The Machine Gunners

by Robert Westall

  He crawled to the first shed, and opened the door, only to be greeted by a frantic clucking and fluttering. Hens! And where there were hens, people came to feed them. No go. He shut the door and crawled on. The next hut contained one big fat rabbit, who regarded Rudi thoughtfully while chewing his way up a long dandelion leaf.

  "Rabbit, I envy you," said Rudi. "Rabbits live longer than rear gunners."

  The next hut was empty, except for spades and sacks. Rudi climbed in painfully, pulling the muddy parachute after him. He looked at his ankle. It wasn't broken or even bleeding. Just sprained so he couldn't walk.

  Might as well surrender, he thought. Might be a hot meal before interrogation. I'd reveal all the secrets of the Third Reich for a glass of schnapps and a lump of sausage.

  He opened the hut door and shouted loudly. Nobody came. Eventually he got tired of shouting and fell asleep.

  The glare of the exploding plane, right overhead, did queer things to Chas's eyes. Everything he looked at had a glowing blue hole in it, the shape and size of the explosion. He wondered whether he would go permanently blind. It would be a tragic loss to the world. He heard a BBC announcer's voice in his head say, He could have been the finest brain surgeon England has ever seen. Even blind he is a superb concert pianist... but how sad he should never see the blue sky again... .

  He went on walking around in circles and peering at things. The hole in his eyes seemed to be fading. He suddenly felt hungry and wondered what was for tea.

  Cem was capering like a dervish on top of the Fortress, pulling up Audrey's camouflage bushes and whirling them around his head.

  "We got him, we got him!"

  "You and how many Spitfires," said Audrey acidly. "You've certainly blown a fine hole in our roof with that thing."

  "Stop squabbling, you two," announced Chas with tears in his eyes. "A brave man has died. He died facing his foes. What more can any man hope for?" He felt all grand and squashy inside, like when they played Land of Hope and Glory at school.

  But the next second he felt cross because the Messerschmitt had blown up above the waters of the harbour, and there wouldn't be any souvenirs to pick up.

  "What about that hole in the roof?" asked Audrey again. "And next time you might kill somebody with that nasty great gun."

  "That's what it's for—that's what I was trying to do, so! Anyway, what do stupid girls know about it? Besides he—" he pointed to Cem—"that stupid laughing fool jogged my arm."

  "Weren't that," said Cem. "You couldn't hold the gun steady. You're puny, that's your trouble."

  "Nobody could have held it," said Chas. "It kicks like a mule. You haven't tried firing it."

  "Cem, Errol Flynn did it in that film. He charged the Jerries firing from the hip and won the VC."

  "You're wrong. Only British can get the VC," shouted Audrey.

  "Girls!" they all shouted together. "What do girls know about it?" And then they went back to squabbling.

  "You can't believe what's on films. Wasn't a real machine gun."

  "Was. It was flashing."

  "Wasn't."

  "Was."

  "Wasn't."

  "What about that hole in the roof? And I'm not going back into the camp to make tea until you put that nasty great thing away."

  "Shurrup."

  "Och, we'd better do as she says, or we'll no get a cup o' tea. And ye'd better find some way of holding that gun down. It nearly shot ma head off."

  "My dad could make a stand to hold it."

  "Ah dare say he could. But how ye going to ask him? Ye can hardly say 'Da, make us a stand for me real loaded machine gun.' "

  Chas looked thoughtful.

  "I can get him to make me one. But I'll have to borrow the telescope for a few days."

  "Why not? There's nowt left to watch out for now, any way."

  Rudi wakened, stiff and cold. No matter how carefully he arranged them, the sacks fell off him during the night. His ankle was up like a pudding; he wouldn't be able to walk for a week.

  He opened the hut door and looked out. The sky was grey. His watch had stopped and there was no way of telling the time. He was terribly hungry. Even the frosted brussels sprouts began to seem appetising. He spent an hour crawling over and gathering some. He had to suck the frost out of them before he could chew them. They were as hard as bullets.

  He wished he could surrender. But no one came. He fell asleep.

  When he awakened again, the sky was still grey. He was beginning to lose feeling in his legs. When he finally got the circulation back, the pins and needles were awful.

