eventually.
‘Nobody knows them,’ said Sissons decisively. ‘I doubt if they know themselves.’ He heard a small commotion behind him and turned. ‘I must go, colonel,’ he said without excitement. ‘My wife appears to have fallen over.’ Schorner followed his look and saw that Cecily Sissons had slid down the trunk of the bent tree. She was sitting bandily on the cobbles holding on to the foot of the tree like a mahout clasping a favourite elephant’s leg.
‘Oh gee,’ said Schorner, ‘let me help you.’
The two men, in their respective uniforms, helped the gaping, gasping woman to her feet. She helped them by going hand-over-hand up the curved trunk. ‘It’s her legs,’ explained Sissons desperately.
‘Yes, they’re full of gin,’ put in his father cruelly.
Schorner pretended not to hear. As they got Cecily wedged against the tree again he heard an American voice shouting orders and to his relief saw that his men were rounding the corner to the quay. The platoon was dressed in smooth walking-out uniforms, marching almost languidly, with one separate section of six men in battledress and carrying carbines. As they turned on to the cobbles the colonel saw with annoyance that a group of young girls and women were following them, edging alongside the parade, smiling and pushing hair away from faces, and sticking out breasts. Then they added giggles and began to call the men by their familiar names. ‘Hank … Harry … Sweeney …’ Schorner’s lips thinned.
Sharply he strode towards the platoon which was now moving towards its position next to the Brownies at the rear of the parade, Lieutenant Kenholm, who was at its head, having been briskly directed there by Mrs Mahon-Feavor. The eyes of the people, participants and spectators alike, followed them as they progressed. Schorner heard remarks and bronchial sniggers from the Home Guard section and saw the indulgent smiles from the British Army contingent. His throat tightened.
Lieutenant Kenholm was blushing to his tight collar by the time the platoon at last reached the tail of the parade. Its contingent of camp-following girls stopped also and stood simpering a few feet away. Even the little girls in the Brownies turned their heads and looked with smiles at the Yanks.
The US soldiers wheeled and halted in their places. Schorner stood quietly at the side, watching them. He moved towards Kenholm. ‘These men in battle order,’ he said. ‘Why haven’t they got blackened faces?’
The young lieutenant looked
astonished. ‘But, sir … I didn’t think … as this is a parade.’
‘Get them black,’ ordered Schorner. ‘I want these people to see what a fighting GI looks like. Okay, get to it.’
The armed section were rubbing night-blacking into their cheekbones and on their foreheads below their helmets when Mrs Mahon-Feavor came busying along the long crocodile. ‘All ready?’ she barked at each section. Everybody was. She pulled up at the tail, surveying the Americans, at first the smoothly uniformed men at the van ranks and then the section who were occupied in blacking their faces. She looked questioningly in Schorner’s direction. He saluted and smiled courteously. ‘Won’t be long, ma’am,’ he said. ‘The minstrels are getting their make-up on.’
Far at the front the village band struck up, more or less together, into their version of the march ‘Blaze Away’, and the long, ragged caravan edged forward. Kenholm waited until there was a good gap between his men and the moving-away Brownies in their neat dresses before he gave the Americans orders to march. Collisions were something he could not afford.
The parade presented a curious sight, a strung-out circus eventually turning the corner at the quay and beginning the ascent of Wilcoombe Hill. First, the humphing band, sweat soon sticking grey hairs to the foreheads beneath the blue caps, the well-worn boots striking the cobbles with old, muffled sounds. The brace of Land Army girls swung their handbells, their green-jerseyed chests thrust out like hilly meadows. The whole band played bravely and marched as though they were going to war. Behind them came the Home Guard unit, eyes steady, steps only a little faltering. They had started with nothing on the night in 1940 when they volunteered without a second thought to face an imminent invader; it was not a call to arms, for there were none. Now they had rifles and ammunition and a military air. But now they would never fight a battle; there would be no casualties, no honours, only an elderly, untamed courage. Barrington, his chin elevated exactly to the incline of the hill, strode at their head, the commander who would never know a skirmish.
The three Cadet units followed, lads stepping out, some in uniforms comically too big for them, the battledress tunic dropping in some cases to the baggy trouser knees, the blancoed gaiters flopping like hooves. The Army Cadets were encumbered with webbing which hung to them like a carthorse’s harness; the Air Training Corps, their banner Per Ardua Ad Astra aloft, trudged gamely, endeavouring to reach not only to the stars, but the top of Wilcoombe Hill; the Naval Cadets, sons of fishermen, many with lanyards and whistles, pulled a two-wheeled milk-cart with long ropes. It represented a ceremonial gun-carriage. Behind them, collectively abashed and led by the beetroot-faced Captain Westerman, stepped out the men of the anti-aircraft unit, some softly singing filthy words to the march.
There followed the Civil Defence team, one pair carrying a symbolic stirrup pump and a bucket, others with gas rattles that had never swung in earnest, others with whistles to warn of incendiary bombs which had been blown shrilly in the days and nights of the bombers. Mrs Mahon-Feavor herself, pigeon-chest bulging, face set like plaster of Paris, led the ladies of the Women’s Voluntary Service, and following them were the rosy Land Army girls, the Boy Scouts, the Guides and the Brownies and eventually the men of the US Army.
The hill was liberally lined with spectators and a grubby Union Jack hung over the inn sign of the Bull and Mouth. People leaned from their windows and cheered self-consciously. Schorner, marching at the side of the GIs, felt his temper rising as the girls and women moved along with them, a giggling gaggle, still calling the men’s names and making inane jokes. Eventually one girl pushed another and she stumbled into the road just as the Americans were rounding the bend to climb the hill. The young hag fell into the men and the whole contingent piled up and slewed about while she was pulled out by her hysterical friends. ‘Halt!’ shouted Schorner. The order was as much for the females as for the soldiers. The Americans came to a standstill and the girls fell back against the wall of a house, eyeing him like mares as he strode forward.
