Long and the Short

by Allen Saddler

  ‘Shrapnel. In his back. He’s been quite ill, but he’s on the mend.’

  ‘Could he be put in an invalid chair, so that we could wheel him around?’

  ‘I’d have to ask the doctor,’ said the Matron, holding on to some vestige of her authority.

  ‘Yes, of course. Now can we see your sister?’

  ‘She’ll be in my office.’

  He walked out of the ward, wheeling sharply left along a corridor, back to the Matron’s office, followed by Harry Boy Fortune, who had found that if he winked at any of the young nurses they blushed. It was the only bit of amusement he was likely to get in this place, with its long, hard corridors, clanking trolleys with muffled figures with blankets up to their noses, looking like Mr Chad on wheels. It was enough to give you the creeps.

  The Major walked into the Matron’s office as though he had taken it over as his headquarters. Sister Rosa Tcherny was waiting for him.

  The sister was dark, too; probably Jewish, the Major thought. She was, apparently, a native of Austria, although she had left there when a small child, but she had heard her parents speaking German.

  ‘Now then, Sister. What’s all this about?’ he began.

  ‘What’s happened to Jimmy?’ she asked.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘He was on duty.’

  ‘Ah. The private. He was on guard.’

  ‘Yes. What’s happened to him?’

  The sister’s interrogative manner took the Major by surprise. He had thought that he was going to ask the questions. ‘Well, I don’t know at the moment. I shall, of course, be talking to him.’

  The woman was quite flushed and intent. ‘He shouldn’t have been sent here. He’s only been in the army for ten minutes.’

  He sighed. ‘You’ll have to bear with me. I’m just trying to assemble the facts. Jimmy, you say. Was he a particular friend of yours?’

  ‘I used to work with him. In London.’

  The Matron came in. After all, it was her office. Somehow she thought she ought to establish her claim. ‘All right, Major?’

  ‘Fine, thank you. I shan’t be long here.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said the Matron tartly. ‘You have my full cooperation.’

  The Major turned back to the sister. ‘Can you just tell me what exactly happened?’

  ‘I was called into the next ward,’ said Rosa. ‘While I was away somebody switched the light off at the desk. Jimmy was left in total darkness. When I came back, after less than five minutes, I switched the light back on. We went on a tour of the beds and found – him.’

  ‘But the bayonet?’

  ‘It was Jimmy’s bayonet. They must have taken it while he was in the dark.’

  The Major brooded on this information. ‘Had you noticed any animosity between this man and any of the Germans?’

  ‘I don’t follow the conversations properly. It’s a long time since I spoke German.’

  ‘But one of them speaks English. Er –’ He consulted a note he had made. ‘Mayer.’

  ‘That’s not his name. I know that. He’s not German. He’s Russian.’

  ‘Russian! But how did he get into the German Army?’

  Rosa shrugged. ‘I expect he got caught up at some time. It’s easier to change sides than get shot.’

  ‘He says he was a waiter in London.’

  ‘He might have been. He doesn’t know much about London.’

  The Major looked at her keenly. ‘You don’t believe his story?’

  ‘They all have stories,’ she said stonily. ‘Don’t they?’

  Later on he returned to the ward. Accompanied by Mayer, he went to each bed with the same question. ‘Did you see or hear anything?’

  ‘Haben Sie etwas gesehen?’ said Mayer. ‘Haben Sie etwas gehört?’

  Some of the prisoners refused to answer, staring resolutely to the front as though they were being asked to denounce Hitler or betray their country. They knew that all they had to supply was their name and number, and that they had already done. It was amazing the differing attitudes displayed, from the arrogant and proud to the crafty and cringing. This was a cross-section of men, the sort of collection that could be assembled anywhere in the world, with their inherent strengths and weaknesses, displaying their background, social class and influence and their character with every movement or glance.

  The Major thanked Mayer for his help.

  ‘Cigarette?’

