‘What you told Sykes,’ said Tanner. ‘Jesus, Gulliver – how old were you back then? Twelve?’
Gulliver nodded.
‘Too young to have a bloody clue about what happened that night. Gossip, Gulliver, that’s what it was, bloody gossip, and now you have the nerve to start prattling to my men about something you know absolutely nothing about.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I – I was so surprised to see you. It was just chatter, you know. I meant no harm.’
‘Who else did you tell? Eh? Have a cosy little chat about it with the lads, did you?’
‘I’m sorry – honestly, sir, I’m sorry.’
Tanner wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘Jesus, I ought to bloody knock you to a pulp.’ He took a step closer, saw Gulliver swallow hard again, then grabbed the man’s crotch. Gulliver winced. ‘People like you, Gulliver, make me annoyed, very, very annoyed,’ Tanner hissed. ‘There’s enough crap in this war without your bloody loose tongue. Do you realize what it’s like being an officer when you’ve come up through the ranks? It’s tough, Gulliver, that’s what it is, but I’ve earned the respect of my men, and I’ve earned it the hard way. I don’t need people like you turning up and cocking things up. Do you understand?’
Gulliver nodded. Tanner stared at him for a moment more, then released his grip, and took out Captain Brasco’s pistol from his gas-mask bag. Gulliver recoiled. ‘No!’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, sir, really, I didn’t mean anything, I—’
‘Christ,’ muttered Tanner, ‘I really ought to give you a hiding. What did you think I was going to do?’ He handed over the pistol. ‘Take this, Gulliver, and now I want you and your men to march the Eyetie prisoners back to the beaches. I can’t have you with us any more. Someone there will help you rejoin your unit. Understood?’
Gulliver nodded.
‘Get those prisoners, Gulliver, and then get out of my sight,’ Tanner snarled. ‘And pray you don’t cross my path again.’ He watched Gulliver wince and limp away, then took out a cigarette, lit it, leaned against the wall and sighed. For a moment he closed his eyes. He could rely on Sykes, and with a bit of luck, the men would soon forget about it. Hopefully, he’d scared Gulliver into silence. They would be in battle again soon, and those who’d heard the story would have other things to think about. Soon enough it would be forgotten.
But as he walked out of the alleyway and back towards his men, instinct told him that this was wishful thinking. There was a lot of hanging about as a soldier. Much of the time, it was pretty boring. Gossip enlivened those moments, and really good gossip was gold dust. Really good gossip like the news that A Company’s commander had once murdered a man, then fled to join the Army.
Soon all the men would know. And then Creer would find out. Bloody hell. This is all I need.
10
Later, early evening, the same day: D-Day. The battalion was in fields to the west of Syracuse, manning another roadblock along a dusty track that loosely headed north. Two companies on one side, two on the other. Nothing had stirred since they had moved there, and now only one platoon from each company covered the approach. Behind, among the trees and shrubs and crumbling stone walls, the men rested, prepared food, drank tea and smoked.
Tanner sat at the foot of an olive tree, cleaning his weapons. It was, he thought, a pretty good position: the ground rose steeply from the port of Syracuse so that even a couple of miles west of the town, where they now were, they could look down on the town and the sea beyond from quite a commanding position. He wondered why the Italians had not sited some guns here or, at the very least, some men. Or perhaps they had, but had moved back – or forward. Maybe they were the men A Company had encountered earlier that afternoon while manning their roadblock north of Cassibile. They had still been waiting for the rest of the battalion to catch up when a column of Italian armoured cars, ammunition lorries and staff cars had suddenly appeared and driven straight towards the waiting Bren guns. Moments later, as the Brens opened up, some vehicles had run off the road, an ammunition truck had exploded, and then, as enemy soldiers had dived for cover, a brief firefight had ensued. Tanner had lost one man dead and four wounded, the Italians several more, before a white flag had been produced and waved from behind a wall. Tanner had been saddled with yet more prisoners.
Early in the afternoon, 17th Brigade had passed through, the rest of the battalion had finally caught up, and were ordered to continue their march north, this time helping to protect the western flank of 17th Brigade’s assault on Syracuse.
