How I Won the War

by Patrick Ryan

  “I never liked no bloody Yanks, neither,” said Private Spool. “Hope to Gawd the Russians don’t come chewing bubble gum.”

  “And in further recommendation,” I emphasized, “let me tell you the views of our Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower himself, who knows just as many Russians as President Roosevelt. He finds from his experience that, in his generous instincts, in his love of laughter, in his devotion to his comrades, in his healthy direct outlook on the affairs of workaday life, the ordinary Russian seems to bear a marked similarity to what we call an average American …”

  “Roll on my healthy direct outlook on the affairs of workaday life,” said Corporal Dooley. “And I’ll see you down the drugstore, Voroshilov.”

  “French, Germans, Yanks, Russians,” said Private Drogue darkly. “Sod ’em all.”

  “It is clear,” I went on, “that our American friends are confident of winning friends and influencing people in Russia. They will clearly extend their triumph of war into a victory of peace. We must do the same. During the next few days, each and every one of us in good old Twelve Platoon must regard himself as a Spearhead Ambassador for Anglo-Soviet Harmony. Each must extend the hand of greeting to every Russian soldier he meets. Warrior saluting warrior with battle nobly done, East meeting West in triumphant camaraderie, each smile, each word, each rough, soldierly backslap forging another link in the new chain of friendship between the British Commonwealth and All the Russias. In our hands lies the key to Peace in Europe in Our Time …”

  “I wish I’d known,” said Corporal Dooley, “I’d have brought me umbrella.”

  On May 2nd we were in sight of the Baltic when the order came to stop. The river Lenlo was fixed as the eastern boundary of the Musketeers and Twelve Platoon was settled in a farmhouse overlooking the bridge on the road from Klaghaus to Rostock. Obedient to the Army Commander’s behest I had prepared myself for the situation. I had obtained a large Union Jack, fashioned a Red Flag from a captured Father Christmas overcoat and made two large sign boards showing a white arrow on a black ground.

  Leaving Sergeant Transom in charge of the billet I went down alone to the bridge with my boundary equipment. I wanted to get the border line clearly established before the Russians arrived so that there would be no trouble about demarcation. I was anxious also to handle the first exchanges myself, thus ensuring mutual goodwill at the outset and avoiding the danger of any undiplomatic subordinates getting things off on the wrong foot.

  I painted a broad white line across the middle of the bridge, mounting the Union Jack and one western-pointing arrow on our side, and placing the Red Flag with the other arrow at the eastern end. I was just in time. The historic moment was at hand. Around the bend in the road, two hundred yards away, came a Russian infantry patrol. There were about thirty of them, squat slit-eyed men with Mongolian features, each carrying a sack over his shoulder and an automatic weapon in his hands. Three were wobbling forward on bicycles, yellow teeth biting lower lips in concentration, battling hazardously and grimly as children on their first two-wheelers. Their forearms glittered in the sunshine and I thought they were wearing some form of limb armour. When they came closer I saw that every man was wearing ranks of wristwatches up to each elbow. One had a grandmother clock on his back held by a thong around his temples. The cyclists fell off here and there, but clambered solemnly back into the saddle each time like determined, inscrutable chimpanzees.

  “Welcome, tovarich,” I cried, raising my clenched fist in the Communist salute. “Long Live Stalin! Long Live Churchill! Three cheers for All the Russias. On behalf of the Allied Forces in Western Europe, I salute you!”

  They said not a word of acknowledgment or congratulation, but marched silently on. I advanced to meet them holding out my hands in affectionate hospitality.

  “Welcome, tovarishch! Greetings to one and all in the gallant Red Army! In the name of the common people of Britain, I salute you!”

  They swarmed about me, chrome-laced forearms flashing, eyes button-black and expressionless, brown dirt crusted on flat, Asiatic jowls. Suddenly a myriad hands shot out and held me everywhere, gripping my arms, ankles, and shoulders, plucking at every slack in my battle dress.

  “Welcome, tovarishch!” I said encouragingly. “Long Live Marshal Stalin! Long Live Timoshenko! U.S.S.R. hurrah!”

  The Tartar shaking my left hand took off my wristwatch and added it to his collection.

  “Ug,” he said. “Ug.”

  The Afghan greeting my right hand whipped out my fountain pen and bit it. Ink flowed like blue blood down his chin.

  “Ug-Ug,” he said.

  “Now, look here,” I protested. “I am a British officer. I am your gallant ally…. Side by side we have fought against the Nazi hordes …”

  Fingers ran into my pockets, my beret vanished from my head, boots came unlaced and jerked off my feet.

  “Ug,” said the holder of the left.

  “Ug-Ug,” said the winner of the right.

  “Really!” I cried. “We are tovarishchs … friends … allies. Where is your officer?”

  I tried to get up but a hundred fingers held me back. The cold road prickled my feet as my socks were whipped away.

  “Help!” I yelled. “Help! Twelve Platoon! Rally on me!”

  My commands were muffled as, baffled by the mystery of buttons, four hands tore my jacket straight up over my head and yanked it inside-out along my arms.

