The Man in the Street

by Martin Howe

  “Bloody sand gets everywhere. Look, I don’t know how they are going to sort it here, but I don’t know anybody, so how about we bunk up together? Eh?” he nudged Tony with his elbow, “Come from a good home, only a few bad habits.”

  Taken aback, Tony hesitated and then nodded unenthusiastically.

  “Cheers, you’ll find I come in useful. Handy with me hands, if you know what I mean. No bad thing I reckon once they start packing ’em in here. Stone me who’s this old geezer?”

  A grey-haired army officer, carrying a swagger stick, was limping towards them from the direction of the Promenade. His right leg, dragging across the sandy ground, threw up clouds of fine dust that coated his boots. Several paces behind two other officers followed, one of them was unconsciously mimicking his limp.

  “He’ll go far,” whispered Sid when he noticed, “obviously got his head so far up the old bugger’s arse, he can’t see what he’s doing.”

  The prisoners’ escort snapped to attention and the Lieutenant stepped forward and smartly saluted. Barely acknowledging him the Camp Commandant shuffled past and stepped up onto a low wooden dais, placed on a grassy mound that had marked the edge of the bowling-green. Tucking his swagger stick firmly under his left arm, he drew off a pair of black leather gloves and stood motionless and absorbed with his hands behind his back. He peered imperiously at the men lined up in front of him, his flitting gaze intense, then he grabbed his swagger stick and began beating time with it in the palm of his hand.

  “I’m Captain Sebastian Faulkner,” he paused, “I’m the ultimate authority here, you don’t need to know anything else. In over thirty years of service to God, King and Country, I have stood for no nonsense and I’ll stand for none now. You…” and he pointed the ornamental metal head of his swagger stick at the prisoners, “…are considered a threat to said King and Country. So, ipso facto, you are a threat to me and I’ll treat you as such. There’ll be no trouble here, is that clear? No trouble at all. If there is, your lives and I mean all your lives will not be worth living. The authorities have deemed that you should have freedom of association and so you will, you can share accommodation with whosoever you want, speak to anyone you like, but only so long as I believe you are not abusing the privilege. If I think otherwise it will end immediately, make no mistake about that. Carry on Lieutenant.”

  Captain Faulkner stepped down from the dais, saluted the guard of honour and hobbled off towards the promenade.

  “Choose people you can’t stand,” announced the sergeant, becoming more amused by his own wordplay, the more often he repeated the phrase, “you’re going to be with them for a very long time.”

  The prisoners milled around aimlessly, bemused at being given an unexpected modicum of personal responsibility.

  “If that bastard comes with us I’ll end up kicking his head in before we get off this parade ground,” whispered Eric to Tony, “Here, I’ve got just the companions you need, Biff Boys all of them, good and true.”

  “There’s Ray, of course.”

  “And there’s me,” said Sid thrusting out his hand towards Eric, “pleased to meet you, Sid Stiles, a friend of Tony’s.”

  Eric looked at Tony, who rolled his eyes but said nothing.

  “Well, that’s that then,” said Eric, “with two of my old squad we’re done. I hope they’ve been airing the beds.”

  The detainees slowly coalesced into groups of six as instructed, harried by an increasingly irritable sergeant and when finally ready were led away to the buildings, dotted around the compound, where they were going to be locked up.

  “House 13 is to be your home sweet home,” said one of their escort sardonically, “better than most of you are used to I expect. Give us your names as you go in.”

