Growing into War

by Michael Gill

  ‘Those are often conflicting aims,’ Auerbach lowered his voice confidentially. ‘Though I have reason to believe Bill was with his old lady thirteen years.’

  Varley was coming back with four glasses and a jug of water from the kitchen. Auerbach produced a flask of whisky. The café was an unpretentious place and the fried Spam, peas and chips not much above the resources of our cook house, but it was a pleasure to eat off a table cloth, even if there were a number of coffee stains underlining the check.

  ‘Mike’s just started on D.H. Lawrence,’ Wyndham explained.

  ‘Lawrence? He’s a mixture of sense and bilge.’ Varley had a way of dismissing a topic with flat finality.

  ‘Surely he was right to put such an emphasis on sex?’ I was full of the convictions of one who had never even touched the flesh of a naked breast.

  ‘He was right about getting rid of sentimental Victorian nonsense. Then he put up a lot more of his own.’ Auerbach was waving a lighted cigarette in his chubby hand, though we had not yet had the apple pie and custard. To smoke in the middle of a meal; that seemed the height of decadence.

  ‘There’s a passage in Flaubert in which he says he’s never able to see women standing under lamp-posts at night, or walking up and down wet streets, without excitement. It’s the accessibility, the possibility of a relationship of the most intimate kind when there is no relationship at all: intimacy without sentiment.’

  ‘I’ve always found the idea of prostitution disgusting,’ said Wyndham with diffidence. ‘I think prostitutes when you see them in Soho often look repulsive. Great wide mouths, like sharks or lizards.’

  ‘My dear boy, there are as many varieties as in any profession. Don’t malign whores; you can ask them to do things no respectable person would.’

  What did he mean, I wondered. I hardly understood what went on in normal sex.

  ‘I saw a woman done by a donkey once,’ said Varley.

  ‘Was that in Cairo?’ said Auerbach, perhaps annoyed to have lost the floor.

  ‘No, Marseilles; the dock area. It was a show, of course; but I reckon it was for real.’

  ‘How could it be?’ I asked.

  ‘What happened?’ said Wyndham.

  ‘Well it was just a little place, full of sailors like myself. We’d been told what to expect and all paid up. This woman comes on. She wasn’t young or particularly good looking, but I don’t suppose the donkey cared. In fact, she looked as if she’d been fucked to hell, thin as a wraith. First of all she danced about, took her clothes off, cracked a whip. She had a couple of younger assistants. They brought on the donkey. Quite a little beast, but when she played with it, it came out a yard. Then she lay back on a low table and pulled it in her, first by the ears and then by its cock.’

  ‘And you reckon it really entered?’ Auerbach was attentive now.

  ‘I’m sure of it. I was sitting off to one side and had a good view. Not all the way, of course. But enough. After a bit the donkey let out a terrible bray. Scared the living daylights out of us. We’d all been sitting as silent as the grave, and there it was rearing up and pawing with its hoofs. The attendants rushed back and pulled it off. It came out dripping.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Auerbach.

  ‘Surely that’s not possible. She’d have been injured,’ said Wyndham.

  ‘Told you I had a good position. I saw a glint of metal up her. I reckon she had a series of stainless steel rings up there getting smaller and smaller to stop it over-reaching itself.’

  When we got to the Camp coffee, Auerbach went out and came back with a port for himself and three more whiskys for us.

  ‘There’s nothing like frigging,’ said Varley dreamily. ‘I envy you boys, you have so much of it to come.’

  ‘Mind you, a lot of it’s in the head,’ said Auerbach. ‘Anticipation; it’s often the best part.’

  ‘I think about it all the time,’ said Varley. ‘Maybe it’s being in the company of all you blokes. I’m beginning to wonder what it was like.’

  ‘That’s just the trouble,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine what it’s like.’

  ‘Don’t worry, boy,’ said Varley. ‘It comes naturally. Just get an older woman at first. Use your imagination.’

  ‘Imagination: the frenzy of creation.’ Auerbach was much more pompous than I’d realised.

  ‘There’s a game I’ve often thought of playing,’ said Varley. ‘You get her to lie on her stomach, and you paint a picture on her back. With your cock of course. She has to guess what it is. You dip your old man in this tingly substance, so when you put it on her back it leaves a sensation behind.’

