Ruby's War

by Johanna Winard

  ‘Time’s been called,’ the barmaid said, nodding towards the white towels covering the pumps.

  ‘I’ll take a bottled beer,’ he said.

  ‘Not here, you won’t,’ she replied, dunking a glass tankard in the sink, ‘towels are up, it’s after time.’

  ‘Come on, Rose,’ one of the English soldiers leaning on the bar said. ‘The poor bloke’s gasping. Let him have a pint.’

  ‘It’s not up to me,’ the barmaid said, taking the handles of four empty glass tankards in each hand and drawing them towards her across the wooden bar. ‘I’m just doing my job.’

  ‘Hey, Fred,’ the soldier called to a thickset man in a white shirt. ‘Let’s have a pint for this lad. He’s gaspin’, poor bloke, and I’ll have another half while you’re at it.’

  ‘Over here, Bo,’ one of the guys from the camp called, peering at him from the other side of the bar. ‘Come on, over here.’

  Bo dipped his head and looked under the rows of glasses hanging above the bar. He could see about eleven or twelve guys around the dartboard, including Con, Wes and Holt, all in walking-out dress.

  ‘How come you all got passes?’ he asked.

  ‘Mayfield went to the new lieutenant; that cracker lieutenant is goin’ to be real sore when he finds out,’ Wes called. ‘Come through. We’ve got a pint you can have. We bought a double round before the bar closed.’

  Bo shook his head; he didn’t want a beer they’d bought to extend their night out, any more than he wanted a beer prised out of the hard-eyed barmaid by a well-meaning squaddie. He wanted to walk up to the bar and buy his own beer, as any man would do who’d driven through the heat of the day.

  ‘I want a drink,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll have a light beer from the shelf behind you, ma’am.’

  ‘I’ve told you, it’s after time,’ the barmaid said.

  ‘I’m asking for a bottle of beer. I’ve been driving all day. All you need do is reach out …’ he said, his sweat-stiffened shirt growing damp again.

  ‘Now then, lad,’ the landlord said, putting another tray of glasses on the bar, ‘we don’t want trouble.’

  ‘I don’t want trouble either, sir. I am thirsty and all I want is a drink.’

  ‘Come on, you miserable old sod,’ a blonde girl hanging on the soldier’s arm said.

  ‘Aye, come on, Fred. It was only a minute after time,’ a girl dressed in ATS uniform standing next to her agreed, giving the landlord a playful wink.

  ‘There’s a bloody war on,’ another red-faced English soldier shouted. ‘Get them towels off the bloody pumps and fill us all up.’

  ‘If I have any more of this,’ the landlord said, his sweaty face turning from pink to a purplish red, ‘I’ll clear …’

  The rest of his threat was drowned out by shouts from the crowded bar, as optimistic customers pressed forward, hoping to get their glasses refilled, and in the crush, Bo felt someone push an open bottle of beer into his hand. He lifted it to his lips, but when the barmaid saw him she shrieked, and the landlord made a grab for it. He was a big man but overweight. Bo held him off easily with his free hand, while to the applause of the crowd at the bar, he raised the bottle to his lips.

  Holt, who’d been watching the argument from across the bar, glanced around regretfully at the still-untouched glasses of beer.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, tugging at Con’s sleeve. ‘Let’s get Bo out of here.’

  Holt and the others stood at the door of the vault, as drinkers drawn by the raised voices pushed along the narrow corridor in response to a rumour that the bar really was going to open again. At the same time, some of the other customers – older people and courting couples – who had been sitting in the maze of smaller, quieter rooms off the same corridor, were calling out goodnight to each other and easing their way in the opposite direction toward the front door. Eventually, the whole group of GIs made their way out of the vault and were pressed against the wall, waiting for a gap in the crush, when the pub door suddenly crashed open. Two MPs stood in the open doorway; one of them was a small, plump guy some of the GIs recognised from the patrols in the local town. The other was a tall swarthy-skinned guy they didn’t know.

  ‘Passes,’ the small MP said, nodding towards the black soldiers and holding out his hand.

  The tall MP pressed through the jostling drinkers towards the noisy bar. When Bo turned around, the MP stood in his way.

  ‘Where’s your pass, boy, an’ why you out incorrectly dressed?’ he demanded, as the second MP arrived, followed by Holt and the rest of the GIs.