  Tony’s group had been allocated a small two-storied house, in the middle of a terrace of five identical dwellings, which faced on to the wire fence that formed the inland boundary and highest part of the camp. The row had been built originally in the mid-nineteenth century as housing for agricultural workers. It was located on the slight incline where the Ballarat Road climbed out of Peel before heading off along the cliff tops towards Kirk Michael, the nearest large town. The remote position of the terrace meant that it had only been sporadically occupied over the intervening century and the houses were all in a state of weather-beaten neglect. Their exposed situation laid them open to the vagaries of the Atlantic storms that lashed the island in the winter months. Driving wind and rain had insinuated their way through ill-fitting sashes, broken windows and gaps in the roof left by lifted tiles, ensuring a permanent chill dampness permeated the rooms throughout the year. The compensation for residents, as Tony and the others discovered, was the magnificent view from the back windows of the Irish Sea and the coastline of Peel Bay, set against the panoramic grandeur of the western sky, the amphitheatre for the daily playing out of a resplendent light show, that dazzled and moved onlookers until familiarity finally dulled its brilliance into irrelevance.

  Sloping away at the rear of the terrace were long narrow gardens all overgrown, except for number 13 where the previous occupants had dug it over for vegetables, but never got round to planting anything. At the front of the houses there was a gap of several feet between the garden gates and the camp perimeter fence that ran down the centre of the road. Across the street on the other side of the wire, life carried on more or less as normal. There was a row of modern bungalows, neatly tended, their occupants coming and going, studiously ignoring their disreputable neighbours, rarely looking across at the prisoners and then only furtively. The elderly couple, who lived opposite number 13, kept their living room curtains permanently drawn. They owned a large Alsatian which they chained up in the front garden and who could be heard howling mournfully late into the night. Unknown to his owners Sid, who had bred and raced greyhounds, quickly befriended “Oswald”, as he was soon called, throwing him scraps of food over the wire. Running beside the bungalow was a narrow grassy path that led past some older stone built houses into fields beyond. On the other side of the path was a fenced off compound with a guardhouse, which was home to around ten soldiers when they were on duty. It was a single story wooden building, which much to the relief of the occupants of number 13 directly opposite, was windowless and had a door that faced away from them. The only light seemed to come from two skylights in the roof. In fine weather the soldiers were rarely there. The guardhouse had worried Eric when they had moved in, but after watching it for a while he came to the conclusion that it was a positive advantage to have it there. As he put it rather cryptically to Tony one evening, “They think they’ve got our every move covered, when in fact they haven’t, which suits me.”

  Eric had been elected, almost by default, house leader. Sid had briefly and rather forcefully put himself forward, before being told by one of the Biff Boys that Eric was a big man in the Union and worth ten of him. To keep him happy he was unanimously appointed house cook, a role he took to with puppy-like enthusiasm. It meant he could accompany Eric to the camp store on the promenade every morning at 10 o’clock to pick up their daily food rations and carry them back up the hill.

  The idyllic weather during their first weeks in the camp – cloudless azure skies, air crystal clear to the horizon, only hazing over in the late afternoon as the sun began its descent, the radiant heat mitigated by sinuous salty breezes wafting onshore – tempered the frustration of the prisoners still smarting over the injustice of their detention. The beauty of the place trumped the banal daily repetition for Tony. He found himself moving towards an understanding of a different existence that, when fully realized, would intellectually stun him, as much for being unexpected as for its implications for his future. The stultifying periods of inactivity that marked life in the camp nurtured activities – physical, sexual and cerebral – all aimed in their different ways at subverting the rationale behind their internment. For Tony the empty time was an oppor
tunity to seek solitude away from the men who had, until then, been his fellow travellers, and to think anew. Solace increasingly lay, he found, in a burgeoning belief in the broader picture – the profundity of an all-encompassing nature that demanded he address his place within it. He had a growing feeling that there was meaning behind what was happening to him, that he was being tested, for some purpose as yet unspecified, but there was definitely a contribution to be made by him towards creating something better. Untested, the logic of his argument was alluring and he was drawn in, increasingly shying away in embarrassment from his old self and its fascination with power and violence.

  Tony kept these thoughts to himself, the barrack-room camaraderie of his associates, that he still paid token obeisance to, was unsympathetic to any sign of sensitivity or questioning of the certainties they had all signed up for. For that reason Tony shouldn’t have been taken aback at the ease at which he was able to exchange one set of verities for another. When the parallels did finally dawn on him one evening, as he sat bored in their drab living room listening to the swirling of well-worn arguments based on rigid adherence to the familiar dogmas of the Party, he was able to smile wryly to himself, as unbeknown to his friends, he parted company with them.

