‘They’ve figured I can read,’ said Soroyan. The driver headed the jeep for the guarded main gate with its clutch of girls and children outside, the sentries ignoring them. Bull, the driver, said: ‘We could make a killing, more than cleaning up at poker, if we could somehow smuggle those molls into camp.’
‘No hope,’ sniffed Soroyan. He flicked a packet of chewing-gum at some boys who scrambled for it. ‘Nobody gets out and nobody gets in.’
‘Except us,’ said Bull. He turned the car towards the docks.
‘They owe me,’ said Soroyan. ‘Uncle Sam owes me. Once you’ve been in action and wounded, then they got to send you back Stateside. Home. That’s the rule. Right?’
‘Sure is.’ Bull looked interested. ‘You been in action?’
‘Exercise Tiger,’ said Soroyan. ‘Screw-up beach landing. Some Nazi E-boats. D’you hear about it? Seven hundred GIs dead.’
‘Who ain’t heard?’ Bull whistled silently. ‘Were you in that shit?’
‘Certainly was. Trouble was, I wasn’t wounded enough. I survived in the ocean. I was just wounded up here.’ He patted his forehead. ‘In my brain.’
Bull eased the jeep to traffic lights. He waved to some schoolboys in a bus going to the public swimming baths. They waved their towels. ‘If you want to stay alive,’ muttered Soroyan, ‘learn to swim.’
‘So they’re giving you a second chance,’ Bull said.
‘To die,’ breathed Soroyan.
Bull steered the vehicle off the main road and took the long street to the docks. Enid was walking back to her house. Soroyan sat up from his slouch. ‘Jeez, did you get that ass?’
‘It was some ass,’ agreed Bull. ‘Some tits at the front, too. I saw in the mirror. Nice legs. Nice-looking blonde.’
‘Drop me off here,’ said Soroyan decisively. ‘You can pick up the mail. I saw the house where she went.’
Bull was astonished. ‘But you’re on this duty too. You can’t just hightail it after an ass.’ He stopped the jeep nevertheless.
‘Be a pal,’ urged Soroyan. ‘It’s only frigging letters. Wells Fargo it ain’t. I’ll meet you here, on this street, in half an hour.’ He hesitated. ‘Forty-five minutes.’
‘Okay,’ said Bull, still full of doubt. ‘So what if that sergeant in the mail section wants to know where you are? Do I tell him you’ve gone to pray?’
‘Great idea,’ said Soroyan, climbing from the jeep. ‘And I sure will be praying. For some luck. See you, buddy.’ He banged his hand on the roof frame and Bull, shaking his head, drove off. ‘You’ll be dumped in the brig!’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Might be an idea!’ Soroyan shouted back. He loped along the street, wishing he had thought to bring a packet of the nylon stockings which so often came in useful. He arrived outside the house, straightened his uniform and his cap, marched up the short path and rang the bell.
Enid’s eyes widened when she saw the tall, tanned young man. ‘Was there something?’ she enquired, moving seductively against the door frame.
Soroyan had his speech ready but in the end he ad libbed. ‘Oh … oh, yes, ma’am.’ He even manufactured a blush. ‘Wow … I’m sorry. You’re so beautiful …’
‘Thank you.’ She had seen him in the jeep. ‘So are you.’
‘But … wow … but I seem to have come to the wrong address. I was looking for the Metcalf family. Mr and Mrs Metcalf … and all the little … Metcalves.’
‘Metcalf?’ wondered Enid, looking up and down his tunic. ‘I don’t know anybody of that … Would you like a cup of coffee?’
Soroyan succeeded in continuing to blush. ‘Well, ma’am, thank you. I seem to have gotten the wrong street. These little streets all look the same.’
‘I expect you have much bigger streets in America,’ said Enid, opening the door and letting him in. ‘Everything’s bigger, isn’t it?’
They were close in the passageway, his handsome olive-skinned face only inches from her powdered nose. ‘Most things,’ he said.
She led him through to the kitchen. ‘My husband’s away.’ She opted for the half truth. ‘On war work.’