  The rowdy drinkers around them fell silent. Some of the locals who’d been laughing and cheering began to leave, but most of the soldiers and their girls hung around the bar finishing their drinks.

  ‘I said, where’s your pass, boy?’ the taller MP said again, pushing Bo in the chest. ‘And you tell me why you’re out incorrectly dressed.’

  ‘We goin’ to have to arrest you,’ his partner said.

  ‘Leave the bloke alone. All he wanted was a bloody drink,’ the ATS girl at the bar called.

  ‘Aye, clear off,’ a soldier standing further down the bar shouted.

  As the two MPs edged closer together, Con noticed the barmaid sliding empty glasses from the bar top into the safety of the sink.

  ‘These guys are—’ the taller MP began to explain.

  ‘Never mind what they are, mate,’ a burly English sergeant called. ‘They’re just havin’ a drink and botherin’ nobody. So bugger off. Who called you, anyway?’

  ‘It weren’t me,’ the landlord said, bustling behind the bar with a tray of glasses. ‘All I want to do is to close up.’

  ‘There you are then, lads,’ the sergeant said, smiling confidently at the two MPs. ‘Why don’t you let us all finish our drinks, and then these chaps can get back to the camp without causing you any trouble?’

  When the remaining crowd of locals murmured their agreement, the outnumbered MPs retreated, closing the front door behind them. Wes and the rest of the guys retrieved their abandoned drinks from the table near the dartboard and joined the squaddies and their girls at the bar, swapping stories and jokes.

  ‘I just wanted a drink of my own,’ Bo said, reluctantly accepting the half-glass of beer Wes offered.

  ‘The landlord’s not a bad guy,’ Holt said, topping up Bo’s glass with some of his own beer. ‘He don’t know you. You don’t drink in here.’

  ‘Well at least we got to finish our beers,’ Wes said, ‘though he’s not goin’ to open up again.’

  ‘Hey, you guys heard the rumours?’ Bo asked.

  ‘You mean the trouble in Beaumont? In Texas?’ Holt asked. ‘I heard it was supposed to be Axis agents started it.’

  ‘No. This only just happened. Heard about it at the airbase.’

  ‘What you heard?’

  ‘Detroit. Riots. Black folks bein’ killed. Not in the factories. Eastwood Park.’

  Holt put down his empty glass. ‘Who you got it off?’

  ‘At the airfield, today. Some guys working there. It might not be so. It’s just a rumour. Somethin’ about crowds on the bridge comin’ back from Belle Island.’

  ‘Sarge Mayfield might know,’ Holt said. ‘You ready? We’d best be goin’, anyways. Like Wes said, the landlord’s not goin’ to open again.’

  When he saw that his unwanted guests were ready to move, the landlord hurried out from behind the bar. The GIs heard him unbolt the front door and made their way out along the corridor, followed by the rest of the young locals who’d finished their drinks. Bo was one of the last to leave, carrying the half-empty bottle of beer he’d been given and had abandoned on a table near the bar. Outside, the air was still at blood heat. The group of girls and soldiers dawdled by the shuttered pub, reluctant to go home to their airless bedrooms. Bo drank the last of the bottled beer, and was listening to one of the soldiers telling a drunken tale, when he saw a jeep roll to a halt by the roadside. The tall MP got out; his white helmet bobbed towards them
through the thickening twilight. The group began to break up, and when the other GIs moved off, Bo tried to follow them, but the MP barred his way.

  ‘Have you been demanding beer, boy? You been cheekin’ these good people? I’m going to have to arrest you.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ one of the women called. ‘What do you want to arrest him for?’

  ‘You’ve been told there was no trouble,’ the English sergeant shouted. ‘There’ll be no arrests tonight.’

  Bo felt the MP’s stale breath in his face and ran his thumb around the neck of the empty bottle.

  ‘You want me?’ he snarled, taking the bottle by the neck. ‘You take me.’

  ‘Back off, boy.’

  Bo sensed the gun in the MP’s hand before he saw it.

  ‘I ain’t scared of you,’ he said. ‘I’m sick of bein’ scared.’

  ‘He’s going to shoot,’ a woman in the crowd gasped.

  Bo felt arms fold around his neck, and someone whispered, ‘Come on, Bo.’

