The Horatio Stubbs Trilogy

by Brian Aldiss

  After parade, and one last bollicking from Charley Meadows, we were detailed for fatigues. I went over to where No. 1 Platoon, its heels up against a wall, was fallen out for a smoke, and looked out Di.

  As we hung about, smoking an inch of fag, he asked me quietly, ‘How you doing this morning?’

  ‘Great! I’ve got a bit of a hangover and my knob’s sore, otherwise I’m smashing.’

  ‘Be serious, Horry! You’re not sorry I took you along last night?’

  So his Welsh conscience was playing him up!

  ‘Di, just between you and me, how was your bibi?’

  ‘How was yours?’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘Not a raddled old hag?’

  ‘No – no, nothing like that. Proper little beauty, really. It was hard to be sure, but I’d say she was about eighteen or nineteen. I didn’t half give her a bashing! She loved it!’ I groaned to convey what rapture I had experienced. ‘I’d have had another go if I’d got the cash. You got on okay, did you?’

  He looked cautious. ‘You got a better deal than what I did. Just my bloody luck to go through the wrong door …’ He hesitated. ‘She was a bit of a raddled old hag, you’d have to say it … I was afraid of getting a dose off her. So I just – well, I sat on the edge of the bed like and just let her toss me off. It seemed safest. Don’t tell old Jock, will you? He’d only laugh! And she’d got hands like sandpaper, honest she had.’

  Feeling shamed by his honesty, I clapped him on the back. ‘Better luck next time, Di!’

  ‘They ought to have proper government brothels, that’s what, same as the Italian Army.’

  ‘Do the Italians have government whore-houses then?’

  ‘Pukka clean places, inspected every week. Nice girls too, so I hear. Jack Aylmer was saying as Italian officers and men all go to the same brothel. Of course, they’re Roman Catholic …’

  This fascinating conversation was brought to an end by Corporals Warren and Dutt descending on us. Di went off on rations and I was given the job of refilling the buckets at the various fire-points round the camp.

  While I was on this absorbing task, and taking as long as possible over it, I heard a piercing whistle. Jock McGuffie was leaning out of a cookhouse window. I waved and indicated that I had a job to do. After a while, I saw that he was coming over towards me, his face more colourless than ever in the bright sunlight. Jock began talking while he was still several yards from me.

  ‘What, are you after promotion or something, Stubbs, bullshitting away here in the heat? You must be kind of eager or why didn’t you come on over to the cookhouse when I gave you the sign? I was scrounging a mug of char off the fucking cooks, seeing as how them whores robbed me of my last anna last night – not that it’s what you might call anything better than dishwater, that stuff they dole out—’

  ‘What do you expect with that sod Rusk fucking about in there?’

  ‘Och, old Rusty’s no’ sae bad, considering he comes from Carlisle, of all mankey fuckin’ places. At least he’ll slip you an egg-butty now and again, which is more than you can say for yon big fat sergeant-cook. I had a mate from Paisley as had slipped his wife a length or two in his time, and he reckoned she was as fat and greasy as what Nobby is.’

  Two minutes later, we were relaxing in the canteen over two glasses of beer, while Jock told me about a long-past feud between Sergeants Gowland and Meadows in which he had been involved.

  ‘So bloody Gowland says, “You know you can get a long stretch in the glasshouse for falling asleep on guard duty?”, he says, so I says to him, “I was resting my eyes, sar’nt,” I says, “and your torch dazzled me. You ask my mate Morris and he’ll tell you.” So he bellows for my mate Morris—’

  ‘They never put one over on you, Jock, do they?’

  He stopped in mid-spate and eyed me suspiciously. ‘Do you want to borrow some cash, is it? I told you, you’re paying for this beer and I’ll owe it to you. They’re always putting it over on me – it’s fucking victimization, that’s what it is. If your face doesn’t fit, you’re in the shit all the time, and you’ve got to fight back as best you can.’

  ‘Last night was okay, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Same as any other fucking night!’ He was still suspicious, and pinched one of my fags and lit it up. It was cool and quiet in the canteen, with a buzzing fly to emphasize the silence. The sound of a squad being drilled came distantly to us.

  ‘What was that bibi like you had?’

