Charlie's War

by David Fiddimore

  ‘I didn’t say it was.’

  We climbed the rest of the way to the Quonset bar in a sort of baffled, humpy silence. The Colonel was standing at the bar with a couple of senior medical types. I tried to ignore him, but he spotted me, and turned to say, ‘All fixed up, Padre. You’ll get a Croix for this lot.’

  ‘Hardly worth it, sir, for smoking out one man and Jerry’s Home Guard.’

  ‘It’s definitely medal material, Padre. Sixteen Jerry Paras walked out alive after a gallant defence. There must be hundreds dead over there. I’ll get you to pray over the rubble before you move on.’

  ‘There aren’t any bodies, sir. There’s no one there.’

  ‘Atomized, dear boy, by pin-prick . . . sorry, I meant pinpoint . . . bombing. Your old squadron, I understand.’

  He’d obviously been talking to someone, and had then had a few.

  I said, ‘Sir, it is my opinion that sixteen men went into that castle, and sixteen marched out. I can’t in all conscience accept a medal for bombing the shit out of a Home Guard patrol, and missing them.’

  ‘That’s where my military experience comes in, old boy, so listen carefully. I’m the Colonel . . . and you’re apparently a Padre, savvy?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I agree it appears as if a patrol of Jerry’s Home Guard has stood us off for a fortnight, and killed a good many good men. But that, the military mind tells me, is plainly impossible. So far?’

  ‘So far, sir.’

  ‘So there must have been another hundred or so Paras in there as well.’

  ‘I see, sir.’

  ‘Everyone knows that Paras fight to the death: so that is what this lot did, almost to the man. So far?’

  ‘So far, sir.’

  ‘. . . and if there ain’t any bodies and body parts, it must be because they were blown to smithereens by our RAF friends. Atomized by devastating bombing. A great success for the RAF. I’m sure that you understand.’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  ‘. . . and that if you accept the Frenchy’s little medal with dignity and grace, it will bring honour and credit to you and your squadron, and everyone will know that it must all be true, because the Froggie is very parsimonious with his awards.’

  ‘I thought that you said he gave them out to anybody for anything?’ I mislaid the sir; I suspected that he was already too pickled to notice.

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘was when I was being unkind. Now that you have opened up my castle, I am benevolence personified.’ He grinned a bleary grin. ‘. . . and just a wee bit squiffy. Run along now, and save a few more souls.’

  I was getting damned tired of this religious lark.

  I had to bloody go through with it. It must have amused James, because he sided with the LD Colonel, and ended up bloody ordering me to attend an investiture. Les summed it up with, ‘A Brylcreem boy dressed in the clothes of all the other Services, and at least two nations, and disguised as a bleeding priest, getting a French medal for killing a hundred Jerries who never existed: this is a good war!’

  They sent a retired French General of my father’s vintage to present the medal the next morning. He was even smaller than me, and wore a uniform straight out of the Crimea – red pants, a blue jacket and a flat-topped peaked cap that looked suspiciously German. He needed to stand on tiptoe to kiss my cheeks and his breath smelled of Parma violet. Normally I’m not bad at picking up languages, and at least my French was fairly fluent, but his staccato machine-gun delivery, punctuated by the occasional mon brave, kept beating me down the leg side.

  The Colonel had lined a few of his brown jobs up with anyone else who wanted to gawk in an open square, with me in the middle. James stood alongside me, ramrod-straight in a cleaned uniform. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my dad – he looked really chuffed. There were one or two nurses, including the one who had held the GI’s plasma drip. She had long rolling waves of chestnut hair like someone else I had known. McKechnie wasn’t there: he was cutting a Kraut who’d owned up to a shrapnel wound. With James alongside me, like a best man at a wedding, I felt a bit of a drip. I felt like a bit of a fraud too, but in my head I rehearsed what we eventually learned to call the Nuremberg Defence – I was only obeying orders.

  I hadn’t expected Lee, although she seemed to turn up in my life every now and again, so I wasn’t surprised to look up and see her smiling at me. She was with her pal Dave Scherman, and a naval officer wearing a grunt’s winter parka. Lee had her arm through his, and looked happy. She gave me a discreet waist-level wave when she saw I’d spotted her. The hand she waved with had a small camera in it. George, the coloured pianist and barman from the Quonset, was there in a full infantry Lieutenant’s colours, and James Oliver had forsaken his white battle bowler for a smart fore-and-aft forage cap, and had polished his shoes.

