Close Quarters

by Thomas Wood

  I felt the liquid burn the tip of my tongue as I pushed it into the flask, to prevent any of the liquid actually passing down my throat.

  I coughed gently as I handed it back to him, before I cleared my throat to speak.

  “If they catch you with that, you’ll be shot.”

  He chuckled as he took another swig.

  “If they catch me sharing it with a Frenchman, I will be shot twice over.”

  I laughed along with him on that one. He was safe as houses on that charge.

  I wasn’t French.

  22

  The game got off to a slow start, with no one really knowing whether we should get going or not. The tentative few kicks of the ball from the Germans eventually grew in their intent, until the light jogging soon turned into hearty sprints, puffing and panting bouncing off the walls on three sides of the pitch.

  If only Christopher knew what was going on in here, I thought to myself, as the ball headed my way. He would probably never believe it, but I thought that he would approve of what we were doing. He saw every soldier as a man, no matter what side they were fighting for.

  My first few touches of the ball were lacklustre and poor, which I allowed myself, as it had been such a long time since I had last been engaged in such an activity.

  I couldn’t but help let the smile get the better of me and, no matter how much I tried to suppress it, it kept forcing itself to the surface, until I was puffing away with a big grin on my face.

  Despite his reluctance, I could tell that Mike was enjoying it too. He had been a huge football fan and had missed the weekly matches since they had been suspended at the start of the war.

  As I lashed the ball from one side of our makeshift pitch to the other, Mike expertly controlling it with the outside of his foot, I almost shouted something at him that would have undoubtedly given the game away.

  “Just like Teddy Fenton!” I had almost screamed, Mike’s flowing hair reminiscent of the midfielder that had played for his beloved West Ham for the last few seasons.

  He looked up at me once he had released the ball towards Jules, with a great big smile on his face.

  I did always wonder whether he had the same thought as me in that moment, but I couldn’t help but beam back. We were actually enjoying ourselves.

  It had been an age since we had been on any kind of sports field together. St John’s College, Cambridge was now so far away that it almost seemed like it had never existed, only some weird fixation of my imagination. But mine and Mike’s time on the sports grounds in England had most definitely been real.

  Mike had, I frequently had to concede, been the better sportsman of the two of us. He took to anything with such a natural ability that it was frustrating, as I spent my hours looking for something that I would somehow be better at.

  He had always been in the first teams for everything; the first fifteen for the rugby, first eleven in the cricket, he had even had a brief stint in the lacrosse team. It was a wonder that he had any time left to study at all.

  He was a permanent fixture in the first eleven for the football team too, one of the most gifted midfielders that I had ever seen.

  I always fancied my chances against him in football though, as my name was always the one that was first on the team sheet, the responsibility of team captain resting solely on my shoulders.

  I had always liked the feeling of power that I had over him on the football pitch.

  It felt good to be back on the pitch, even if it was a concrete surface and nowhere near the lush fields of England that I had played on before.

  There was a sense of freedom that had relinquished me from the grip of war. Just for those few fleeting moments that we played, I felt as though nothing had ever happened, and that we were simply playing one of our fiercest rivals for St John’s.

  I felt good.

  Diehl was still the most vocal one on the pitch, as he jogged around chatting to anyone that would lend half an ear in his direction. I could not tell what it was that he was going on about, even when he was stood right next to me, but before too long he was reluctantly trying to find his feet in the game.

  The shouts and grunts were ones that were generally content, and the game carried on in a surprisingly good spirit considering the circumstances. There was a brief moment where Jules landed on his knees with a sickening crack, and I thought for a moment that the German was going to feel the full force of his anger. But, somehow, he managed to bite his tongue.

  Diehl suddenly found himself with the ball at his feet and, after a little dallying and debating about what to do with it, he turned, opening his body up towards me.

  All I needed now was a pistol, and I would have had a clear shot at his chest with which I was convinced I could bring him down with a quick tap-tap of the trigger.

  But, instead, my mind had shifted, from one that was geared up to war, to one that was fixated on the game taking place.

  I knew that I would maybe get just the one chance at doing something like this to a German soldier and so, as his chest was wide, the ball trickling around his feet, I knew that I had to get it just right straight away.

  There was something about Diehl that I actually quite liked, despite trying my hardest to hate him as I had been taught to do. He seemed as if he was somewhat of a loner, even though he was surrounded by his compatriots on every side.

  I felt like, despite the fact I had far more reason to feel isolated, that I actually felt more at home than he did.

  Nevertheless, the opportunity to be able to legitimately clatter into a German soldier, while well behind the lines, was far too good a chance to pass up. He started to jog, picking up speed as he charged down the wing, his head down and staring at the ball.

  He barely saw me coming as a result. His body was still wide and opened towards me and as I picked up pace, I questioned whether I was doing the right thing. But, by the time I was able to make any kind of a decision, I was well too late.

