Troubleshooter

by Alan David

  The murky streets of the shell torn little French town were throbbing with life. Men moved hesitantly among the rubble and desolation of the houses, flitting through the shadows like animals. Frenzied transport lurched crazily into and out of the town, one stream heading for the front and one stream returning.

  A big 3 ton truck pulled out of the never ending line of traffic, turned into a side street and squealed to a stop. Doors slammed, a tailboard dropped and rattled down, and heavy boots thudded upon treacherous cobblestones, sounding sharp against the background of the ominously muttering guns. Sudden and irregular flashes tattered the uneasy mantle of night.

  ‘Righto, you blokes.’ A hoarse voice shouted a terse command. ‘This is where the East Borderers hang out. Get your kit together and fall in over here. I’ll rouse out the orderly sergeant.’

  Tired men dragged themselves into a group and drooped where they stood. Their conducting sergeant stepped into the shadows and vanished as if he had entered another life. The eight men, replacements, drowsed in a half world of fear and anticipation. They were shocked awake by the bull-like roar of an alert, authoritative voice.

  ‘All right, you Shower. Brace yourselves or you’ll all fall down. Quickly now. Through that door and down into the cellar, and don’t kick over the lamps.’

  Heaving their kit about, the newcomers hurried into the building. They filed down into a cellar and turned, blinking in the poor light of two hurricane lamps, to face the voice that chivvied and cut at them from behind. They saw a big, efficient looking sergeant standing on the fourth step, his craggy face thrust forward as he stared at them, his prominent chin jutting pugnaciously.

  ‘Answer your names,’ he barked, and looked at a sheet of paper in one of his big hands. ‘Lance Corporal Gill.’

  ‘Sar’nt.’

  ‘Private Gemmell.’

  ‘Sar’nt.’

  ‘Private Harris.’

  ‘Sar’nt.’

  ‘Private Haylett.’

  ‘Sergeant.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Haylett? You look like a tailor’s dummy that’s stood too near to the fire. Private Hindley.’

  ‘Sar’nt.’

  ‘Private Knights.’

  ‘Here, Sergeant.’

  ‘I know you’re here, you ugly little man, you. You talk too much. Private Weeds.’

  ‘Sar’nt.’

  ‘Private Keeler.’

  ‘Sar’nt.’

  The sergeant studied Keeler. Then he looked over the rest of them, gnawing his fleshy lips. He thrust out his chin at them and began to talk, spitting out his words as if they burnt his lips.

  ‘I’m your floggin’ P’toon Sergeant. As from now you’re One Section, Ten Platoon, Able Company, the First Battalion the East Borderers. My name’s Baggott — Sar’nt Basil Baggott, and no dirty cracks or you’ll be doing Jankers until five years after the war. If you’ve never met the biggest Bastard in the British Army, you’re looking at him now; and by the looks of you lot I’m the unluckiest one in any army. On parade or in action you’ll obey my slightest whim at the flogging double, even if the order is to cut your throats, which is what you’ll likely do before I’ve finished with you. But never try to cut mine. I drink monkey’s water because it’s sour, and I pick my teeth with a blood stained bayonet, and if you think that’s tough just wait till I’ve finished with you. You’ll be tougher than the Nine Blind Bastards all rolled into one. Any questions?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ said Private Weeds. ‘Who are the Nine Blind Bastards?’

  Sergeant Baggott studied the short, dark haired, almost tubby Weeds.

  ‘What refugee camp did you escape from, Weeds? Are you sure you’ve been posted from another mob in the BRITISH army? You aren’t Free French or a Yank, are you?’

  ‘I did all right for three years in the desert, Sergeant,’ said Weeds.

  ‘Yes. Then they sent you home so they could get on and win the war out there. It looks as if I’m going to have some trouble with you, Weeds. Just watch yourself. Now then. We’ve got some organisation in this platoon. There’s bedding here for each of you. Get your kit sorted out and get your heads down. The battalion goes back into the line tomorrow, so make the most of it. Get out of bed when you’re called in the morning, and I’ll be around on first parade to renew our acquaintance.’

  They stood in silence until the sergeant had gone, then they breathed heavily and relaxed.

  ‘Phew, he’s a right bastard,’ said Cyril Hindley. ‘What have we let ourselves in for?’

  These eight were a close knit bunch, having served together in their old regiment for a number of years. They still felt resentment at having been posted away from their own mob, where they had known every one, where their roots were deep. Now they were dumped in the darkness, in the strangeness of a new battalion, to be greeted by an overbearing sergeant who, in their opinion, should have been shot in the first action of this battalion by subordinates who must surely hate him.