That attack was still going in now, the sound of small-arms, light-artillery and tank fire crackling and thrumping a couple of miles away.
‘Extraordinary, isn’t it?’
Peploe was walking towards him, Tanner realized, his head turned towards the town.
‘I mean, really, this is a lovely spot,’ he said, sitting down beside Tanner. ‘Crickets and cicadas chirruping away, olive trees and tamarisk dotted about, the ancient city of Syracuse spread before us, and beyond that, the wine-dark sea. Yet here we are, watching a battle. You can actually follow its progress.’
‘It’s almost ours,’ said Tanner.
‘I’d say so. And isn’t it amazing to think we’ve already got guns and tanks and other vehicles ashore? I take my hat off to the planners, I must say.’
A sudden dull boom resounded from the port.
‘That’s a Sherman,’ said Tanner.
‘I rest my case.’ He passed Tanner his hip flask, then looked around. They were some yards away from the men, something Tanner had understood about being an officer: it was important to create a little distance, to be slightly apart from the rest.
‘Er, where are Sykes and Fauvel?’ asked Peploe.
‘Fauvel’s doing the rounds, checking on the platoons. Sykes is watching the road, making sure Two Platoon is on its toes.’
‘Good, because I need to talk to you about something, Jack.’
Tanner took a swig from Peploe’s flask, but said nothing.
‘There’s a rumour going round,’ said Peploe, ‘that you murdered a man, then ran away and joined the Army. Tell me it isn’t true.’
‘That was quick,’ said Tanner, handing back the flask. ‘I thought this might happen. Didn’t think it’d be quite as quick as this, though.’
‘Well?’
‘It’s gossip, John. Tittle-tattle. There was a lad in the Wiltshires who ended up with us earlier. A young sergeant called Gulliver. He came from the same village as me when I was a boy. But he was a kid at the time I left. He knew nothing.’
Peploe sighed. ‘Sometimes rumours like this aren’t such a bad thing. When I was at OCTU, we had an instructor who was said to have done time for murdering the man who cheated with his wife. The word on the street was he’d avoided the gallows because it had been considered manslaughter. Then he’d been let out to join the Army. God knows whether it was true, but we were all a little wary of him. A little scared, even. If he was ever in a particularly bad mood, we’d all remind ourselves that if we weren’t careful we might end up getting the chop – literally.’ He turned to Tanner. ‘Everyone looks up to you, Jack. The men think the world of you, but you know as well as I do that the colonel is a notable exception.’
‘Does he know about this, then?’ asked Tanner.
Peploe nodded. ‘But I’m afraid it’s worse. The sergeant from the Wiltshires—’
‘Gulliver?’
‘He’s dead. Apparently you gave him the Italian captain’s pistol. One of the Italians saw him with it and tried to take it off him. In the scuffle a shot was fired and he was killed.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it, but what’s that got to do with me?’
‘Creer says you planned it deliberately to get Gulliver out of the way. That you put the Italians up to it.’
‘That’s madness!’
‘Of course it is. But Creer is looking to undermine you, Jack. He doesn’t want you in his battalion but knows that while the men think so highly of you his hands ar
e tied.’
‘He’s a bastard. A lily-livered bastard. I curse the bloody day he showed up here.’
‘Look, don’t worry. So long as I’m in this battalion, I’ll back you up all the way. If he tries to sack you, I’ll resign too. He’ll have a mutiny on his hands. But you need to watch it. He’s out to get you, Jack.’
Tanner lit another cigarette. ‘Christ,’ he muttered. ‘It’s bad enough having to fight Eyeties and Jerries without having to battle against men like Croaker.’
‘And he knows the men call him Croaker, Jack. And he also knows you’re the only person who could have known it was his nickname in India.’
Tanner rubbed his face wearily. ‘Ah, to hell with him. I’ve not got in his way, I’ve not made life difficult for him. Back in India, I never snitched on him and Blackstone – I just didn’t play their game. I didn’t want to be sullied by the kind of corruption they went in for. Creer was a coward, but I never accused him of cowardice. Jesus, he should be bloody thankful, for God’s sake. A Company have done well today, and that reflects well on the battalion. His sodding battalion.’
