‘Shut up, David.’ De Souza didn’t bother to look at Audley. ‘That’s fair enough, Freddie—take no notice of that. Levin’s a good man.’
But that wasn’t all, Fred sensed. ‘He is?’
‘Actually, yes.’ De Souza accepted his doubt. ‘He knows his duty, and he does it.’
That still wasn’t all. So Fred waited for more.
De Souza nodded. ‘He was with the CO in the desert. Hence his DCM. That was at Alam Haifa. When things weren’t so good.’
From de Souza that was no small accolade, that understatement. But it still wasn’t what the Major wanted to say. And that whetted Fred’s appetite even more.
‘Yes-?’
‘All your service has been in Italy, hasn’t it—?’ Beneath the innocent inquiry there was a curious hesitancy, almost embarrassment. ‘And in Greece, of course—as we all know!’
What the hell did that mean? Of course they all bloody-well knew!
‘For God’s sake, Amos!’ Having been hopping and twitching and charing on the sideline, like a reserve in a losing game, Audley exploded suddenly. ‘Levin’s a swine, for God’s sake! So —’
‘Shut up, David!’ De Souza’s snarl was as uncharacteristic as his hesitancy, with its suddenly-undisguised anger glowing red now.
‘Sorry!’ From trying to push himself into the action, Audley shrank into himself. ‘Amos, I didn’t m-m-mean —’
‘Shut up—’ De Souza caught his anger quickly ‘—I know you didn’t mean to interrupt me. You just wanted to hear the sound of your own voice, that’s all.’ He disengaged himself from Audley. ‘As I was attempting to say, Freddie … we were pulled out of Greece pretty soon after you happened to cross our path, and we ended up more or less attached to VIII Corps in their final advance. Between Hanover and Hamburg, we were … And you heard of the concentration camps, obviously—eh?’
‘Yes.’ He sensed de Souza wanted him to say more than that. ‘Of course we did. We heard they were … pretty disgusting.’
‘Pretty disgusting?’ De Souza stared at him. ‘Yes … well let’s just say they were worse than anything you care to imagine and leave it at that, shall we?’ He drew breath. ‘And Mr Levin had the bad luck to run into this particular camp, at Bergen-Belsen, near Celle, where most of the poor devils were Jews, you see. There were others there: resistance prisoners from all over, and quite a few Russians … and Germans, too—politicals and the like … and even the odd Englishman and American, by courtesy of the Gestapo. But most of them were Jews. And as young David here has no doubt reminded you so tactfully, Mr Levin is a Jew.’ He cocked his head slightly. ‘An acting Warrant Officer, Class I, late Queen’s Own South London Rifles. Holder of the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Religion, Jewish. Do you see?’
‘Yes—’ All this time, though really without consciously thinking about it, Fred had been conditioned by Amos de Souza’s languid Brigade of Guards drawl, pink complexion and pale-brown hair. But, however English and C of E he was now, his ancestors could well have been Portuguese immigrants, as Jewish as the original Italian Fattorinis ‘—I see, yes.’
‘Do you?’ De Souza’s mouth twisted slightly. ‘Our much-esteemed Brigadier, whom you did of course meet so briefly in Greece … he has ordered us to cultivate a proper soldierly sense of detachment, if not proportion, now that it has fallen to us to obtain particular Germans, safe-and-sound and in mint condition for his collection. But that is more difficult for some than for others … so I would appreciate it if you exercised a certain tolerance—toleration?—with regard to Mr Levin’s irascibility, Freddie … d’you see.’
Fred nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Point taken.’
‘Excellent.’ De Souza smiled at last. ‘Now … what I have done in your case, Freddie … so that you can maybe make up for lost hours of sleep on the way north, to our home billet, is to give you both Captain Audley’s private transport and Captain Audley’s favourite driver, whom you know—who collected you at the airfield, indeed: Driver Hewitt, no less … And you, young David, for your sins … you will reinforce Corporal Keys’ escort, when the CO is finished with you—okay?’ De Souza shared his gentle smile between them. ‘Whilst I … I will attend to the undoubted disagreement which is almost certainly even now developing between Mr Levin and Herr Schild over the contents of Herr Schild’s three-tonner—’ The last words were delivered over de Souza’s shoulder as he departed ‘—and you may both wish me the best of British luck, for I shall need it.’
