The Magic Army

by Leslie Thomas

  ‘Poncho and Williams,’ called the man who had grabbed him. He had authority. ‘Hold this man.’ Through his streaming eyes Sissons could see it was a young officer.

  He was sobbing. ‘Swine, blasphemy … swine …’

  ‘Okay,’ said the officer, unruffled. ‘We heard.’ He pushed his hard, young face close to Sissons. The men were holding Sissons enough to prevent him moving. ‘You are in a military area,’ said the man slowly and succinctly. ‘This area is prohibited to civilians.’

  Sissons could feel the very flesh of his face trembling. His eyes streamed. ‘I am,’ he gasped, ‘I am the incumbent of this church … this …’

  ‘You are off limits,’ said the man firmly. His tone rose a fraction. ‘I don’t care who you are, sir, you’re off limits.’

  ‘You’re heathen,’ replied Sissons bitterly. He looked around at the desecration and the faces of the young soldiers who had perpetrated it. They were grinning but puzzled. ‘How do you think you can win a war when you do this sort of thing?’

  The officer took the question calmly. ‘We’re going to try,’ he said. ‘This is a designated recreational centre for men on battle exercises in this region.’

  ‘Our Lord Jesus …’ muttered Sissons with hesitation, as though he suspected they might not know the name. ‘Jesus threw the usurers and gamblers from the temple. This is just the same … There were men throwing dice!’

  ‘We don’t have a requirement for religion right now,’ said the officer. ‘You’re under arrest for being off limits.’

  ‘This church has been used for thousands of years to worship God,’ persisted Sissons, slowing his voice. His glare had reduced to a plea. ‘Didn’t you read the notice on the door? Long before you or your country were heard of, people were coming here with dignity … with … piety. I don’t suppose you even know the meaning of that.’

  The officer’s face became firm. His mouth thinned. ‘Is that so?’ he said. ‘Okay, since you know all about these things, let me show you something, mister.’ He nodded at the two men who held Sissons. ‘Okay, leave him.’ They released the vicar, who looked up, puzzled. ‘Take a look at this,’ said the officer. ‘Take a look at what we found.’

  Stiff, bruised, hurt, Sissons stood up and followed the youth. The other soldiers followed mutely, with their cigars and cigarettes and beer, with their cards and dollars. They trooped along the chancel towards the altar. There, like some ritual procession, they stopped.

  ‘Get rid of the coffee,’ said the American. Men moved forward and lifted the urns and hot dogs from the altar table. Sissons saw that the cross had been parked in a corner. He felt his legs trembling.

  ‘Move it,’ said the officer. The same men eased the altar table away. Sissons opened his mouth but said nothing. The altar table was clear of the east wall of the church. In all his years there it had never been moved. The officer went smartly forward and pulled away a regular block of stone set among the irregular granite. Sissons felt his throat drying. The stone came away easily. It had obviously been moved frequently and recently. ‘Shell-blast dislodged it,’ explained the young man casually like a guide. ‘And see what we found underneath?’

  A square aperture was revealed and the officer produced a torch and shone it sharply into the darkness. Sissons almost cried out. There, carved in stone, was a great penis and testicles.

  ‘Phallic worship,’ said the American with a shrug. ‘Somebody used this place before you Christians got here. Maybe they had more fun. So, sir, don’t tell me about dignity and piety. Sometimes they just don’t fit.’ The words came out like a sneer. The young man was steely, angry. ‘And,’ he said tightly, ‘you’re still in a prohibited area.

  In all his life Sissons had never been drunk; but now a sudden madness like drunkenness took him. The stone penis and the balls behind the altar made him sick and strangely frightened. Around him were youthful, grinning, foreign soldiers, their faces like lanterns. He cried out and pushed the lieutenant backwards, the action of a violent child. It took the Americans by surprise and there was a quick opportunity for the vicar to run for the vestry door. It was unlocked but, even as he turned the handle and pushed, one of the soldiers lifted a carbine and would have easily shot him between the shoulders had not the officer shouted for him to drop it. The clergyman threw open the door and stumbled in.

