by James R Benn
“Got a girl, Billy? A hot date?”
“I’m getting promoted. General Eisenhower is pinning my captain’s bars on me.”
“The general himself!” Tree said. “I heard he’s your uncle. That true?”
“True enough,” I said. I had a girl, too, but I didn’t want to get into that right now.
“Nice,” Tree said. “Always good to have a relation looking out for you.” He looked away, his lips tight in resentment. This was an old argument with us.
“Listen, Tree,” I said, barely keeping my voice steady. “I’ve already been in the shooting war, so don’t think I’m some desk warrior hitting the clubs in London every night. And as far as relations go, you couldn’t even make it to your own father’s funeral, so don’t lecture me on the subject.” We were nose to nose now, fists clenched, years of unresolved rage aching to get out.
“There’s two reasons I wasn’t there,” Tree said, showing more restraint than I had by stepping back and addressing Kaz. “When I got the message my father had died, I was at Fort Polk, Louisiana. The army gave me compassionate leave, and I was on a train in a matter of hours. Only problem was, the Southern Railways route took me dead across the Deep South. You know what that means, Lieutenant Kazimierz?”
“Yes. The part of the United States that held slaves.”
“Right,” Tree said. “And some down there wish things never changed. I had to change trains in Birmingham, and by the time I got my duffle hoisted aboard and found a seat, I’d misplaced my ticket. In the confusion I must’ve forgotten where I was, because when the conductor came through and I couldn’t find it, I said something like, hold on buddy, it’s here somewhere. Big mistake. He pulled a revolver out of his jacket and placed the barrel right between my eyes. Said if I spoke another word, he’d put a bullet in my brain and toss me off the moving train. This was in the colored car, in front of fifty witnesses. You could have heard a pin drop. One white man with a gun in Alabama, that’s all it took. Threw me off the train at the next stop, left me at some two-bit whistle stop where the colored waiting room was behind the outhouse. Not a train going in my direction for ten hours. By the time I made it back, I was a day late. That’s why I missed my father’s funeral.” Tree’s eyes were damp, but he locked onto mine. I should have known he hadn’t missed it on purpose. I couldn’t bear his gaze and looked away.
“You mentioned two reasons,” Kaz said.
“The other one is right here,” he said, pointing at me, his finger trembling and his voice choked with anger. “If it weren’t for Billy, I never would have been in the army in the first place.”
“You could have been in jail, Tree,” I said.
“Maybe not. Would have been my choice, though,” he said. I took a lesson from him and stepped away. It was an old argument, no reason to start it up again. I watched the traffic, what there was of it. A couple of horse carts, the occasional truck, and a number of shoppers at a bakery across the street. Hungerford was a lively town, a river cutting through it, spanned by a graceful bridge. Cottages close to the road were well kept, like the shops that dotted the roadway. A constable rode his bicycle across the bridge, his blue uniform bright in the sunny March air, his helmet bobbing along on the cobblestone street. I wondered if he was a pal of the dead cop as I watched him pass by.
“Sorry I wanted to help,” I said. I knew I sounded like a sarcastic schoolboy, but I couldn’t help myself.
“What you don’t understand, Billy, is that a Negro down South might as well be in jail. Nobody was on our side. Not the army, not the law. They could do anything they wanted to us, and no one backed us up. You know we had to step off the sidewalk in some towns whenever a white passed by? Me, wearing the uniform of the United States Army, with sergeant’s stripes on my sleeve, I had to stand in the gutter for no-account white trash. That’s prison, my friend.”
Somehow we’d come head to head again. Kaz stepped between us.
“It is interesting, you know,” Kaz said, in a casual conversational tone. “The Germans have the same rule in Poland. Poles have to step aside when any German walks by, upon pain of death.”
“Yeah, but there’s one big difference,” Tree said. “I’m going over there to kill those goddamn Nazis who make you step off the sidewalk. But when I go home, white men will still want me in the gutter.”
CHAPTER THREE
We had two hours before the next train to London, so I asked Tree to show us where the constable had been killed.
