Charlie's War

by David Fiddimore

  ‘You don’t have to shoot a line with me, Charlie Bassett; everyone has a Glenn Miller story these days.’

  Privately I agreed with her, and decided to leave it at that. Anyway, that was the night she gave in to my jokes, slipped the small bolt on the door, and into my bed. She had long milky white legs, and smelled of Lifebuoy. It had been a long time, and I wasn’t too handy, but she didn’t seem to mind. When I hugged her into my sore shoulder after the event I told her, ‘I don’t even know your first name.’

  ‘Give me one.’

  ‘Again? Let me get my breath back, love.’

  ‘Don’t be silly; give me a name. Make one up.’

  ‘Gloria.’

  ‘Like Gloria Swanson. I like that; I’ll keep it forever for whenever I’m going to be bad. Now; give me one.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously.’

  ‘Even if it kills me?’

  ‘I’m a nurse. You’re in good hands.’

  *

  Bernard went a bit odd at the end of January. In ’45 we were a nation of people going a bit odd. It must have been something to do with the war. He’d been in a secret specialized Home Guard mob before and told nobody about it. Now he had to go back to parades, and carrying his rifle openly, although still wearing his 1914–18 uniform. They were bloody awful days. I read a hundred books, and didn’t remember a word of them.

  David Clifford began visiting me about then. The first thing he said was, ‘There appears to be a soldier from the Great War sitting outside your door: rifle, bayonet, puttees, gas mask round his neck; the bloody lot. Bloody strange. He asked me for a pass before he’d let me in.’

  ‘Got one?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I have. Signed by your CO.’

  ‘I didn’t think he knew I was here.’

  ‘Not that one. Your German doctor, Doctor Hildegard somebody.’

  ‘Where the bloody hell have you been? I’ve been here for ages, and no sod from the squadrons has been anywhere near me.’ I tailed off sort of lamely, ‘. . . it’s a poor bloody show. That’s what I think.’

  Cliff looked smart; well, as smart as he could. He had his sheepskin-lined flying jacket over his uniform. I felt disadvantaged: I was sitting in a cane chair they had brought me, but was still in pyjamas and a dressing gown. They had hidden my walking-out clothes in case I did.

  ‘You haven’t been listening, have you? Visiting, except next of kin, was verboten. Frau Doktor’s orders: kaput.’

  ‘That means finished: it looks as if it’s just started again, if you’re here.’

  ‘That’s the style, old boy. The bang on your head didn’t do permanent damage then?’

  ‘You know about that too, do you?’

  ‘Yes, the Colonel told me when he briefed me to come down for this little session.’

  ‘Colonel?’

  ‘My boss.’

  ‘I thought you were in the RAF.’

  ‘See? You picked it up: I knew you were feeling better as soon as I walked in the room. Can I sit down?’

  He pulled the hard upright chair towards him: it didn’t look as if I had much say in the matter.

  Bernard put his head round the door. He was wearing his helmet. He ignored Cliff but asked me, ‘Everything OK, sir?’

  ‘Fine Bernard, but don’t call me sir: we were both still sergeants when I arrived.’

  ‘You won’t overdo it, sir?’

  ‘No, Bernard.’ I sighed. ‘I’m fine. I’ll call you if he gets difficult. A couple of cups of char wouldn’t come amiss.’

  ‘I’ll get one of the young ladies to see to it, sir.’

  Cliff asked, ‘What would he do, if I got difficult?’

  ‘Bayonet you, I think.’

  ‘You’re serious, aren’t you? Why would he do that?’

  ‘We haven’t established that. He adopted me when I arrived here: it’s something we haven’t discussed. Have we, Bernard?’ I directed the last three words at the open door. Beyond it Bernard barked, ‘No need, sir.’

  Cliff said, ‘I suppose that closing the door is out of the question?’

  Bernard’s next bark beat me to it.

  ‘It is.’

  I told him, ‘OK, that’s enough, Bernard.’ Then I told Cliff, ‘But he’s right; the door stays open.’

