The Machine Gunners

by Robert Westall

  "What's in those?"

  "Oil of vitriol, hinny. That'll burn their thieving faces off. Ah can just reach them if I throw from here."

  "But they'll shoot you!"

  "Aye well, they can shoot us both together. Forty years we've had, and they're not separating us into those consecration camps at our age. We'll go together, sink or swim."

  Granda coughed, rackingly.

  "Hey, man, wrap yourself up better. You'll catch your death." Nana rearranged the mufflers round his neck, and straightened his cap.

  "You should be in bed, Granda," said Mrs. McGill.

  "Nay, lass. Ah'll face them buggers on me feet, like Ah always did."

  "Chassy's run off somewhere. I can't find him. He said he was going to the lav, but he's gone. And he's let his rabbits out all over the garden. I can't catch them. They're eating all the spring cabbages."

  "He'll be off to the fighting, mevve," said Nana placidly. "McGills always went to the fighting young. Granda here volunteered to fight the Boers when he was only sixteen."

  "Oh, Nana, he can't have!" Mrs. McGill was screeching now.

  "Rest yourself, hinny. If the Jarmans don't come, he'll be home by morning. And if they do, he'll have as much chance as anybody else..." She settled herself comfortably. She was wearing her best hat and coat, because the Jarmans were riffraff and had to be kept in their place.

  Mrs. McGill ran downstairs. Where could she look? What should she do?

  16

  It was a wild scene from the top of Billing's Mill. Clouds boiled across the moon; and black smoke boiled, lower and in a different direction, across the clouds. Three Observer Corps were on duty. One side of their steel helmets gleamed blue with the moon, and the other side red with fire.

  Stan Liddell, more than anyone in Garmouth, could see what was happening. The Dock fires were spreading; the tall black cranes stood out in silhouette. A pink flush to the north would be Blyth, and a fainter glow to the west would be Newcastle burning.

  Below him, the mill was plunged in darkness. Had a bomb knocked out the electricity cables, or was there sabotage? Why had the searchlights at the Castle suddenly gone out, half an hour ago? He felt the solid reassurance of Sandy move up behind him.

  "All small arms issued, sar. All personnel have reported and been sent to their place of duty."

  Stan reached for the left-hand phone—a land line to the single concrete pillbox that guarded the Coast Road Bridge, a mile away.

  "Allo, allo, allo!"

  "For God's sake, Sergeant Mullins, answer the phone correctly."

  "Sorry, sir. Number One post here, sir."

  "Everyone arrived?"

  "All but Wansdyke, sir. Wait on, sir. He's just turned up, sir."

  "Got your pickets out?"

  "Yessir."

  "Anything moving?"

  "One or two cars tried to cross the bridge—civvy refugees, sir. Turned 'em back, sir. But they're just going round by the other road. Any news your end, sir?"

  "Nothing. Keep alert."

  "Yessir." The sergeant was reluctant to go; he sounded pretty lonely. Stan rang Number Two post, a sandbagged cottage over the Docks.

  "Bloody hot down here, sir. Nothing moving but fire brigade and rescue." Number Three post, on the coast north of the Castle, reported an empty beach. Stan tried to ring the military at the Castle; the female operator said all the lines to the Castle were in use. She was half-hysterical but shouting at her only made her worse. Was she really hysterical or faking it? She sounded a bit foreign. When Stan asked her where she came from she said Gateshead and burst into tears. Only the tears didn't sound like real tears. Oh, hell, thought Stan, I'll be imagining German paratroopers under my bed next.

  "Why not try Royal Navy, Blyth, sar?" suggested Sandy. "I thought the first church bells came from that direction. Been a lot of gunfire up that way, sar. Good landing area for troops; sand dunes, firm beaches."

  Stan tried the operator again; she was still sobbing. But she managed to get RN Blyth.

  "Garmouth Home Guard here. Blue Flash." Stan gave the password of the week.

  "Hello, old chap. What's all this Blue Flash lark then?" The hair on the back of Stan's neck prickled. Why didn't RN Blyth know the password? The smooth voice at the far end droned on, "Blue Flash was last week, old son! Password's 'Red Sun' this week. It's Sunday night, you know. Password changes 1800 hours Sunday." The voice spoke perfect English, superior, sneery. Too perfect English? Like Lord Haw-Haw?