  The Major opened his cigarette case. The soldier took one and then, as if daring himself, took two more.

  ‘Whereabouts do you come from? In Germany.’

  ‘Leipzig,’ said Mayer, watching the Englishman’s face.

  ‘And were you born there?’

  Mayer grinned. ‘I was. But my parents came from Russia. They were in danger.’

  The Major didn’t know whether to believe this story. The man’s eyes were crafty and calculating. The sort of man you would not turn your back on in the dark.

  The investigation was not going well. The bare bones of the story showed a planned assassination, which, more than likely, was organized by a group rather than an individual. The man who switched off the light couldn’t have rushed over to the other end of the ward in the dark and delivered the fatal blow. It was possible that the whole damn lot of them were in the conspiracy. An execution by common consent. Nobody seemed concerned. It was clear that the murdered man had no friends among his comrades. These SS men, especially officers, were regarded as outcasts. The unit had a black record. There was no sign of pity, shame or even surprise among the injured Germans.

  ‘Give him a packet of twenty,’ said Harry Fortune.

  ‘What?’ said the Major.

  ‘You want to know what happened. He knows.’ He jerked a finger at the brooding figure of Mayer. ‘No. I’ll do it. You don’t want to be caught up in something like bribery, do you? Just give me five minutes with him.’

  The Major made no reply to this proposition. In fact it looked as if he hadn’t heard what Fortune had said, but he did move away, walking to the other side of the ward, looking at each of the prisoners intently, as though he was trying to read their minds, and the prisoners, in turn, looked either embarrassed or annoyed at the close scrutiny. He went to the desk, causing the private sitting there hurriedly to put on his forage cap and spring to attention, wondering whether he should salute and finally deciding that it was safer to salute than not.

  ‘It’s all right, Private. Stand easy,’ the Major murmured, watching Harry and Mayer talking quietly like a couple of thieves planning a robbery.

  They were kindred spirits, these two. Harry would get to the truth of it. The dark sister he had interviewed in the Matron’s office came in.

  She walked straight over to him. ‘What will happen to him?’

  ‘Eh? Who?’

  ‘Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Is he going to be charged with something?’

  ‘That’s in the hands of his commanding officer. I’m just on a fact-finding mission.’

  He moved away, but she followed him. ‘If he is in any trouble I want to speak for him.’

  By this time the Major was becoming exasperated. ‘It’s out of my hands. We are investigating a murder here, and neglect could be a contributing factor.’

  ‘You put young boys, without any experience, into these dangerous situations, and then, if they prove to be inadequate for the task, you punish them, just for being young and inexperienced.’

  While the Major was having a hard time Harry Boy Fortune was weighing up the man who called himself Mayer.

  ‘Do you know who done this?’ he asked directly.

  The man with the Slavic face and watchful eyes nodded.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I want to volunteer for the British Army. I leave Germany now. I don’t want to go back.’

  ‘I bet you don’t,’ said Harry.

  ‘You help me,’ said Mayer stubbornly. ‘And I help you.’

  Harry looked away and spoke out of the side of h
is mouth. ‘Can’t promise anything.’

  Mayer seemed satisfied with this half-promise of nothing at all.

  ‘It was a plot,’ he said. ‘A lot of them were in it. The officer was in the death squad. They were behind the lines, shooting anyone who was running away or badly injured.’

  Harry digested this piece of information and found it palatable. ‘But who?’

  ‘Nobody knows. It was dark. But they all agreed to it.’

  This idea of murder by committee appealed to Harry’s sense of cheap detective-story mystery. It was the sort of solution that might have been advanced in a low-budget British-made film with stock characters all looking serious and concerned, when all they were worrying about was getting off early for a round of golf.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  But Mayer looked worried. ‘You will tell what I said. I want to be a deserter.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’

  ‘Tommy, I trust you.’

  ‘You might as well. There’s nobody else.’

  Mayer levered himself up on his elbows and stared around at his fellow inmates who were all carefully not looking in his direction. He lay back and pulled a sheet over his face.

