‘No; why don’t we blame God? He has broad shoulders. Do you care?’
It took me ages to frame an answer for him.
‘I don’t know.’ I was telling the truth.
The children were helped out of Dorothy’s capacious gut one by one, and led over to the coach by one of the glamorous nuns. At the coach’s door a stocky woman in a dark blue uniform I didn’t recognize was checking the luggage labels that Fergal had attached to each kid’s coat, and writing their names in a hard-covered exercise book.
I asked, ‘Who’s she?’ without having realized that the action had moved away from me. I was temporarily alone.
Holland, the Customs guy, must have heard me, because he wandered over from somewhere and said, ‘Mrs Search. I thought you’d already spoken to her?’ I hadn’t noticed that he was part of the reception party.
‘I may have done,’ I told him. ‘Years ago. What’s happening?’
‘The children are being taken to an orphanage up north. That was the idea, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know.’ I was still telling the truth.
He squinted at me and said, ‘When did you last sleep, Charlie?’
‘I don’t know that either.’
He beckoned someone over. When she turned up she was Elaine. I couldn’t see the bump in her belly yet. Bob asked her, ‘Is there anywhere we can tuck this sad specimen up before he falls asleep on his feet?’
‘We have one of the old crew huts . . . aircrew sometimes overnight there.’
I thought That’s not all we do over there, but the words didn’t get as far as my mouth.
‘It will have to do; won’t it? Come on.’
They told me afterwards that I insisted on taking Frieda and her niece over there with me, and Frieda reported that I’d ordered, ‘C’mon. We’re all going to bed.’
‘It’s still afternoon, Charlie.’
‘Doesn’t matter; I’m shagged out.’
She didn’t argue. We put Elli in one of the old iron-framed beds; I took the one next to her, and Frieda the next. Elaine was OK to us; she fired up the stove and pulled down the blackout blinds. I remember I let all of the air from my lungs in a huge sigh, and Frieda’s voice asking, ‘Are you all right, Charlie?’ The words came from a thousand miles away.
‘It all became too complicated. I’m a plain man really,’ I told her, and then I closed my eyes.
I had a bad moment when I awoke because I thought that I was back on the squadron. I opened my eyes to see the curved roof of a Nissen hut above me, and heard a gentle chorus of sweet snores. Scroton and Mortensen had crept in and bagged the two beds nearest the stove. The stove contributed to the smell of the place; burned logs and coaldust briquettes – once you’ve smelled that combination you never forget it. I got up, banked up the stove – its fire was on its last legs – and slipped outside. It was evening and chill: there was already a frost on the grass. It even glistened on Dorothy, reflecting the light from Elaine’s office window.
Elaine wasn’t there, but she was around somewhere because her coat was still hanging from a hook on the back of the door, and there was a trace of her scent in the air. She came in with a mug of Bovril in her hand.
‘You didn’t sleep long. Want one of these?’
The rich beefy smell from the mug was delicious.
‘Yes please. You OK?’
‘I’m fine, love. Never better.’
‘Still . . . ?’
‘Preggers? Yes; two months. Can I come back to work after I’ve had the baby?’
‘Of course you can. We’ll never manage without you. What does your Terry think?’
‘Like a dog with two tails. I’ve never seen him this happy.’
‘Who’s the father?’
‘He is, of course. What do you take me for?’ It was a dumb thing for me to ask straight out of the blue, wasn’t it? It was the first time she had completely blanked me. The temperature in the room fell by about ten degrees. ‘Here, have this.’ She thrust the mug of meaty water at me, ‘I’ll make myself another.’
I followed her through to the small galley to apologize. ‘That was really stupid: I’m sorry. I just wanted to . . .’
She kept her back to me. ‘There are some things we won’t talk about any more. OK?’
‘OK I understand.’
‘You don’t actually, Charlie, because you’re not a woman – but I won’t argue with you: I still want you to be my friend . . .’
‘A friend who’s allowed to cop a feel now and again?’
That put a grin back on her moosh. ‘I think that’s a definite no. All right?’