  I smashed into him and I felt bones strike bones, as my knee painfully smashed into his and we both tumbled to the ground.

  Diehl had known of nothing that was coming towards him, and he was still struggling to make sense of what was going on as he crouched on all fours as he tried to get the air back into his lungs.

  A few shouts and murmurs grumbled out as I heard even my own teammates agree to a German freekick.

  I got back to my feet and dusted down my boiler suit, with a relative ease that I found almost concerning.

  “Here,” I breathed, offering out my hand to the German, who was scrabbling around on the ground with something. I thought for a moment that I had hit him so hard that one of his eyes had fallen out.

  He took my hand and I gripped it hard, before hauling him up so that he was eye to eye with me once again.

  “You…” he looked down towards his hand. “You dropped this.”

  I let go of his hand as his free palm stretched out towards me.

  I found myself staring down into his palm, taking in the sight of the small, modified Clam mine that was meant for operations such as these. It was a small, but powerful device that was made of a magnetic material that allowed it to be planted to anything of value; a railway line, a tank or, in our case, a lathe or boring machine used in factories around the world.

  My heart stopped, for longer than it should have done, as I realised what an overwhelming fool I had been. I had neglected to adhere to one of the first things that I had been taught when training for this job.

  If you ever had anything of worth in your pockets, you were always meant to make sure that they were secure before embarking on a period of jostling, and I had left the button on my breast pocket undone just minutes before.

  I swallowed, hard, as my heart restarted with renewed urgency and I forced the vomit to settle back into the lining of my stomach as I pulled myself together. If I had had the time to take a deep breath, I would have done it, but instead had to make do with a breathless improvisation.
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  “It’s a new fuse for the lathe in machine shop three. It broke earlier in the day. I was meant to fix it tonight.”

  I stuffed the explosive into my pocket so hard that there was a danger that the thing would go off there and then, which was what I was hoping for as the seconds ticked by.

  Diehl said nothing, but simply carried on staring down at his empty palm, which I noticed now had a large graze on it. I wondered what he was doing, whether he was inspecting his wound or debating whether he should shout at his comrades to tell them what he had seen.

  But, as I stared deep into his eyes, he decided against it. There was just a hint of a doubt in his mind, that maybe what he had seen had been his imagination, a result of the concoction that he had been drinking and the exhaustion that dragged his eyes towards the ground.

  I sealed my breast pocket and gave it a tug so that it wouldn’t make a repeat appearance, but I knew immediately that my effort in the rest of the match would be decidedly lacklustre.

  I looked around swiftly and caught sight of Jules staring at the two of us. There was no way that he hadn’t seen what had happened, as his eyes were so wide that he found it impossible to blink. Just as he looked as though he was going to burst into tears, I jogged away, picking up the ball from Cluzet before walloping it towards goal.

  For a second or two, I was convinced that the only witness to the incident had been Jules, but as I mulled the incident over in my mind, there was no way that the others had missed it. They had just decided to carry on regardless. It was more dangerous to pretend that something was up.

  For the remainder of the match, I took as few touches as possible, instead opting to hit the ball as hard as I could as some form of release. I cared not a jot for the game, or the result, and neither did anyone else on my team for that matter.

  My chest was tight and painful for the remainder of the time that we spent out in the courtyard, and I knew already that I had ruined the operation for everyone. We were now too highly strung and besides, we would not have long enough to set the charges now that we had played what seemed like a full ninety minutes with the Germans.

  It was only when it became too dark to see where the ball was going, did they concede that it was finally time to return to our duties. We shook hands, some more nervous than others, and parted ways.

  No one said anything to me about my little incident, but as I gripped Diehl’s hand, he gave me a once over that told me that he knew more than he would care to let on. Everyone knew that he was a drunk, and no one would believe him if he said anything, especially after they had fraternised with the enemy.

  I trudged back to the factory, where the others had gathered, my head down, chin tucked as far into my chest as it would go.

  It was Cluzet who eventually suggested that we go our separate ways, the authority in his voice going a long way around the group.

  “Try again tomorrow night.”

  “No. We can’t,” Andrew blurted. “Tonight is the end of the four weeks. The raids start again tomorrow.”

  There was a silence for a moment, which Mike took to give me the most murderous of glares.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, prying his eyes away from me. “We have to do it tomorrow. We have to try again.”

  23

  Christopher’s face was red and blotchy, and it was clear that he had been asleep. The four of us bundling through the door earlier than planned had clearly disturbed him. I couldn’t quite believe that one of the biggest operations of my life was meant to be taking place, and the bleary-eyed man in front of me had been making sure that he got all of his beauty sleep.

  “What happened? Where’s the other chap?”

  “Cluzet? He went back home. To his own place,” Andrew seemed like the only one capable of speaking.

  The rest of us remained silent as Christopher quickly woke up to the fact that it was only just past midnight, and we weren’t meant to be out of the factory for another couple of hours at least. And even then, we weren’t meant to be stepping inside Jules’ home ever again.

