‘You’re just a modest fucking Britisher,’ replied Scarlett. He became solemn. ‘She’s anybody’s, I know,’ he added. ‘But I like her. She gives me something to look forward to. If it came to a choice between climbing in the sack with her and getting an ever-loving letter from home, I’d vote for the sack, any time. That’s levelling with you.’ He waited. ‘Did you get to hear from your wife?’
‘Of course,’ said Bryant. ‘She writes very jolly notes mostly telling me all about the new friends she keeps making. From the sound of it they’re predominantly from New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve decided not to think about it until the war’s over. Give Jean my love and tell her I’m sorry I had to send you in my place.’
They shook hands genuinely. ‘Okay, I will,’ said Scarlett. ‘I guess we’ll have to share her.’ He thought. ‘And she’ll have to share us.’
‘And …’ said Bryant. ‘Mind how you go.’
Scarlett knew what he meant. He looked worried. ‘You mean about last time. You mean, “watch what I say”,’ he returned. ‘Sure, I’ll keep sober and keep my big mouth shut. It could be my life I’m saving.’
The evening the previous week that Schorner had spent having supper at the house of Howard and Beatrice Evans had been one of the happiest times since his arrival in England. With wartime politeness he had taken with him from the camp a two-pound can of US Army ham, preserved fruit, ice cream and a tin of coffee. It was received with embarrassment, joy and thanks. Food rationing was tighter then than it had been through the entire war and it was to get worse. Bread and potatoes, but little else, remained free of rationing. The news that a shop had a few rabbits for sale brought people flocking to queue at its door. The normal meat ration had descended miserably to six ounces a week.
Howard had opened the final bottle of good sherry, and some red wine given to him by a French naval officer stationed in Plymouth.
To have a home, four real walls about him, and to eat with these decent people, was a balm after months of the soldier’s life. Schorner told them about West Virginia and his farm and family. Dorothy Jenkins, her dark face touched by the light of the lamps and the fire, watched and listened. Schorner was glad she was there. After the meal, while Howard and his wife went into the adjoining kitchen, he asked her: ‘How are my kids at the school?’
‘Irrepressible as ever,’ she said. He could see she loved them. ‘They enjoyed moving to Wilcoombe, of course, the novelty of it, the time-wasting. Anything but lessons. But we’ve settled down. You must poke your head around the door some day.’
Schorner said: ‘I will. It’s great to see faces with no problems on them.’
‘How is our old school faring under your artillery bombardment? Has it still got a roof?’
‘Yes,’ he said cautiously. ‘It did yesterday. I asked the British Navy to resist using it as a sitting target, and I told my boys not to shoot through the windows. The last time I checked inside it looked in good shape, although some bright GI has been chalking messages on the blackboard.’
‘Nice messages, I hope.’
‘Interesting messages, but not the sort the children ought to read.’
‘Have you had men killed?’ she asked suddenly, hurriedly. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t ask.’
His eyes and mouth became grim. ‘You shouldn’t. But I guess everybody knows. They certainly know about the casualties at the hotel, when the whole building blew up. That was the fisherman’s dog.’
‘I saw he was fined ten shillings for trespassing,’ she said. ‘Old Daffy, the fisherman. It was in the local paper.’
He sighed. ‘That was how it worked out. Those guys were plain unlucky. There have been others. When you set out to create battle conditions you’re going to have accidents.’
Dorothy said sadly: ‘I see them in the street, when they drive through, poor fellows. They look so exhausted, worn to the bone.’
‘And they haven’t started yet,’ he answered gravely. ‘They get so bewildered, I guess you could say. They don’t know which way the sun comes up. They get dirty and deaf and scared. And they know this is not even the real thing, they’re just playing.’
‘You look tired yourself,’ she told him quietly. ‘You must have lost a stone in weight since I first saw you.’
He grinned hurriedly. ‘How much is a stone?’ he asked. ‘Is it like a guinea or a rod, pole or perch? I thought one of the few things we have in common was weights and measures.’
‘It’s fourteen pounds, one stone,’ she said, her voice at once that of the schoolteacher. ‘And you’ve lost it.’