He sighed and sat on the chair she offered. She thanked God she had done her hair and make-up before she went to the shops. ‘Looks like everybody’s got war work,’ said Soroyan, taking in her legs as she walked towards the kettle. She had the seams of nonexistent stockings etched up the back. The ink had smudged on her calf. Why hadn’t he brought the nylons? ‘At this moment, I’m one of thousands of guys stuck behind wire. The first smell of freedom we’ll get is when we hit those killer beaches in France. Yes, ma’am.’
Enid turned her full, sympathetic face on him. ‘It’s just terrible, I think. Herding you together like that just before you go off to fight.’
‘And maybe die,’ he muttered, looking directly at her.
A genuine dampness came to her doll-blue eyes. ‘You could, easily,’ she said. She was ashamed that she had told him that Harris was on war work. His letter had arrived that morning and it had made her very sad. She told herself she needed cheering and here was the very person to do it.
‘Will it be very dangerous?’ she asked. She stood by him as he sat tall in the chair.
‘I guess it will. I’ve already got lucky once. I ended in the English Channel which was on fire all around me at the time. Lots of guys died.’
Enid caught her breath. Her breasts heaved below her blouse. ‘Poor you,’ she said. Her hands went halfway to his head in a motherly gesture. She halted and began to withdraw them but he nodded his head back into them.
‘I’m scared as hell,’ he said. ‘I need …’
‘You need what?’ she asked. ‘I’ll try and get it for you.’ The kettle was boiling and she attempted to ignore it but it began to whistle. Reluctantly she went to the stove and turned it off. Soroyan had risen from the chair by the time she turned back.
‘You’re very tall,’ she said. Her chin was almost on his uniformed chest.
‘And you’re very beautiful,’ he repeated. ‘I just … God, I just wish we had time to get to know each other.’
‘There’s time,’ she assured him. She was enjoying the feeling. It was just like the pictures. ‘There’s always time. What’s your name?’
‘Soroyan,’ he told her. ‘Ben Soroyan. My family came from Armenia.’
‘I don’t know where that is,’ shrugged Enid. ‘This war is like geography, isn’t it? My name is Enid Harris. I’m originally from Eastleigh.’
They were inches apart. ‘Armenia is in some different part of the world that is miles away just now,’ he said throatily. ‘Miles and miles.’ He could not believe how well it was going.
‘And you’re here,’ she whispered. She moved against his tunic feeling the hard, fit body beneath it. She bit one of his buttons and then turned her face up. As they kissed voluptuously and she withdrew to get some breath, she caught sight of her husband’s simple letter on its lined paper. She had read it twice. It was not long enough to read it more than that. Oh, Harris.
Soroyan was kissing her again. He pressed against her breasts. He checked his watch as his hands went over her back and down to her buttocks. Half an hour left. ‘I’ll feel so much braver for this,’ he said. ‘I won’t care what happens to me.’
Furtively she glanced at her husband’s letter again. Then the doorbell rang. Soroyan said: ‘Shit.’ She put her finger to his lips as she disengaged herself and glanced about the kitchen. ‘Just in case,’ she cautioned, ‘you’d better get into the pantry for a minute. I’ll see who it is.’
He began wildly looking about him for the pantry. She opened the cupboard door and gently pushed him in with the sugar ration and that day’s loaf of bread. There were tins on the shelves and he prudently selected a can of Spam and held it like a hand-grenade.
Enid rearranged her hair and smoothed down her skirt and blouse as she went along the passage.
It was Maggie Phillips and she was sobbing. ‘Oh, that bastard,’ she wailed.
‘He’s gone off with a lump of a land-army girl.’
‘Your Brian?’
‘Who else would it be?’
‘What a pig. He’s only just let you know, has he?’
‘This bloody morning. And it’s my birthday, Enid, like you know. I thought it was a card.’ She began to sob deeply again.
Enid gently encouraged her into the house. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she said. ‘Forget your Brian. Come into the kitchen. Have I got a present for you.’
Chapter Twenty
Harcourt drove Miller south-west from London to Winchester, with its strong, old cathedral, to the headquarters of the US 9th Infantry Division, through a placid early summer day. ‘I just don’t know, sir, how England can be so beautiful and yet not warm,’ Harcourt said as the road curled through the green, gently hilly countryside. As they neared the grey and solemn city they saw the roads were taken up as parking places for bulky Sherman tanks with their ominous guns, veiled in camouflage netting.