  He decided to crawl in and surrender. It seemed a hundred miles to the edge of the allotments. When he got to the fence and looked through a gap, there was only a cinder track, a disused gas lamp and the high brick wall of some factory. It was getting dark and starting to snow, so he had to crawl all the way back. He became so confused he couldn't find his hut at first. He slept again.

  It was the rabbits who saved him that week. Most of the huts contained a few. In their hutches he found food; crusts of toast, baked potato peelings, bran mash, drinkable water. In the beginning the beasts bolted when he opened their hutch doors to steal their dinner; bundles of warm, panicky fur hurled themselves from one side to the other, pressing their panting sides into patterns against the hutch wire. He contemplated killing one for the meat, but he wasn't desperate enough yet.

  After five days the rabbits got used to him, and eyed him placidly. He spent hours in their company, giving them pet names—Birgit, Franz, Heinz. He talked to them, and they seemed to listen, drooping first one ear and then the other.

  When were they fed? Why did he never see the owners? He couldn't tell. He contemplated sleeping with them, waiting to be captured. But he had an aversion to being taken in his sleep. Besides, a distrust of all humans was setting in. Not the fear of a prisoner of war for his enemies, but the distrust of a wild animal, daily growing wilder.

  He only saw one other human being in all his time on the allotment—an old man picking brussels sprouts. It took Rudi a long time to pluck up courage to shout and wave. The old man gave one panicky look and ran. Rudi expected him back with soldiers, but he didn't come. Perhaps the old man had been a thief and hadn't realised Rudi was a German.

  Chas knew very well how to approach his dad. He carried the telescope home and dumped it in front of him.

  "Where'd you get that?"

  "Cem Jones wants a swop. It was his grandad's. He wants my train set. Is it worth it?" Mr. McGill reached for the telescope, turning it over in his clever mechanic's hands, feeling the solid craftsmanship.

  "Cem Jones is a fool. This is worth a lot more than your train set. Does his dad know he's swapping it?"

  "Yeah, he was there. He said this was mucky old rubbish and not worth a good train set. He said I was the fool." Mr. McGill bridled. He didn't like Mr. Jones; there was a longstanding row between the families.

  "That man knows nowt but tombstones. A bairn could see this is a good piece of stuff." Already he was taking the telescope to pieces. "Needs a bit of seeing to, though. Go and fetch me tools and the Brasso."

  It was a peaceful evening, like one before the War. Granda was better, and had gone off to the pub to have a crack with his mates. Nana was skinning a rabbit in the kitchen, her brawny red arms snowed with tufts of fur. Mrs. McGill put some potatoes to bake next the fire, in their jackets. Mr. McGill worked on the telescope, laying out the parts in careful order on a sheet of newspaper. How would he ever get them together again? But he did, gleaming and shining; pointing out things of interest to Chas as he did so.

  "Can I swop then?"

  "Aye; you're growing up, and a railway's a bairn's thing. Better not show the telescope to Mr. Jones now, though, or he'll change his mind. Old rubbish, indeed. The man's an idiot."

  Now was the moment. Chas took a deep breath.

  "Only trouble is, Dad, it's so heavy. I can't hold it steady." Mr. McGill looked up at him with a slow grin. />
  "I knew there'd be a catch. Want me to make you a tripod for it?"

  "Yeah!" In his moment of triumph, Chas felt a rat. It was a much worse pain than parting with his beloved railway.

  Mr. McGill was good at his work. He liked a technical problem, and he had time to solve it. The German bombers turned their attentions to Birmingham and Liverpool; the gasworks for once did not break down. The tripod was finished in a week.

  Mr. McGill made things to last, in quarter-inch steel and inch gas-pipe, solidly welded together, and given a black finish to proof it against rust. The tripod held the round body of the telescope just fine. It would hold the round body of the machine gun equally well, and if the legs were bedded in concrete...

  9

  "Got a funny case here, Sarge," said Fatty Hardy. The sergeant groaned. More than bombers or the coming Invasion, he dreaded Fatty Hardy's funny cases. Pinched sandbags, missing machine guns, haunted houses... The constable was a lunatic.