  ‘What like was she? How d’you mean, What like was she? She was good enough for a blow-through. One woman’s just the same as the fucking next as far as I’m concerned.’

  He was always reticent about sex. Removing his fag from his mouth with a quick gesture, he changed the subject.

  ‘Look, Stubby, lad, you know that this fucking brigade won’t be in the land of the blow-through much longer.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Christ-on-fucking-crutches! You’re a bit dim this morning, aren’t you? You bloody English, you live so soft your wits congeal in your thick heads! We’ll be moving into action soon – straight into the fucking jungle, tangling it with the Japs!’

  ‘Sure, we came out here to fight a war, didn’t we?’

  He dragged despairingly on his cigarette. ‘You may have done, mate – I fucking didn’t!’

  I gave him a laugh. ‘Come on, Jock, serving King and Country and all that!’

  ‘Och, what’s the fucking king ever done for me? I’m no’ planning to stick my fucking neck out for him, I’ll tell you that for free.’

  ‘You know the rumours – since the Arakan’s out, 2 Div will probably be going to Assam. We’ve got no option.’

  ‘Ah, balls! It’s a case of exercising the prerogatives. Listen to me!’ He leaned forward, fixing his little sharp gaze on me. ‘I’m telling you, within a week of now, this fucking shower is going to be moving east at a rate of knots, right? All except some. And who will that some be?’

  ‘Baggage party?’

  ‘Too fucking true! Rear baggage party. If you play your cards right, you can get on to rear baggage party.’

  I looked doubtful. ‘I suppose you could get on the sick list and be in hospital when the unit moved out.’

  ‘Hospital? Hospital? Are you out of your fucking head? They’ll bounce you straight into Field Ambulance. I know some of those bloody MOs in Field Ambulance – they aren’t fit to be in charge of pigs. They’d bounce you right into the front line if you were dying of dysentery! No, you got to work a flanker. Och, I’ll no’ pretend it’s easy, but there are ways. And the first thing to do is to pick your officer.’

  Jock lived on a different wavelength from me. He grabbed my arm. ‘You think I’m pulling your pisser, man? Listen, pick your officer! They’re fucking human, same as you, you know!’

  This was rank heresy in the Army. I had it drummed into me continuously that officers were a different species, and had never had grounds for doubting it.

  ‘I tell you they’re fucking human, no matter what like the cunts may act when we’re around. Some of them wants to go to death and glory, some of them are shitting themselves at the thought of a shot fired in anger – same as anyone. You’re under Spunk Bucket, aren’t you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gor-Blimey. Captain Eric Gore-Blakeley. He’s one of the buggers who doesn’t mind if he boozes his whole life away miles behind the lines.’ All the time we were sitting in the canteen, Jock’s little ferretty eyes were rarely on me, always elsewhere – particularly on the doorway.

  ‘How do you know all this, Jock?’

  ‘Och, I’m a student of fucking psychology! You have to keep your eyes and ears open in this world or you get a knife in the ribs.’

  ‘What were you in Civvy Street, Jock?’

  He did look at me then, for a moment. ‘What that got to do with it? No, I’ve driven that Gor-Blimey of yours all round the place in my time. Him and me understand each other – I know him as well as I kn
ow the crabs on my own balls! They officers manoeuvre for position, same as the rest of us. Spunk Bucket’s no more keen to soldier in Burma than what I am. In my form book, he’s the likeliest officer in “A” Company to wangle a number on rear baggage party. So he’ll pick the men he wants. So, he will want men he can trust, ginks who feel the same as he does. So, you’d better get yourself picked for rear detail, and fast!’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘How do I get myself picked?’

  ‘Christ, and you a fucking Signaller! Let him see you’re a dodgey bastard too! I’m off now – through the bar, must have a pee! See you!’

  He disappeared with surprising rapidity, dodging behind the bar and out the back before the Indian orderly could protest. I looked around. We had been the only two in the canteen at this relatively early hour. Now boots were approaching, marching smartly. Jock had heard them before I did. I was caught; Jock had vanished.

  The door opened, there was a cry of ‘Honey Pears’, and Enoch Ford and Wally Page marched in, swinging their arms smartly right up to my table, some other squaddies pressing in behind them.

  ‘Company, Company, halt! Company – wait for it! – Company, dis – MISS!’