‘It will have to be, won’t it? Story of my life.’ It was a terrific way to end a relationship and begin another . . . still smiling. ‘So tell me what’s been going on. Who was arrested while I slept . . . ?’
‘No one. Everything’s running very smoothly. The Old Man is flying to Holland tomorrow . . . if KLM won’t sell him another Dakota he’ll try to lease one from them.’
‘Did Bozey check in?’
‘Yes: he says the dog misses you. He’s moved one of the Lancastrians over from food from Wunstorf, to coal from Lübeck, and the dog got back with him on the first flight. But he still wants to know when he can get Dorothy back.’
‘I’ll speak to him. Anything else.’
‘An American Flying Fortress has crashed in Scotland. It was on the news.’
‘Bloody Yanks can’t fly for shit.’
‘What about our Yanks?’
‘They’re the exceptions that prove a rule. Randall’s a genius. So’s Max: how is he, by the way?’
‘Who?’
‘Rufus. His real name’s Louis Maxwell, otherwise known as Max.’
‘Oh him. Didn’t he do rather well?’
‘Yes he did. I told you, he’s probably a genius too.’
‘Bruised ribs. They’ll let him loose tomorrow.’
‘Get him back here: he’s due some leave.’
‘Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.’
‘. . . and put the wireless on; they may say something about that crash . . .’
Elaine threw me a mock salute. I took a step towards her but then thought better of it, and turned away. She noticed and smiled: it was probably going to work. I asked her one more thing. ‘What happened to that Russian family I brought in?’
‘They had no contacts over here so the Old Man arranged for them to be taken away to some charity for DPs. He’s not angry, but the Foreign Ministry is being a bit humpy. Mr Halton said to ask you to tell him in advance the next time you’re going to take the country’s foreign policy into your own hands . . .’
‘He’s not angry, you said?’
‘He laughed. I think he rather enjoyed it.’
‘I’m surprised he hasn’t whisked Frieda away before now.’
‘He asked, but she wanted to stay with you.’
‘I wonder why.’
‘Wait until she wakes up and ask her, you stupid man.’
Chapter Thirty
What else do you need to know? I suppose that I could tell you about the photograph. I was looking through my old photograph albums about a week ago. I came across a snap that was taken about ten days after I brought those children home – which would probably be called people trafficking today, and have a bunch of social workers running around with smoke coming out of their backsides.
The photograph was taken on a chilly morning on the strand at Bosham, and it wasn’t a classic: all of our feet are chopped off below the knees. James had bought one of those new-fangled cameras that gave you a timer setting for a delayed exposure. He made us all huddle together, balanced the camera on a fence post, and then scuttled round to get into the picture himself. There’s James and Maggs, me and the two boys . . . and Frieda with Elli Junior on one arm. Dieter is between Frieda and me, holding our hands tight: you probably get the picture. If you look carefully at the grins on the faces in the photograph it sometimes looks as if they merge into one gr
eat smile. Was it Max or Red who’d told me downhill all the way? Maybe the old fellah upstairs had decided I was due for a bit of downhill after all.
I didn’t get to see any more of Operation Plainfare – they did the rest of the Berlin Airlift without me, and it worked out rather well for them. Maybe I should stay away from wars, or the things that pass for them, more often. I stayed at home, and learned to run an airline instead. It wasn’t wholly my choice, or the Old Man’s either. It was something to do with the War Office sending us a telegram withdrawing permission for me to be in Germany: apparently I caused too much bother. I showed it to Holland months later. He told me, ‘I’ve seen a couple of those before. They were handed out to a couple of black marketeers they couldn’t prosecute. You haven’t been buying or flogging the stuff they don’t want you to, have you?’
‘Not so much as you’d notice.’ I thought I’d lied rather smoothly. ‘Nylons for the ladies, and a few fags. I smuggled a couple of pounds of liquorice into Berlin once for a Russian with a sweet tooth.’
‘It must have been all those kids you brought back then. I wonder who you upset most.’