  Stan shouted, "I know damn well the password changes 1800 Sunday. Last week's was 'Black Stone.' This week's is 'Blue Flash.' "

  "Let's have a look. Dear me, old lad, you're quite right. My mistake. It's all this racket outside. Can't hear myself think."

  "Where did 'Red Sun' come from, then?" shouted Stan angrily.

  "Must be next week's, mustn't it?" said the voice, a trifle uneasy now.

  "But we're never told next week's till the Wednesday!"

  "Weeell... someone's dropped a clanger then, haven't they, old chap?" The voice was almost a caricature now, sounding falser every minute. A foreigner's idea of a public-school drawl.

  "Who are you?" roared Stan. The telephone line suddenly went dead. Stan shuddered. Had he given the code word to enemy paratroopers?

  Mr. McGill spoke slowly and clearly down the phone.

  "Two houses demolished in Emily Street. Gas main fractured, gas burning, blocking street. Possibly three people trapped in wreckage—at least one still alive. Access by back lane leading from Moreton Street." He put down the phone, wiping his eyes wearily. When he looked up again, his wife was standing there looking like a ghost.

  "Maggie!"

  "The bairn's run off somewhere—he ran off when the bells went. I can't find him. Come and help me look."

  "The bairn?" he said stupidly. "Why's the bairn run off?"

  Her face crumbled before his eyes; first the mouth began to shake, then her eyes crinkled up, then the tears began to stream down her pale cheeks, under the blue headscarf with birds on it. He'd never seen her like this.

  Another damage report was slapped in his lap, hurriedly scrawled in indelible pencil on the back of a damp cigarette packet. He picked up the phone to Area HQ again. The report was hard to decipher.

  "Boy lying injured in the front garden of 11 Wimbledon Terrace. No, that should be 17 Wimbledon Terrace... one seven Wimbledon Terrace. Yes, it's off Mendip Road, second on the left going towards the river. Boy cannot be moved—suspected fractured spine. Ambulance essential." He put down the phone. His wife had collapsed sobbing over the operations table. He shook her by the shoulder timidly.

  "Stop it, hinny. It mightn't be him. He might be all right." She raised a face to him he didn't know—stretched, mad. Her hands reached for his shoulders like claws.

  "Come and look. Come and help me. Help me, help me... I don't know what to do!" Mr. McGill looked round desperately. His assistants were watching. One had a new damage report in his hand. Mr. McGill took it automatically and picked up the phone.

  "Outbreak of fire in a warehouse in Dock Road; building contains bales of cloth. No noxious fumes as yet. Fire in danger of spreading to nearby paraffin store. Dock Road blocked by rubble. Access by..." His wife's shoulders were blocking the access map. He couldn't see where the access route was.

  "For God's sake get this woman out of here," he shouted, as if she were some common stranger. His voice was hard as stone. Two wardens hauled Mrs. McGill to her feet.

  "Ey, steady up, missus," said the older one, awkwardly. They half-dragged her to the doorway. She turned and looked at her husband.

  "Your own bairn, and you wouldn't look for him. God forgive you, for I never shall." And she fled sobbing into the night. Mr. McGill was seized with a wild urge to run after her, but the phone rang and steadied him.

  "Fire engine gone to Dock Road," he said to his assistants in a whisper. One of the other wardens stuck a red pin in the map. Nobody looked at Mr. McGill. He felt very l
onely; but quite determined to stay on that phone till the Germans shot it out from under him.

  "Time to go, Rudi," said Clogger. But he really meant time to mend the gun.

  Rudi glanced round all the familiar faces; but they were no longer familiar. Clogger held out the greasy cloth with the machine-gun parts wrapped in it.

  Rudi hesitated. It was wrong to put such a gun into the hands of children. But what was right tonight? His own people were invading; he had heard the bells. He was confused. These hordes descending on the Blyth beaches, were they friends or foes? These children, preparing to try to kill them, were they foes or friends? Rudi no longer knew; he was muddled. Too weak and muddled to resist the oil cloth thrust at him, the children's air of expectancy.

  He bent in the lamplight, and fitted the parts back into the gun. What Clogger had struggled with so many hours was the work of a minute. He cocked the gun and pulled the trigger on an empty breech. It was done.

