Caught, Back, Concluding

by Henry Green

  ‘I was expectin’ this,’ he said, ‘all along I was, but what can I do? ’E doesn’t get the grub up at Number Fifteen, ’e’s got a sweet tooth, the old fool ’as, and in addition ’e spreads ’imself, ’e lives like a lord at present, waited on by all alike. And what does ’e do for it? Nothing, mate, sweet dam’ all. The Germans will be in Calais before that bloody bathroom is done, ’e’s been three months already.’ But the Germans were to be quicker than that.

  The deputation was pleased. Pye had been acting so strange lately there was no knowing how he would take anything. Emboldened, one of them spoke up to enquire whether Trant could be asked if he had excused Piper doing night guards. But Pye did not intend to go near the District Officer if he could help, and he was not prepared to let his station know that he lacked the courage.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘be careful, you’ll be beyond everything permissible in a minute. We’re in a Service lads,’ he told them, ‘we all have to obey orders whether we like it or not. I’ll tell you something else, it ain’t healthy to question lawful orders. Get back to work, to what you was doing, we won’t call that work. You all know what I said to the lads the first time. It might be worth my pension if the DO got to hear that I’d listened on a second occasion.’

  That night, when Pye asked Richard to slip out for a drink, as had been their custom some months back, Roe thought it must be to discuss Piper. But, once they were settled in the four-ale bar, the sub’s first words were almost an echo of those he had used the day war was declared.

  ‘As man to man, Dick,’ he said, ‘what sort of a government is it we live under, eh? Look over in France. This marvellous system of ours can put a sane woman within the asylum but it can’t put inside the lunatics who’ve landed us in the pass we’ve come to, because we’ve lost the entire British army, mark my words, there’s no mistaking it. This self-same system can’t get rid of the very men themselves that’s at the top now, and responsible. That’s something no true man can comprehend.’

  Richard sighed. He realised he was in for a session. But Pye was not in the mood to stick to one subject.

  ‘Now a woman I was born and bred up with has wronged your wife. It’s what it comes to. But wait a minute. When I come in unexpected on my leave day the other morning I was glad to meet her, yes and to see the nipper again, because of the way it turned out. For the reason that ’e didn’t take no notice. I couldn’t ’elp remarking the manner your wife switched ’erself away but I made no account, don’t misunderstand me, it was only natural on her part. I’d’ve done the same myself. But I’m like any man, I can control my instincts, yet there’s no one can put a halter on his thoughts. I don’t mean anything personal. Being as I am I couldn’t stop myself asking what she’d done still to be locked away as she is. Tell me straight, is there any accounting for it the way things have come out? ’As she done any wrong that has lasted till today? Can you see it?’

  Richard thought he tumbled to what was in the wind. He foolishly opened his mouth.

  ‘I know, sub,’ he said, ‘but after all it was none of my doing. And if you were to ask me to write in to the authorities calling on them to release her, or something like that, well it’s going to be difficult, I’m in an awkward predicament, I . . .’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask a thing like that of anyone,’ Pye broke in, remarking to himself the sod, the awkward bastard, why can’t he listen, ‘because it wouldn’t be the slightest use,’ he went on, ‘once doctors get a grip they never let go. And even if I did wangle her out, because I’ve only to go up before the ’Igh Courts of Justice, put down fifty quid, and the thing’s done so long as I swear she’ll get as good attention at ’ome, even if I did want her back which I’m not so sure now, it wouldn’t alter that she’d been in. No, if she’s in she’d better stay, but the ’eartbreak is that she was ever there at all.’ He fell silent.

  Richard drank his beer. He tried to think of something. In the end this was the best he could do:

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘What d’you make of this moonlight, I mean in the black-out?’ Pye began again, not changing the subject. ‘D’you mistake objects in it, ’ave you taken one person for another?’

  ‘I can’t tell one from another, sub.’

  ‘But I mean close to, right up. It’s confusing you know, some nights.’

  Richard thought he could risk a joke.

  ‘What have you been up to, then?’ he asked. ‘Going up to the wrong girl?’