From Winchester a flow of military traffic was crawling east. A British military policeman, his boots glowing in the sunshine, was at a crossroads. ‘Cheesefoot Head, sir,’ called Harcourt from the car window. ‘Follow the rest,’ waved the MP. ‘And you don’t have to call me sir, soldier. Up to now I’m only a corporal.’
‘Just politeness,’ Harcourt muttered, withdrawing his head. He half turned to Miller. ‘He just looked like a sir, sir.’ Miller laughed. Harcourt, as if he had been waiting, said: ‘When they start this invasion, captain, I want to come with you.’
Miller patted his shoulder. ‘Right now, Benji, I don’t know whether I’m going to get there myself. I’m still pushing for it.’ He grinned privately. ‘How do you feel about a parachute drop over France?’
There was a pause before Harcourt said: ‘Maybe I’ll wait a little.’
Cheesefoot Head was a sumptuous natural amphitheatre, a great grassy bowl set in endlessly curving Hampshire countryside. At the top the wind was blowing the long grass. Even today, sixty years later, it is not difficult to picture the scene that afternoon, the steep green slopes lined row above row with khaki soldiers. Above them a blue sheet of English sky spread and in the air singing skylarks rose. Miller stood amazed.
General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, was due. He arrived on time and a low murmur went up from the galleries of soldiers, every one of whom thought of him like a friend and called him Ike. He turned a full slow circle on the wooden platform to take in the massed and expectant faces of his men. Senior officers on the platform sat down and took in the scene in silence, perhaps in awe. When Eisenhower, a neat, unmilitary figure, was announced by a tall captain from Texas, and stepped two paces forward to the central microphone, all the ranks began to applaud and shout, the men rising to their feet, the acclaim growing and going like a travelling wind over the sweeping countryside, sending distant sheep bolting and stirring farm horses.
The applause continued until Eisenhower, with his wide, half-melon shaped grin visible even from the top tier of troops, held up his hand to end it in an instant. He began to speak into the microphone.
‘Men, you are embarking upon the Great Crusade, toward which you have striven these many months …’ The words rose up through the green basin.
‘I saw Joe Louis box here,’ said the officer next to Miller in a soft conversational voice but not a whisper. Miller glanced at him in astonishment. He saw he was a full colonel. ‘You did?’ he answered politely. Eisenhower was saying: ‘… The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you …’
‘Sure I saw him,’ said the other American. ‘He was the finest human being I ever did see. He came to fight, right down there where the man is speaking from, and it was a great experience.’
Eisenhower said: ‘… Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely …’
‘It was no great fight,’ said the officer. ‘Only exhibition stuff, a couple of punk boxers to fight him. He could have handled both at the same time. My God, what a fighter …’
The other men around them were intent on Eisenhower’s words. Miller’s neighbour was speaking directly to Miller as if he had to tell someone. ‘And Judy Garland,’ he continued. ‘I saw Judy sing here also. What a day that was. The guys loved it …’
‘I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.’ Eisenhower’s voice rose.
‘Judy, she sang “Over the Rainbow”.’ When he laughed it was like a small grunt. ‘You know “Over the Rainbow”?’
‘I do,’ muttered Miller.
‘And “There’ll Always Be an England”?’
Eisenhower raised his voice: ‘Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking!’
Miller’s neighbour said: ‘Gee, you know how these dumb censor guys, how they cut out everything they can from your letters back home?’ Miller found himself nodding. ‘Well, I wrote to my wife about Judy, saying how great, how heavenly she was, but the fuckers cut half of it out, including the fact that it was Judy Garland I was raving about. She thought I was writing about some English girl called Judy I’d met. What about that?’
Miller glanced around. The men were sitting shoulder to shoulder, rank upon rank, on the sloping grass, intent on Eisenhower’s words. No one else seemed to have noticed his neighbour’s strange commentary. Then the Supreme Commander finished. He folded his notes and stepped back. The cheers and the clapping resounded around the amphitheatre, as again the soldiers rose.
‘I have to go,’ said the infantry colonel. ‘I have to be with Ike. I’m on his staff.’