“But take us from your bivouac,” I said. “I want to get a sense of distance and time.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Tree said. “Jeep’s around the corner.”
“You off duty? I don’t want you to get in trouble with your commanding officer,” I said as we followed him to the vehicle.
“Don’t worry, Billy. The captain doesn’t pay much attention to who’s around, unless it’s a drill or maneuvers. As for my platoon lieutenant, well, in my experience lieutenants are pretty easy to fool. Hope you’re an exception, both of you.” Tree laughed as he pulled away from the curb, and I hung on to my hat.
“Are your officers Negroes?” Kaz asked, raising his voice from the back seat.
“Only one, a lieutenant on the battalion staff. The rest are white. Some hate being in a colored outfit, and pull every string they can to get out. A few are okay. All the non-coms stick together though. We’ll have no trouble getting on or off base, long as we don’t run into any MPs.”
“White MPs?” Kaz asked. We were crossing the arched brickwork span, water flowing languidly beneath us. Tree waved to an older couple walking along the road, and got a cheery greeting. A marker on the bridge said this was the Kennet and Avon Canal. A pathway graced one bank, and it looked like a pleasant spot for a summer stroll. But this was March in England: bleak, wet, and cold in spite of the clear sky.
“MPs are MPs,” Tree said. “Negro MPs are as glad to crack your skull as the white ones. More so, maybe, since they can only go after other colored troops. White MPs can spread their batons around, know what I mean?”
The jeep rumbled over train tracks and through a more bustling part of town. We passed the town hall with its tall clock tower, and once again Tree waved a greeting to a small knot of men gathered beneath it. He got nods and smiles back.
“Are you running for mayor?” I asked. He turned left after the Three Swans Inn, a two-story white stucco building close to the road. The door was painted a glossy black, and an old gent on a bench out front lifted his pipe in recognition of Tree.
“It’s something you can’t understand, Billy,” Tree said. “After going through camps in Louisiana and Georgia, Hungerford was like finding the Promised Land. Folks here never learned to hate Negroes. The first time I walked into a shop here and got a friendly greeting, I nearly cried, and that’s the truth. No one telling me to go ’round back, or to get the hell out. Instead, they say, ‘Good morning, Sergeant.’ You got any idea what that means, especially after what we went through down South?”
I wanted to say it would be like my Irish great-grandfather being asked to tea by an Ulsterman, but I’m not so thick that I didn’t know it wasn’t time for comparing ancestral agonies. “Probably not. It must have been tough.”
“Tough was on a good day,” Tree said as we passed more houses made of brick with roofs of thick, grey thatch, like a postcard of a typical English village. “I’m happy here, can you believe that? I like the people, I like walking down the street and chatting with the old fellows. And now the army wants to take this town away from us to spare white GIs the sight of us walking out with English girls.”
Tree sped up, the anger in his voice playing out in his driving. His hands flexed on the steering wheel as houses thinned out to reveal fields and pastures. It was cold in the open jeep, and we pulled up our collars and tucked our heads down as the wind whipped around us. I’d thought about Tree a lot over the past years, wondering what had become of him, and why he hadn’t shown up for his
father’s funeral. I’d heard he’d been in town for a few days after, but never ran into him. Not that I tried. Now I knew why he wasn’t there, and why he liked it so much here in England, a place where calling a conductor “buddy” wouldn’t get you thrown off a train at gunpoint.
We drove along a dirt road lined with trees. Ahead, on a slight rise, were lines of canvas, rows and rows of six-man pyramidal tents. Sentries stood outside a hut by the road and waved Tree through as he slowed down. They looked sharp and gave us a quick once-over, but it was obvious they knew Tree. There was no fence, no real security.
“It appears you are well known here as well,” Kaz said from the backseat.
“We’re only four companies, plus battalion headquarters,” Tree said. “Not hard for guys to know every non-com in the outfit.” That was true enough, especially in an independent battalion like this one. But it was also true that Tree was the kind of guy who kept his ear to the ground, and made sure he had pals everywhere. Like any kid from the hard back streets of Boston.