‘I’ll put it back when I get home to the Shenandoah Valley,’ he said. ‘In a couple of months, I’ll be the fat farmer again. It suits me better than soldiering.’
She smiled at him: ‘You look forward to that, don’t you? That’s a silly question. Of course you do.’
Howard Evans came in with the coffee cups. ‘Real coffee,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Courtesy of the United States Armed Forces.’
‘That’s why we came to England,’ returned Schorner laughing. Evans went out again. ‘It’s all there is to look forward to,’ he told her. ‘Except times like this. War is no business for any man. It’s a beast’s game. This is the first time in weeks I’ve felt civilized, human.’
Looking down into her cup she said: ‘I think you’re very human, and civilized.’ Her eyes came up to his face. ‘And so do the children, except they wouldn’t phrase it like that. To them you’re the nice Yank officer.’ Her smile became a quick laugh. ‘They’re very impressed with your rank. After your visit I had to get a wall chart from the US Information Service showing all the ranks and badges and so forth. Billy Steer noticed that little silver castle you have.’ She moved her hand and touched the badge in his lapel. ‘We found it on the chart, the engineer officers’ badge.’
‘Next to the colonel’s insignia they have written, “Colonel Schorner, US Army”. They spelt it themselves too. They think you’re in charge of the whole world.’
‘Sometimes I do too.’ He laughed, then said: ‘That poem they gave me, “Waiting” by Helen Holland.’
She nodded and recited thoughtfully:
‘Every day you do not come,
A little bit of summer dies.’
She said: ‘It’s a nice poem but they gabble it like all kids do, and when Devon kids gabble, they gabble.’
‘I put it in a letter to my wife,’ he mentioned.
Dorothy regarded him seriously. ‘It says a lot of things,’ she said.
‘I told her it was a gift from some English schoolchildren and their pretty schoolma’am.’
‘Oh, that will have given her a lot to think about, I’m sure,’ she said mischievously. ‘I certainly know how I’d feel, thousands of miles away, left to look after the house and the chickens, and to get a letter about an allegedly pretty English schoolma’am, even if I suspected she might be something less than that. And a romantic poem, too.’
‘I said it was from the children too,’ he pointed out. ‘In exchange for Robert Frost’s poem. It was, remember. Sarah won’t be upset. She’s good at keeping her emotions under control. Ten minutes after I get home I’ll be clearing out the cowshed, you just see.’
‘How old are your sons?’ asked Beatrice Evans. She had come in with Howard and they sat down.
Evans poured out a glass of port for each of them and lifted it in a toast. ‘To us all, and those we love,’ he said, looking serious. ‘May it all be all right in the end.’ He saw his wife’s expression. ‘Sorry, Beatrice.’
‘That’s all right,’ answered his wife. ‘You will have your dramatic moments. I don’t want to deny you that.’ She turned to Schorner. ‘Your boys, how old are they?’
‘Tom is sixteen and Cliff is about to go into the Air Force any day now,’ answered Schorner. ‘That’s one personal reason I’d like to get the war finished. I don’t see the Air Force and Cliff getting along. He’s okay on a four-legged mustang but I
don’t see him flying one.’
They talked for another hour. Evans said cautiously: ‘When you have to go before the inquisition, Tom Barrington and company, would you like me to be there?’ He looked embarrassed. ‘To see fair play. Or am I being clumsy?’
‘You’re being clumsy,’ confirmed his wife. ‘He does things for the best,’ she shrugged at Schorner.
‘It’s a kind thought,’ said the American. ‘But you don’t have to get involved, Howard. You’ve got to live and work here long after we’ve gone. I can handle it. Mrs Mahon-Feavor is going to be pleased that we’ve given her house a renovation. It looks like a million dollars.’
‘Which is more than she does,’ grinned Beatrice. ‘She’s a tough old bird, but she can be kind and generous.’
‘She just didn’t like being thrown out,’ shrugged Schorner. ‘Nor did Tom Barrington, nor did a lot of the others. It’s Barrington I’m sorry about. I think he’s a good man and maybe we could have been friendly.’