  "What is it this time?"

  "It's a woman with a funny story."

  "Let her in to tell it then. I haven't had a laugh in weeks."

  "I didn't mean a joker, Sarge." Hardy looked baffled.

  "Oh, send her in and go."

  The woman perched herself on the edge of a chair like a bird, clasped her hands and closed her eyes.

  "Let us pray," said the sergeant, before he could stop himself. It was the tiredness that did it.

  "Let us pray indeed, young man. For these are the Latter Days when the Foul Beast shall be loosed from the Pit. Book of Revelation, chapter thirteen, verse eleven."

  Oh Lord, thought the sergeant, she's one of Those.

  "What is more, the servants of the Foul Beast have been machine-gunning my mother."

  "Your what?" gasped the sergeant, nearly falling out of his chair.

  "Three days ago, as I live and breathe, I'd just taken Mother her cup of tea and was reading to her from the Good Book when something came through our roof and smashed the God is Love that hangs over her bed."

  "What sort of something?" asked the sergeant cautiously. The woman dug in her purse and dropped a flattened bullet into his hand. The sergeant could see it wasn't British.

  "What happened then?"

  "I ran to the window and saw their Fearsome Machine fleeing God's Wrath, going straight up into the Heavens."

  A strange choice of direction, thought the sergeant, but caught his tongue in time.

  "German?"

  "It bore the Crooked Cross." The sergeant tossed the bullet thoughtfully up and down. It had been that German fighter that exploded all right; the one everybody called the Teatime Sneaker.

  "Where do you live?"

  "Simpson Street—across the river. Are you the War Damage?"

  "Am I what?"

  "The War Damage. Mrs. Spink said if I reported it to the War Damage, they'd come and mend the hole in our roof, and give us a new God is Love."

  "Madam, I am not the War Damage. But leave your address and I will send round the man who is." The woman sniffed and left.

  The sergeant sat on. It didn't make sense. The Teatime Sneaker had been a reconnaissance plane, relying on stealth. Why should it open fire on a street miles from any military target?

  Nervous rear gunner? But Simpson Street lay at right angles to the Sneaker's flight path. Even a nervous rear gunner would not turn his gun through ninety degrees of slipstream before going trigger-happy.

  Were they all mad in that plane? It had climbed vertically immediately afterward, which was a mad enough thing to do. Or had something upset a normally steady crew?

  Something like being fired on from the ground? By a machine gun whose bullets missed and landed among houses across the river? But they were German bullets...

  The sergeant banged his fist on the desk and swore. That missing machine gun. What a fool he'd been.

  The sergeant surveyed God is Love and its line of bullet holes. The text was not alone on the bedroom walls at Simpson Street. God Bless this house with a border of blue kittens and pansies hung above the empty fireplace. Thou God seest Me, stitched round a large and malevolent eye, hung over the door.

  Not only God's eye surveyed the sergeant; the bright beady eyes of the old lady in the bed followed him everywhere.

  "Aven't gorra fag, 'ave ya? I'm right gasping. She won't let me 'ave them, yer know. Says they're ungodly. Her and her God. She's potty, yer know. It's a case when a pore old body can't 'ave 'er deathbed comforts."

  The sergeant offered a bent Woodbine and lit it. She sucked in smoke, her face wreathed in beatific smiles. Like a baby having its bottle.

  "That's the first this week. Mrs. Davies slips me one when she calls, but she's laid up with her sciatica."

  "Where d'you put the ash?" asked the sergeant nervously. The old lady pointed to the rose-wreathed chamber pot under her bed.

  "Last time the doctor came to test me water 'e nearly 'ad a fit."

  "Excuse me," said the sergeant. He must get on with his job. He tied a piece of string with a weight on the end to the bullet holes in the ceiling. Then he put his head against the shattered God is Love and looked beyond the string, through the window. He was now looking down the path the bullets had come... they had come from a clump of trees across the river, with a chimney pot sticking up through them...

  "Help!" gasped the old lady, breaking into a paroxysm of coughing. The sergeant thought she was starting a fit, her eyes were swivelling so wildly. But he finally realised she wanted him to take the cigarette.