  Bernard brought the tea in. He gave Cliff the one with tea slopped into the saucer.

  Cliff said, ‘He wasn’t here when you came in.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I was.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I travelled in the meat wagon with you. In case you had any famous last words; that sort of thing.’

  ‘Was that important?’

  ‘Yes: there was no one else, you see.’ He looked away, regret on his face, but not grief. For some reason that struck me as very professional.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. You were in a bit of a state. It took us about half an hour to find you. The old cow had veered hard to the west as she went in . . .’

  ‘That was because the starboard outer went mad, and pushed her that way. I was in a Lanc that did that once: my pilot fought her all the way back from Germany.’

  ‘That’s what I came today to find out.’

  ‘Don’t you know what happened?’

  ‘You’re not listening again, Charlie. I told you: no one else made it.’

  A picture came into my mind.

  ‘I saw the female Joe. Her head was on fire.’

  ‘Don’t tell me any of that, Charlie. I don’t need to know.’

  ‘Squeamish?’

  ‘No. It’s just a matter of taste. Don’t forget that the silly sods made you an officer.’

  There was one of those gaps in the conversation until I asked him, ‘You said I looked in a bit of a state?’

  ‘We found you sitting up against a grave stone in Tempsford graveyard. Initially I thought that that was quite appropriate. You’d been blown about twenty yards into it by the last explosion. Your face was puffed up, and black. You had strips of curled skin hanging from your shoulders . . .’

  From outside the door Bernard coughed once.

  I said, ‘It’s OK, Bernard. I want to hear this.’

  Cliff said, ‘I can’t get over the way your face has healed. You don’t look burned too much.’

  ‘Frau Doktor says that I was lucky. My shoulders are worse. When I move you can see exactly the way the muscles expand and contract: I can make them dance to Dorsey Brothers tunes. Want me to show you?’

  ‘No thanks, old boy. Sounds ghastly; sorry.’

  ‘She tells me that the greatest effect on my face will be to the hair follicles: something goes wrong with them when they’re burned up. I won’t ever have a moustache or beard: probably won’t have to shave again.’

  ‘Handy.’

  ‘Yes. I thought so. Why did you call your Boss the Colonel?’

  ‘Sometimes I think you radio ops can’t take anything in unless it’s coming through a pair of headphones. I told you before that the people down there are more flexible than your usual service wallah. My boss is a Colonel because the brown jobs run the security. They run the security because they run the operations out there that we deliver to. We’re only delivery boys: don’t forget that.’

  ‘Seems odd.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something odder: they want you back for something when you’re ready. They must be even stupider than we are.’

  ‘Your Army takes itself too bloody seriously. Can Frohlich visit me?’

  ‘No. He’s gone.’

  ‘Where?’

  Cliff shrugged. I pushed him.

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘You don’t need to know,’ he told me. And that was that. Funnily enough I felt better after that. I’d always thought that Frohlich would visit, and I was miffed that his people had forgotten me so quickly. I wondered if they were lying in a prison camp, hospitals or deep in Mother Earth. I tur
ned away from it: Cliff would never tell me.

  ‘That Yank,’ Bernard told me a day later. ‘He’s back, sir.’

  ‘Then let him in.’

  I felt better. They let me wear my RAF jacket over my pyjamas: it made me feel as if I was still part of something.

  ‘He hasn’t got a pass.’

  ‘Sell him one.’

  Tommo slouched in a couple of minutes later, and crash-landed on the upright chair.

  He said, ‘Your guard made me pay him for the privilege of visiting. I thought that I was supposed to be the gangster back here. Not for long, though.’

  ‘Thank you for coming to see me, Dave, and what does that mean?’

  He tossed a carton of Luckies and a package of pipe tobacco on the bed, and told me, ‘Shipping me home. I been here since 1943, and now we’re winning they’re shipping me home.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing: they say I’ve done my bit. Uncle Sam says, Thanks; but you can go home now.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘No it ain’t. What about my business?’

  ‘Being a gangster?’