  “Ug … Ug … Ug!” grunted the sleeve-strainers. Fingers probed the elastic novelty of my braces, stretching them out fit for Tammany Hall, sliding the loops over my shoulders … my trousers began slithering down my legs … I pumped out my stomach as bulbous as a Japanese wrestler, fighting the waistband every inch of the way.

  “Help! Help!” I shouted. “Twelve Platoon! Rally! rally, rally!”

  Answering yells echoed down the road and the clatter of British hobnails came as music to my ears.

  “Ug!” snapped someone commandingly. “Ug-ug-ug!” All the hands lifted in unison, and I was swung up in the air to be held horizontally above their flat, black heads. The levitation caught my stomach off guard and my trousers flowed away. The cortège turned and trotted back the way they had come, bearing me aloft, stark and stiff in my underwear like a corpse looking for a coffin. They had almost made it to the bend when good old Twelve Platoon caught up with them.

  “Put him down, you perishing Bolshies!” shouted Sergeant Transom yanking back my left elbow-carrier by the scruff of his grandmother clock.

  “Let’s have you,” bellowed Corporal Dooley, laying about him with his belt. “Pinch a platoon commander from the Musketeers, would you? Thieving ruddy Communists!”

  And the rest of the platoon pitched into the little Mongol men with boot and buckle and belt…. My bearers dropped me in self-defence and I rolled over the tarmac and into a dry ditch … thistles prickled uncomfortably through my pants, cellular and holly branches taloned my vest…. From the way they were whooping and the bottles some were wielding, my command had found the vino once again … wrestling with the Russians, fighting each other as partners ran out, they made a Saturday night at Blaydon Races right there on the high road to Rostock.

  I untangled my vest from the holly bush and regained my feet.

  “Stop!” I yelled, flailing my arms commandingly. “In the name of Anglo-Soviet cooperation and the postwar peace of Europe, stop this unseemly brawl!”

  Both sides looked up in surprise … took off their strangleholds for a second … stopped pummelling momentarily. Then the Russians broke away and scurried like black mice off down the road. Sergeant Transom pursued the last of them for twenty yards, kicking him up the rump. Private Drogue hurled rocks till they were out of range. Corporal Hink hit one on the back of the head with a long-range bottle. The glass shattered but the recipient never even slackened his stride.

  “Saucy bastards! Looting off Twelve Platoon!” said Sergeant Transom in horrified tones. “Did you ever? What a dead flamin
g liberty! Pinching the clobber off a live Musketeer…. Here you are, sir … there’s your blouse and trousers back.”

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling much better with my legs covered. “It was good of you to come to my rescue when you did. But I must deprecate your use of violence against our Russian allies. You should have followed the example of the Metropolitan Police and used no more force than was necessary to detain them. Had you done so and given me an opportunity to address them quietly I feel sure I could have turned the incident to the benefit of Anglo-Russian relations. As it is, I fear that your infliction of unjustified personal violence on these comrades in arms smaller in stature than yourselves may well have poisoned their minds against the British for ever. By punching and kicking them after they had released me you may well have jeopardized peace in Europe in years to come. Don’t think I’m ungrateful, but …”

  “That’s all they understand, them Ruskies,” said Sergeant Transom. “Just like the Wogs or the Gungas. Nothing they respect like brute force. A good old kick up the arse or a clip round the ear, and they know you mean business.”

  “Your outlook is quite outdated,” I said. “Those unfortunate men may now be driven to attack us in revenge for the indignities they have suffered. As President Roosevelt so wisely said, only by allaying their suspicions and showing the open hand of friendship can we win the goodwill of the Russian people …”

  “Here’s your socks … and your right boot. Those Bolshies have made off with your left one …” He stopped and pointed up the road. “Aye-aye, lads! Get set … looks as if them sawn-off Caucasians are coming back for another barney.”

  Around the bend came the Russian patrol once more. At their head walked one with stripes on his arm, bearing before him in one hand my left boot and in the other, my wrist-watch. Their faces wreathed in smiles, becking and nodding as affectionately as car-passing Royalty, they marched up to the bridge.

  “Ug … Ug … Ug-Ug!” snapped the leader. His men halted. He came forward, beaming like first dividend, and presented the boot and the watch to Sergeant Transom. As the sergeant took the offerings the Russian clasped him to his bosom and kissed him three times on each cheek.

  “Ug …” he boomed admiringly. “Ug … Tovarishch … Ug-Ug-Ug!”

  He flourished his cap and his followers cheered in unison.

  “Ug-Ug! Tovarishch! Ug-Ug-Ug!”

  They took their sacks from their shoulders and produced bottles of every alcoholic shape.

  “Tovarishch!” cried Sergeant Transom. “Good health, matey, and Ug-Ug-Ug!”

  Twelve Platoon echoed his sentiments and after boisterous Anglo-Russian kissing all round settled in to punish the bottles with the Siberians. Sergeant Transom, arms linked and brandy flask shared with the headman, came over and gave me my left boot.