  "So that's how you cock it," said Chas. "That's what we did wrong. We forgot to recock it." His voice sounded glad, excited. "Now who'll take Rudi to the boat?"

  "I will," said Nicky. Everyone shook hands quickly; nobody looked at anybody else. Nicky's and Rudi's footsteps faded into the night. The silence was awful.

  "Let's sing, quietly," said Audrey. The song they sang was Ich halt einen Kameraden and a lot of tears were surreptitiously flicked from faces.

  The telephone from Number Two post rang. Everybody on the roof of Billing's Mill jumped.

  "Sergeant Watson here, sir."

  "Yes?"

  "Do we search everyone who passes us, sir? There's a terrible lot of people on the road, walking with bundles. Heading toward Newcastle, most of them."

  "Yes, stop and search everybody. Try and turn them back if you can. They'll only block the roads and spread panic. We don't want it like France, do we?"

  "Righto, sir."

  Stan hung up and rubbed his bristled cheeks. They felt stiff and painful. Three hours they had been waiting, and still no definite word of the invasion, one way or the other. The telephone exchange had stopped answering altogether. Hit by a bomb, captured by the enemy, or just choked with calls?

  "What about us taking the van and running down to the Castle, Sarnt-major? They might know something definite."

  "I'd like to, sar, only well... aren't there enough folk flying round like paper kites already? I think we'd do better just sitting tight and doing our job. Something might happen at one of our posts the moment we turned our backs, sar. That's the hardest part of any battle, sar—sitting and waiting; with respect, sar." Sandy clicked his heels together.

  "Carry on, then, Sarnt-major," said Stan. God bless you, Sandy, he thought. God bless your simple heart.

  The phone from Number One post rang, shrilly, hysterically.

  "Mullins here, sir. Jerry's come, sir. At least I think he has. Can you come quick with all the lads you've got, sir?"

  They got the twelve men of the reserve into the tiny van somehow, with a desperate clatter of rifles. Stan drove, thinking about Number One point. It was a good solid concrete pillbox. "A" platoon, which held it, was the strongest platoon—thirty-two men with old Canadian rifles, and an ancient Lewis machine gun, the pride of the company. With fourteen extra, we can make some kind of show, thought Stan. But why can't I hear any firing?

  They pulled up by the silent pillbox with a squeal of brakes. Mullins was waiting. The men leaped out quickly, and took shelter behind the pillbox, glancing round the corners nervously.

  "Which way are they, Mullins?"

  "On the road, sir, beyond the bridge. In lorries they are, sir, about two or three hundred strong. Ten lorries and a command car, anyway. They've got out and are lounging about. Mr. Whiteload's talking to the fellow who seems to be in charge."

  "Talking?"

  "They're trying to bluff their way through, I reckon. They can't know how little we've got inside this pillbox, can they?"

  "And they're coming from the direction of Newcastle, toward the coast?"

  "Part of their bluff, sir. Isn't that what you'd do?"

  "How do you know they're Germans?"

  "They're foreigners for sure—you should hear 'em babble. And they haven't got no movement order. Mr. White-load asked them for that, straight away."

  All the while, Stan, Sandy and the sergeant had been walking across the bridge to the trucks.

  "British Army trucks," said Stan.

  "They captured plenty at Dunkirk, sar," said Sandy.

  "British uniforms," said Stan.

  "But they're not wearing them British-style," said Sandy. "Too sloppy. No backbone."

  Two figures stood in the middle of the road, arguing violently. One was Mr. Whiteload. The other... well ... he certainly wasn't British. A heavy black moustache swooped to the corners of his mouth. Eyebrows, equally heavy, drooped to high cheekbones. His accent was heavy, and his gestures dramatic.

  "I'm glad you've come, sir," said Whiteload, a bespectacled ex-public schoolboy with flat feet. "The officer says he is Major er... er..."

  "Koslowski. Stanislaus Koslowski, Major, Polish Free Army, at your service." His jackboots clicked loudly together. The salute was like something in the movies, the handshake like a bear's. "I am bloody-marvelously amazed to make your acquaintance, Colonel."

  "What are you chaps doing on the move without a movement order?"

  "Ve not vait for any bloody movement order. Germans come—is enough. Ve go kill bloody Germans. Do ve need a killings-Germans-order also? Poles can kill Nazis without orders."