  As they fell themselves out, I told them they were in time to buy me another drink.

  ‘Drinking on your fucking own now, Stubbs!’ said Wally. ‘You’re after them bastard stripes back, don’t tell me!’

  ‘I was having a drink with Jock McGuffie.’

  ‘Strewth, don’t let him give you two sixpences for a shilling or you’ll end up elevenpence short, I’m telling you. He wouldn’t even tell you the correct time, Jock McGuffie.’

  Enoch came over with the beers, slopping them as he came. Wally told him, ‘Young Stubby has been drinking with Jock McGuffie.’

  ‘He’s a right one, he is! He wouldn’t give you the time of day, wouldn’t Jock. He never lifted owt off anyone, and that’s as true as I’m standing here riding this bicycle. Wally’ll tell you same.’

  ‘I never believe a word either of you buggers tell me. He’s all right, is McGuffie – knows how to look after himself.’

  Wally settled comfortably down with his elbows on the table. ‘Get some service in, fucking Stubbs! That little Scots bugger is all for Number One okay! He would have the fucking shirt off your fucking back. You’ve been keeping some funny company lately – it’s all them pox-ridden Wog gods, that’s what it is. Where were you last night when we were waiting to go down to the WVS?’

  ‘He was out with the taffies,’ Enoch said. ‘You missed a bloody good evening, Stubby, you did! You missed bloody Betty Grable in her bath. I wouldn’t mind slipping her a length, I tell you!’ He made wanking movements up to his chest, banging the back of his neck at the same time. ‘Wherrr! Git in there, Nobby!’

  ‘I can see Betty Grable any time. That goes for her fucking bath, too – we’ve got fucking baths at home.’

  ‘Then you’re bloody lucky, mate, that’s all I can say.’ Enoch’s big beaming flat face never lost its smile. ‘Back in our house, we all have to take a turn under the kitchen tap, same as the neighbours. By Christ, that sort of thing is going to change after the war, let me tell you! The Communist Party’s going to do something for those who’ve fought, or the blood’ll run in the fucking streets!’

  ‘All right, we all know you come from up North,’ Wally said. ‘Things ain’t much better round our way. We all washed in the kitchen same as you, and there was only one proper bed between the seven of us.’

  ‘Then it’s about time you stopped voting for Churchill and that mob, i’n’t it?’ Enoch said.

  ‘Churchill’s okay – he knows the worth of the working man.’

  ‘Up your flue! He was only shooting at them in the General Strike, that’s all!’

  ‘Old Blighty would have been defeated by the Krauts by now, but for Churchill, and don’t you forget it!’

  In these discussions, I was always put out of countenance, feeling I had not suffered enough. As I handed the cigarettes round, I cringed in case Enoch accused me of a capitalist gesture; but Enoch was a kind-hearted lad, and had no thought of embarrassing me. He accepted my cigarette.

  When he remarked that I had still not revealed where I had been the previous evening, I told them I got a lift into Indore. Wally pounced at once.

  ‘Get knotted, Stubbs! Indore’s out of fucking bounds, for crying out loud. You know that! Officers only. No dogs or BORs.’

  ‘I tell you I was in fucking Indore. You want to wash your ears out.’

  ‘Fuck off, mate! You never been to Indore in your natural!’

  ‘I suppose that was sodding Blackpool I was in last night?’

  ‘Honey Pears!’ cried Enoch. ‘I wish Blackpool was that near. I’d catch the first bloody train back to Werriton, I can tell you. You wouldn’t see me for dust!’

  ‘What was you doing in Indore, anyhow? Shagging your arse off, I bet!’

  ‘We just went over for a drink in Jock’s gharri.’

  ‘Drinking with the drivers, eh, Stubbs? You boozy bastard, your own fucking mates ain’t good enough for you. That’s it, eh? What was the beer like?’

  ‘Good stuff.’

  ‘Piss off! “Good beer”, he says! You can’t get good beer in India. Not like the jammy buggers liberating Italy, guzzling down all that Kraut beer!’

  ‘And fucking well fucking the I-tie girls!’ said Enoch. This was a safer subject. I joined in a chorus that we had already learnt by heart after only a few weeks in India.

  ‘They get fags flown out from England, and Yank rations and Yank beer. No wonder they are stuck where they are – they’re too pissed to fight!’