Fred watched the adjutant’s departing back (which, irritatingly, was still immaculately-pressed, battle-dress blouse pleats and trousers separated by a newly blancoed belt with glittering brasses, in spite of their wet and disastrous night and an uncomfortable morning). Then he heard Audley stuttering beside him.
‘What?’ He had to be ready for the boy’s recriminations.
‘I s-said “b-b-b-bullshit”.’ Audley got it out at last.
‘What?’ It irked him that Audley presumed to criticize a better man.
‘Bullshit? Having mastered the word once, the boy repeated it vehemently. ’He was rotting you—about Busy-Izzy … bullshitting you, Amos was — Amos, of all people! God! It makes me sick, I tell you!‘
‘Why should he do that?’ All Fred wanted to do now was to find Driver Hewitt, not explore David Audley’s juvenile prejudices.
‘God knows! Guilt, most likely—’
‘Guilt?’ In spite of his preoccupation with trying to spot his driver among the vehicles, Fred caught up the word. ‘Guilt?’
‘Oh yes—guilt.’ Audley nodded. ‘There’s a lot of it about, since they found the camps. But it takes different forms with different people. We had some chaps who just wanted to shoot up the Germans indiscriminately—not just the SS and Gestapo, but anything that moved. Made ’em feel better, apparently. But Amos isn’t that sort, of course.‘
Fred frowned. ‘But he’s not … Jewish?’
‘Amos? Good Lord, no! Amos is RC—high class old Catholic. Talks about “taking mahss”, and all that.’ Audley grinned momentarily, but then erased the grin quickly. ‘With some of them—like the Crocodile—it’s guilt because they know they’re actually anti-semitic themselves, basically. So they have to take a hard line now, because they’ve a sneaking suspicion that if God had made them German they might have ended up with two lightning flashes on their collars. But with Amos … with him I think it’s the feeling that we ought to have done something more positive to stop it. Or maybe he thinks the Pope should have done something—I don’t know … But he did once say—to the Old Croc, he said it, too—“We are to blame. Perhaps even more than the Germans themselves”—I heard him say it.’
It was a novel concept of war guilt, thought Fred. ‘How are we to blame, David?’
‘God knows! He clammed up after that. So you’d better ask him, old boy.’ Audley shrugged. ‘But what I know is that Busy-Izzy was a bad-tempered, officious, bullying, d-d-double c-c-c-crossing, 24-carat shit long before we crossed the Rhine—long before he and the CO went in to Belsen, not to put too fine a point on it.’ He fixed an eye on Fred suddenly. ‘And don’t get any ideas about me being anti-semitic. Because I’m bloody-not!’ The brutal chin lifted. ‘My regiment had Jews in it—including a damn-good full-back named Isaacs, who got his silly head blown off in Normandy, as I told you—didn’t I—?’ Audley blinked at him, and then shook his own unblown-off head and bared his teeth. ‘I did! But that doesn’t mean I have to be nice to Mister Levin … who is one of God’s—or Jehovah’s—Gadarene Swine.’
Fred felt tired. And … although he conceded within himself that young Audley was an intriguing youth, in spite of all his defects (which must certainly be a sore trial to Amos de Souza) … far too tired now to argue the toss, about the Jews and the Germans, never mind RSM Levin, anyway.
‘Oughtn’t I to be finding Driver Hewitt, David—?’ He took the coward’s way out, disdaining to remind the boy that he himself, although C of E, came from an old Jewish family too.
‘Yes. Perhaps you ought.’ Audley looked around, reaching up to his full height from his normally slightly-hunched stance … which must, thought Fred, offend RSM Levin every time he glimpsed it. ‘And I ought to be finding Caesar Augustus, too, I suppose … ’ The big chest expanded, and Audley’s height increased another inch with it. ‘HUGHIE! Where are you?’
Silence. High above the line of vehicles Fred saw the silver-birch leaves shiver in a breath of wind against the grey sky.
‘He’s out there somewhere—brewing tea and smoking his eternal dog-end … and probably watching us.’ Audley’s chest expanded again.
‘DRIVER HEWITT! LET’S BE HAVING YOU!’
More silence. Then—
‘SIR!’ The answer came as a muted cry of recognition.
Audley sniffed. ‘He’s even now dodging round the back somewhere, so he can pretend he’s been looking for you … Wait and see!’
Fred followed Audley’s glance, and saw a diminutive figure straighten up at the further end of the line of vehicles.