  None of us wanted to speak, and even Andrew, who had said only a few words, appeared too exhausted to try and get another syllable out.

  My mouth was so dry that my tongue felt as though it had ballooned to the size of another skull inside my own, making it difficult to breathe, never mind speak. A glass of water, that had been sat on the table by the door for however knows long was quickly thrown down my neck, before I went in search of another.

  I felt nauseous as I poured from the jug, before launching the liquid down my throat, the moisture doing just enough to alleviate the stress on my lungs.

  “What happened? What are you doing here?” Christopher continued, pestering us all for an answer. I probably would have done the same, but in the moment, he irritated me to the point of insanity.

  “Oh, that’s a fantastic idea. Why don’t we all have a pint of the stuff?” he said, sarcastically waving his arms around as the bottle of scotch, hidden under a floorboard, was retrieved and decanted into small glasses.

  The bottle was quite quickly reopened and passed around to top us all up. The liquid passed by Christopher, who seemed too flustered to even consider a drink of the stuff.

  “Is no one going to tell me what happened?” Christopher exploded, his face puffing red and his eyes bulging.

  “Alright!” Mike exploded, so loudly that I caught the window panes tremor at the murderous tone. “Enough!”

  There was a moment of silence, as Mike massaged his forehead, where we all thought that he was about to retell the story, but it seemed as though he just wanted a few seconds of peace.

  “What happened?” Christopher repeated, more controlled this time, but just as urgent.

  Mike’s body stiffened, as he placed the glass rather forcefully down on a side table.

  “What happened? What happened?” he began shrieking, as I finally began to fear my accomplice as he flapped and skulked around the room. His voice got higher the more agitated he became, to the point where I became worried that soon no human would be able to make out his tones.

  As I just about made out the sorrow and remorse that was quivering behind his agitation, I realised that the guilt that had until now, largely eluded me, was right beside me, as well it should have been.

  There was an overwhelming number of emotions suddenly flooding me, from wanting to break down in tears to fighting for myself and pleading my innocence. But I knew all too well that not one of those things would help my predicament in the slightest.

  I would simply have to take what was coming to me.

  “What happened?!” he squawked again. “What happened indeed!”

  “Look Mike, everyone…I—”

  Mike shot me a look that sent a bolt of pain straight through my heart. It called me out there and then as someone who had let him down tremendously, but outwardly he said nothing of the sort.

  “They wanted a game of football!”

  “Who did?”

  “The Germans did! Called at us just as we were heading into workshop four! We played with them for over an hour!”

  Christopher chewed it over for a second, simply staring at each one of us, in turn, to try and validate the outrageous claims that Mike was making.

  “A game of…? But why?”

  “They must have been bored,” Jules muttered, chewing at a tough piece of bread. “It can’t be much fun standing around all day like that.”

  Christopher’s mouth hung open for a moment, processing the time constraints that we had in trying to lay all the explosives before getting out of there. We needed to make sure that every single machine that we wanted to destroy was in fact beyond repair, rather than just taking out the few that we would have managed before the early shift came in at just before four in the morning.

  “So,” Christopher began, a plan seeming to form in his head, “Is anyone going to tell me what the score was?”

  A warped smile appeared on his face, as
we all looked up in even more disbelief.

  “3-1 to the Germans. We had Jules in goal,” Mike said, as Jules shrugged in the corner.

  “Sounds like you could have done with an expert winger. Shame I was on the outside really.”

  “You?” Mike said, laughing a great belly laugh. “Come off it. A winger needs pace and you don’t have it, chum.”

  There was a brief moment where I thought Christopher was offended by the exchange, but he soon saw the funny side. He was warming to Mike and he knew that now was not the time to try and rile him any further.

  “So, what’s next then?” he asked, confidently taking charge of the situation for the first time since he had arrived in France. “Do we call it off altogether?”

  “Absolutely not,” Mike blurted, the aggression suddenly returning and putting Christopher back into his place.

  “But…the bombers. The time ran out tonight. They could be coming back tomorrow.”

  It seemed as though the apprehension had got the better of both Andrew and Christopher. They were backing away from the fire, which is not what we needed at all. We needed them right beside us, more fired up and ready to go than they had been tonight.

  “We have to try again,” Mike started, emotion catching his voice. “We have to. That village can’t go through what they’ve been through again. We’ve prepared so much. We’re ready.”

  There was a silence that was crying out to be filled.

  “Look, if the bombers do come, the chances are they won’t hit the factory. They’ve been trying to hit it for months and all they can do is flatten schools and the police station.”

  “And what if they do finally hit their target?”

  There was another silence, my mind working on overtime as I tried to come up with something reasonable.

  “All the better for it. If they do find their target, then it’ll mean that all the Germans are somewhere keeping their heads down. Not only that but it’ll cover our tracks. They won’t even know that we’ve been there.”