  ‘I think the first thing we ought to do is see the Company Clerk about some leave,’ said Charlie Weeds. ‘You always get leave when you join a new battalion.’

  ‘You’ll get leave, you swindler,’ laughed Joe Gill, playfully punching the irrepressible Weeds.

  ‘Leave! I wouldn’t go on leave if they offered to send me,’ said Harry Gemmell. ‘I’ve got no credits. My old woman sees to that. Gawd! If I ever had the luck to be single again I’d never tie myself up to another woman. Let’s get back into action, and maybe I’ll be lucky enough to get my head blown off; and if that happened my old woman would moan about her widow’s pension.’

  ‘You get lucky!’ cried Hindley, sorting through a pile of blankets. ‘Here, Charlie, have these on me. Why, Harry, you’re the luckiest tool in the British army. What about that mortar near Tobruk? Wiped out your section, but it left you kicking. What about the mine the carrier ran over? You were the only bastard to walk away from that. You’ve got some hopes to talk about getting your head blown off. If you fell into a latrine bucket you’d come out smelling of violets.’

  ‘I’m the only jonah here,’ said Alfie Knights, dumping his equipment in a corner. ‘Me and my perishing guts. I was out through the back on coal fatigues when they dished out luck. I shouldn’t be in the army, not with this bad stomach. I should be in a munitions factory, picking up twenty nicker a week. I hope they’ve got a decent M.O. in this mob. My poor guts need some understanding.’

  ‘That ain’t all they need, Alfie,’ said Joe Gill.

  ‘It’s my wife who’s ruined my stomach.’ Alfie pressed both hands gently against his grouchy abdomen. ‘Any similarity between her cooking and the stuff you can eat is purely coincidental.’

  Joe Gill made sympathetic clucking noises. Charlie Weeds grinned.

  ‘Why don’t you put a sock in it?’ Pete Keeler was over six feet tall, and weighed all of fifteen stone. Everything about him was big. His face looked as if it had been rough hewn from, granite by a sculptor using a blunt chisel. His chin was permanently blue with the tenacious stubble of a hair growth that defied the sharpest razor. His hands were like hams, with great bony knuckles, and his thick wrists, protruding from the tight sleeves of his battledress blouse, were black with long hairs.

  Making a bed at Keeler’s side was Hindley, his inseperable companion. Hindley was under average height and weight, and was grey haired, like an old man. He was an old man of thirty one years who had seen action in Spain in ‘thirty-seven, came out at Dunkirk in ‘forty with the survivors of the B.E.F., and had fought the Afrika Korps in the desert for three years. Cyril Hindley was an old young man.

  ‘I’d like to know what’s coming to us in the next few months,’ Keeler said as he got between his blankets, and his voice jarred like an overstrung fiddle. He was tense inside, and overwound. He had seen just a little too much action in the desert and he couldn’t forget it. To the others he was just tired, but Pete Keeler knew deep inside himself that he was finished. His nerve was a
lmost gone.

  ‘Whatever’s in store, Pete,’ said Hindley, ‘We can handle it.’

  ‘Yes, mate,’ said Keeler, and raised a big hand to his face to stop his lips from trembling.

  ‘Well, he said we would form a Section,’ said Weeds. ‘I reckon we’ll be all right so long as they let us stick together.’

  ‘It’s been a long time since we saw action,’ said Frankie Harris, whom they called Laughing Boy. ‘Listen, you can hear the guns. I’m not looking forward to that again, are you?’

  ‘Forget it,’ advised Joe Gill. ‘We’ve all been in the army long enough to know it’s no good thinking about the future. Let it come and worry about it afterwards, that’s the motto.’

  They settled down to sleep, ears automatically strained to pick up the muttering of the guns, and each brain teemed with the thought of war. Once again they were thrown into the Valley of Shadows, and their lives were forfeit. One by one they drifted into troubled sleep.

  Daylight did not make Sergeant Baggott more handsome as he swaggered around his platoon the next morning. He was a man bigger than Pete Keeler, although not as tall as Hindley’s mate, and he possessed unlimited vigour and energy. His powerful voice was never silent, and there was always a trace of sarcasm in his tones.

  ‘Right, you new men,’ Baggott cried when the rest of the platoon was occupied in one way or another under the super-vision of the corporals. ‘Fall in here. At the double. This isn’t a picnic, Now, Corporal Dunsford, this is your new section, such as it is. Lance Corporal bill, have you seen much action?’

  ‘Three years in the desert, Sergeant,’ Joe replied quietly.

  ‘Good. You’ll take over the Bren Group and Second in Command of the section. Work with Corporal Dunsford. He’s a good man, and if you give him the chance he’ll teach you how to stay alive. All of you listen. You’ll find this kind of fighting different to desert warfare, so forget what you learnt out there and listen and learn again, and maybe you’ll live to see the end of the war. Now, who’s the best bren gunner among you?’

