The Magic Army

by Leslie Thomas

  ‘That will not be necessary, thank you,’ said the pathologist rigidly. ‘It was merely that I did not want trouble from that unbalanced person.’ He went out.

  ‘’Fraid old Pender’s going to bash ’im up and spoil ’is suit, I ’spect,’ whispered Doey loudly to those around. There were sniggers. Constable Burridge, passing on his return to the front of the court, wagged a finger. The people creased their lips and put their hands in their laps.

  Howard Evans was the next witness. They listened to him attentively in a manner which suggested that the Wilcoombe people knew they could get sense and fairness from him. ‘I was called from my house by an American soldier,’ he said. He looked around and pointed at Albie. ‘That gentleman there,’ he said. Albie blushed and nodded acknowledgement like one greeting a tentative acquaintance. ‘It was one-ten a.m.,’ said Evans. ‘With my wife I hurried down to the slipway where I saw two other Americans and a British soldier trying to pull Mrs Pender up the stones. They were having a difficult job because of the seaweed and the slime. I managed to reach them. But when I examined the woman I formed the opinion that she was dead.’

  ‘What sort of things were the soldiers saying?’ asked the coroner.

  Evans looked slightly surprised. ‘That is difficult to answer, sir,’ he said. ‘It was a very confused business. But I remember one man kept shouting something about the others going and leaving him and that Mrs Pender, Meg, had fallen in accidentally.’

  ‘Do you see that soldier in court?’

  ‘Yes, sir. That gentleman.’ He pointed at Pfc Wall. The GI quickly looked down at his shoes and rubbed the toes together. ‘He was very upset, almost incoherent, but repeating that she had fallen in.’

  The coroner said he had no further questions. He eyed Parker. The American was already on his feet. ‘Doctor, if Wall was so excited, upset you say, as to be incoherent, are you sure that’s what he said? That she had fallen in?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I recall him saying that several times.’

  ‘Don’t you think that it was reasonable that he was upset, in the circumstances?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was very unpleasant altogether.’

  ‘And was it not reasonable that he would say that this woman had fallen into the water, since that is just what she had done?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it’s reasonable. I didn’t form any opinion as to why he said it, only that he said it, very excitedly, and kept repeating it. Even after we had managed to get her up the slipway he said it.’

  ‘And you don’t have any opinion now as to why he said it, other than he was trying to describe truthfully what had happened?’

  ‘No, sir, I don’t.’

  Gilman, sitting, waiting, watching Evans and trying to fix the scene of the tragedy, suddenly saw Mary Nicholas come into the back of the room. She was wearing a light brown shawl, like some peasant woman. It was wrapped loosely around her shoulders. She held the front in her pale hands just below her stomach. Her hair was tight around her head. She looked white and tired, but beautiful.

  He heard his name called while he was still looking at her, wondering where she had been lately. The voice startled him and he upset his chair in his hurry. ‘Yes, sir,’ he answered the constable and heard his own army boots clump on the wooden floor. He took the Bible, swore the oath and gave his name and rank.

  The coroner leaned affably towards him. ‘And what did you see of this unhappy incident?’ he said.

  ‘I was walking down the street, Wilcoombe Hill, that is,’ began Gilman slowly. ‘It was about one o’clock and I had been to a dance in this room, sir, where we are now.’

  ‘Were you with anyone else?’

  Gilman answered: ‘I was with two American soldiers, sir.’

  ‘Are they in court?’

  ‘Yes, sir, the small chap there –’ he nodded at Albie Primrose ‘– and the larger chap there.’ There was some muffled laughter as he indicated Ballimach. ‘I don’t remember their names, sir.’

  ‘And what happened when you reached the quay at the foot of the hill?’

  ‘We heard shouting and we ran down there and saw this other American soldier – the one pointed out by Dr Evans, sir – trying to pull this lady up the slipway. He couldn’t manage it and he shouted to us to go and help him. I told the little fellow to go for the doctor and the big chap and I went down to give a hand. It was very slippery and it took us by surprise and we slid all over the place. The woman looked in a very bad state, terrible, and although we tried our best there trying to revive her with artificial respiration, there was not much we could do.’