“Here we are,” he said, parking the jeep at the end of a row of tents. “This is our platoon area. Each crew has a tent, plus a couple for supplies.” Stovepipes stuck out from the tent tops and wood planks had been laid between them, creating a rough walkway inches above the ground.
“Can we look at his gear?” I asked.
“Sure, come on in,” Tree said, holding the tent flap open for us. “The boys are working on the engine, so no one’s home. This is maintenance day, so they’ll be busy for a while.”
Inside were five bunks, five footlockers, and several empty crates used for tables. There was a wood plank floor, which at least kept everything from sinking into the damp earth. Tree pointed out Angry’s spot, and I went through his meager belongings. Everything was army-issue except for a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a straight-edge razor, and a packet of letters tied with string.
“Nice that you’re holding his whiskey for him,” I said. “Is the straight-edge for protection?”
“Yeah, almost everyone carries something. I got a switchblade in my back pocket. Man has to have an advantage if he gets himself surrounded.”
“Angry didn’t have it on him when he was arrested?”
“No, he was on duty here. No need.”
“Have you looked through the letters?” I asked.
“No, that’s his personal stuff. Have some respect, Billy.”
“Nothing’s personal when it comes to murder. One man is dead and another falsely charged, right? That trumps privacy, and the army doesn’t care about privacy anyway. I’ll get them back to you after I’ve looked through them.”
“How long have you been here?” Kaz said, distracting Tree while I pocketed the letters.
“Me? Six months. I was a last-minute replacement in the States. They were short a radio operator, and I’d finished communications school, top of my class. I came here a corporal, made sergeant, and got my own TD last month. Tank Destroyer,” he added, for our benefit.
“Seven years and you only made corporal?” I said.
“Got my buck sergeant stripes after two years. Lost them when I tried to stop some MPs from cracking my buddy’s skull down at Fort Huachuca. Didn’t care much about getting them back for a while. Then the war came along and that changed things.”
“How?” I asked as we left the tent and walked back to the jeep.
“The draft brought in a lot of new guys and at first we had some lousy redneck officers. I figured the men deserved non-coms who believed in them. So I kept my mouth shut and played by the rules. Now I got my stripes and my own crew. And we need Angry back.” We followed Tree out of the tent, and I was aware of men watching us. Strange white officers wandering around a Negro unit might mean trouble. I could sense things relaxing when it became evident we weren’t taking Tree away in cuffs.
“Were you in tanks from the beginning?” Kaz asked.
“We don’t call them tanks,” Tree said. “We destroy tanks. They’re TDs.” He started up the jeep and we headed out of the camp. “I was in a service company at first, which meant I loaded and unloaded trucks all day. Then I got a transfer to an anti-aircraft unit, then radio school, then here. I asked for a transfer to a combat outfit right after Pearl Harbor, and it finally came through. Angry Smith is the best damn gunner in the company, so when we head over to France, I want him back in my crew.”
“Can’t blame you,” I said, glancing at my watch. “What time did you say you last saw Angry the night of the murder?”
“Around twenty-one hundred hours. I had a pass to go into town and saw him as I was driving out with two other guys from my crew.”
“He didn’t have a pass?”
“No. He had guard duty until twenty-two hundred hours, patrolling the vehicle park.”
Tree drove us through Hungerford again, over the canal and out past the pub where we’d met. In ten minutes we crossed a small bridge, this one spanning a marshy river, and found ourselves in the one-lane village of Chilton Foliat. Gently rolling hills of farmland and pasture rose up from the roadway and the river. The houses were made of the same brick as in Hungerford, as well as the dark, thick thatch for roofs. We passed a few shops and The Wheatsheaf, a small pub that seemed to be the center of things in this tiny village. Tree pulled over in front of a church, one of those typical English types, all grey stone and short steeple. He nodded in the direction of the graveyard.
“He was found in there,” Tree said. “The constable.”
“What was his name?” Kaz asked.
