Long and the Short

by Saddler, Allen

  ‘How do you manage on the rations?’ Gross said, thinking he ought to make some contribution to the evening.

  ‘We don’t,’ said Flora’s father. ‘Skinny bit of bacon, a scrape of butter, a twist of sugar. I mean, what are we fighting for?’

  ‘We have to put up with it,’ said Flora’s mother. ‘We don’t want any moaning Minnies in this house.’

  ‘You see,’ said Flora’s father. ‘And you’re not even allowed to say anything about it.’

  Gross was beginning to think that the whole visit was a mistake, but suddenly the two parents withdrew.

  ‘Are they going out?’

  ‘No,’ said Flora, ‘they’ve gone to bed’, and looked demurely at the Astrakhan rug. It was hot in the room, and Gross loosened his collar, which seemed to alarm Flora. He couldn’t make out whether she was blushing or just roasting from the roaring fire.

  After a pregnant moment of shifty silence she said suddenly, ‘Are you involved with anybody? I mean, at home.’

  Gross held his breath. It was all laid on. He had only to reassure her. Of course there was Dorothy back in Walthamstow, who considered herself engaged to him, but that seemed like another world in another time. The present was just seated quite near, with a pretty troubled frown, daring herself to offer herself as a sacrifice.

  ‘Well, you know,’ he said, practising his lop-sided smile. ‘Nothing settled.’ It wasn’t enough. ‘I’m still a free man, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Gordon,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to help me. I’ve never done anything like this before.’

  His name was George, but he thought that Gordon sounded more theatrical. ‘You don’t have to do anything,’ he said. ‘Just go as you feel.’

  ‘Have you … ?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got one.’

  He got up and sat beside her on the sofa. Suddenly she flung herself at him. She was so vigorous that the onslaught took him by surprise.

  ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘They won’t come down. Gordon, I can’t do it unless you tell me.’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘That you like me.’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve got to say it.’

  Gross was beginning to feel the urgency of the situation. ‘For Christ’s sake!’ he said and grabbed her breasts.

  ‘You won’t think the worse of me, will you?’

  ‘I won’t think anything,’ Gross said. ‘It’ll be all feeling.’

  7

  MAJOR Le Surf sat at his desk trying to look brisk and statesman-like. The weekly ritual of company orders gave him a short period where he could exert some authority. It was partly an exercise in discipline, partly welfare, in which he played the part of the three wise monkeys rolled into one. The men came for justice or sympathy, for family problems, for personal problems, to be punished for misdeeds or praised for some example of humanitarian behaviour. But the traditional form of the event turned it into a music-hall sketch. Entrances and exits had to be performed at a breakneck pace and the orders delivered fortissimo. The men on company orders always looked shaken when the sergeant-major shouted in their ears, and when they got in front of the Major they were invariably tongue-tied. They had to stand to attention while they spoke their piece, as if any display of emotion would prejudice the outcome. All that was missing was a custard pie and a black-out at the end.

  The actual form of the operation had been determined over the years. The soldier was marched in at quick time, crash-halted in front of the Major’s desk, staring stiffly at some point over his head. The supplicant or miscreant would be given the chance of explaining the reason for his appearance on company orders and, for some unfathomed reason, was expected to shout briskly in short sentences, almost as though the whole business had to be rushed through with a sense of urgency. Mostly, of course, the matters were trivial and could have been dealt with sensibly with a quiet chat; but this was not the way the army wanted things to be. It needed its rituals; without them there would be a void that nobody in authority wanted to contemplate.

  ‘Right, Harry,’ the Major murmured. ‘Who’s on first?’

  ‘Private Fossett,’ said Harry crisply.

  ‘And what does he want?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to see him, sir. He’s been in the guardroom for a week.’

  The Major looked blank. Harry Boy prompted him. ‘He was on the ward in the hospital the night that –’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the Major severely. ‘The thing is that I haven’t heard anything more on the matter. You know, there’s all hell going on in France. I don’t think that anybody at the War Office is going to be bothered. All right, wheel him in.’