  Panting, eyes streaming, he switched on the single light and pushed the great old bolts home on the door. The ancient key was missing, a triviality but he cursed about it. Thieving louts. The room was full of boxes, Coca Cola, beer and behind them he could see, forlornly peeping out like a hiding fugitive, the linen banner of the Church Lads Brigade.

  He turned out the light and took three steps across the flagstones to the outer door. It opened at once and he rushed into the cold, wide night. The stars were out. The moon grinned mockingly at a man running away from his own church.

  The churchyard wall was only fifty feet away, beyond a few gravestones and crosses; he stumbled across them like a hurried ghoul and flung himself over the wall. As he gained the road he was confronted by a crowd of American soldiers, waiting and watching for him. They raised a cheer as he appeared across the wall. He crouched, cornered, and then challenging: ‘Go on, shoot me then! Shoot me!’ he scampered down the road swerving from left to right, this tactic causing further riotous howls from the men.

  Ahead he could see further men, the guards from the lychgate. There was a gap in the hedge on his right and a familiar stile. Sissons wriggled twice, like a frantic footballer, and then turned off and jumped across the stile. He knew the field well. Sometimes the Sunday School had been held there on hot afternoons and on light evenings the village children had used it for games.

  Now it stretched blackly before him, a great hole. Without easing his momentum he charged wildly across the stunted grass, his arms flapping, his long legs bounding comically. He was almost at the centre of the meadow when he was picked out by searchlights, one coming from each flank of the field and one from directly ahead. The violent beams dazzled him. He threw his hands across his eyes, caught his foot in a knoll of grass and pitched forward on to his chest. He lay there sobbing and grasping the grass in exhausted frustration at the centre of the blazing light.

  From immediately behind came a frightening explosion. The earth shook and clods of grass and mud fell around. For a moment he thought they were shelling him. Then across the beams came a voice through a loudhailer. Even with the distortion he knew it was the lieutenant from the church. ‘Okay, sir,’ it blared. ‘You are now in a mined area. I repeat – a mined area. Stay where you are. Repeat – stay where you are. Do not move.’

  All the breath wheezed from Sissons’ body. An inch at a time he looked up across the tufted horizon of the field. The lights glared and spread in large pools around him, like a three-ringed circus. He tried to stop the shaking of his wet and damaged body. He clutched at the grass in an attempt to keep himself still; to prevent himself running.

  ‘Okay, sir,’ came the echoing voice from the void. ‘That’s good. That’s excellent. Stay in that position please, sir. We will send some help. But, I repeat, you are in a mined area. Do not move.’

  Two of the long beams went out and the Devon vicar lay there like the last actor in a tragedy, the spotlight pinning him to the stage.

  Nothing happened for fifteen minutes. The cold seeped through his clothes and his raw knees were wet and aching. He hardly shifted an inch. He wondered if a prayer might assist him, but decided it was unlikely. If there were a God, He must understand and be a party to these situations. He seemed to have a special glee in bringing malice to His clergy. Sissons shivered and waited.

  After fifteen minutes the voice came over the loudhailer again. ‘Sir, are you okay, sir? Wave your arms if you’re okay.’ Sissons waved achingly. ‘Hold it!’ bellowed the voice, frighteningly. ‘Not too much waving. And make sure your arm stays as close to your body as possible.’

  ‘What’s happening?�
�� called Sissons woefully across the low grass of the field. ‘What are you doing about this situation?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ came the relayed voice, ‘we don’t hear you well and we can’t get any closer until the engineers arrive. They know the way through, we think. We’ve sent for them but they’re asleep, I guess.’

  ‘God,’ muttered Sissons, his face in the field. ‘God, God, God.’ It was a curse more than a prayer. His teeth accidentally bit into the ground and he spat the earth out angrily. Then the searchlight went out, plunging him into a bottomless, lonely darkness. He turned his head to look behind him. Perhaps he could crawl the way he had come. That was where the explosion had been. He decided not.

  ‘Sir, we’re sorry about the light. We have orders to keep them to a minimum,’ blared the night voice. ‘The engineers are on their way, I hope.’