Schorner felt his face hot with rage. ‘Beat it!’ he rasped at the women. ‘Get right away. These men are soldiers. Go on, beat it!’ The gaggle fell back, watching him with fear and malevolence. He turned to Kenholm. ‘Okay, lieutenant,’ he grunted. ‘Get this outfit moving again.’
They marched off, leaving the females in a clutch by the wall. Schorner heard then, as he knew he must do, the scream of laughter and insolence from behind. The rural raucousness, the shrieking and the shouting. He stared to the front and his men did also. Christ, he thought, roll on the invasion.
Gilman marched in the front rank of the anti-aircraft unit, with Lieutenant Bryant before him and Captain Westerman a further two paces ahead. A strange and unprecedented feeling came over him as he marched; he began to feel like a soldier. It was a sensation which came with, was transmitted through, the tight feel of the belt and the harness of webbing, the ammunition pouches, the bayonet scabbard banging regularly against his hip as he marched, the sound of the studs on the cobbled road, the firmness of the beret band around his forehead, and, most of all, from the primitive confidence that issued through his left hand held across the base of his rifle and the warm, wooden barrel of the weapon on his shoulder, touching against his cheek like a familiar. It was so strange. He actually felt proud. He almost felt he could march into battle like that, armed, invincible, unhurtable, his jaw tight, his hands steady, his eye fearless. As a million others had.
The band tinkled and rasped ahead of the parade. Gilman glanced sideways at Catermole. He was marching straight and strong, like a warrior also. It was amazing what a few shouted orders, military music and some bystanders could do for a reluctant soldier. What a pity there was no one to take the salute. They should have had someone of importance to take the salute.
As they mounted the hill the pace slowed and towards the top the band became puffing and ragged. Doey and Lenny and Horace Smith, the poacher, were hanging out of the top window of the Bull and Mouth; the landlord and his wife and Minnie Smith and Fat Meg, like two bulging grain sacks, occupied another. Minnie was being wrapped around by the Union Jack flying outside the window and, never being one to let even patriotism get in her way, she tied the flag in a large knot so that she could properly view the parade. Doey, Lenny and Horace, all enthusiastic civilians, were holding pints of cider and they raised them to drink thirstily and audibly as the marchers strode by. As they cheered the cider trickled down their chins.
As they passed the house of Mary Nicholas, Gilman turned his glance sideways, and then up to the bedroom. He could see her standing behind the net curtain, holding one of her children; the forehead, eyes and nose of another infant were at the sill level, clear of the hem of the curtain.
At the summit of Wilcoombe Hill the band had been reduced to a single melancholy drumbeat, and the tiring bells of the two landgirls. There was just room and time for the head of the procession to turn in the street and begin the cobbled descent. Several of the more ancient bandsmen began to wheeze louder than their instruments. Howard Evans and Beatrice, who had climbed the hill on the flank of the parade, travelled alongside and studied them with anxiety. The middle of the crocodile had reached the turning place, becoming entangled at its edges with those still marching up the hill. Mrs Mahon-Feavor was shouting orders like a commander in a confused battle. The Army Cadets and the Brownies had, by this time, lost step, although the naval lads, pulling their imaginary gun-carriage by its ropes, were trudging gamely.
‘I can’t see this lot climbing the hill a second time, let alone a third,’ said Howard sideways to his wife. ‘We’ll need to have a casualty clearing station if they do.’
The Women’s Voluntary Service contingent were going by, strong shoes on straight legs, plodding the last few cobbles of the uphill climb. Beatrice saw the stockings of several ladies had come adrift and were wrinkling down. A small Brownie was crying and being comforted by a bigger Brownie. The boy carrying the Scout’s flag eased it back across his sh
oulder to rest and caught the Scout behind a glancing blow on the head. There were signs that the parade would end in disaster and tears.
The American unit, also showing signs of heavy breathing, had achieved the summit of the hill. Schorner was thankful they had not included Ballimach or any of the other overweight soldiers. The colonel’s eyes turned left just before the crest and saw what he had been seeking. In a side row of cottages, turning at right-angles to the main hill, had just arrived two US Army trucks. They were unloading negroes holding musical instruments.
As the US troops arrived at the short plateau on the brow of the hill, Schorner called them to halt. The female camp followers were still in attendance, although at a good distance, now halfway up the slope. The rest of the parade was now clattering down the hill, leaving the Americans at the top. Some of the Brownies turned around to see what had happened to their rearguard but nobody else noticed apart from the trailing women who remained in a sniggering knot pointing at the soldiers.
It was a short wait. In the side street the negro band was quickly forming up with animated joy, their brass instruments bright in their hands, the drums and percussion heaved into position, and to the fore the Jingle Johnny, a soldier festooned with bells and streamers, began to flex his tintinnabulating knees and elbows. Once assembled, the band moved out, almost crept out, on to the hill. Schorner felt tempted to put his finger to his lips so that the secret would be kept, but the negroes were soon, and silently, in echelon and at a single sign from the Jingle Johnny they erupted into the ‘St Louis Blues March’.
The rousing Southern music burst out over the little English town. Gulls jumped screaming and surprised from the chimney pots. Halfway down the street the rest of the procession faltered and turned round in disbelief. With another trump and a clash, the American band stepped out as one and began the march down the old Devon hill.
The US soldiers, straightened, broadened, strode out behind the swinging band. Lieutenant Kenholm’s head went up so high he could see the clouds through half-closed eyes. Schorner grinned within himself. He’d show the bastards!
The Magic Army Page 22