  Jimmy Fossett was white and nervous. The ‘Left, right, pick ’em up. Halt! Stand to attention’ from the sergeant-major only confused him.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Major, a bit at sea. ‘You realize the seriousness of this?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘The fact is that you were negligent. And this allowed for an … unfortunate incident to take place.’

  Jimmy stepped forward. ‘I didn’t see anything,’ he said earnestly. ‘Honest.’

  ‘Stand to attention,’ roared the sergeant-major.

  ‘How long have you been in the army?’ the Major demanded.

  ‘Six weeks, sir,’ answered Jimmy stiffly.

  ‘Not a very good start, is it? Very well. Ten days confined to barracks.’

  Harry Boy was appalled. Someone had been murdered, and, although he could see that Jimmy wasn’t responsible, ten days’ jankers was hardly an adequate response.

  ‘About turn!’ roared the sergeant-major, and Jimmy looked at him as if the non-commissioned officer was having some kind of a fit.

  Getting no response, the sergeant-major thought it best to start at the beginning. ‘Atten-shun!’he shouted, and Jimmy straightened up. ‘Now then. Dis-miss! Lefright, lefright, leff!’

  And, shambling a bit and thoroughly confused, Jimmy managed to shuffle out of the office.

  The Major looked at Harry.

  ‘Well,’ he said, almost apologetically. ‘I’ve had no instructions.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Harry. ‘It’s just that there’ll have to be a report. For …’ He clutched for a reason. ‘The Red Cross or something.’

  ‘Harry. You don’t think that poor little bugger did it, do you?’

  ‘Of course not. But …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I don’t know. It ought to be more … official.’

  The Major looked stonily ahead. When it came down to it Harry had more conscience than he had. It was Harry who wanted things done properly. ‘Are there any other matters this morning?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Private White and Private Patterson.’

  ‘Eh? What the devil do they want?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir. Requested an interview.’

  ‘What! Both of them? What’s it about?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Well, wheel them in.’

  Jock and Chalkie looked nervous. It was the latter’s baby face that was, if anything, a trifle more composed, although beads of sweat could be seen on his cheeks. Jock looked like he was already regretting the mission. He stood stiffly beside his friend as though he was sure that this was not a good idea and cursed himself for a fool to be involved in it.

  ‘Well,’ said the Major. ‘Is this something that concerns both of you?’

  Chalkie gulped and nodded. ‘We want to volunteer,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’ said the Major. ‘The ARP, the WAAFS, the Home Guard?’

  The Major’s attempt at whimsy brought a smirk to the stone face of the sergeant-major, but Chalkie’s face became desperately animated with the effort to explain.

  ‘To go abroad, sir. To get into the fighting.’

  The Major stared hard at the two men standing in front of him. Was it an elaborate leg-pull? These were graded men, who weren’t much use to
the army in any capacity and who had never shown any inclination to patriotism or bravery.

  ‘I see,’ he said, for want of anything more meaningful to say. ‘And you, Private Patterson, are you of a like mind?’

  Jock’s eyes were those of a doomed man. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said heavily.

  ‘But you are both graded as unfit for active service,’ said the Major, trying to shed some light on the extraordinary development.

  ‘May have got better,’ said Chalkie.

  ‘You realize what this means?’ said the Major. ‘You’ll have to have a medical. Not here but through a board. But tell me why. Why do you want to volunteer?’

  Chalkie broke out in earnest spluttering. ‘It’s only right, sir. Only fair. Our blokes – over there – they need all the help … We all want to get it over. Don’t we?’

  ‘Private Patterson?’

  ‘I agree with Chalkie – I mean Private White. We all ought to pile in and clobber them …’

  There was a heavy silence while the Major and Harry and the sergeant-major digested the joint offer.