Miller’s eyes rose. ‘I didn’t hear much of his speech,’ he said.
‘It was okay,’ said the man easily. ‘Inspiring. I helped to put it together.’
The soldiers were dispersing. Miller walked with the crowd, like spectators from a ball game, up to the car park where Harcourt was waiting with the other drivers. ‘We heard it loud and clear,’ said his driver. ‘Stirring words, sir.’
Miller grunted. ‘That’s more than I did, son. Some crazy colonel – a colonel, for God’s sake – kept talking in my ear about Joe Louis and Judy Garland.’
‘Oh, gee, that’s a pity,’ said Harcourt, opening the car door. ‘Maybe there’ll be another show sometime.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Miller.
Every road was clogged with military traffic. There were tanks, their gun barrels pointing unerringly up village streets, their crews handing candy to children and laughing and acting up to their sisters and mothers. A woman with a Brownie box camera took a photograph of a wide-grinned American soldier with her dog sitting on his tank alongside him.
‘Nice picture,’ said Harcourt. ‘But against security, I guess.’
Miller said: ‘It’s too late for security now, Benji. If they don’t know we’re coming they never will.’
Roadblocks checked every vehicle going into or coming from the ten-mile southern exclusion zone. The civilian population was hemmed in. Only in an emergency could any local people pass through the barriers. All civilian travel to neutral Southern Ireland was forbidden.
‘Dorchester,’ ruminated Harcourt. ‘That’s where we’re going. I checked it out, sir. There’s two Dorchesters in England. I hope we’re heading for the right one.’
‘Dorset,’ said Miller, unfolding an order. ‘Then who knows where.’
‘Berlin maybe,’ said Harcourt. He sighed. ‘I hope soon. I want to go home.’
‘Missing your folks?’
‘Sure thing, sir. My mammy’s missing me too.’ He laughed. ‘That’ll be some day – when Benji comes marching home. Everybody on the block will be out to see me. All those folks listening to what I’ve got to say. I ain’t done nothing great, no heroism, no danger even, not yet, but they’ll all be in that place just the same. Then all I need to do is to get a job. I hope somebody has got a job for me.’
�
��You’re a good man, Benji,’ said Miller. He meant it. ‘You make sure you’re waiting with the car when I get back from France.’
‘I’ll do that, sir. You’ll never see an automobile so polished and shining. You’ve been a good boss too, sir. I been proud to drive you.’
They reached Dorchester in the evening. ‘Another fairy-book town,’ commented Harcourt. ‘I just don’t know how they built them like this.’
They drove up the old, rising street. ‘Over a long time,’ said Miller.
The American camp was a few miles north of the town, below a green hillside decorated with a giant white figure of a naked man, cut centuries before in the downland chalk. Harcourt whistled. ‘Phew, that guy sure looks healthy.’
‘He certainly does,’ grinned Miller.
‘Nobody ain’t gonna beat that,’ said Harcourt.
They turned in to the camp. At once Miller saw Colonel Jeffries. It was as if he had been waiting. ‘Captain, you okay to take a walk?’ said Jeffries.
‘Yes, sir. Right away.’
They strolled to the fringe of the camp. It was a mild evening but the sky was overcast and disturbed. The carved giant with his long penis lay on the hillside in front of them. ‘He’s really impressive,’ said Miller.
‘No doubt about that,’ nodded Jeffries. ‘Can you see that in the United States? They’d soon have a pair of pants on him. It’s given our guys here an inferiority complex.’
Jeffries looked better than when Miller had seen him after the landing exercise tragedy off the coast of Devon – less tired, less fraught – but he still seemed as if he would prefer to be somewhere else, anywhere rather than the war.
‘Colonel Hendy, the commanding officer here, is going to parade his troops tomorrow,’ said Jeffries. ‘I thought it would be a good time to catch up with you. We’ve done just about all we can from the training angle. That’s finished. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t. It’s just going to be days now – only the weather is in doubt, and with all those men in the holding areas, well, there’s no room for basketball never mind training. Those guys, they’re trained as much as they’ll ever be. All they’ll get from now is the real thing. I think you and the other overseeing officers have done all you can, Miller. A good job.’
Waiting For the Day Page 28