  After suffering a few more kisses and hugs I let the silly old sod pin the medal on to my battledress blouse. Just over one of the neatly mended bullet holes which had done for my predecessor. A small firing party fired three volleys over our heads, almost as if they were burying me. Then it was back into the bar for a spam sandwich and E & T reception that they’d put on for us. The mud clung to my boots; I remember that. I had a shiny cross on my chest, and its small leather-worked case in my pocket just to prove it. I waited for everyone to file into the drinks emporium in front of me, and I went in with the last man. Lee gave me a brief kiss as she moved past me; plumb on my lips. I was trembling and it wasn’t with emotion – not that kind of emotion, anyway. It was the sort of emotion I now recognize as fear.

  You see, I’ve seen dead men walking, before. I’ve told you that. I want you to get that straight. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’ve seen men wandering about long after they were dead: that American patrol in Brond was an example. OK, so when I’m face to face with something I don’t believe is there, I tremble. Got it? And when I saw a dead man in that small open square that morning I got a little jittery. OK?

  It was the little guy in the faded RAF blues I’d noticed the day before. Not being a man to put off the inevitable, I waited for him at the door and, feeling a bit dumb, the first thing I said was, ‘Hi, Pete. You’re dead.’

  Sixteen

  ‘Hi, Charlie. Surprise, surprise.’

  ‘Am I dead too?’

  ‘Don’t be a focking idiot, Charlie. You would have felt it. I am pleased for your medal.’

  I ignored that.

  ‘So you’re not dead either?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘I got your car and your radio.’

  ‘I am pleased about that too: I was scared that turd Marty Weir would have them. He was always on the lookout for number one, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Marty wasn’t so bad.’

  I reached my hand out and touched his shoulder. I could feel his bony clavicle. How else is a clavicle expected to feel, except bony? Pete: Piotr: the Pink Pole. He felt real to me. Les stuck his face out of the door.

  ‘What’s the matter, Charlie? You in love again?’

  ‘No, Les. Just an old pal. We used to fly together.’ And, ‘Les this is Pete. Pete, Les.’

  They just nodded at each other. Les said, ‘That’s all right then. Don’t keep them waiting long. You’re the guest of honour, or what passes for one, and the Froggie General is wolfing all the bleeding sandwiches.’

  Pete and I sat on chairs outside the door. Pete offered me a Lucky. No matter where we were he could always get hold of Lucky Strikes.

  After we lit up he said, ‘We got some catching up to do, and no time. You stick with that pipe and tobacco that girl gave you?’

  The girl had been Grace.

  ‘Most of the time; but you’re right – no time: stick to essentials. Why aren’t you dead any more? Did God give you a reprieve?’

  Piotr laughed.

  ‘You’re very English, Charlie. You know that?’

  ‘No. Pete; the last time I saw you alive we were climbing into Tuesday’s Child. I dogged th
e fuselage door shut, and you checked I’d locked it. You did that every trip. It was our ritual.’

  ‘That’s right. I don’t remember a lot about that trip. I remember calling out a small town in Germany to Conners so that he could check our drift. He was pleased. He said we were bang on.’

  ‘That was on the way back.’

  ‘Right. We were in Belgium, near Ostend. Nearly back to the Channel.’

  ‘What do you remember next?’

  ‘Two things. An extreme concussion . . . pouff!! All the lights went out. My turret wouldn’t move, neither would the guns. I got an electric burn from the breech of one. What was it; night fighter?’

  ‘Lightning. We were bloody well struck by lightning. It knocked me out for a few seconds. I think that it earthed on the trailing aerial, and came in through the radio. I could feel the electricity arcing across my teeth before I passed out.’

  ‘I worked out for myself that the second one wasn’t the Kraut . . .’

  ‘No. It was our own bloody Ack-Ack. Some trigger-happy bastard. He bracketed us, and then put one underneath.’