  ‘Don’t be funny. I’ve a good number here. Back at Fort Nowhere I’ll be up to my arse in non-com officers who spend their time in the john reading the rule book. Then they’ll pull up their pants, pull the chain, and throw the goddam thing at me.’

  ‘They’ll wipe their arses first,’ I told him.

  ‘What with? I just arranged the whole year’s sanitation paper allocation shipped over here to fill your needs.’

  ‘I’ll phone Winston, and tell him there was a mistake. Get him to send some back again.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘He wouldn’t know what it is. He has aides-de-camp to wipe for him.’

  ‘Yeah, we got those in the US too.’

  This took about thirty seconds it seemed, and then we were both grinning. I could grin now without my face cracking in half. Dave said, ‘You’re looking almost human. Time you got a nice English girl.’

  ‘I had one, thanks, Tommo. Are you serious about leaving?’

  He sighed as if he meant it, and looked at his funny peaked olive cap, as he twisted it in his hands.

  ‘Yeah. It’s a shit; so I came to ask a favour. There were some things I couldn’t arrange to sell off or move: they don’t give you all that much notice – they’re in two kitbags outside with your mastiff. Will you stash them for me until I come back for them?’

  ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘Christ, yes: I’ll find someone’s palm to cross with silver once I’m back over there; I’ll try for a posting in Germany – that’s where the money will be when it’s all over.’

  ‘It’s not knocked-off gear that I’ll go to prison for if I’m caught with it?’

  ‘Christ, no. I wouldn’t do that to you. Not without telling you. We’re buddies, ain’t we?’

  ‘We’re buddies,’ I confirmed. It made me feel very old. ‘Of course I’ll keep it for you. How long have you got?’

  ‘A few days. Then they’re flying me out to Ireland – Nutts Corner or the Lodge – then a big boat home from Belfast Loch.’

  ‘I always thought that an appropriate name for an airfield – Nutts Corner. Can you make a few telephone calls for me before you go? See if you can find out where Grace is; I can’t ask the people here – they don’t know her.’

  Tommo Thomsett knew Grace – a girl I knew. She’d known me, and a lot of other men that I knew, if you get my drift. She was an ATA pilot I’d last seen about six weeks before my accident. At that time she was pregnant and deciding what to do about it. I’d asked her to marry me a few times: at that time it was a compulsion I had every time a pair of knickers hit the deck. The point is that Grace was the only one to have said Yes so far; albeit in a vague sort of way.

  I’d asked her, ‘Marry me?’

  She had said something like, ‘OK. Yes. Once the war is over.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘. . . if you can find me.’

  That was the nearest I got.

  The American said, ‘Amazing! You still hankering after her?’

  ‘Yes; stupid, isn’t it? I’m going to miss you too, Tommo.’ I meant it.

  ‘Not for long you won’t.’ I could take that two ways, couldn’t I?

  He called me back a few days later to say that Grace was AWOL: nobody knew where she was. He’d attracted some heat, he said, even asking the questions. And her father would like to see me when I got out. That was her stepfather. He had as much reason to worry as the rest of us. Not many people knew that.

  Early February drifted in. Bernard was putting bets on for me with a runner he knew at his local. I always lost, but I was training for after the war: I was going to be a racing journalist. I didn’t know much about the horses but I liked the idea, and I’d seen Prince Monolulu on the cinema newsreels.

  A few days before Frau Doktor signed my movement order Bernard strolled in unannounced, took the upright chair to its limit with his mass, and told me, ‘Your dad’s looking in tomorrow, sir. Him and your uncle.’

  ‘Good. I was wondering how Dad was.’

  ‘Most people write letters: you could try that.’

  ‘I’m going to get paid for what I write.’

  ‘You’re a mercenary little bugger, sir, and useless with the gee-gees. Anyway, he’s just popping in to say goodby-ee for the present. Him and your uncle.’

  ‘Why? Where are they off to?’

  ‘France. Then Germany most like; I almost envy them.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, they’re old men.’

  There was a bit of a hiatus then: because they would have been round about the same age as Bernard. He asked me, ‘They were in the trenches, weren’t they? During the last lot?’