‘But you know perfectly well that it’s not about that. It’s because he feels threatened by you, Jack. And by me, to a certain extent.’
‘Well, I wish someone had turned a pistol on him, not on poor bloody Gulliver.’
They were silent for a moment, then Peploe said, ‘You still haven’t told me, though, Jack.’
‘Told you what?’
‘That you didn’t kill whoever it was you’re supposed to have killed.’
Tanner turned and looked at his friend. ‘Do I have to, John?’
‘Look, Jack,’ said Peploe, ‘I trust you implicitly. You know I do. But when I defend you against Creer, it would be nice to know that I have your word that this is just gossip and nothing more. You’ve always been so mysterious about your past. About why you changed your name from Scard to Tanner. I’ve never pressed you about it. I respected your privacy. But now this has happened, it seems rather important to know. Forgive me, but can you understand that?’
Tanner was silent for a while as he smoked his cigarette and looked down towards Syracuse. ‘There’s a battle going on out there and we’re talking about something that may or may not have happened a long time ago back home in Blighty. It’s ridiculous.’
‘Jack, please.’
‘I’m sorry, John. I made a vow eleven years ago that I’d never talk about it. I gave a man I respected my solemn word. I’ve kept it all this time, and I’m a man of my word, as you well know.’
‘So that’s it? You’re not going to defend yourself?’
‘Oh, I’ll defend myself all right. I’ll just not betray an oath.’
‘You’re a stubborn bastard, Jack.’ He stood up. ‘So be it. I’ll do what I can. But he wants to get you, and he’ll use this against you.’
Tanner saw he was about to leave, then said suddenly, ‘I never murdered anyone.’
Peploe turned. He smiled. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to hear that.’
Tanner flicked away his cigarette. ‘But that’s all I’m saying. Maybe one day, John, I’ll break the vow I made to David Liddell – he was the man I promised. My father was his gamekeeper, and he was a very fine man. Perhaps one day I’ll tell you everything. But not here, not in the middle of this sodding war with people dying as we’re talking about …’ he searched for the words ‘… ancient history.’
Peploe patted Tanner’s shoulder. ‘All right, Jack. You win. But one day, it would be nice to know the whole story.’ He turned and walked away.
Sunday, 11 July, six a.m. Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Creer felt a flash of irritation as his batman, Private Stainforth, shook him awake.
‘Mug of tea, sir,’ said Stainforth.
Creer rubbed his eyes, heaved himself up and took the mug. ‘Thank you,’ he muttered.
‘Major Peploe and Captain Masters are waiting for you in the office, sir. At your convenience.’
Creer nodded.
‘There’s some hot water in your basin, sir,’ added Stainforth, then disappeared.
Creer sat up, wriggled out of his sleeping-bag and swivelled his legs around. The bed was huge and high off the floor, the centrepiece of a large, high-ceilinged room that spoke of former grandeur. His trousers and shirt lay on a gilt-edged Louis XIV chair, which, with a small desk and a lone cupboard, was all the furniture the room possessed; all that had been added was a standard canvas fold-away British Army washstand.
Creer washed and dressed. A Company had come across the place the previous afternoon after a shoot-out on the road: a villa, in the lee of an outcrop of rocky rising ground, but with views down towards Syracuse and the sea. By all accounts, the place had been the headquarters of an Italian regiment, and it had amused Creer to think that one lot of officers had been kicked out and replaced immediately by another. The perks of victory.
As he shaved, he peered into an ornate gilt mirror hanging on the wall. He was thirty-eight, clean-shaven, with a lean, tanned face, and fair hair that was rapidly receding. There were a few lines now, across the brow, from his nose to the edge of his mouth and around his eyes. The lips were thin, the eyes pale grey. Creer had always rather liked the way he looked: there was, he thought, in his face and bearing, a kind of urbane intelligence. The receding hair line was a source of irritation, but otherwise, he felt he was ageing quite well. Certainly, he was not as obviously middle-aged as some; he had yet to spot a single grey hair.