  ‘Yes, you are to be commended for your efforts, Private Gilman. Do you remember anything that the first American soldier, Pfc Wall, that is, was saying? The soldier who was already there when you arrived?’

  ‘Not a word, sir. He had been drinking, like all of us. It was Valentine’s night, so he wasn’t very clear. He kept on about somebody running away and that the lady had fallen in by accident.’

  ‘You don’t recall his actual words?’

  ‘Only at the end, sir, when the doctor had arrived. Then I remember him saying: “She fell in, she fell in. Honest.” ’

  ‘Honest. He said that?’ asked the coroner quietly.

  ‘Yes, sir, I remember him saying that.’

  Parker stood and slowly, menacingly it seemed to Gilman, faced him. The English soldier swallowed heavily.

  ‘How long have you been in the British Army, Private Gilman?’ he asked.

  Gilman, caught unawares, had to calculate. Parker interrupted. ‘If you can’t count the time, what month and year did you join?’

  ‘November, thirty-nine, sir. Three months after the war started.’

  ‘You’ve never been promoted?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why is that, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Is it because you’re not very capable?’

  Gilman paused. ‘I’m not very ambitious, sir.’

  There was an approving murmur at the reply. The US captain sniffed. ‘You had been drinking heavily that night?’

  ‘A few pints.’

  ‘You were drunk?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I would say I was drunk.’

  ‘Incapable?’

  ‘No, sir, I wouldn’t say that. I could walk straight. We were just, well, we call it merry.’

  ‘But despite being drunk – merry – and, on your own evidence, being very confused about the events of that night, despite that, you recall clearly Pfc Wall saying the words, “She fell in – honest”?’

  ‘Yes, I remember that, sir.’

  ‘Honest? You remember that one word. Honest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I would liked to put it to you, Private Gilman, that Pfc Wall said nothing of the kind. And that you, in your drunken state that night, were in no condition to remember it.’ Gilman was silent.

  ‘Would you like to answer that?’ invited the coroner.

  ‘There’s nothing more I can say, sir,’ said Gilman.

  ‘That’s the best thing you’ve said yet,’ retorted Parker.

  He sat down angrily. The coroner looked towards him. ‘Nothing further, I take it?’

  ‘Nothing further,’ snapped Parker.

  ‘Thank you, Private Gilman. Call the next witness.’

  ‘Private First Class John Wall.’ The constable’s shout was unnecessary since Wall was sitting almost under his chin. Schorner could see the GI’s hands shaking as he went to the stand. They still trembled as he took the Bible and the oath.

  As Wall stood, ashen-faced, waiting for the first question he saw a rat walk unhurriedly from the opposite side of the room where the small kitchen attached to the hall was located. He watched it with fascination and loathing and only just recovered to answer his name and rank.

  ‘Please tell the court what happened on the early morning of February fifteenth this year,’ requested the coroner. ‘Carefully. In your own words.’


  Wall watched the rat. He heard himself speaking. ‘I had been at Totnes, sir, at a US Services dance for St Valentine’s night and I had come back on the bus to Wilcoombe where I was going to pick up a liberty truck to go back to camp, sir.’ The rat was sitting quietly by the wall apparently listening to the evidence. No one else had noticed it. He was the only person in the room looking directly at it. Everyone else was watching him.

  The coroner was mildly impatient with his preoccupation, his hesitancy. ‘Yes, yes,’ he prompted.

  ‘There were some other guys, not from my outfit, who were there and we were horsing about by the quay. Everybody was a little drunk, I guess. Then along came this lady …’ He glanced around as if fearing to give offence. ‘Very large,’ he compromised. ‘And she was pretty, well … jolly, I guess you would say. She shouted to us and kind of staggered towards us and we were fooling around with her.’