  Every morning, bright sunlight raked the moth-ravaged curtains of the front bedroom, where Eric and Tony slept, motes of dust wavering in the golden spots that slanted diagonally across the space. In the hinterland of their waking a reveille bugle blew marking seven o’clock and the opening of another day. Half an hour later it was already muggy as they drowsily lined up on the makeshift parade ground for roll call. The names listlessly recited: “Matlock? Sir. Morrisson? Sir. Mortisson? Here Sir. Can’t hear you. Sir,” became a familiar litany. Tony tested himself by attempting to memorize the list, but new names would appear almost every day, and very occasionally one would be absent, and he never managed to get it off by rote. Incensed at the futility of it all he would work out his anger during the compulsory physical exercises that followed the parade. Half an hour of running on the spot, press-ups, stretching, sit-ups under the watchful eye of Sergeant-Major Steele, barking his orders in a broad Scots accent that in the still morning air echoed loudly round the camp.

  “Jump, you fascist bastards, jump. Nobody leaves here until I’ve finished with you, jump.”

  Red-faced, sweat slicking their hair and soaking their clothes, the prisoners jumped, noisily gasping for breath, silently cursing.

  “Faster. You at the front, I said jump. Are your shoes full of lead? Jump or its twenty times round the grounds. Remember I hate you all, there’s no way you can escape me.”

  “This’ll be the death of me,” hissed the plump middle-aged man next to Tony, his complexion a sickly pallid green, the fug of his ailing body heavy in the still air. He was bent-double, saliva rattling in his throat.

  “My chest, oh my God it hurts.”

  His name was Croydon and he had stood alongside Tony on parade since their arrival at the camp. Next day he didn’t appear and Tony heard later that he had been sent to hospital on the mainland after a suspected heart attack.

  “So it’s true then, the only way out of here is on your back,” said Tony wearily. The man who had passed on the news about Croydon shrugged.

  “Yes, but in the company of the Lord, my son, in the company of the Lord. What more can you ask.”

  “My father-in-law would agree with you there.”

  “He’s a man of the cloth?”

  “A vicar in the C of E and a good Party member to boot.”

  “What’s his name, I might know him?”

  “The Right Reverend Carstairs.”

  “The one who wrote for Blackshirt?”

  “The very same.”

  “I liked his column, always read it. It was a real inspiration to me. Was he picked up?”

  “I don’t think so. My wife’s never mentioned it in her letters, mind you there’s not been many of those.”

  “We should talk some more. I mustn’t keep my flock waiting any longer. What’s your name?”

  “Tony Cox.”

  “Tony, very pleased to meet you. I’m glad you enjoy my little gatherings. The word of the Lord is not something that can be ignored in trying times like these, in ghastly places like this. Bless you my son.”

  The Reverend Captain Thomas G. St Barbe Baker MC had been holding prayer meetings every afternoon on the promenade as part of his mission, unsanctioned by the Anglican Church, Party or military authorities, to administer to the spiritual needs of the inmates. The fine weather, his charismatic speaking-style and his outlandish, often amusing ideas, coupled with the fact there was nothing else to do, meant that large numbers would come to sit in the sunshine and listen. He had built a small altar out of a bedside table he had found in one of the houses, covered it with a sheet on which he had painted a series of symbols – Egyptian hieroglyphics, the fascist flash and circle and the swastika. The crucifix was made out of two pieces of wooden flotsam nailed together, which he would prop up against the wire fence. When preaching he wore his army uniform and medals, including the Military Cross he had won at Passchendaele in the First War, a white sheet would be draped over his shoulders, fastened at the neck with a large silver scarab brooch.