Nonetheless, sleeping poorly was soon going to take its toll. Sleeping on the move was all well and good when one was young, but he’d got used to the comfortable bungalow in Quetta and the hotel digs in Cairo. Thank God that, as battalion commander, he had had first dibs on the rooms in this villa, a prerogative he believed he’d earned, but which he also felt laid down a useful barrier between him and his men. He was the boss, and while it was important to win people over, it was also necessary to maintain an aura of superiority.
Despite this, he felt tired and not a little irritable. The last day of the journey across the sea had been hellish. He had never been a good sailor but his insides had felt as though they’d been boiled in acid. It was true that he had had no intention of ever going ashore in the first wave, but as he had left dinner in the wardroom that night he had seen Tanner look at him with a degree of contempt that had added humiliation and anger to the pain in his stomach. ‘Croaker’, Tanner called him. It meant a man badly wounded or at death’s door, except that in Creer’s case the term was used ironically. He had never heard Tanner say it since his return, but he had overheard it being used by other men, and how else could it have resurfaced if not spread by that man?
Tanner, Tanner, Tanner … What was he going to do about him? He remembered the horror he had felt when he discovered that the once troublesome private had become the battalion hero, much decorated, commissioned and a company commander. For a moment, he had even considered resigning and returning to Cairo. Admittedly, he had not entertained the idea for long: to command the regiment one had joined as a junior subaltern was a singular honour, and while he would have been content to remain a desk-wallah for the rest of the war and his career, to cut and run would have been tantamount to suicide.
Perhaps, he had told himself, Tanner had changed. Perhaps the two could get along after all these years. This, however, had soon proved very wishful thinking. Tanner had not changed one iota: he was still the same stubborn bastard he had always been, the unbending, proud and utterly incorruptible pain in the backside he had been in India. The implacable and defiant stares, the undisguised contempt, the air of superiority. Christ, it made his blood boil. Now he nicked himself and saw a small globule of dark blood appear. He closed his eyes, cursed silently, then dabbed his jaw.
But what to do about him? One thing was absolutely clear in his mind. One of them would have to go and he was damned if it was going to be him. That some country-yokel upstart should come out on top was unthinkable. The prev
ious day had initially set him back as Tanner’s blasted A Company had landed on time and in the right place, had captured hundreds of pathetic Italians and taken out an important gun position and the town of Cassibile, an early D-Day objective. But then had come the news that Tanner had once murdered a man and run away. Even better, his accuser had been later killed. There were no charges that would ever stick, Creer knew that, but it was a question of chipping away at Tanner’s prestige; of slowly but surely eroding his position. Creer would use this to undermine him; to humiliate him.
And there was no doubt that war was dangerous. So Tanner had proved miraculously impervious to enemy bullets, shellfire, or mines so far but his luck might run out. The Italians had to make a better fist of things soon and there were German troops on Sicily too. They were unlikely to roll over. And here was a cheering thought as he sluiced away the shaving soap and cream: as battalion commander, it was his decision as to which company would lead an attack. A Company, he thought, would find itself in the van of every battle the Rangers fought. By the law of averages, Tanner would surely find himself either wounded or, even better, dead. Surely.
It was with his mood somewhat lifted that Creer trotted downstairs and out to the driveway at the front of the villa. The ‘office’ was not in the house, but in the back of a fifteen-hundredweight truck, so that Battalion Headquarters could move at a moment’s notice. On board were field telephones, wires trailing over the edge and down the drive, and a radio set, with a small desk along one side for the battalion signalmen, waiting to pass on incoming messages or relay orders to the companies up at the front. Peploe and the intelligence officer, Captain Jerry Masters, were leaning against the truck, drinking tea and chatting with Lieutenant Warbrook, the adjutant. Several chairs, brought out from the houses, had been arranged on the driveway, which was round and revolved around an ornate but dry fountain. Palms and eucalyptus trees rose around the side of the drive and the front garden, shielding the house from where the rest of the battalion were dug in five hundred yards further up the road.
The Devil's Pact (2013) Page 14