  ‘You mightn’t be so far out at that,’ Pye said. ‘Speaking of the same subject, they sent for me down to the asylum again the other afternoon. You know they’re after trying to get me to pay for her upkeep and I say, no, you doctors booked my sister in and now you can toe the line, foot the expense. But that’s another story. Anyway, this doctor I saw asked if I could remember anything in her past ’istory to account for her being the way she is. Now you’re a married man and, you know, he meant anything to do with the sex life.’

  ‘I see,’ said Richard. He was sorry their conversation was coming back to the sister. ‘As a matter of fact I’m very doubtful about these psychologists, and yours sounds like he was one of them.’

  ‘You are, eh? Well, Dick, I don’t mind telling you that by the time he’d finished with me I didn’t know what day of the week it was.’

  ‘I don’t know myself anymore,’ Richard said. ‘This life we lead, every third day off, bewilders me. I couldn’t tell you if it’s Saturday or Sunday today, honestly.’

  ‘Come on, drink up, it’s my round,’ Pye said, but he was not to be diverted. ‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘this doctor got me properly guessing. Then he starts to tell me about ’is own sister, quite uncalled for, something about a toboggan ride they had when they were kids on a black tray they had, and a lot more besides. I couldn’t follow it. But, oh boy, was there a lovely bit of stuff on top of the old bus coming back.’

  Richard would rather anything than one of Pye’s descriptions of the latest girl.

  ‘How typical of a psychologist,’ he said, ‘making a song about a black tray.’

  ‘You don’t have such a high opinion of them, then?’

  ‘No, sub, I’ve not. Here’s all the best. I know a man who went to one, and he came out crackers.’

  ‘Did ’e, the poor bastard. And he came out? What was his trouble?’

  ‘Girls.’

  ‘Skirt, eh? Well that’s sent many a good man off his nut. I’ve remarked there’s a lot to do with the first one a lad has, and that goes for the woman as well. But what sort of a cuss would I be to tell this doctor things my sister’s always kept to herself? It’s not a question of class. There’s subjects that are private, and that’s all. But these doctors certainly make you wonder.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’ Then Richard, through over-confidence, was rash. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘after what happened my wife was most insistent that Christopher should not meet you again. I can say it, can’t I, we’re talking frankly and we both know there was nothing in that little business,’ then he corrected himself, ‘or it’s all over, now, anyway.’ Pye asked himself, why in God’s name do I sit here with him, the wet sod. Richard went on, ‘Well she cost me a guinea the other morning when she rang up the psychologist to enquire whether he thought it would matter if you did meet although I told her you were on leave that day, and he said it would be dangerous, or it might be, I believe he said.’

  Pye muttered, ‘I’m sorry,’ and thought, does he want to tap me for that bill as well?

  Richard took another deep draught of ale, ‘Don’t be sorry, sub, there’s nothing to be sorry about. You saw what happened, he came up to you perfectly happy, delighted to see you again in fact.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Pye said, not glad.

  ‘So you’re having a quiet time still, fireman.’ They both turned round to find a nondescript civilian who had come up to get another drink.

  ‘Yes,’ Pye said, thankful for the break, ‘but Christ help us all when it
does start over here, mate.’ He would stand no nonsense with civilians.

  Richard had come to an end, aware that he had gone too far. This gave the sub officer his chance to get on with the main subject.

  ‘Tell us, Dick,’ he said, ‘can you remember after you’ve been with ’em?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Why, kypher, skirt. Listen, years ago the first I ’ad, see, I thought might be someone else, only it was a dark night and I couldn’t be certain.’ He was talking so low that it was all Richard could do to hear. ‘What d’you make of that?’

  ‘I still don’t get you, sub.’

  ‘Well, do you think a man could be mistaken?’

  ‘But didn’t you talk?’

  ‘No, of course we didn’t. What was there to yarn about?’

  ‘Then unless she had a mastoid, or something similar, I don’t suppose you could tell.’

  ‘That’s just what I keep repeating to myself. I’ll acquaint you with it some day, Dick.’

  ‘It could be very awkward.’