  ‘Don’t shoot, use your stick,’ the smaller MP shouted over the whine of the jeep’s engine. ‘There’s too many of them, come on.’

  Bo shook the arm away and took another step towards the MP. In the fading light, the jeep wheeled around in the road, and the tall MP jumped in beside his partner.

  ‘Come on, Bo. Put the bottle down. Let’s go. They’ll be back with more guys,’ Wes said, as the jeep drove off and the crowd began to cheer.

  ‘Here you are, lads,’ the ATS girl said, handing opened bottles of beer to Bo and Wes. ‘Have these.’

  They thanked her and took the bottles. Then the whole group began walking down the main road in the direction of the camp. Bo and Wes strolled along some distance behind the rest of the GIs, followed by Con and Holt and then by the English soldiers and the local girls, walking along the pavement. For the first few yards, Bo and the other guys were silent, taking in the confrontation with the MPs, but the happy mood of the following group soon overtook them, and when the squaddies cheered at the sound of a bottle bursting on the windscreen of a passing jeep, they joined in.

  ‘Hey, watch out, they’re coming back,’ one of the girls called, as they heard the sound of brakes in the semi-darkness.

  ‘Reinforcements,’ Bo said.

  The jeep headed back towards them and pulled up sharply on the opposite side of the road. As the engine died, a second jeep arrived from the same direction. This was followed by three more from the other end of the village. All three were filled with MPs. One jeep screeched to a halt by the side of the black soldiers and the other two blocked the road into the village and the camp.

  For a moment there was silence. All that could be heard was the tick of expanding metal. Bo could see around twenty white helmets looking out at him. He took a sip of his beer, savouring the coolness and marvelling at the surprising sweetness of the taste that flooded his mouth. Then he bent down, settling the bottle gently on the edge of the kerb; he straightened, waiting for a reaction. He didn’t wait long. The tall MP and the little fat guy got out of their vehicle.

  ‘He’s the guy,’ one of them called as they headed towards him.

  Then he felt something fly by the side of his head. The fat guy yelled, slumped to the ground and his buddie reached down to help him. He didn’t hear the second missile until there was a soft thud and the tall MP groaned. He saw the doors of the jeep open and the other two men go over to help their injured buddies. As the injured MPs were helped into the jeep, he heard feet, boots pounding. When the first MP got to him, Bo threw a punch; the guy wasn’t ready and he slumped to his knees. The first real blow was a fist that hit the side of his head. He saw small circles of light spark in the gloom and heard the crowd behind him shouting, protesting that it wasn’t a fair fight. Around him, the road filled with men, struggling, punching and wrestling. Bottles exploded near him, but then he heard a heavier thud.

  ‘He’s a knife,’ he heard an MP near him shout. ‘Fire! Fire!’

  There was another shout, a threat. Then an explosion in the deepening shadows and he heard an engine being revved. He saw the first jeep with the injured MPs inside speed away. The screech of the wheels set a vibration, a pulsing in his ear. Behind him, Bo heard scuttering feet as the crowd ran for cover.

  Then the rest of the jeeps screeched off one by one down the street. The noise of their tyres sent a judder through his skull and he tried to lift his head from the road. He tried to crawl, feeling, groping towards the sidewalk, searching for his half-filled bottle, but the kerb was littered with broken glass.

  ‘Anyone shot?’ Holt called. ‘Bo, you okay?’ he asked helping him to his feet.

  ‘I’m okay. Just some … stinging … in my gut …’

  ‘Is anyone else hurt? Who’s that?’ Holt asked, as they heard someone moaning in the darkness.

  ‘Help me with this guy,’ Wes said. ‘You all right, buddy? You bleeding? Someone get his arm, we got to get him back to camp.’

  ‘No. I’m okay,’ the GI said. ‘I just got a knock to the head.’

  The camp was barely two blocks away. By the time they arrived, over a hundred GIs, alerted by the sound of gunfire, had gathered around the gates.

  ‘Get the gates closed,’ someone shouted. ‘The MPs are shooting black guys. Get the guns. They’ll be coming back.’

  ‘We need to defend ourselves,’ another voice called. ‘Get the guns.’