  ‘What’s the tingly substance?’ asked Wyndham.

  ‘That’s the trouble; I’ve never been able to find it. But it’s a great idea, isn’t it? Sensuous, but thoughtful: fizz and a quiz.’

  ‘I would paint God creating the Universe from the Sistine Chapel ceiling,’ said Auerbach. ‘Such broad, sweeping strokes.’

  ‘There’s a drawing by that Frenchman, is his name Doré?’ said Varley. ‘It’s the devils descending into Hell. Dozens of them with flapping wings. A long fall all the way down into that hot, seething pit. That’s the one for me.’

  As we hurried back through the blackout, there was not another airman on the streets. ‘We’d better run, it’s nearly lights out,’ I muttered.

  Corporal Barker was already on his rounds of the ground floor as we crept hastily up the stairs. We were still making our beds when his head came round the door.

  ‘Been on the booze, eh lads?’

  ‘Oh no, Corporal,’ we chorused.

  ‘Get down to it quietly now. I’ll give you a couple of minutes before I turn the lights out.’

  Tucking in his blankets Wyndham chuckled. ‘Amazing chap, that Varley.’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t like Auerbach so much as I expected.’

  ‘He’s a bit of a poseur, I’m afraid. He’s very generous anyway; the evening must have cost him twenty-five bob.’

  ‘More than that. I reckon with the drink it was six-and-six a head. I hated all that stuff about prostitutes.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ said Wyndham, wriggling into his bed.

  ‘I do think girls are magical and mysterious:

  She walks in beauty like the night

  Of something something and starry skies

  And all that’s best of dark and bright

  Meets in her aspect and her eyes.

  ‘That’s what I think of them.’

  ‘They’re certainly hard to understand.’ Wyndham sounded sleepy.

  ‘There was something nasty in the way Auerbach talked – gloating almost.’

  Wyndham opened a cynical eye.

  ‘Do you think he was talking about ladies? Why do you think he likes our company?’

  I did not really understand what he meant, and before I could ask him Corporal Barker banged on the wall for quiet.

  Sleep took me the instant my head touched the pillow, but in the night I had a complex dream. I was kneeling in front of a fireplace, oval and splendidly decorated, putting together lengths of a broom. I stuffed it up the chimney, further and further, adding more and more lengths, and pushing it vigorously. But it got more difficult and eventually I was thrusting against some obstacle. I pushed and shoved so hard back and forth that the whole wall began to sway and buckle. Just as it fell forwards over me, it turned into my mother, enveloping me in her youthful arms. I woke as the last twitches of sticky liquid fell on my thighs. That, I suspected, was what sex was going to be like: a bit of a fiasco.

  V

  There seemed to be something about us that provoked surprising responses. Mealtimes were made more unappetising by the reaction of the cook-house staff. Big sweaty men in dirty overalls, spooning greasy stew, cabbage and watery mash on the line of passing plates, the appearance of Wyndham and myself galvanised them to mysterious action. They would chant in unison: ‘Here come the queenies, the queenies, the queenies, here come the queenies, the fae
ry queens.’

  What did they mean? I could not understand it, but I knew it was insulting and it made me flustered. It seemed a continuation of all the teasing I had suffered at school. Primly, I accepted it as my lot: horrid, but inevitable. Wyndham ignored it also, or I might have learned what it meant. I felt it clearly had to do with our being nice, refined people. Probably an adverse comment on the way we talked.

  I was confirmed in this belief when we were out for a stroll one Sunday afternoon, the only time we had the opportunity to walk about. We were stopped in the street by the Quartermaster in charge of the dining-halls, such a high-ranking figure that we had seen him only once or twice, looking authoritative above the seething meal benches.

  ‘Where are you boys off to?’ He was perspiring and seemed oddly ill at ease behind his jutting moustache.

  ‘Just taking a walk, sir,’ said Wyndham somewhat unnecessarily.

  ‘Like a cup of coffee? My rooms are near here.’

  This was so surprising that we said nothing, but a greater shock was to come.