Dorothy said: ‘The other afternoon Mrs Mahon-Feavor was threatening to go down and occupy her usual piece of beach this summer. She’s always had the same spot, every year. That chauffeur of hers, that man who looks like a ghost, used to drive her down, take an armchair out of the Rolls-Royce and set it on the pebbles. She would sit for a couple of hours staring out to sea. When she was fed up she would whistle him and he’d carry the armchair back and take her home.’
Schorner groaned. ‘Please don’t say that lady is going to be sitting there next time we have a practice landing. That’s more than I could take. I’d rather face a panzer division than Mrs Mahon-Feavor in an armchair.’
It was time to go. Schorner was driving his jeep and he took Dorothy to her house at the top of Wilcoombe. At her door they shook hands and she said: ‘Please promise to come and see us again, at school.’
‘Yes, teacher,’ he promised. As he turned to go she leaned forward and put her lips on his cheek. He did the same for her. They said goodnight and he drove down the hill, singing like a boy against the exhilarating wind.
Now, a week later, on his way to Wilcoombe for the meeting with Barrington and the other civilians, Schorner found himself thinking of Dorothy and the children in her school. ‘Hold it, Albie,’ he said, touching the driver’s shoulder. Private Primrose slowed the jeep.
‘Where’s the Wilcoombe school, do you know?’ he asked.
Albie did not know but he pulled the vehicle over to the kerb, got out and asked a man polishing the apples outside his greengrocer’s shop. The shopkeeper gave him brief directions.
‘I know now, sir,’ said Albie climbing back behind the wheel. ‘You want to go there?’
‘Why not. I think I’m going to need a little hope.’
If Primrose understood he made no indication but drove quickly up the steep hill of Wilcoombe and turned the car just as steeply down into a coombe. The school, a locket of smoke wisping from its red chimney, was at the pit of the road. The colonel said: ‘You come as well, son. Maybe you’ll go for this.’ Puzzled, the bespectacled driver stopped the car and followed his commanding officer into the low-doored schoolhouse. A baggy woman with folds up her neck met them one step inside, her arms untidy with exercise books. She also held a wooden blackboard cleaner which she dropped to the floor at seeing the two Americans, sending clouds of chalk dust puffing up as from an explosion. Schorner glanced dolefully down at the brown toecaps of his shoes, now coated with chalk. Primrose picked up the cleaner.
‘Good morning, ma’am,’ said Schorner taking off his cap.
Primrose hurriedly did likewise. He handed the wooden duster to her. She took it with only a nod.
‘Was it Miss Jenkins you were wanting?’ she inquired, indicating she knew anyway. Schorner swallowed guiltily. ‘Well, I thought I’d look in and see the boys and girls,’ he said lamely. ‘I haven’t visited them since they were evacuated.’
‘I see.’ She gave a cold sniff. She looked down at his chalky toe-caps as if he had arrived like that. ‘They are excellent, thank you. Everything is being done that can possibly be done – in the very difficult circumstances.’
Schorner hesitated. ‘Would it be convenient to …’
Her reaction was that it would not be convenient if left to her. ‘Wait here,’ she said brusquely and then, to demonstrate she could see no difference in their ranks or appearances, she added: ‘Both of you.’
Albie eyed Schorner and the colonel grinned ruefully. The baggy woman jerked through a door. Somewhere children were reciting multiplication tables. ‘Schools always smell the same, sir, don’t they?’ said Albie. ‘Goddamn chalk.’ He sneezed spectacularly. He had been trying to hold it back. Now Schorner turned and saw that the young man’s eyes were watering.
‘That’s why I was never any good in school,’ said Albie genuinely. ‘The chalk got into everything.’
‘I hope the Germans don’t get around to using gas,’ said Schorner, keeping a straight face.
‘Oh boy, I hope so too. That stuff really is bad for people like me with allergies.’
The woman returned and immediately behind her, as though she had followed surreptitiously, came Dorothy Jenkins. She poked a small face at the other woman’s back and shook Schorner’s hand. The colonel introduced Albie.
She ushered them through the door and the baggy woman went sternly down the opposite corridor, her heavy soles sounding like a policeman’s boots on the floorboards. After the door had closed Schorner heard her shout, ‘Yanks!’ over her shoulder. He pretended he had not.
Dorothy put her hand to her mouth. ‘I’m afraid Miss Parsons does not approve.’