  ‘What form did this fooling take?’

  ‘Well, dancing with her. That kind of crazy thing. She was very fat and she was dancing with three of us at a time. Then … then somehow … God, I don’t know … how …’ That shit rat was staring at him. He could see it. It began to advance across the floor, close to the feet of the people in the front row of chairs.

  ‘Yes, go on. Please go on.’

  ‘Then … she fell into the harbour …’ He could stand it no more. The rat was on the toe of Mrs Mahon-Feavor’s shoe. She did not feel it. ‘Sir …’ yelled Wall desperately. ‘There’s a goddamn great rat … just there … down there … Look!’

  Those in the front row jumped to their feet, some shouting, some screeching. Mrs Mahon-Feavor fell backwards spectacularly into the row behind. The other people stood pointing out the rat to each other.

  There was uproar everywhere. The coroner was on his feet pointing directions for the capture or killing of the creature. Constable Burridge had miraculously produced a lavatory plunger and was striking vainly under the chairs trying to stun it. The weapon bounced on its rubber cup. Cries rose from all places.

  ‘Here it is!’

  ‘Here be the bugger!’

  ‘’Ee be over here! Kill ’un! Kill ’un ’fore ’ee bites!’

  In front of the turmoil sat Captain Parker like an apparition, a sheen of sweat on his face, looking stiffly ahead, his papers held firmly under his clenched pale fist. Schorner was watching the tumult with fascination. Wall was standing at the witness chair yellow to the neck, sweat dripping down his brow, his eyes wide like a man in a fever.

  The rat had wriggled through the room and eventually escaped untouched through the door into the street. ‘Order, order!’ shouted Constable Burridge. ‘Everybody be seated please.’

  ‘I shall adjourn the proceedings for ten minutes,’ said the coroner decisively. ‘It will enable us all to collect our wits.’

  He stood. ‘Everybody rise!’ bawled the court officer. They all stood and Dr Wood, with a little bow, marched first to the rear door, which, at one pull, he remembered was locked. He turned and, with decent dignity, walked down the aisle and out into the street. He went round to the rear of the building and sat in the small room there. He had trouble in not laughing aloud and alone.

  In the courtroom Parker stood like a blade of grass, bleached and dead. He stared at the wall ahead, not acknowledging anyone, not even Schorner. Eventually the colonel said: ‘Life’s never short of little items of interest down here, captain.’

  ‘I can see that,’ said Parker bitterly.

  Gilman stood and walked a few paces into the room towards Mary Nicholas. She saw him and stood, a tight smile on her slim face. ‘Where have you been hiding?’ she asked before he could speak.

  ‘Nowhere. I just thought you were busy.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I heard, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s a lie. I haven’t been out with anybody else.’

  ‘I didn’t say you had. I said I heard you were busy.’

  ‘That’s what you meant.’ Her voice, which in the crowd she had kept low, now became sharp. ‘You shouldn’t listen to the dirt that goes around.’

  Gilman was astonished. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all he could say. He glanced about them. Nobody seemed to have heard, but two women were looking directly at them.

  ‘Don’t mention it. I know my reputation,’ she said sullenly. ‘If you’d been with me that night you wouldn’t be mixed up in this.’

  ‘I’m not mixed up in it. I was there, that’s all.’

  ‘She was pushed into the harbour.’ She descended to a knowing whisper but said it casually, then held out a hand to silence his protest. ‘Pushed,’ she said firmly. ‘I saw it.’

  ‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ The yell of Constable Burridge terminated that and all the other conversations in the room. ‘Everybody take their places.’ From the door at the rear the coroner entered at a gait, the people parting to let him through. He regained his seat and performed his truncated bow. He sat and everybody sat, except Private Wall. He stood, limp now, at the witness chair.

  ‘Now where were we?’ said the coroner amiably. ‘Yes. Mrs Pender had just fallen … gone … into the water. Private Wall, how did that happen, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see,’ said Wall quickly. ‘I was pretty drunk, sir, and we were singing and horsing about and suddenly I heard one of the other guys shout that the fat woman was in the harbour. I thought they were kidding. Then I ran over and saw her in the water.’