  ‘I hear you like art.’

  How could he possibly have heard that? Or know anything at all about us?

  ‘I’ve got a nice collection myself. I’d like to show it to you.’

  Why was he asking us? Why did he not just order us to go with him? There must be something wrong. Senior NCOs did not mix with the likes of us. In the uneasy pause we looked at each other.

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ said Wyndham, ‘but I think we ought to get some fresh air.’

  ‘Yes, we should be getting on, thanks very much though.’

  He did not try to detain us, but walked rapidly away.

  ‘Poor chap, he must be lonely I suppose,’ said Wyndham after we had gone some distance in silence.

  ‘How could he know about us?’

  ‘Goodness knows.’

  A few days later I was queuing at the entrance to the dining-halls for tea when I suddenly felt an urgent tug at my sleeve. Looking round I saw only an ornamental pillar, a vestige of the time when this had been a smart holiday restaurant, and behind it an archway covered in a dirty white linen curtain. I was moving on, under the impetus of those behind me, when the curtain parted. The red face and dark moustache of the Quartermaster appeared fleetingly. His lips parted, showing a flash of white teeth. He said ‘hist’, like a character in Shakespeare. At the same time, in one frantic gesture, he put his fingers to his lips and gestured me to him. Then the curtain fell.

  I continued with the queue. He was obviously as mad as a hatter. Then I heard his voice, low but peremptory.

  ‘Boy, come here.’

  That was an order. I turned round reluctantly. He was holding the curtain aside, but standing back from it so that only someone in my position could see him. Behind him, white-clad figures were moving about. I walked through the curtain into a sort of scullery. There were shelves and cupboards of food and utensils and, beyond a further arch, the kitchen, frantic with noise and activity.

  ‘Here boy, have a mince pie.’

  He held one out, crispy brown and dusted with sugar. He himself was gleaming in white, belted overalls. He watched me eating with watery intensity.

  ‘Take some more. Take some for your friend.’ There were rows of them on a table beside a card with ‘Officers’ Mess’ written on it.

  ‘Sorry we can’t give them to you all, but for you . . . how is your friend?’

  ‘Wyndham? He’s all right, thanks.’

  ‘I missed seeing him today.’ He was bundling about a dozen pies into an old newspaper.

  ‘Don’t forget. You must be tired sometimes. If you and your friend want to put your feet up, have a little quiet, my rooms are at your disposal.’

  He spoke urgently and quietly. As he handed me the wrapped-up pies, he seized my hand in both of his.

  ‘Dear boy . . .’

  Thanking him, I was turning away when he stopped me with one of his hissing exclamations.

  ‘Wait: the address.’ He pulled out a showy fountain pen and wrote it in a large flowing hand.

  ‘Do come, any time.’

  Needless to say we never went, though the pies were delicious. They were more than a luxury. Every letter I wrote referred to food. We were constantly hungry. I did not bother to mention that several people in a neighbouring street had been killed in a tip-and-run air raid. What was important was that the bombs had broken the power lines and ensured that we had only cold food the next couple of days, thus diluting our already meagre rations. Officially we were not allowed to receive food parcels, but everyone did. As well as fruit, my parents sent cheese, small packets of butter (bought in the country on the black market), biscuits and sweets. It was not enough. I wrote: ‘I should love a really nice cake. I have had some scrummy home-made cake provided by other chaps in the billet.’ Night dreams were as often occupied by mountains of grub as by equally inaccessible girls.

  September was one of the worst months in the war for shipping losses. The Germans had stepped up the production of U-boats to such an extent that, despite increased casualties, twice as many were operating as at the beginning of the year. If they could squeeze that iron ring of torpedoes a little tighter we would be forced to capitulate without an invasion. Hunger was the incalculable joker in the war game, and the one that worried the Allies most in this critical time.

  Churchill had recently made one order that directly affected us. He visited the Eighth Army in the desert in August. The front line was only fifty miles from Cairo. All the Headquarters Staff there were armed with rifles and ordered to defend the city should Rommel make a breakthrough. He attempted to do so, during our first week in Skegness, but was held at bay. The dour drawn battle of Alam Halfa lasted six days and ended with both armies back where they had begun. The last-ditch defenders were not needed.