‘Of Americans,’ sighed Schorner. They had walked to the outside of the classroom and he could see the children looking eagerly towards the panes of glass in the door.
‘Of anything,’ amended Dorothy. ‘I’m afraid she resents most things. Men, Americans and especially me and the fact that my children have been pushed into her school.’ Her voice dropped to an enjoyable whisper. ‘She used to call herself the headmistress, you see, and sign her letters “Headmistress”. A lot of people did not realize she was the only teacher in the school. Now there are two of us she can’t do it. Anyway, come in.’
She pushed the door and it squeaked as it opened. The children suddenly sat straight-backed, arms folded in front, clear of the desks, with smirks irrepressibly splitting their small clear faces.
‘Children, you all remember Colonel Schorner.’
‘Yes, miss,’ they chorused almost together.
Schorner, quickly feeling both embarrassed and pleased, gave a brief bow. ‘Hi, children,’ he said. ‘This is a very important man I’ve brought to see you.’ He indicated Albie.
‘He drives the jeep,’ called a squeaky voice.
Albie blushed and Schorner looked at the little girl. ‘That’s Mary Steer, I know,’ he said.
‘And I’m Billy Steer,’ rushed the red-faced boy next to her.
‘I know, I remember from last time. How come you two are sitting together?’
There were knowing giggles from the class. ‘It’s the only way I can be sure they will not look at anyone else’s work,’ Dorothy told him. ‘If they sit anywhere else they start peeping over somebody’s shoulder.’
‘And they don’t if they sit together?’
‘Being brother and sister, they won’t let each other,’ she added with pretended firmness. The class erupted with juvenile approval. The two children sat with identical scarlet country faces, their cheeks puffed with trying not to laugh.
‘Albie here,’ said Schorner, ‘says he didn’t like school because of that duster you use for cleaning the blackboard.’ He picked one up from Dorothy’s desk. ‘The chalk used to get up his nose.’
The children wagged with laughter. Albie put in firmly, surprising Schorner: ‘No sir, it wasn’t the chalk. But that thing sure hurts when the teacher throws it at you!’
The class erupted again. Schorner thought he saw the folded f
ace of Miss Parsons pause for a spying moment at the windowed door, and then vanish.
‘Sir, where do you come from?’ The question was directed at Albie from Billy Steer.
‘Sir, from the United States of America,’ returned Albie promptly. He was quick to realize it was not just a futile question. ‘From Pennsylvania,’ he added. ‘Town called Pottsville.’
The children thought that funny too. Albie glanced slightly at Schorner, as if worried he might be either upstaging his superior or giving away classified information. Schorner put his head on one side approvingly.
‘We have a map,’ said Dorothy quickly. ‘We have been trying to imagine what sort of places the American soldiers come from.’ She pinned a coloured map of the US on the blackboard and smiled shyly at Albie. ‘Could you show us, please?’ she asked.
‘Right,’ said Albie affably. ‘If I can find it.’ He went to the board and made an exaggerated pantomime of trying to detect his home state. The children giggled and, encouraged, he took off his rimless glasses and wiped them strenuously. That made them shout with enjoyment. ‘There,’ he said at last, pointing, ‘I thought maybe somebody had moved it since I’ve been away. It’s the best state in the Union and, take it from me, there are certain folks who would like to steal it away.’ He became serious and Schorner stood and watched in growing surprise as he walked quietly forward and said: ‘It was founded by an Englishman, you know, William Penn, that’s why it’s called Pennsylvania. I guess he maybe even came from these parts. I don’t know. He was a Quaker.’ He looked challengingly at the children. He appeared to have forgotten the existence of Schorner and the teacher. ‘Anybody know what a Quaker is?’ asked Albie, peering through his glasses earnestly.
‘A man who eats Quaker Oats,’ tried Billy Steer.
The children did not laugh but looked seriously to see if that was the answer. The colonel and Dorothy composed their faces. ‘No, not quite,’ said Albie. ‘We have Quaker Oats too, for breakfast. And there’s sure a picture of a Quaker on the front. He’s the guy in the funny flat hat.’ As though he had remembered his senior officer, he turned and inquired seriously: ‘Am I doing okay, colonel?’
The Magic Army Page 41