‘Everyone, probably. I noticed you moved your Spits. What did the government do with them this time?’
‘Sold them to a rather charming South African with an export licence, who will no doubt sell them on to where they were going in the first place; so everyone will be happy.’
‘So what was the point of seizing them?’
‘Because that’s what the law tells us to do.’
‘Well, the law’s an arse!’
‘. . . and people like me are its bog paper. Let me worry about the law while you keep the birds flying.’
I could see that he was even more downcast than me.
‘What’s the matter with you, anyway?’
‘That Israeli smuggler of yours they captured in The Parachute. He was sentenced yesterday.’
‘What did he get?’
‘Four years, then we’ll send him back to Hungary. They still don’t like Jews over there, so they’ll probably try him all over again, and swing him.’
‘I had a friend called Tommo once. He used to say Shit happens. What happened to the other one?’
‘We never saw him again; maybe he lost his nerve. Part of me hopes he reached Israel.’
We were whingeing on like a couple of girls, and someone had to break the spell. I asked him, ‘Fancy a drink? The pub’s shut, but they’ll open the back door for me.’
Because you are reasonably attentive you’ll have noticed that I referred to Tommo in the past tense, which wasn’t a mistake.
I went north more than a year later. A sort of pilgrimage I suppose. Randall, Max and Dave Scroton all knew the score, and came to me separately to offer to come with me. I turned them down, and went on my own. Apart from my father and his brother I didn’t know anyone who had the fortitude required to live in Scotland. Old Father Leakey did, and he called in a couple of favours to ease the way for me.
It had all started when Elaine mentioned that Flying Fortress crash in Scotland the night I got back. I had shivered immediately. I knew that it was nothing to do with me, but I shivered all the same. What’s that phrase? Someone just walked over my grave. I look back on that first Boeing crash now as if it was a pebble tossed into the sea of time. The ripples of its warning came forward, and came forward and came forward until they reached out and touched me weeks later – because weeks later was when Tommo was strapped into another Fortress that met a fiery end in one of those high Scottish glens.
Dolly called me: it was the first time we had spoken since my return – she had the crew and passenger list for an air crash the day before. She said that Tommo’s name didn’t figure on it, but nevertheless he’d been on the flight, and she was sorry. I asked how she knew, but all she did was say Sorry again, and put the phone down. When she had begun to talk about the crash I was aware that we were talking about Tommo, long before she said his name. It was as if I already knew, as if I had known for ever; I believed her as soon as she said it.
It wasn’t a Flying Fortress this time, it was a Superfortress – one of those big B-29s – and it’s gone down in legend as The Diamond Bomber, on account of the stones that some of the passengers and crew were alleged to be smuggling back from Germany. Nobody walked away from it. That was the way it was in the Forties: miracles or disasters.
I took the night train to Glasgow, and was awoken in the morning by a smart-looking steward offering me a mug of char. When I opened up the window blind all I could see were rolling miles of marsh and wasteland, with jagged mountains in the near distance: Rannoch Moor. I’d flown exercises over the same damned place in 1943, and had hated it even then. It’s an inhospitable dump. I’m not one of these foolish Englishmen attracted to desolate wastes: I get insecure if I can’t see a pub sign swinging in the breeze. We rolled into Glasgow Central at twenty past eight. For the first time I loved its blackened walls, and the smoke in the air.
My old man met me in the station hotel lounge there, and we caught up with each other over a pot of tea and a plate of cakes. He scoffed most of them, just like I remembered from when I was a kid. He’d never approved of cakes and biscuits at home when my sister and I were young, saying that they’d make us fat. There was never any chance of that, because on the few occasions that they appeared he ate his way through them like an army of soldier ants on the march. He was one of those sugar-addicted folk who couldn’t bear to leave anything sweet on a plate, or in a packet or tin. The old prayer, Lead me not into temptation, had never worked for him, which is why he never bought any cakes for us. There’s logic in there somewhere.