  ‘And if you get wounded in Italy, they fly you back to Blighty – not like bloody Burma. You can die in Burma and do you think anyone at home cares? Not on your fucking nelly!’

  Page leant impressively across the table. ‘You got something there. You know what Lady Astor said in Parliament? – That every man-jack serving out in the East should have to wear a yellow badge when he got back to the Blight.’

  ‘What, officers and all?’ Enoch asked.

  ‘No, you North Country twirp, not officers – squaddies! In case they had the pox.’

  ‘And Churchill backed her up, I bet. She and him are thick as thieves. She’s in and out of Chequers as if it was her own back yard! Do you think Churchill gives a shite for the Fourteenth Army?’

  For once Wally looked disconcerted.

  ‘I reckon they’ve written us off, back home, that’s true.’

  ‘’Course they have – anyone’ll tell you! You ask some of the blokes as walked out of Mandalay – they’ll tell you. That’s why they pinched all our landing craft! We’re the Forgotten Army!’

  There was the magic phrase, gaining by constant repetition, which held so many easy bitternesses: The Forgotten Army. Dwelling on our hard life, we left my evening adventure safely behind.

  The canteen was filling up now. More of the squad crowded in at our table, easing their beer glasses through the crush and lighting up cigarettes. Soon we were discussing once more the way our landing-craft had been withdrawn; it was regarded as almost a personal insult. Carter the Farter alone expressed a different opinion.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with India and Burma if they take the whole bloody Royal Navy away from this theatre of war. You bods don’t understand that we’re involved in an Imperialist War. They’re gathering as many vessels as possible round Europe and then, when Hitler’s beaten, the Allies will attack Russia – you’ll see!’

  Only Enoch admitted this was possible. The rest maintained that we were being victimized. It was all somehow India’s fault; India was to blame for everything. So we were launched on the familiar subject of ants, snakes, shite-hawks, prickly-heat, and filth.

  ‘It isn’t as bad as all that!’ I said.

  ‘Fuck off, Stubbs, we know you’re going bloody native!’ Wally said. ‘You�
�d rather be stationed in Kanchapur than London, you would!’

  ‘I’d rather be stationed in Kanchapur than on fucking Salisbury Plain!’

  Jeers and laughter drowned me out. I looked round for support. Old Bamber stood sombrely behind us, supping his beer and saying nothing, his sleeves rolled up to reveal the riot of tattooing on his arms.

  ‘You could be in worse places than Kanchapur, Bammy, couldn’t you?’

  ‘All countries are the bloody same,’ he said. ‘There ain’t no difference between them, once you really gets to know them. It don’t matter where you are. One place is just like another.’

  But to most of us without Bamber’s experience it mattered extremely where we were.

  Rumours and fears stirred like dust in the camp. ‘Soon you will be leaving, sahib,’ Ali told me as I bought my morning mug of char from him. ‘Six day, maybe seven, all men go and new intake come Kanchapur.’

  ‘I thought we were seeing the war out right here! Where are we going, Ali?’

  ‘Japanese very bad man, sah’b, all the while eat very much land, kill good men with the rifle and the bayonet. Mendip Regiment go stop them not come in India, kill all person all the same.’

  ‘Burma? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, sah’b. All Mendip go Burma land, kill Japanese soldier. You owe me Ali one rupee six, sah’b.’

  ‘I’ll pay you on Friday, Ali.’

  ‘Yes, sah’b, thank you, sah’b – then no more credit. Credit pinish.’

  So I went to see Captain Gore-Blakeley and applied for a refresher course in wireless-operating. I caught him at a bad moment, as he was leaving the company office.

  ‘Bit late for a refresher course, Stubbs, isn’t it? We may be moving into action soon, you realize that, I suppose, eh? Don’t want to be left behind, do you?’

  ‘Of course not, sir.’ Virtuously.

  ‘Not that anyone is going to be left behind.’ Off-handedly.

  He moved into the intense sunlight, turning his back to me, but I tagged along.

  ‘Your record is not one of the best, Stubbs.’ Discouragingly.

  ‘Ah, well, you see, that’s just it, isn’t it, sir?’ Improvisingly.

  ‘How do you mean, “That’s just it”?’ Disinterestedly.