  “Brethren, thank you for joining me on this fine day. How I wish we could have met in happier times, but let me assure you the Lord is looking down on us. He is taking care of those who believe and let me assure you, if you listen to my words, if you rise up and follow my teachings, then he will take care of you. For we are the chosen people. Amen.”

  The tall gaunt figure then turned to face the altar, raised his hands in supplication and cried out.

  “Bless us Lord for we are sinners. We come to you to beg forgiveness. Listen to our prayers. Do not leave us to rot unloved in this God-forsaken place. This construction of the Devil, this vile camp, built to test us by our oppressors. O Lord, bless us and redeem us. Amen.”

  The cries of distant gulls swooping over the laden fishing boats labouring into Peel harbour declaimed over the throb of engines and the hissing waves breaking across the sand. A member of the congregation coughed and St Barbe Baker took a step back from the altar, turned, clasped his hands in front of him and began to speak.

  “Brethren, these are strange, but wonderful, times we live in. We are at war, a war that will end all wars. It is a device wrought by God to achieve his blessed ends and we, and by we, I mean all those held in this camp, are fighting on the side of righteousness. Our oppressors – the guards, the commandant, Mr Churchill, even His Royal Highness the King himself – are fighting on the side of evil.”

  The congregation gasped.

  “You may question, you may not believe, you may think me mad, but it’s true. They are doing the Devil’s work. They are standing in the way of God’s progress, God’s plan for the world. For these are the last dying days of the Mammon world before God will overthrow the old order and establish his Kingdom on earth. War is his weapon in this last great crusade and those who do not join him on this campaign path to righteousness will be damned. Doomed forever to burn in the fires of hell, cast out for eternity from paradise.”

  St Barbe Baker clutched his head with his hands and leant towards his audience, who sat transfixed by his performance.

  “Do you know how He plans to carry out his grand scheme? Do you know who will lead us into this new golden territory?”

  He scanned the front row of the gathering, interrogating each upturned face with his piercing blue eyes.

  “No? Then I will tell you. He has sent his only son back to earth to help us in our time of need. Believe me brethren, Jesus Christ has been reborn, resurrected for a second time. You may ask why have we not heard of him, why have we not seen him. Well, I will tell you. Your ears have been blocked and you’ve been listening to false prophets, your eyes have been blinkered. You,
my poor sinners, have not stood a chance, but believe me you have taken steps others have not, you may not feel it, you may not know it, but you have. For that I rejoice, you must rejoice, for all is not lost.”

  With those words he flung his hands into the air and stared rapturously at the sky.

  “Rejoice, I tell you, you have so much to be glad about. For you are the true believers. Let me tell you, you will soon see the Lord in all his glory, for it will not be long before his victory will be won. Already his armies, his air force, his navy, the forces of light, are driving all before them. Any day now the Kingdom of the Lord will be established here on earth. Our cursed chains will be cast off, barriers split asunder, the encircling barbed wire fall aside and we will walk free to take up our rightful place in the new Jerusalem. I cannot wait, dear brethren, I cannot wait. Let me tell you, I pray every night to let me live to see it. And my prayers have been answered, I know they have been answered.”

  Dabbing his mouth with a handkerchief he paused and raised his hand.

  “Bear with me, dear brethren.”

  Turning his back on the congregation, he reached into his pocket and drew out a small metallic object. Slowly, dramatically he faced them again, holding high in the air a silver swastika. Those at the back craned forward to see what it was, a man near the front put on his glasses.

  “This is the sign by which our Lord is now recognized. This is the sign under which he now labours. For his son has come back to earth not in Palestine as before, but in Germany. He has returned as Chancellor Hitler, yes, Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the Third Reich. I can tell by your faces that you are surprised, some of you even unsure, but listen to me then reflect on it, for it is true. Adolf Hitler is Jesus Christ reborn. Returned to this world to create heaven on earth. If you do not believe me, then look in the Bible, for there it is written clearly for all to see. In the book of Isaiah, chapter two, verse two, it says,