  Bo hardly noticed the uproar. On any other day, he would have been the guy they turned to; he’d be the guy who’d know what to do. Now he was tired. The stinging in his lower abdomen had turned into a pain; he reached down and felt wetness. All day he’d been hot, much too hot, but now he shivered. In the pushing crowd, he almost lost his footing and took hold of Con’s sleeve.

  ‘Detroit,’ he said.

  When Con arrived back at the hut, Holt and some of the other guys, stripped to their vests and undershorts in the heat, were waiting for news.

  ‘Sarge Mayfield got them to take him to hospital,’ he said, peeling off his blood-soaked shirt. ‘The cracker lieutenant wasn’t going to, but we argued with him. Bo … He’s real bad.’

  ‘What’s happening out there?’ Holt asked. ‘You see Wes?’

  Con shook his head. ‘He helped me with Bo; then he left. There was a real row goin’ on near the gates.’

  ‘I know. We were there,’ Holt said, ‘but I didn’t see Wes. They promised they’d have those MPs under guard by midnight, but that’s because the guys wouldn’t back down. Most of us are ready to face off the MPs. Mayfield know any more about Detroit?’ he asked, handing Con a cigarette.

  ‘No, he didn’t know anything, but there’s all kinds of stories goin’ around. Some heard that a black woman and her baby got thrown in the river. Some say the police turned on the black folks, and when more of them tried to make their way on to Belle Island to see what was goin’ on, the police barricaded the bridge. A big fight broke out on the bridge, police cars got burnt and folk dragged out of their cars …’

  Con sat on his bed and inhaled the cigarette smoke, hoping to drive the metallic smell of Bo’s blood from his nostrils.

  ‘Arleen and her folks … that’s where they’d go … It’s hot, they go to Belle Island. She loves it out there.’

  Con looked over at Holt. ‘We don’t know for sure,’ he said. ‘My folks go there too. My mom takes the children from the church. We ain’t gonna find out more tonight.’

  The hut fell silent. There was little air, and the blackout made the heat all the more oppressive.

  ‘I think we’re crazy to stay here,’ Holt said. ‘Some of the other guys went out lookin’ for MPs. We should have gone out with them and hunted them down.’

  ‘It’s not what Sarge Mayfield thinks.’

  ‘He don’t have folks there, like we do. He’s not heard what’s gone on at home, in Detroit.’

  Outside the hut, Con heard sudden bursts of running feet and somewhere deep inside the camp angry, frightened voices.
Then he heard Wes close by, and the door burst open.

  ‘Come on,’ Wes shouted, ‘get yourselves a rifle. The guys have forced the gunroom open, come on.’

  Con followed Wes and Holt to the gun store, where terrified men were grabbing guns and ammunition.

  ‘What we gonna do?’ he asked.

  ‘We got to fight them off,’ Wes said. ‘We got no choice. We got to defend the camp. They’ve gone for more guys. Word is they’ve a machine gun. We’ve got to fight, or they’ll kill us.’

  ‘Fight them off? No,’ Holt said. ‘You saw what they did to Bo. You heard what’s happened in Detroit. We’ve had enough.’

  ‘That’s right,’ one of the other GIs shouted. ‘I’m with you buddy; let’s go huntin’ MPs.’

  ‘Sarge Mayfield said the colonel would see that the MPs would get what’s coming,’ the guy next to Con said.

  ‘Any guy not willing to fight is on their side,’ one of the GIs handing out the rifles shouted.

  The camp was as alive as in the middle of the day. Con followed Holt and some of the other guys who were fixed on getting out of the camp down between the huts to the main gate. They backed into the shadows and waited.

  ‘Keep with the rest of them; make your way over and round the back of the trucks,’ Holt whispered.

  ‘Where’s Wes?’

  ‘He’s staying,’ Holt replied. ‘They think they can fight them off and defend the camp.’

  Holt moved ahead of him down to the main street. The road was quiet, and they took up positions, using the garden walls of the terraced houses for cover. They heard the jeeps coming, and as the lights picked them out, the MPs fired. The bullets ricocheted from the walls; splinters of brick and mortar pattered down, and Con wished he’d grabbed a helmet. The group of soldiers moved, and he followed, hugging the walls, firing at the speeding jeeps. As he crouched by a rough wall next to a glowing-white doorstep, Con heard the front door open. A pair of slippers edged out, and he smelt pipe tobacco.