  ‘It’s no fun over in France,’ said the Major. ‘You know that.’

  The two volunteers nodded.

  ‘All right. I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Leftright!’ said the sergeant-major in a dazed sort of way.

  The Major looked at Harry. ‘What the devil was that about? Any ideas?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Harry, although he did have an inkling.

  Outside Jock was already cursing Chalkie. ‘He thought we’d gone barmy, man.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what he thinks. There were witnesses. Harry and the sergeant-major.’

  ‘Now we’ll have to have a medical board. This isn’t one of your stunts, is it?’

  Chalkie looked wounded. ‘For fuck’s sake. It’s just to make us seem – well – keen.’

  Jock looked into his mate’s china-blue eyes for any sign of guile.

  ‘Well, I’m not keen, I can tell you,’ he said.

  Jimmy had a mountain of spuds to peel. The cook in charge kept tipping extras into the bowl as soon as they began to diminish. You couldn’t have a fag in the cookhouse, and the smell of carbolic was getting up his nose. Jimmy was bewildered by the turn of events. Ever since he had arrived at this godforsaken hole he had been in trouble. The worst thing about it was that he hadn’t done anything. How his bayonet got in the German officer’s guts was a conjuring trick. He hadn’t even felt it emerge from the scabbard. But there it was. He was supposed to be in charge. He reckoned that if it hadn’t been for Miss Tcherny he would have been in the glasshouse without the option. He had heard about the glasshouse. A nightmare of bullying and personal persecution. Peeling an unending pile of spuds might be slow torture, but the glasshouse was red-hot torture until you dropped. He was amazed that he had got off so lightly. That Major, who was in charge, didn’t seem to know what to do with him.

  ‘Here. Shove up. I’ll give you a hand.’

  It was the lance-corporal who had been in the Major’s office. He took off his battledress tunic and carefully draped it over a chair back, rolled up his shirt sleeves and found a spare potato peeler. ‘Jimmy.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Jimmy, playing safe.

  ‘It’s Harry,’ said Harry Fortune. ‘It ain’t your fault.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘It was jet black, wasn’t it? But did you hear anything? I mean when the light went out?’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Jimmy. ‘They took me by surprise.’

  ‘Do you remember who was near to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look. Which room are you in?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re in a right bloody mess, ain’t you?’

  These were the only kind words that Jimmy had heard since he arrived at the camp. Tears started trickling down his face. ‘I don’t like it here,’ he said.

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Harry Boy Fortune. ‘But we’ve got to put up with it, see. It won’t be for ever, will it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jimmy. ‘Why does everybody shout all the time?’

  ‘It’s just a way they’ve got into.’

  ‘But … I’m not deaf.’

  ‘If you were out – somewhere – and big guns were firing, you’d need someone to shout if you were going to hear anything, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘There’s no big guns here. Only rifles.’

  ‘I know. But you never know where you might end up, do you?’

  ‘I’ll end up dead,’ said Jimmy. ‘I know it.’

  ‘You’re a miserable little bugger, ain’t yer?’

  Harry pitched in with the spud peeling, and soon the mountain began to recede. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You’ll be doing your basic training soon. Just buckle down to it. But if you get into any bother come and see me. Right? Room 29. First landing.’

  ‘Can I transfer to something else? You see, I don’t feel like fighting. Not my style. I don’t mind helping like – but not fighting. I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Let’s hope you won’t have to. It shouldn’t last long now we’ve made a landing.’

  Harry walked off, proud of his morale-building moment. The little bugger was just a kid. Some lads of eighteen were mature enough, cocky even, to cope with anything life might throw at them, but this poor sod seemed just out of school with nothing in between.

  The outcome of Jock and Chalkie’s appearance on company orders was specialist appointments at an army medical unit in Warrington.

  ‘Be a day out,’ said Chalkie.

  ‘If this goes wrong,’ said Jock, ‘I’ll bloody kill you.’