  ‘And how did you react?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘How did you feel when you saw that she was in the water?’

  ‘I was scared, sir. Really scared. I started shouting out. And then I saw that the other guys had gone. They just went. I don’t know where. But they cleared.’

  ‘And you still don’t know who they were?’

  ‘No sir. I figured they rode in on the bus but I don’t know for sure. I was full of booze … drink. I’ve never seen them before. I can’t even remember their faces. There are a lot of American troops in this area, sir.’

  ‘The police have tried to trace them but failed. You’ve tried to remember.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’ve tried hard. But I don’t know. There are thousands of guys …’

  Wall’s face was the colour of sour cheese. The coroner persisted. ‘So you are telling this inquest that at the moment this unfortunate woman fell … went … into the water to be drowned, you were looking the other way.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the truth. It was all confused. I don’t remember anything real clear.’

  ‘However, you remember clearly that you had turned away then and you did not see what happened? Remember you are on oath, won’t you?’

  Schorner felt Parker straighten at his side. The legal officer made to stand up but the coroner had been expecting it. Without giving him anything more than a swift glance from the edge of his eye, not so much a flap of the hand, he said: ‘Yes, Captain Parker, I know. You will have your opportunity in a moment.’

  His lined face beamed in a fatherly way at Wall, the very smile making his wrinkles change their courses and patterns. ‘And what happened afterwards?’

  The relief on Wall’s face that the moment was over was evident. ‘After the others had gone, sir, I ran down the slipway. As soon as I hit the seaweed down there my feet went from under me and I slid down into the water. The lady was not very far away and I managed to grab hold of her and kind of tow her in. I pulled her up on to the stones and tried to bring her round. Then the other guys, Ballimach and the English soldier, arrived and then the doctor.’ He stopped. The coroner waited, saying nothing. The vacuum resounded in the dusty room. Wall had to fill it. ‘She fell in, sir, I’m sure. Nobody pushed her, sir.’

  While the jury was in the adjoining room, having trooped out into the street to get there, the remainder of the people stood and talked in confined voices. Gilman went out into the street where Mary Nicholas had gone. It was a clean spring day, windy now, with gulls screaming on
the chimney pots.

  ‘What did you see, then?’ he asked her. She was standing on the pavement smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Not now. I’ll tell you sometime.’

  ‘Don’t you think you ought to tell somebody, the coroner or the police?’

  She smiled grimly. ‘And stand up there and have my private business questioned? What were you doing down by the harbour at night? Who were you with? No bloody fear. There’s enough poison put around about me as it is. What good would it do, anyway?’

  ‘It might do some good for the American, Wall.’

  She looked at him bitterly. ‘You always think the best of people. You’re a real innocent, aren’t you?’ She turned abruptly and walked down the hill, the smoke from the cigarette drifting over her slight shoulder.

  Gilman swore to himself and turned angrily back into the hall. On the steps outside Colonel Schorner was standing with Lieutenant Bryant, Captain Parker and Tom Barrington. As Gilman saluted, Barrington was saying: ‘I think you have to realize the resentment that has built up. It was bound to happen and it has. I’m not even talking about this case.’

  ‘I hope you are not, sir,’ said Parker sharply. ‘Here is a case of an American boy risking his life to save a drunken woman and getting a lousy deal for it.’

  Barrington was nonplussed. ‘Yes, all right,’ he said. ‘But there is a general feeling of resentment …’

  Schorner said suddenly but quietly: ‘Unfortunately for us – as well as you – we are here until we are ordered to leave, resentment or not. You’d better get that straight. On the other hand, I want to make life as easy as possible for everybody, including myself. If it’s okay with my superiors, and I’ll have to check with them, I’m willing to have a meeting with yourself and anybody else you like, your council or whoever, to try and straighten a few things out.’