  He had just taken it when the daughter burst in. The old lady must have hearing like radar!

  "Smoking!" said the daughter triumphantly. Her eyes alighted on the Woodbine in the sergeant's hand. "This whole room stinks like the Foul Pit."

  "I told 'im you wouldn't have smoking, Ada," said the old woman, "but he wouldn't heed. He took advantage of me lying here 'elpless."

  "So you say. I'll think my own thoughts about what happens to those who abuse God's Truth, on Judgement Day. Meanwhile, Sergeant, I'll ask you to leave. You're only here on sufferance. You're not even War Damage."

  "Madam, I have my job to do."

  "What's that? And what's this rubbish?" She pulled at the string that dangled from the ceiling. It came loose, pulling half the ceiling with it.

  "Look at all me plaster. On me best carpet. Get out, or I'll set the police on you."

  "Madam, I am the police."

  "Have you got a search warrant?" she screamed. The sergeant decided it was time to Flee the Foul Tempter.

  All the way back over the river on the ferry, he tried to work out which was the little clump of trees on the north bank he had seen beyond the string. But there were so many clumps. It would be a long job finding it.

  At last came the morning when Rudi found he could walk. But walk where? To a policeman, a prison camp? It was tempting. Warm blankets, a bath, hot soup and bread, comrades who spoke German. But the problem was getting safe to the prison camp.

  He knew how much Garmouth had been bombed. Night after night he had lain under a thin wooden roof while bombs rained down; while searchlights revolved like the spokes of giant wheels; while fires burned and the bells of fire engines clanged through the streets.

  People who had been bombed hated enemy fliers. Rudi had seen the capture of a British flier in Berlin, the first night it had been bombed. The man stumbled along between two Wehrmacht, who used their fixed bayonets to keep the German civilians back; civilians who threw stones and dog dirt at the airman and his captors alike. One woman had leaped in screaming and clawed the flier's face. That was when the officer had ordered his soldiers to fire their rifles in the air. But suppose the soldiers hadn't been there? There were stories of airmen hanged from lamp posts, run through with pitchforks.

  Rudi opened the holster on his belt. Alone of his possessions, the Luger pistol was clean. That would deal with those who brought ropes and pitchforks.

  Then there was the pain of being a pr
isoner. All his life Rudi had hated being fastened in. Once he had run away from the Oberschule because the master had locked him in a closet. All his boyhood he had roamed the streets, until his mother accused him of turning into a criminal. But he was never a criminal; he just had to be free.

  But where could he go to stay free? He must stick to wasteland, where no English went; old dumps and bombed houses. And he would walk to the sea, which the British called the North Sea and the Germans the German Ocean. There might be a boat he could steal, or a Swedish cargo ship to stow away on. It was a forlorn hope, but before he was captured or killed he would look once more on the sea.

  He closed his holster, fastened one large sack round his middle with a lump of rope, and draped another, marked A1 Cattle Cake over his flying helmet. He must keep on his flying helmet, or else he could be shot as a spy. He thought with his new beard and mud-encrusted trousers he might pass as a tramp.

  He said good-by to the rabbits, and stuffed his pockets with frozen brussels sprouts. Then he set off, beginning to sing to himself in that peculiar monotone he had heard tramps use in his childhood. It was a bitterly cold day; not many people were about. But as he was cutting down a back lane, a woman came out to her dust bin with a dish of scraps; a stout body in a flowered apron and checked carpet slippers. She stared at the approaching shambling figure. Rudi hummed Ich hatt einen Kameraden in a high-pitched whine. He looked at the scraps hungrily; cabbage and lumps of pie crust.

  The hand that was scraping them into the bin with a knife paused. Rudi halted and looked up, making his eyes wide so the white showed all around.

  "Where you from?" asked the woman. Rudi understood her; he had done English at Oberschule. But he daren't reply, for his accent was strong. Instead he mouthed gibberish, and pointed first to the plate, and then at his mouth. The woman's face melted from doubt to kindliness. She offered the plate timidly. Rudi clawed up the scraps and thrust them into his mouth. Even in his fear they tasted marvellous.