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said Chalkie, but there was an anxious note in his voice.

  ‘You’re a stupid bastard.’

  The situation was the subject of speculation in the barrack room.

  ‘We must be in a bad way’, said Taffy, ‘if they’ve had to send for Laurel and Hardy.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Alf. ‘When Hitler gets to hear about it he’ll give in.’

  8

  THE army was noted for its Crazy Gang moments. It could suddenly swoop on some peaceful little outfit, where the personnel had thought they had been entirely forgotten by the higher command, passed over, a lost file, safe in their semislumber until the end of hostilities. But then the Marx Brothers in the War Office would strike, pitching a peaceful, harmless unit into some entirely inappropriate activity, a move that could only end in farce.

  A document landed on Major Le Surf’s desk which seemed to him to be some sort of April Fool joke. EXERCISE SURPRISE ATTACK, it said. It would certainly be a surprise, the Major thought. More like a shock to his team of layabouts. The import of the message was that there was to be an exercise where crack troops would be testing their skills in a battle situation. The Major’s men were not required to fight. It was acknowledged that most of them were in B7 category. Poor eyesight, bad hearing, chronic asthma, wonky limbs, flat feet, dicky hearts, gastric ulcers, chronic chests, a whole range of classified and unclassifiable complaints, but there was no reason why they shouldn’t be a quarry.

  ‘What d’you make of this, Harry?’

  The Major passed over the letter to his faithful batman.

  ‘Bit – er – out of order,’ Harry said.

  ‘But most of these men are excused regular duties. Excused marching, excused boots one of them. Right? Right?’

  ‘Won’t do them any harm, sir.’

  ‘Better call a parade. Break the news.’

  ‘Shall I tell the MO?’

  Something of the old devil had stirred in the Major’s mind. He had been active a long time ago, but he still had romantic delusions about playing the hero. ‘You know,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘it’d be good if we could give them a run for their money.’

  It was a late autumn afternoon when the Major’s platoon shambled to a halt on the barrack square. Only Corporal Gross, Harry and the Major looked as if they might have
some connection with the British Army. The rest were a bulging uncoordinated mess of humanity, a comedy sketch, a solid wall of resistance to any kind of discipline. Their resentment showed in their faces.

  What was the old fool up to? Making them dress up and stamp about so late in the day. Late afternoons were for playing brag or ironing trousers in preparation for going on the town. They would be all spruced up before tea and ready for action.

  The sergeant-major finished his red-faced shouting, bringing them to attention.

  ‘Stand easy,’ the Major ordered quietly.

  The platoon visibly relaxed and stood swaying in the breeze.

  ‘Now then,’ the Major began and stopped, trying to gather his thoughts.

  ‘The silly old fucker is off his head,’ Jock said out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘Don’t know his arse from his elbow,’ Chalkie whispered back.

  ‘Quiet!’ roared the sergeant-major. ‘No talking in the ranks.’

  Fred Karno’s Army stood mute. What was the purpose of this charade?

  Everybody knew that the old man had had it. If it weren’t for Harry Boy looking out for him he would have been in the loony bin long ago.

  ‘Exercise Surprise,’ the old fool was saying. ‘We shall be involved as the enemy, a simulation. Nothing specified. We have to get to the battleground by twelve hundred hours. All kit will be loaded at eight hundred hours. That is full battle order, water bottles, ground sheets. Mess tins will be carried in valises. We shall leave here at oh six hundred hours. Men will be detailed to help with cookhouse implements. Medical orderlies will prepare first-aid kits as by manual instructions.’ The Major paused. ‘There. I think that covers everything. We have one day to prepare. Right? Right!’

  The platoon stood in stunned silence. Hundreds of plans had been upset. Women would be left high and dry. Darts matches abandoned. Beer left to go flat. Snooker halls empty.

  ‘Dismiss!’ the sergeant-major shouted. ‘Back to your quarters and get packing.’