  ‘Awkward? It was worse than that. It’s a thing that only come to me not above a week or two back. Keeps me awake, that does. I bloody well lie there sweatin’ of a night time.’

  ‘You don’t want to let it worry you.’

  ‘Yes, but there you are, what we want and what we get is two very different things. Oh I know it’s unreasonable, yet I don’t seem able to ’elp myself.’

  ‘I’ll bet you’ve been terrific with the girls in your day,’ Richard said, making up to him.

  ‘Get out, what’s the matter with you,’ Pye replied, not displeased, and ready to drop the topic. He did not wish to discuss girls with Roe. His instinct had been to find some comfort against the doubts which were sure to crowd him when, some hours later, after lights out, he would close his eyes alongside the black telephone.

  There was a silence. Pye let his mind free-wheel. He went on dreading the night. Suddenly he said:

  ‘I know who that man is. He’s a plain clothes man.’

  ‘What chap is that, sub?’

  Richard, after a few beers, would let himself drop into what he imagined was their way of talking.

  ‘Why,’ said Pye, ‘the one that said we were ’aving a quiet time. I’ll wager he won’t stir out of ’is shelter under Savile Row when the raids start, either.’

  ‘What makes you think he is?’

  ‘I always know one by the cut of his jib, mate. I can tell ’em in the black-out at fifty yards distance, the rotten swine. I hate their guts. Since I’ve ’ad to do with ’em any criminal’s got my sympathy. They make crime, that sort do.’

  Richard thought they had better get off this subject. ‘Well, sub,’ he said, ‘what are you going to have now?’

  ‘Thanks, Dick, I tell you what, shall we wind up with a round of shorts?’

  ‘Won’t you be going across the way tonight?’ Richard meant was Pye to meet Prudence. He ordered the whisky. The sub officer did not answer, so Roe thought he would risk another try. While he was jealous no longer, he was most curious to know.

  ‘Not any more if I can help it, I’m not,’ Pye lied. ‘Not since that mad sod of an old matelot got up there with the other one. I can’t afford to do it.’

  ‘How’s that? Does it come expensive?’

  ‘No, never on your life. But once one of me own men gets drinking from the adjacent source, to use an expression, even if it is on Swedish territory, then it’s time for me to leave well alone, get back on the old Scotch. ’Ere’s good health. No, an officer can’t afford to get mixed up with his men on that sort of lark. Else how can he expect to keep authority?’

  ‘You mean Shiner’s having a thing with Ilse?’

  ‘Well you brought ’em together, didn’t you? But I don’t know, don’t go asking me. All I know is I keep right out of it now, bet your life I do.’

  Richard was flabbergasted at first, then much tickled. Hilly had made him immune for the moment. He laughed.

  ‘What are you laughing about?’ Pye said.

  ‘I can’t help it when I think of those two together.’ Pye looked at him pityingly. Then he turned round to see if the plain clothes man was still around.

  ‘There ’e is.’

  ‘What? Who? I don’t see them. Shiner and Ilse you mean?’

  ‘No, mate, the copper in flannel bags.’

  Finally Pye brought out the first remark of many that were to alarm Richard. He said:

  ‘Of course, being the age I am, I could join as officer air gunner in the RAF.’

  Roe looked to see if his sub officer was joking. It was plain that he was not.

  ‘But aren’t you over age, really?’ he asked.

  ‘Not more than two years. I’m thirty-five. They’d be glad to ’ave a man of my varied experience.’

  It came to Richard that Pye must be insane. At that date he was years over age.

  This interesting discussion was ended by an Auxiliary, sent over to tell Pye he was wanted on the phone. The sub officer did not see Roe again that night. He fiddled with routine matters over at the substation until after closing time, unable to complete anything. Then the fit came on him. He went into the vast, moonlit night.

  He had only meant to go as far as the corner, so he did not book out. But once he was full in it, in the radiance, against which, on the other side, were triangular dark sapphire shadows exactly laid by houses, the urge returned with the memory of his sister’s moon draggled crawl, with Prudence’s clear cut, neat refusal to have him, the urge came back, driving Pye to try once more to find how much he could recognise by this light in the bright river of the street, and to get a girl for the evening, out of the blue.