  Harry wondered whether Mayer might be the next to go and made a note to tell the Major that the stool pigeon might be in danger.

  The latter was anxious to know how the negotiations had gone.

  ‘It was a conspiracy,’ Harry told him. ‘They were all in it.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Major, his eyes narrowing. ‘But who?’

  ‘You’ll never find that out. Nobody is going to split in case he’s the next.’

  ‘But what about Mayer?’

  Harry grinned. ‘He wants to join the British Army. He says he’s a deserter. If he’s not separated from this lot he might be a dead deserter.’

  The Major was rapidly rehearsing this information as the basis for a report. He hadn’t found the culprit, but he had established the cause. Was anybody in the German Army going to miss this fellow? Was there any chance of representations in Switzerland? Would the War Office man be satisfied with this explanation? One thing he did know was that Harry Fortune was worth his weight in Military Crosses. The best thing to do was to get all this down and see what it looked like.

  He instructed Harry to bring the truck to the front of the hospital. As the two men began to leave the ward there was a slight disturbance. Harry looked back and saw that Mayer was being pinned on his bed by a blond German soldier whose knees straddled his back. Mayer had started to cry out, but a hand suddenly covered his mouth, and his eyes rolled with graphic alarm. When the German soldier saw Harry watching he rolled off the prostrate man, grinned and ruffled his hair as though they were having a friendly rough and tumble.

  ‘What about him?’ he said.

  The Major said, ‘He’ll be all right. His sort always are.’

  Harry shrugged. All’s fair in love and war. The Major had got his story. He didn’t care what happened after that. On the other hand, he had approached the man with a kind of unwritten code, the unity of the outsider, the underclass. The two men had made a pact even before they had met. It wasn’t exactly the honour-among-thieves bond but the feeling of twin souls born on the wrong side of the great class divide. Harry felt a twinge of guilt in letting Mayer down. He stood close to the Major, murmuring into his ear, ‘I wouldn’t give tuppence for his life as soon as we’re out of here. It would mean another inquiry, wouldn’t it?’

  The Major hesitated. If what Fortune said actually came to pass there would be the need to establish a reason for a second killing. Harry was right. ‘Put him in the guard room for a few days. Just till it blows over.’

  Not for the first time the Major thought that he and Harry should reverse roles. He relied on the man entirely. He knew that fundamentally he was not very bright. He had got into a position of authority via a minor public school and a cadet force. When he joined up he went straight into an officers training corps. If he had joined as a private, like Fortune, he knew that he would not have progressed very far. The fact was that what was known as the ‘officer class’ was not noted for brain power, and he was sensible enough to know his limitations.

  ‘Shall we take him with us, sir?’

  The Major nodded almost absent-mindedly.

  Harry made a gesture towards Mayer, who scrambled breathless off the bed and stood beside Harry, looking relieved.

  ‘Fall in,’ said Harry quietly.

  The Major set off, humming as though daring himself to escape from a ticklish situation, Harry following at a respectful distance, with Mayer, still looking relieved, behind him.

  Harry drove smartly away from the hospital with the Major by his side, and Mayer, uncomfortably hunched on the floor of the truck, tumbled about at every bump and turn.

  ‘Harry,’ said the Major. ‘You ought to be doing better than this. You’re too smart to be a private in a broken-down outfit like this.’

  ‘Very happy, sir,’ said Harry woodenly. He didn’t want any complications. He had a comfortable berth. He wasn’t looking for extra responsibilities. Just to get through the blasted war safely. When he was let loose in peacetime he might show them a thing or two. While he proved himself to be invaluable to the Major he was safe. He was, after all, making a few bob from the various fiddles he got into by courtesy of the Major. Harry was taking a long view. One way or another this bloody war would be over in a year. The Russian Army was beginning to make inroads. The Germans were getting a taste of what they had dished out to Londoners. Berlin was being bombed silly night after night. They had replied with the buzz bomb, a device that found its own way to its target and then exploded in the air, untouched by human hand. But after the initial panic this novelty did not seem to be a serious threat – more like a last despairing effort.