‘Sir! Mr Audley—Captain Audley—coming—!’
Fred observed the figure critically, recalling Driver Hewitt’s well-pressed turnout at the airfield. ‘He seems remarkably … smart.’ In fact when he thought about it, he had never seen such a well-pressed and blancoed and polished RASC driver.
‘Oh yes—’ Audley drew breath ‘—you can thank Mr Levin for that, if for nothing else … Where the hell have you been, Hughie?’
Driver Hewitt came to attention. ‘Attending to your vehicle—Mr Audley—Captain Audley—sir!’ Hewitt rolled an eye at Fred. ‘Or … Major Fat—Fatto—Fattorini’s vehicle … sir!’
‘Oh yes.’ Audley hunched up again. ‘Well, then … you look after both of them now—right?’
‘Both of them?’ The eye rolled back at Audley.
‘Yes.’ Audley sighed. ‘For Christ’s sake, Hughie … you know that I intend to take that little car back to England somehow … so I want it all in one piece, remember.’ He bent over the little man, driving home his point with a single raised finger which stopped one inch from Hewitt’s nose. ‘Any damage to it will result in reciprocal damage to you, Hughie—right?’ Then he straightened up, grinning at Fred with a suddenly disarming youthfulness. ‘Not to mention any damage to Major Fattorini … you are to ensure, rather, that he has a few hours’ undisturbed rest, en route to Schwartzenburg: those are the adjutant’s exact orders. Because he hasn’t had a proper kip since he left the isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sang —’ He swung back towards Hewitt as he spoke ‘—right?’
‘Sir!’ Driver Hewitt’s wizened monkey-face remained impassive, but he infused the acknowledgement with the weariness of the old soldier long-accustomed to being patronized and talked-down-to by young officers who didn’t know any better, but who were nonetheless useful to him.
‘Good.’ Such implicit wisdom was lost on Audley. ‘Well, Fred … I suppose I must go to receive my wigging from the headmaster. And you’d better wish me something better than the best of British luck now. Because I expect Busy-Izzy has sneaked to him about us both by now … So I expect it’s the 14th Army for me—Burma, here I come—!’
They both watched the young dragoon depart, slouched for the first few steps—however had he fitted all those long bones into a tank? wondered Fred; but at least he wasn’t still carrying his umbrella to judgement!—and then suddenly straighten up as though he felt their eyes on him—shoulders back! Swing those arms! Go take your medicine, David Audley!
Driver Hewitt chuckled throatily beside him, below him. And then checked the chuckle, turning it into a controlled cough, and swallowed the sound and the phlegm together.
‘What was that, Hewitt?’ In any sort of conventional unit, Driver Hewitt’s considered opinions wouldn’t have mattered. But this was not any sort of conventional unit, and it was quite outside his military experience. For a start, it seemed to have more chiefs than Indians … or, as a private soldier of the Royal Army Service Corps, Driver Hewitt was an exception to the rule which had promoted both Audley and himself, anyway. ‘What was that you said—?’
Driver Hewitt swallowed again, suggesting to Fred that in the absence of Major Fattorini he would have cleared his throat and spat. ‘Nothing—sir!’
The little man’s sudden diplomacy, in contradiction to his chuckle and when taken with his lack of promotion, convinced Fred that he needed Driver Hewitt on his side, if not Colonel Colbourne and RSM Levin, if he was ever to discover what was happening: but also (what he had on his side, which he surely didn’t have with the Colonel and the RSM) he had a moment’s choice—whether to pull rank (because presumably, he could make Hewitt’s life hell now), or ingratiate himself (as he had never done before with an Other Rank; but he had never been in this peculiar situation before)—
‘He’s a caution—Mr Audley is! Or … Captain Audley, as I should say now … sir.’ Hewitt confided in him suddenly.
‘A caution!’ Fred took Driver Hewitt’s gift of confidence in him as an Understanding Officer as his cue, breaking all the established rules. ‘Come on, Hughie—how is he “a caution”, eh?’
The Hewitt eye rolled at him again, but this time appraising him much more shrewdly for a moment, and then blanking out. ‘You ’ad some trouble last night, after I put you orf in the middle of nowhere—yes, sir?‘
Men like Hewitt always knew everything, so there was no harm in admitting the truth. ‘We took a prisoner, though.’