We talked about his brother, who lived with him now, and agreed we both missed my sister and ma. After that we didn’t seem to have all that much to say to each other. He asked me, ‘Where d’ye say you were going?’
‘A place near Lochgoil, which is up in a place called Argyll. Wild and woolly.’
‘An air crash, you said?’
‘Yeah. One of my pals: an American going home.’
‘Would ha’ thought you’d seen enough air smashes in your time. How many was it now?’
I did the arithmetic in my head. I only counted the real ones.
‘Three and a bit.’
‘Want me to come with you?’
‘No; but thanks for offering, Dad. I’ll stay with you on the way back, and tell you all about it then.’
‘How do you get there?’
‘Believe it or not the quickest way is by sea. I’ve got to get down to the docks before midday, and get on a small cargo ship that goes around the islands and coastal villages. It will set me off at the nearest pier sometime tomorrow. I understand that I’ll have to hoof it from there, but someone’s arranged for a local chap to guide me. It’s not too far.’
‘Make sure he takes you to the right crash – there’s bloody dozens of them up there. The Yanks are calling Scottish mountains Boeing Magnets because of the number of planes they seem to attract.’
Not exactly encouraging about anything, my dad. I often wonder where I got my irrational optimism from. Then he gave me his famous sideways look, and added, ‘Wouldn’t have minded a wee sailing trip though.’
Ah well. It had always been on the cards.
That night I found out three things about the old man: he could win any card game you could name, he could play a squeeze box he borrowed from the engineer, and had the largest repertoire of dirty songs a man was capable of learning.
‘It was the Great War that did it,’ he explained to me. ‘We had to find something to do with our time when we were waiting to fight.’
‘When were you waiting to fight?’ the little skipper asked him – we were alongside Dunoon Pier for the night, and the bottles had come out.
‘Most of the time,’ my dad told him, and broke into a wheezy laugh that led into another stuttering obscene ballad. When I looked around the small day cabin it was like being in the company
of pirates. Maybe I was.
They dropped me off on another small pier, and promised to pick me up again in a few days’ time. The tide was dropping, so the skipper just nudged the end of the pier with his puffer’s straight bow, and expected me to jump down with my pack on my back. My old man stayed with the ship: I think they wanted him for his entertainment value. They’d even signed him on articles to make it legal. No matter what the old bastard did, he always seemed to come up smelling of roses.
The sea loch was like a mirror as the old ship backed away, its thin whistle quaking. I could already hear the concertina squeaking away below. I thought they’d probably got the bottle out as soon as my back was turned.
I needn’t have worried about making contact with my guide, or finding the hotel. A small dark blue Fordson van was at the land side of the pier. It had HM Coastguard in white letters on its doors, and a Coastguard officer leaning back on the bonnet smoking a big black pipe. He stuck out his hand.
‘James Gillies, Coastguard. We’re expecting you. Duncan asked me to collect you.’
‘Charlie Bassett.’
‘Of course, Mr Bassett . . . and who else would you be?’
I counted the houses, and reached eleven. I counted the churches and stopped at one. There was also only one hostelry . . . and the small stone Coastguard office. Sure, who else would I be? He drove me the hundred yards to the hotel bar. Inside there was a smouldering peat fire even although it was early summer, and a reception party of half a dozen men. I quickly got the impression that it was going to be a jolly afternoon.
I got to meet Duncan Galloway, my mountain guide, about four hours later. He was actually a local shepherd. I was drunk by then, and my pack was at my feet. I still hadn’t booked in or seen my room. I had imagined the guy would be about nine feet tall, red-haired, bearded and wearing a kilt; one of those supermen who rub cold porridge into their muscles to keep them toned. Galloway was actually about the same size as me; clean-shaven, and had a small sun-browned, lined face. He wore an old navy sweater that was so darned and out of shape that gravity had begun to have her say. The scrawny neck that poked from its top was white. After a while I realized that he reminded me of a tortoise. Oh yeah; and he was about a million years old . . . I wondered if he could make it upstairs at night, let alone take me up a mountain.
The Hidden War Page 44