  He had hopes, as a boy of nine might go feeling he could slay two ravens in flight with a cat’s eye on a string.

  As he idled along, playing truant, the milk moon stripped deep gentian cracker paper shadows off his uniform. Then the next building, in a line as acute as its angle to the moon, laid these back on as he went.

  It was as if the warm air was powdered.

  He crossed over to avoid an intermittent glow made on his beat by a policeman. In full moonlight now, Pye crossed once more into the next sharp triangle of soft shadow, as soon as the officer, hobbling the primrose torch, had passed.

  Pye grew desperate. ‘Just such another night,’ he said in official tones beneath his scented breath, while he rolled a violet cachet against the denture.

  At that, so sudden it brought him up sharp, the tart, stood back in a doorway, shone a copper beam, from the torch she carried, full on her left breast she held bared with the other hand. She murmured, ‘Hulloh love.’ Longingly he ogled the dark purple nipple, the moon full globe that was red Indian tinted by her bulb, with the whiff of scent. ‘Jesus,’ he moaned, but it was too near his substation. ‘Don’t you go hangin’ around,’ he added indistinctly, and shambled off. She laughed into a cough and then, when she snapped down the light, was again, and at once, indigo, and the door against which she stood.

  He came to a pub which was not the one he used with Richard, but a house visited when alone, out after a girl. It had gone closing time. The door was barred. He pushed, then rattled the handle he had to grope to find. But it was not until he surprised himself banging on the brass plate, which seemed enamelled, that he realised he had had enough, or rather that the air, the intense impartiality of moonlight, had so stepped up what he had consumed with Richard that he was wavering on the wet verge of drunkenness.

  Meantime he was unlucky. While he was out Trant rang him. Chopper, who took the call, had his own pension to consider. Chopper was not going to cover Pye again. It was enough to have been caught once. He did not actually say his sub officer was adrift. What he rang back to tell the District Officer was that Pye could not for the moment be found.

  Trant ordered a car, booked himself out, and was on his way down. To give them a drill. Richard was already back from the pub. Chopper, anticipating that Trant would try
to catch Pye out, sent Richard across to see if the skipper was up with Prudence. Roe did not like it. He said he would rather not.

  ‘It’s long odds the DO will be along to give us a turn out,’ Chopper said. ‘We can’t let the skipper down.’

  ‘Yes, but what if I miss the drill?’

  ‘Trant’ll never notice one man not riding.’

  ‘But I can’t go in and say, “Have you got Pye in with you, dear?”’ said Richard.

  ‘Oh go on up, for Christ’s sake, and look sharp about it. That’s an order if you like.’ There were no witnesses. If Roe had been caught, which he was not, Chopper would have denied having given the order.

  Trant wasted no time when he arrived. He put the bells down, watched the drill without comment. Then he asked, ‘Where’s the sub officer?’

  ‘I can’t make it out, sir,’ Chopper said. ‘Why, he was here a moment ago.’

  ‘Tell him to phone me the minute he gets back.’

  With that the DO stepped into his car, his driver winked, and he was driven off to Number Fifteen. A group of men stood in the doorway, watching. Shiner was with them.

  One said ‘What a smashing night.’

  ‘It is and all,’ another answered. ‘And ’ow about the drill? It was fast I reckon.’

  ‘Barrin’ the fact we was let down by the skipper. Same old story time and again. Pye puts the bells down as often as three occasions in one day, ’e gives more drills than they get in another substation on the ground, yet when it comes down to brass tacks, when somebody takes a fancy to drill him, he’s not even on the bloody premises.’

  ‘It’s dodgy,’ Shiner said, ‘I fancy we’re to expect changes in this ship. Why, d’you see what I see? It’s Savoury, or my eyes are no better than the skipper’s in the moonlight. Hi, cock.’ Then as Richard came up, ‘You’ve missed a drill.’

  ‘Did Trant get on to my not being there?’ he asked.

  ‘How did you know it was Trant turned us out?’

  ‘Because I was sent to see if I could hunt up the skipper. Chopper thought the drill was coming off.’