  A similar situation applied at Imphal, on the borders of India, where the survivors of our forces in Burma were mustering. RAF ground crew were armed to defend the airfields. With the enemy advancing on all sides, there was no place for the non-combatant. So our six weeks’ course was reorganised to contain more battle training.

  There was something incongruous in our gingerly practised unarmed combat. It seemed more important not to break Robbins’s arm than to get him down smartly on the sunlit sands. We had to take it on trust that a blow with the side of our hand to Gidney’s prominent Adam’s apple would kill him if applied with sufficient force. Charging at a stuffed sack and poking it with a bayonet to the accompaniment of shrill yells made me feel silly, not aggressive. I could not imagine any circumstance where I could bring myself to do such a thing. Even stamping on a spider, a creature I viewed with loathing, was quite beyond me. When it came to rifle fire, I could muster only 16 per cent, though a number of others, including Wyndham, did not hit the target at all.

  I might have made some progress at foot and rifle drill, but as a military machine I was far from effective. The most elaborate part of our field training was a night exercise in which we were to attack the neighbouring Butlins camp, now occupied by the Navy. Our job was to reach and mark with chalk the Headquarters huts, thus signifying we had blown them up. The main assault was across the dunes from the sea. I was part of a diversionary attack from the land. We had to crawl up a shallow hill, cut the barbed wire defences and run through the camp to the enemy HQ, hopefully unobserved. Speed and silence were essential. We rubbed mud into our faces, pushed branches of laurel and clumps of grass through the netting on our helmets till our necks bent under the weight, loaded our rifles with blanks and set off at about 10 p.m.

  Our NCOs were just as excited as we were. There was a long sustained rivalry with their opposite numbers in the naval camp. We were exhorted to do our best in passionate terms. The duds, like me, were begged at least to keep quiet and not to shoot a blank up the next man’s behind while crawling. This was quite easy to do, as we had to cradle the still relatively unfamiliar rifle across our elbows while wriggling for
wards in what we hoped was a snakelike manner. The rifle was continually sliding back and bumping our noses, or bouncing off our extended arms altogether and landing noisily in the grass.

  I was put in the middle of a group of nine, led by Corporal Barker. We set off on our stomachs in single file. In my anxiety to shine I was continually overtaking the man in front. It was the moronic Robbins. Alone among us, he moved with his cheek rubbing the grass and his bottom jutting high in the air. When my rifle got entangled with his boots he let out a strangled yelp. Corporal Barker came crawling back.

  ‘For Christ’s sake keep quiet Robbins. And Gill, you keep your distance. Don’t crowd him or he’ll think he’s being raped.’

  I did my best, though it was a dark night and easy to lose touch. As we neared the top Corporal Barker paused more and more frequently. We could just make out the dull gleam of the wire and hear the crunch of a patrolling sentry. We made a supreme effort to move silently now. It was fortunate I had the porcine hulk of Robbins’s bottom for a fix. Just below the perimeter the halt stretched interminably. Heavy drizzle came on, darkening the scene even more. A distant star shell, the rattle of small arms fire, and confused shouts told that the frontal attack had gone in. We remained in frozen immobility, joints aching, the sodden state of our uniforms slowly spreading down to our skins.

  Gidney, who was right behind me, shook my boot. I looked round at the interrogative pallor of his raised face. Silently I pointed forward at the looming bulk of Robbins’s behind. More time passed. I went into a dreamlike reverie, pleasantly released from the soaking discomfort of the body. I was called back to the wet earth by giving vent to a dozen staccato sneezes. They came on without warning and I had no time to smother them. Lord, that would be enough to rouse the whole garrison. Worse was to follow. Gidney crawled fast past me. Suddenly he was standing up and kicking Robbins. The bulging bottom disintegrated. It was a large pile of earth. Gidney turned and grabbed my shoulders.

  ‘You fucking stupid gint,’ he yelled into my face. ‘Now we’ve lost ’em.’

  ‘Ssh, ssh, hadn’t you better keep quiet!’ I whispered soothingly. ‘Corporal Barker wouldn’t want us to make a noise.’