  “There you are, sir,” he said. “I told you there was nothing a Russian respects like a good old boot up the arse.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. But I do assure you that such action is quite out of keeping with modern concepts of international relations and the American way of diplomacy …”

  But before I could finish he was borne off by his companions to the centre of the bridge where, to the music of an Ukrainian concertina, Privates Drogue and Spool were on mobile hunkers Cossack-dancing with a pair of pig-tailed Tartars. As I bent to pull on my boot, Private Clapper came over.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, “but while the others are suitably engaged might I have a few words with you?”

  “Certainly, Clapper,” I said pulling tight the laces. “Is it Mrs. Clapper again?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  I stood up and straightened my uniform. This was familiar country. This was my type of war.

  “We’ll walk up to the farm together, Clapper, and you can tell me all about it. Now let me see … we left Mrs. Clapper, if I remember rightly, as an uninsured, vegetarian, swimming bath attendant?”

  “That’s right, sir. And it’s that swimming bath what’s caused all the trouble. There’s this health-and-strength bloke gets in there three times a week, bringing his own dumbbells, turning somersaults over the springboards, and body-building himself like Hercules’ big brother. Struts up and down the side of the bath flexing his deltoids and blowing up his triceps till Mrs. Clapper just don’t know which way to look. First off, he used to follow her about on her ablutionary duties and kept trying to back her up into empty cubicles. Eighteen stone of Mr. Universe he’s got there, sir, and that’s more nor her poor little seven-and-half stone of flesh and blood can stand.”

  “You don’t mean, Clapper,” I said “that he’s … er … he’s wreaking his wicked will on her in a public cubicle of her own swimming bath?”

  “She wouldn’t let him, sir. Not my little girl. She hollered for the Superintendent, my mum says. So now that overgrown Tarzan has taken to picking her up bodily and carrying her down to the used towel store and having his huge hoggins off her in there three times a week. The poor little kid’s right puny on just them vegetables all the time, my mum says, and ain’t no longer got the power to resist him…. Now is it right, sir, that’s all I want to know, while a man’s away fighting to liberate Europe from the Yoke, for bleeding street-corner Samsons to keep on stuffing it up his wife in a used towel store? That’s all I’m asking sir, is it?”

  “I quite take your point, Clapper. We must not be deterred by disappointment. Let us take this rebuff as a spur to further ingenuity. Now let us consider where to find the sexual Achilles’ heel of the modern Atlas. These muscle-men, I have found, are usually terrified by any mental pursuit which demands exercise of the brain. Now, it seems to me, if we could find some suitable course at adult evening classes for Mrs. Clapper to take up, we might well provide her with a line of intellectual conversation which would rapidly frighten off her gymnastic persecutor…. Now let me see…. What about the Early English Poets … quotations from Caedmon or Langland have ever been lowering…. Or the Meaning of Art … verbal descriptions of modern paintings can be most bewildering to the predominantly muscular?

  “I’m afraid, sir, Mrs. Clapper never was no good at the drawing.”

  “Never mind. We must persevere. We’ll find something to suit her, never fear….”

  As we walked together towards the farmhouse we left Twelve Platoon behind on the bridge, Corporal Dooley and some grandson of Ghengis Khan in loving embrace and singing “Otchi Chernia,” Private Drogue and Spool fan-dancing lasciviously with my two allied Flags, Corporals Hink and Globe, with four poker-faced Uzbekistanis, playing ring-o’-roses round the grandmother clock, and Sergeant Transom leading the combined British and Russian forces in a high-stepping, Anglo-Mongolian knees-up.

  Epilogue

  AND THUS I LEAVE my Command at our moment of Final Glory when East and West joined hands in ultimate Victory.

  It is with a proud heart and a pricking eye that I have looked back at my Army days when Comradeship flowered in the Forcing-house of War and I was privileged to lead Twelve Platoon, the Fourth Musketeers, the grandest bunch of chaps who ever marched to the beat of the drum. How dearly would I like to see them all again! I have tried every year since demobilization to organize a Platoon Reunion, but, unfortunately, I have never seemed to strike a date and venue which everyone found suitable to their differing commitments.

  However, we must look forward as well as back. What with the Cold War, the Space Race, and all this rock-and-roll, it has not been an easy wicket for Britain since 1945. But, as I often tell the lads at the Youth Club, so long as our youngsters remember their Noble Heritage and play a Straight Bat in the Game of Life, they will see the Old Country through just as my generation did before them. If they will but use those simple virtues of grit, pluck, and never-say-die, which it pleases Almighty God to breed in every Britisher, then they will neither be found wanting when the Great Call comes, nor unworthy of their fathers, the Heavily-Armed Civilians of World War II. I am confident that they will rally ag
ain to the Flag, look up in defiance as the mushroom cloud foams across the sky, face the nuclear fallout with unflinching courage, and start a fresh page in our Glorious History as the heroic symbols of the New Elizabethan Age, proud to be known as the first of the Heavily Radioactive Civilians.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2012

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  All rights reserved

  © Sara Jill Jones, 1963

  The right of Patrick Ryan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–29021–5