  "Look, old lad. If everyone goes off half-cock without orders we shall have chaos."

  "Ho yes, Englishman. You want everything nice and neat, like your bloody privet hedges, like your wife's kitchen at home. My wife is not at home. Wife and children is dead, road out of Warsaw. Nazi fighter shoots them into very small bits. Not neat, eh?"

  "I'm sorry," said Stan, getting cross. But he was really starting to wonder if this could possibly be the hyper-efficient German Wehrmacht.

  "I take you to my general," announced the moustached man, dragging Stan in a bear-like hug down the road. "General Prince Gerard Nowicki." Stan didn't even try to struggle—it would be undignified.

  General Prince Nowicki, standing in the pale moonlight, was like a figure out of a musical comedy: with a four-cornered peaked cap, riding cape and pale aristocratic profile. The man stood only five feet tall, and must be seventy if he was a day.

  "My dear Captain... Liddell. And you are of the British Home Guard, I see. And you hold this bridge most stubbornly, even against your allies." Stan felt ashamed. The Germans could never have invented him.

  "How can we settle our differences, Captain? Let us go to your HQ, and leave our stout fellows here to guard each other. I shall make sure mine do not open fire first..." He called out orders in a foreign language, not loud but silvery, so they carried over the noise of that night.

  "Let us drive to your HQ in comfort, in my car, Captain."

  "Stand fast, Mr. Whiteload," muttered Stan, as he was led away. He felt outwitted, somehow.

  Fatty Hardy had the situation well in hand. The main problem was to stop German parachutists and saboteurs getting down Saville Street. After all, it was the main street of Garmouth. It hardly occurred to him that saboteurs might prefer to sneak down back lanes. Anyway, he couldn't be responsible for everything.

  So it was there he made his stand. He requisitioned three passing special constables to help him, and luckily one had a car. With the car, they blocked Saville Street, leaving only a three-foot space to get past. In this space, Fatty set a table and chair from a bombed house, and on the chair he placed his own ample bottom. The light from a nearby burning house gave enough light to read people's identity cards. Then two soldiers home on leave turned up with their rifles. Really, thought Fatty, it was the perfect setup.

  It was. A queue of refugees rapidly formed. Three fire engines on their way to fires were unable t
o get past because their crews couldn't produce identity cards. They departed with such streams of language as German saboteurs could never have achieved.

  It was just after this that Rudi and Nicky ran round the corner, and slap into the queue. In fact, they tried to hurry past before they realised it was a queue.

  "Ey, get in line there. Who do you think you are?" growled a big man carrying a clothes basket full of blankets and tinned food. Everyone turned and stared at them. They retired to the end of the queue.

  "Let's run," whispered Nicky. Rudi took the child's hand. It was cold as ice and shaking violently.

  "Let's walk," said Rudi. He managed to keep calm for the boy's sake.

  But when they turned away, a soldier with a fixed bayonet turned them back.

  "Get in the queue, you! If you've got nowt to hide, you've got nowt to fear." He waved his bayonet in their faces; he was wild with fright like everyone else.

  Fatty Hardy made a fuss about everybody, as they came up to his table. Identity cards were not enough. They had to turn out their bundles, say where they were going. People swore at them, and he swore back. It got tenser and tenser. And the queue in front of Rudi and Nicky got shorter and shorter.

  "What shall we do?" whispered Nicky.

  "There nothing is we can do. Those soldiers they will shoot us if we run. Only thing to do is for you to leave go of my hand. On your own, you are safe. Be sensible, hein?"

  But Nicky clung to Rudi's hand all the tighter.

  Then it was their turn at the table.

  "Identity cards?" Rudi's tongue clove to his mouth.

  "Hurry up. Identity cards." Fatty Hardy squinted up at them. He was sweating. Rudi felt Nicky take a huge breath.

  "We ain't got none," said Nicky. He spoke like a ragamuffin. In his tattered balaclava helmet, even his own schoolmates wouldn't have recognised him.

  "Shut up, kid. I'm talking to your dad."

  "Me dad's deaf and dumb." Nicky clutched Rudi's hand tighter still. "We're going to see if me gran's all right."

  "What's your name?"

  "Webster."