  ‘Do something! Do something!’ shouted Sissons angrily.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said the vicar, a word he had never before used. He laid his face across his cold and muddy hands. ‘Bollocks,’ he repeated to himself with a sniffle.

  The light abruptly stabbed across the field again, making a bright yellow-green path across the grass. ‘How you doin’, sir?’ came the voice cheerfully.

  Sissons heaved himself up on to his elbows, then his wrists, his body concave, the attitude of a walrus. ‘Do something!’ he bellowed with all his strength. He flopped forward dismally. The cold and damp of the night had enveloped him now and soaked through his skin. He felt like a corpse.

  ‘The guys are coming right now,’ the loudhailer called. He thought he heard vehicles. The light went out and he realized how much he missed it.

  ‘Put the light on, please,’ he said in a whisper. As though they had heard all three beams suddenly appeared and began to circle, apparently looking for him. ‘Over here!’ he called. ‘Over here, you fools!’ They swam around the field and eventually the original beam, the one he thought of as his own, picked him out and after a quick, worrying jerk away, came back and settled on him with the incandescence of an angel. The others wandered across the field and he saw to his relief and joy that there were two or three men, on their hands and knees, moving cautiously as hunting animals in the illuminated channels.

  ‘Here!’ he shouted, holding up one arm but replacing it prudently as close to his body as possible. Then, pitifully: ‘Here I am.’ The men called something back and moved, but very slowly, towards him. It took twenty minutes, it seemed like hours. As, at last, they approached he saw that the leading man had a long probe in front of him with which he was gingerly scratching the ground ahead. The others were probing likewise on each side. Inch by inch. His neck ached from watching them. Surely to God they knew where they’d put their own mines.

  They were only ten yards away and he could see their features, when the leading man called to him: ‘When I push this stick out to you, sir, come towards me, on your gut. Right along the line of the stick, okay? Don’t roll or shift either side. If you do we could all go together. Check?’

  ‘Check.’ The strange word came out like the croak of a heron. Then, the strangest thing, as he twisted to move towards the prone man, a tingling, almost a thrill, went through his blood. He could hardly breathe, his heart drummed, his legs and arms quivered. With a tremendous effort he stilled them all. He regulated his breath, he calmed his heart, he controlled his limbs. Then he began to move, fraction after fraction, towards the American soldier.

  ‘Right,’ encouraged the man, whispering. Sissons wondered why he had to whisper. ‘Right sir, that’s great. Take it easy now. That’s fine. That’s really fine … We’ll make an engineer of you yet, sir. Take it easy, not too fast now.’

  ‘I don’t want anybody hurt,’ answered Sissons halfway towards the man. He rested briefly, the probe now directly below his chest and stomach.

  ‘Nobody gets hurt with mines,’ drawled the man. ‘They say you don’t feel a thing. Just a little moment of regret.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Sissons, not indicating whether it was for the philosophy or for the help. He began to edge forward again, held out his arms on the instructions of the engineer and felt himself grasped by the hands.

  ‘That’s okay,’ breathed the man. ‘Open your arms like you love me.’

  ‘I think I do,’ returned Sissons gratefully. He wanted to laugh. It was going to be all right now. They were going to get him out. The soldier pulled him forward in the way of a fisherman easing in a cumbersome catch. Now he had the Englishman by the shoulders, now under the armpits.

  ‘Okay,’ said the soldier when they were literally face to face. ‘When I turn you just give me a little time to manoeuvre and then you make it along behind me. Just don’t get up and run or anything.’

  ‘I promise,’ said Sissons with feeling.

  ‘Great. Keep the soles of my boots in front of your nose, at a regular distance. We got to give these other guys behind me the opportunity to move off first. Then I’ll turn over and go back towards the perimeter, and you follow, taking it real easy all the way.’

  They had to lie facing each other, bathed in the vivid beam of the searchlight, while the soldier’s comrades performed a careful and complicated turn, so that they faced the direction of their journey back. ‘How d’you get out here anyway,’ inquired the American. He had produced a chunk of gum and was revolving it around his mouth only an inch from Sissons’ lips. The soldier inquired if he would like some but the vicar shook his head. The American, almost absently, blew a bubble of gum from his mouth. Sissons watched it grow in front of his face. His eyes squinted.