  ‘Not underneath you, Charlie; underneath me. Focking bastard!’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Blew the bloddy turret away, didn’t he? What height do you think we had?’

  ‘Not much: no more than a few thousand.’

  ‘Bloddy turret fell to pieces around me.’ He did it again. ‘I pulled the ring and the bloddy parachute harness nearly tore my balls off. They swelled like cricket balls the next day.’

  ‘Pete: you didn’t have a ’chute. I found your ’chute in the aircraft later. In its rack.’ Then I remembered. ‘You kept an extra one in the turret with you. One of those small ones for low jumps. Just in case you never got back into the plane.’

  ‘I used to sit on it, like a fighter pilot. Sometimes it’s good to be small. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes, it is. Isn’t it? How far did you fall?’

  ‘Fock knows. The canopy goes bang, above my head. I jerk to a stop. I scream because my balls are in a vice, and then my feet are on the ground. What was it the comedian you like to hear always said?’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie. Just like that. And I am in Belgium. That was months ago.’

  ‘I know that was months ago. Why the fuck haven’t you come back? Everyone thinks that you’re dead.’

  ‘You need a silver bullet to kill me. What happened to you?’

  ‘We never flew again. Brookie screened us away from flying. Had a great party. I met Glenn Miller before he was killed.’

  ‘Everyone met Glenn Miller.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Bollocks. I wouldn’t tell anyone else; I was tired of being taken for a Greek. ‘Anyway. They split the crew. Grease was officered before that last trip, and went home to fly the Canadian prairies. He got really odd about it: didn’t want to go. They got me at my next posting, and sewed a ring on my sleeve. Marty, Toff and Conners all sodded off to OTUs and OCUs, and Fergal went to the priests’ school. He’ll remuster as a Chaplain or Padre. Did you know that Marty carried a Gideon Bible with him on every trip we did? He got us to sign the flyleaf before we split, and then gave it to Fergal. Because you weren’t there to sign I printed your name above mine.’

  ‘Who got Tuesday?’

  ‘Brookie did. I think that’s why he retired us early: so he could get his hands on a better kite. It didn’t work though . . .’

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘Tuesday never liked him. She crashed and burned him a couple of days later: only the tail gunner got out.’

  ‘Tuesday liked tail gunners.’

  ‘No: she just liked us.’

  ‘Where they send you?’

  ‘Tempsford: just down the road. Special Duties squadron . . . a very odd lot. They seemed to fly when they liked.’

  ‘That was a bad break for you.’

  ‘Not really. I had a ground job . . . but then I played silly buggers; scored a trip as a spare prick in an old Stirling, and the bastard crashed and burned on take-off. Burned my neck and my chin and my shoulders.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have noticed.’

  ‘That’s good, Pete. Now tell me properly. Why haven’t you come back?’

  ‘Charlie; since I join your focking Air Force I been shot at by Krauts and English fliers, shot at by secret policemen, chased by service policemen, locked up in your English prison for painting the tits of an English girl in the Polish colours – which I never did – bounced around Germany freezing to death in the back of a Lancaster bomber – and lastly shot down by our own guns. You tell me, Charlie. If you were me, would you go back to England if you had the chance to bugger off?’

  I leaned back against the Quonset, and breathed a huge sigh of pleasure and relief. Pete said, ‘You didn’t answer me.’

  ‘I can’t. You’re right. No clever man would go back to England.’

  ‘Charlie,’ he asked me. ‘What happened to you? You’re wearing a half a sailor’s suit, an Army top and a Yankee flying jacket. You joined the mafia?’

  ‘Is there a Polish one?’

  ‘Not yet. Not until I make one. Me and that Yank Tommo. He says he knows you.’

  ‘That’s right. Is he round here?’

  ‘Somewhere. I’ll tell him.’

  ‘So, you’re OK? Really OK?’

  ‘Sure, Charlie. I’m a bit careful these days, but really OK. I even got a regular girl.’

  ‘Would I get to meet her? If I stuck around, that is?’

  ‘She’s in Hamm.’

  ‘That’s in Germany.’

  ‘Yeah. I only get to go home to see her at weekends.’

  ‘Have we got that far yet?’