“I’ll show you,” Tree said. “Come on.” I thought Tree had misunderstood when Kaz asked for the name of the constable, unless he’d been buried in the same graveyard where he was found. We passed weathered gravestones covered in lichen, dates fading back centuries.
“His name was Thomas Eastman, and he was found right here,” Tree said, pointing to a grave marker. It read Samuel Eastman, 1888–1937. Next to it was Samuel’s wife, Mary. The whole row was Eastmans, generations of them.
“Is this a joke?” I asked.
“Nope,” Tree said. “Police Constable Thomas Eastman was found right here, at the foot of his pappy’s grave. Head bashed in.”
“Why?” I said, and Tree shrugged. I wasn’t really asking him anyway. This was odd. Beyond odd. “Did Angry and Eastman know each other?”
“They had words, a couple of weeks back.”
“Tree, now’s the time to tell me everything. Did they fight?”
“No,” Tree said as Kaz wandered off to the edge of the cemetery. “Eastman told him to stay away from his sister.”
“He didn’t want a Negro walking out with her?”
“He did call him a damned darkie, but that wasn’t what it was about. His sister is married. Her husband came home wounded from Burma a few days ago. Eastman didn’t want Angry around her.”
“But he had been around her, right?”
“Yeah. The first word they got was that her husband had been killed. I got the impression he was a real bastard, and no one was shedding any tears. That’s when Angry began spending more time with her.”
“But then they find out he was only wounded, and is on his way home. Is that when Eastman and Angry had words?”
“Yeah. I think he was afraid for his sister if Malcolm found out. Malcolm Adams, he’s the husband.”
“Angry could’ve made it up here after he was off duty. I’ve seen how loose security is at your bivouac. Maybe he arranged to meet Constable Eastman here, to try and work things out. Maybe it didn’t go well. Eastman might have called him names, got him to live up to his reputation.”
“I don’t believe it,” Tree said, shaking his head. “Why here? Why would anyone meet at their family plot in a graveyard in the dead of night? It’s crazy.”
“It made sense to someone,” I said, looking back to the road. A column of GIs in full packs trotted by, the insignia of the Hundred-and-First Airborne visible on their shoulders. “They from around here
?”
“The Hundred-and-First is spread out in every direction. They have a Jump School here in Chilton Foliat and one of their regiments is headquartered about a mile down the road, at Littlecote House. Big mansion, where they got their brass bunked.”
The stomp of boots on pavement faded as the unit passed by. No shortage of combat-trained men around here. But who did Constable Eastman in, and why did they leave him on his father’s grave?
“What evidence did they have against Angry? Anyone see him with Eastman?”
“Sure they did. Eastman lived here but was on duty in Hungerford most days. MPs from the Criminal Investigations Division came nosing around the next morning, after Eastman’s body was found. We’d all come in late and not entirely sober, so none of us could say we’d seen Angry. I think someone must’ve tipped them off about the argument.”
“Malcolm Adams? Could he have done this and blamed it on Angry?”
“Maybe. But he was shot up pretty bad in the legs. Not sure he could’ve managed it. From what I hear, he prefers beating up on women.”
“What did Angry say when they came for him?”
“Said he’d been in camp all night, and hadn’t seen Eastman since they last had words.”
“Jesus, what a mess,” I said, as I heard Kaz call us from the stone wall near the woods.
“Look,” Kaz said. He pointed to a trail that came up to a gate in the wall. It was wide enough for a vehicle, barely. “Where does this lead?”
“I think that would take you to the Jump School,” Tree said. “There’s a lane up that hill that takes you to a horse farm where they have a parachute training school. I hear it’s for training medics, doctors, chaplains, and any other non-combat support personnel joining the Hundred-and-First.”
“So anyone could have brought a body in, unseen, and dumped it here,” Kaz said.
“Goddamn, you’re right,” Tree said. “Think CID looked at this?”
“I’ll find out,” I said. “It doesn’t get Angry off the hook, but it opens up a range of possibilities.”