  ‘After a buck rabbit, maybe?’ suggested the man.

  ‘No,’ replied Sissons with weary dignity. ‘I’m the vicar of that church.’

  ‘Is that so?’ There was no overwhelming curiosity in the voice, no wonderment at the English clergyman lying in the middle of an American minefield in the middle of the night. ‘That’s a nice church,’ said the man. ‘Pity it’s so old. In the States, see, we keep building new places. All the time. We wouldn’t let a building get as old as that.’

  Sissons was beyond caring. He nodded dumbly and the man, blowing another balloon of gum, acknowledged a signal from his comrades, did a slow and complicated turn-about, like a slow circus tumbler, and ended the movement with his face to the perimeter. He began to crawl forward on his stomach and Sissons gratefully followed, keeping the muddy soles of the American’s combat boots an inch in front of his nose.

  It took twenty minutes. Then he felt the soldier rise to his knees and then his feet. After another six feet, with enormous relief, he did the same. There were a hundred or more Americans standing in the road, waiting for them. As he stood up they raised a cheer. Sissons, cold and stiff as he was, smiled. In a way, and whatever might follow afterwards, at that moment he almost felt he was one of them.

  The postman who delivered the mail on his bicycle, descending adventurously down Wilcoombe Hill with one foot scuffing the kerb, called, characteristically, last at the anti-aircraft gun-site. Despite Captain Westerman’s protests that there might be some message of importance to the war effort, the routine had gone on imperturbably throughout the years since the gun was first established there.

  ‘A message?’ repeated the postman loftily as he once delivered the letters after nine o’clock. He had a wet moustache and dingy eyes. He blinked them at Captain Westerman, who had personally queried his tardiness. ‘And what sort of message would you be expecting to get in this place?’ His glance swam around disparagingly at the last phrase, taking in the sad huts and the dumb gun. ‘We might get all sorts of things,’ objected Westerman uncertainly. ‘Movements, assignments. All sorts of things. Orders.’

  ‘Tidings,’ returned the postman mournfully. ‘I think you’d be more likely to be getting tidings here. Not messages.’ He thrust the corded package of letters into the captain’s hurt hands and rode away with shaky grandeur.

  Thus it had gone throughout the entire
war, even when the postman died and gave way to another. The army mail was always last. One morning Bryant arrived in the orderly room after the arrival of the post and saw Captain Westerman looking with hurt bewilderment at a letter he had just opened.

  ‘Ah, there you are, lieutenant,’ said the captain morosely. ‘Wondered when you’d show up. How are our allies?’

  ‘They seem to be busy, sir,’ said Bryant easily. ‘Getting things ready for the big day.’

  ‘We’ve got our own big day,’ returned Westerman with drama in the raising of his eyebrows. ‘We’ve got orders.’ He stared at Bryant. ‘You won’t believe this, but they’re going to take our gun away. Our bloody gun.’

  Bryant was genuinely surprised. ‘What for?’ he asked. ‘What’s the unit going to do without a gun?’

  ‘They say the thing is obsolete,’ grumbled Westerman. ‘And they point out that it doesn’t work properly anyway, something I’ve been telling them for ages. An anti-aircraft gun ought to be able to elevate to more than twenty-five degrees, don’t you agree? Unless it’s meant exclusively for the dive bombers. You know how damned difficult it is to get the thing up when it’s needed.’

  ‘And they’re not replacing it?’

  ‘No intention of doing so, by all accounts. The important thing is that they’re breaking up the unit as well.’

  ‘The War Office probably thinks that if you haven’t got a gun then you won’t need any gunners,’ pointed out Bryant reasonably.

  ‘No need to be funny, lieutenant.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. What’s going to happen?’

  ‘Well, I thought at least they’d replace the gun with something a bit more like it. We still need to protect this bit of coast, and especially now with the invasion threatening actually to start at long last. God, if the whole show was bombed and obliterated before it actually set sail everybody would end up with egg on their faces, wouldn’t they? But the powers that be say that the area is now adequately covered by the Yanks and their rockets and whatnot. We’re not needed, Bryant.’