  They reached the barracks and the Major said, ‘Drive on. Go down to the town and back on the other route.’

  Harry drove past the gates, wondering.

  There was a woman, sort of ginger-haired with a white face, standing at the gates, giving an anxious glance at everything that passed. The Major thought briefly of asking Harry’s advice on how to deal with the problem posed by Mrs Grantley. The woman had gone off at half-cock, had thrown caution to the winds. If he weren’t careful he could be exposed to some scandal. He was entirely unversed in dealing with emotional attachments. After all, a disturbed woman could say anything.

  Harry, driving carefully, trying to waste some time, had already weighed up the situation. ‘There’s the side entrance,’ he said.

  This was where goods were delivered, mainly for the cookhouse. There was only one soldier showing a token presence. Once inside it was easy enough to drive around the outside of the barrack square. From there the Major could easily make the sanctity of his office, out of sight of the main gate.

  He climbed out and stamped his feet.

  ‘What about the prisoner, sir?’

  ‘Call the duty sergeant.’

  ‘Shall I take him with me?’

  It was prompting all the way. He could have left the Major with the devious Mayer, who could have caused trouble. Harry was thinking for two.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Major wearily. ‘Take him down to the guard room.’ He set off, keeping close to the buildings, moving very quickly.

  Harry motioned to the watchful Mayer. ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘And don’t try anything.’

  5

  DAFT Charlie made a loving job of polishing the Major’s spare pair of boots. Most days he went through the Major’s entire wardrobe, pressing, polishing, mending, burnishing with Brasso, cleaning out the crevices in his badges with a toothbrush and a paste that you spat on called Soldier’s Friend. He found a relief in these tasks that stopped him from thinking. He had deliberately cut himself off. He knew he was unfit for army life, but he was determined to hang on to his own life until the war was over. He had perfected the Daft Charlie act until it had become the natural mode of
his existence. He had the smiling vacant face, the shambling gait; he always arranged the uniform as though it was billowing into a shapeless form. He looked like a caricature of a soldier, a music-hall turn of an enlisted man. It had made him a laughing stock, but it had put a barrier between him and the rest of the cheerful rabble in the odds-and-ends platoon. Nobody bothered with him. Nobody ever addressed a sensible word to him. He had isolated himself from the reality of army life.

  He knew that he had done this, but it was a routine he felt comfortable with. He did not have to face up to anything. He had become an alien because he had been drafted into an alien world. His saviour had been Harry Boy Fortune, who recognized a willing slave. Harry actually thought that Daft Charlie had a screw loose and that he was being kind by exploiting his weakness. But Charlie knew what he was doing and was determined to go on acting the fool until it was safe to emerge from his disguise. The drudgery he inflicted on himself was a defence and a punishment. He found army life crude and barbarous. From the first day when he was called up he knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand it. It wasn’t fear of being pushed into danger, of being shot or blown up in some dark field. It was the outrage to human dignity, the anonymous numbering, the sense of being in a flock of demented sheep, being ordered about by a mad, malignant shepherd. And the everyday coarseness. Even the simple task of inserting a small piece of flannel into a pull-through to clean a rifle barrel became ‘a cow’s cunt stuffed with bluebells’. He couldn’t understand why all the others submitted to this crazy system and, by sacrificing all dignity, had retained some. Nobody knew what went on in his head. They saw a smiling mask, a comic figure shambling along like a drunken circus clown; they laughed at him and pitied him, but he knew that this way he had held on to his reason. When the damn silly old war was over he would throw off the jester’s cloak and hat and resume a civilized life back in London, where he had qualified as a compositor. That had been the hard part, playing down his intelligence and knowledge and becoming a village idiot who had never known a day of schooling.