  ‘Me, Sar’nt,’ said Charlie Weeds.

  ‘You again, Weeds? Right. you take over the section’s bren. Who do you want as Number Two?’

  ‘Alfie Knights,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Knights, Number Two on the bren. The rest of you will form the rifle group. Corporal Dunsford, get Fiske from the stores. He’ll make your number up to full strength.’

  ‘Here comes Franklin,’ Dunsford said quietly.

  ‘Party, party ‘shun.’ Sergeant Baggott looked along the section, then did a smart about turn. He saluted the tall, young looking officer who came up. ‘Morning, sir. These are the replacements. They arrived last night. I’ve formed them into Number One Section.’

  ‘Good morning, Sergeant. They’re all old soldiers, by the looks of them.’

  ‘They are, sir. They all helped to make Rommel run in the desert. They should settle down quickly with us.’

  ‘Good. Now, you men, I’m Lieutenant Franklin, your new Platoon Commander, You’ve come to a good platoon, and I hope you’ll come to like us. We must all learn to work together, for you know as well as I that team work is the keynote of survival at the front. You’ll find that your n.c.o.’s are of the best. They’ve all seen action, and they’re reliable.’

  Sergeant Baggott grinned fleetingly. He eased his great bulk forward until he looked as if he was about to spring at the new section. Lieutenant Franklin added a few generalities to his comments, then went off. Sergeant Baggott addressed Corporal Dunsford.

  ‘Corporal, take charge of your section now. They’ve got to lay out their kit for Colour Sergeant’s check. Then you can show them how this battalion is kitted out for the front. I want them on parade with the platoon this afternoon. We’re moving out at fourteen hundred.’

  They were marched back to their billet. The low October sky was drab and cloudy, and the breeze that sighed through the ruined town was keen enough to foretell of the promise of Winter.

  ‘What kind of a bloke is the Sergeant, Corp?’ asked Hindley, lighting up. He handed around a tin and most of them took a cigarette. There was a silence until blue smoke hovered about them.

  ‘Basil’s all right,’ said Dunsford. ‘He needs a lot of understanding. but he’s all right. He shouts a lot, but mostly it doesn’t mean a thing. He’s a good bloke in action, and that’s what counts. We’ve a good sergeant, as you’ll find out if you live long enough.’

  ‘We’ve done a bit of scrapping, Corp.’ said Charlie Weeds. ‘Ever hear of the Afrika Korps? We know a thing or two about survival at the front.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ The Corporal grinned. ‘I’m getting browned off showing replacements the whys and wherefores. Now then, a few tips on what and what not to do in the proximity of the aggressive German Soldier.’

  At Fourteen Hundred hours the First Battalion East Borderers began to march by Companies, Able Company leading, towards the front. The newly formed One Section, Able Company, preceded by guides, led the way. They were mostly silent as they marched out of the little town, their minds engrossed by the thought of approaching action. Already they were enveloped by the sense of unreality that gripped men on the brink of battle.

  ‘I don’t think this will prove to be any worse than anything we’ve seen,’ Cyril Hindley slowed his pace in order that Pete Keeler would come up closer behind. ‘We’re still on the winning side, mate.’

  Keeler grunted. His face was expressionless. His mental processes were screwed into a ball and tucked away in the furthermost recesses of his mind. Pete had had enough, but would not recognise it. The tight, restless feeling inside stemmed from fear. He knew that, and realised that it wasn’t the healthy kind of scaredness that every man in the battalion suffered from. He knew that every man of them was afraid, but he could derive no comfort from that. A small muscle in his right cheek twitched occasionally, He had to command his mind with great effort to dwell only upon thoughts of his family.

  The wife and kids! Would he ever see them again? Flashes of past battles in the desert sprang upon the screen of his mind. His heart pounded and his steps lagged. The rifle on his shoulder seemed to get heavier with each reluctant step. Whence came this inner strength that kept him going with the others when every animal instinct told him to stop? This road led to Hell! There were Germans at the end of it. Pete sweated and his knees felt rubbery. Oh, God, we’ve done our bit many times over! Why must it be us again?

  Here and there in the long columns voices raised snatches of song, or a man whistled. There was the regular bracing thud of feet marching in step. The afternoon was dull and chill, with a breeze blowing sharply in their faces. Some of them marched erect, but they were mentally absent from this dreary road. Their minds had flashed through the great barrier of space to fill their thoughts with tender memories of loved ones. But still their bodies went forward, their heavy boots rapping smartly upon the road; and wherever their thoughts, each man had both feet in Hell.

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