  ‘You know Dad was. You swapped trenchie stories with him over Christmas, didn’t you?’

  ‘So I did. What did he do over there?’

  ‘Pioneer. They both were. Dug holes for other people most of the time. They probably dug yours.’

  ‘There you are then. His Country needs him again, and all that; only as a civvie on better wages. Loads of the old fellahs are doing it. Loads of spondulicks around, apparently. The front is moving so fast they need people who can dig trenches quickly. Your old man spotted his chance.’

  ‘Silly sod! What if he cops it?’

  ‘I don’t think that he cares much, sir. Like father, like son. Why is that?’

  ‘He evacuated my mum and my sister with him to Scotland when our house was doodlebugged last year. My uncle found them a flat. Dad found a job. There was something the matter with the stove in the flat. He got home from night shift one morning to find them dead in their beds. It changed him. Changed us both.’

  ‘Is that what you fell out over, sir?’

  ‘Yeah, but only for a couple of weeks. No point staying mad at the only one you’ve got left.’

  ‘But he still feels it, I’ll bet. Him and his brother both. So they’ve gone to take it out on the Jerry, by digging trenches all over his allotments.’

  I wanted to leave hospital in my uniform. Frau Doktor was there to say goodbye. She had to lean down to kiss me, and I was surprised when she did. When Gloria did the same I felt her hot little tongue slide briefly into my mouth, like a wren in a hedgerow.

  She asked, ‘Will you come back and show us how you are?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I know you’ll never write.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You haven’t written to anyone from here, have you? You’ll not come back either.’

  ‘Give me another kiss.’

  She obliged. She was an obliging sort of girl.

  ‘Yes I will,’ I told her. ‘I’ll come back for more of those.’

  It was a lie, but her smile was half worth it. Cliff thumped my half-filled old leather case and Tommo’s two heavy kitbags into the space behind the front seats of the Singer.

  ‘Strewth. What have you got in these?
’

  ‘Don’t know. I’m minding them for a friend.’

  I drove and crashed the gears all the way to Bedford, until I got the hang of it again. Cliff rested his arm over the low door and watched the grey-green countryside sliding past, pretending not to notice. I told him, ‘We should have put the hood up, it’s bound to rain before we get back,’ and of course it bloody did.

  Three

  ‘. . . I don’t need it, sir. All I need is a week for what I’ve got to do.’ Goldie had been asking me about the two weeks’ crash leave I was entitled to.

  Then he said, ‘Good-oh,’ and ‘. . . Famous,’ and noticed me looking at a patch of sticky tape covering a piece of skull where a hank of his famous fair hair was missing. He patted it gingerly. ‘Left a bit in Holland. Bloody Germans, I think. You’d think they’d give up.’

  ‘I keep on wishing they would, sir. They’ve lost. Where shall I report when I get back?’

  ‘Motor pool. If you need a car choose yourself a good one. One of those big Humber staff cars should do the trick.’

  ‘Motor pool, sir? What about the radio workshop?’

  ‘Christ no, old man. Old Stan was back in time for Christmas, like Santa Claus – walked over the front line in Belgium somewhere. You’re an officer now, and one squadron radio officer is more than enough. We found him a new Sergeant: we had a bit of a run on Sergeant W/Ops last year, didn’t we?’ I understood that I wasn’t supposed to reply; I had been one of them, after all. ‘. . . so we’re lending you to Major England. Liaison. He’s probably over the other side right now – he has a batman he calls Raffles. You’ll find them good value: altogether a cushy number to let you get your eye back in.’

  ‘What will I be doing with Major England, sir?’

  ‘Buggered if I know, the brown jobs never tell us anything, but it’s something David Clifford has cooked up. He said you were a handy driver. Know anything about cars?’

  ‘Very little, sir.’

  ‘Piece of cake. Earth, fire, air and water: they run on the same principles as medieval magic. You’ll soon get the hang of it. I was a medievalist at Cambridge; that seems like half a lifetime ago now . . . Anyway, enjoy your seven days, and enjoy your little trip.’