‘So you did! An’ I saw Jacko Devenish wiv ‘im, wiv a blanket over ’is ‘ead—fair enough!’ Hewitt agreed quickly. ‘But I also ’eard tell there was a man shot down right in front uv you—ain’t that the truth—so you lost one of ‘em again?’
Not quite everything, then. ‘Again?’
‘Aye! Jus’ like the last time!’ Hewitt looked up at him unblinkingly. ‘An’ Mr Audley got a rollicking for that, too … Though it weren’t ‘is fault, as I can testify. ’Cause I were there that time, sir.‘
There was one hell of a lot he didn’t know about Colonel Colbourne’s operations, thought Fred bitterly.
But then he remembered Greece, and the indirect road to Delphi. ‘Do you mean … in Greece, Hughie?’
‘In Greece—?’ Driver Hewitt looked around shiftily, as though he had momentarily forgotten where he was. ‘Yes—in Greece, that would be—like you said.’ When the look reached Fred again it had become one of pristine innocence. ‘But we ought to be goin’ now—if you want to get your ‘ead down, like Mr Audley an’ the adjutant wants you to, eh?‘
This wasn’t the moment to push his luck, Fred decided—not only because Driver Hewitt wasn’t quite ready to be pushed, but also because there were engines revving up along the double line of transport which had gathered here, coming both from the hunting lodge and the Roman fort: Colonel Colbourne’s command was now united and in retreat, out of the American Zone and into somewhere safer, that engine-noise indicated.
‘Of course!’ He stretched his shoulders and yawned theatrically. But then, as he did so, he also saw his opening instinctively: either from self-interest or inclination, Driver Hewitt was David Audley’s man, so that was his way in. ‘But … you’re sure there’s nothing we can do to help Captain Audley—?’
‘Captain Audley?’ Driver Hewitt glanced down the line. ‘Cor! You don’t need to worry about ’em! ‘E’s as artful as a cartload uv monkeys when ’e’s up against it … an‘ … ’e’s also a friend uv the Brigadier’s—Brigadier Clinton hisself!‘ Driver Hewitt accompanied that last confidence with a shameless theatrical wink as he started to follow his own finger. “E was born to be ’anged—not posted!‘
Well … there was the truth, pure and unvarnished as only an RASC driver could impart it, thought Fred: the anomaly of young Audley’s presence here, among his elders and betters, could be explained as simply as that: he had influence!
‘Come on, then!’ Driver Hewitt gestured urgently, and disappeared in a gap betw
een two of the vehicles.
Fred skipped after him smartly into the gap as he observed the reason for the little man’s urgency aproaching in the distance: Colonel Colbourne was waving a finger at Captain Audley (who for once seemed to be keeping his mouth shut), with the RSM just behind them. And he felt a slight pang of conscience as he did so, but then allowed himself to be consoled by Driver Hewitt’s judgement of the young man’s ability to defend himself, added to the boy’s special relationship with Brigadier Clinton. And besides, as a new boy himself, what could he do, anyway?
More engines started up—and Hewitt was beckoning him into another gap—and there, sure enough, was another argument in progress: he glimpsed Major McCorquodale addressing an imperturbable Amos de Souza while (so it seemed) shaking his fist at Otto Schild, at the adjutant’s shoulder, and a Schild now British from the waist down, in battle-dress trousers, boots and gaiters, and German from the waist up, in a badgeless Wehrmacht jacket and forage cap. Better to avoid that encounter, too—!
On the furthest side of the two lines of vehicles, under the dripping branches (and, presumably, discreetly avoiding both those disagreements), there were several other officers, whom he vaguely remembered from the night before, and two or three NCOs beside their transport.
‘Mornin’ Freddie—‘ and ’Hullo there, Freddie—‘—they seemed to know him better than he knew them; and the NCOs straightened up as he passed them; and the smartness of everyone’s turn-out made him feel crumpled and shabby: what was not least tantalizing about this unit was its mixture of extreme eccentricity and positively regimental smartness—even little Hewitt was marching stiff and straight ahead of him now, as though on a parade-ground—and that, with an RASC old sweat, was a commentary on Mr Levin’s standards which aroused admiration and incredulity equally.
‘ ’Ere we are!‘ Hewitt presented Captain Audley’s vehicle without a hint of apology. ’It don’t look much. But it’s what they call in the motor trade “a nice little runner”.‘
A New Kind of War Page 20