  ‘Some of us have, Charlie. Don’t worry; the regular Army will catch up one day. Your friend Tommo has bought half of Munsterland already. I help him with the language. His basic Kraut is OK, but he has no dialect.’ Then he said, ‘Go inside, Charlie; your friends will be getting anxious. I’ll pick you up in a couple of days.’

  ‘How will you know where I am?’

  ‘I’ll ask a friend.’

  ‘Pete . . . I take it there’s nothing particularly legal about what you’re doing?’

  ‘Erwacht Charlie. The Kraut is collapsing. There is no legal over here: there’s just do what you want. Go over there and fill your boots, just like the rest of us. To the victors the spoils.’

  ‘That would make a great name for a film after this lot is over,’ said James. The bastard had come creeping up on me again. ‘The Victors. I think I’ll write that down. Who’s your pal?’

  Pete and I stood.

  ‘Pete. This is my Major, James England. Pete used to fly with me, James.’

  England glanced at the Poland flash on Pete’s shoulder.

  ‘You’re not the foreign johnny that seems to get into every district just in front of me, and buys up all the food before I get there?’

  ‘No,’ Pete said. ‘Must be some other Pole. Goddam race of goddam thieves.’ Only Pete could say that without smiling.

  ‘Pete was shot down and evaded. He’s making his way back.’

  ‘Would he like us to help him?’

  ‘No.’ That was me. ‘He’s shifting all right for himself. I’m coming in now. Are there any of those sandwiches left?’

  ‘Les and your old man are standing between a plateful and Mon Général, but I’d get a move on if I was you; the ravenous old sod will outmanoeuvre them before long.’

  Pete was already moving unhurriedly away. He said, ‘So long, Charlie. I’ll see you later.’

  When they handed me my first E & T at the bar I realized that although Pete had commented on my scarecrow’s mix of uniform, he hadn’t asked me very much about what I was doing. That was interesting. I wandered over to the piano with a couple of spamwiches in one hand and a hefty drink in the other. The pianist was playing a local arrangement of ‘In the Mood’. He smiled white tombstone teeth at me and said, ‘Nice medal,
boss!’

  We both knew what he meant, and grinned at each other. Pop danced past with his nursie: I thought that it was early in the day for her tits to be out again. It was the first time I noticed what a good, light dancer he was – up on the balls of his feet. As he passed he mouthed, ‘Off tomorrow,’ to me.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Home.’

  James danced past like a bear in wellies. It was the first time I noticed that he couldn’t dance at all. He had the girl from the latrine in his arms. He took his tongue from her ear long enough to say, ‘Make the most of it Charlie. Moving on tomorrow. The girls won’t like you where we’re going.’

  I looked around for Lee and her pals, and couldn’t see them. Maybe I had imagined her. Albie was in a group with some tankies and James Oliver. He held his drink in his left hand; his right was buried in a sling. I asked him, ‘How’s that finger?’

  ‘Dead and gone to heaven.’

  He produced the right hand. The bandage wasn’t there; neither was the middle finger. Not even a stump. There was just a neat plaster covering the gap between his first and ring fingers. I asked him, ‘Will that be a problem?’

  ‘Not unless I want to be Pad-u-wreski, or a New York cabdriver. Old Tits-Out was right as usual: gangrene or something. Bloody McKechnie had it off before I had time to whistle “Marching thru’ Georgia”. I whistled the Last Post instead.’

  ‘He’s turning into a good cutter. I’m pulling out tomorrow.’

  ‘So am I. I’ll be across the Rhine in two days.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘Why not? The Brass have got it wrong so often that they’re bound to be right sooner or later.’

  ‘Do you think that my medal party is going to last long?’

  ‘All day. Eat, drink, and be merry, Charlie . . . for tomorrow we die.’ We had used that excuse on the squadron.

  ‘Not you, Albie – you’ll just lose another bit. Seen Les?’

  ‘He was tapping up some American supply side Sergeant last I saw him; doing a deal down near the rattlesnake.’

  ‘What rattlesnake?’

  ‘That fat bastard of a diamondback that bit Pete Wynn last year. It’s in a glass box at the far end of the bar. There’s a table beside it which is a good place to be if you don’t want no other company.’