My Enemy Came Nigh

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  "I don't think one officer and ten men are enough to defend us," Charlie said glumly. "It'll only plovoke the Gellies. We should either have fifty riflemen or none at all."

  Harry Tunks spluttered into his brandy. "Not half clever, these Chinese. I suppose Confucious he say 'No loaf better than half'? I’ll settle for eleven gallant defenders, as long as they can hold Gerry off long enough to let us get airborne and to hell out of it.''

  "I’ll drink to that," Tindall said. "Same again, barman."

  Middleton began to laugh. "Hard luck on the Regiment. It's a long swim if Gerry does make a grab for Bardoc."

  The others laughed too, but Anstey reminded them about their own ground crews. "Flight Sergeant Tucker would never let them go! I can hear him: 'As long as my lads and I have to stay here, sir, I 'II thank you to keep shooting. Of course, we'll lend a hand; when we've finished servicing our aircraft'."

  That was appreciated. Flight Sergeant Tucker was an unusual character with a firm grip on green officers; whatever their rank. He had been known to make newly arrived squadron leaders quake simply by treating them with a distant courtesy which combined a suggested course of action with an implication of incompetence.

  "But," Charlie objected, "if we've taken off, there'd be no aircraft to service."

  "Yes, there would," Anstey told him. "Yours. I'm detailing you to stay behind and keep an eye on this chap Foster. Harry can fly out with us: you don't mind if he crowds in with you, do you, Robin?"

  "Like hell," said Charlie. "Let's have another lound, barman." He turned to his flight commander. "If we're going over tomollow night, and we don't know how long we'll be stuck there on Bardoc, you'd better get on the phone to Salvatore and tell him to put Clara and her chums on readiness. Let's have dinner at Teresa's."

  "That's the first useful contribution you've made to this conversation," Aziz said.

  Middleton looked a trifle smug. "Sorry I can't join you. I'm taking Fay to dinner."

  "Too bad if she tells you she's got a forty-eight coming up, and what about going to Rome," Bradley remarked. "I reckon we're going to be on Bardoc for at least two weeks before they relieve us."

  *

  Officers who wanted to go off camp independently could apply for a vehicle and driver, and pay by the mile. They were not allowed to drive themselves on what was called a recreational run. This meant an irritating lack of privacy, particularly as the vehicle was usually a small pick-up truck; which meant that a lady guest had to sit next to the driver while her host sat behind, isolated and uncomfortable on a folding seat. It also meant the added expense of paying for the driver's dinner.

  Middleton improved the situation by arranging always to have the same driver, a member of the squadron although in the M.T. pool, who tactfully parked for ten minutes on the way back to the nurses' home and walked away for a smoke. This did not allow enough time to accomplish much, but he looked forward to it and believed that Fay did also. He knew that, like all the nursing sisters in Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, she was besieged by men; and went out with three or four besides himself. But he was confident that she went to bed with none of them and that hardly anyone ever got even as far as he did. He had tried to put his hand inside her blouse once, and been very swiftly slapped down; literally. It was particularly humiliating to be slapped on the hand, like a child stealing jam. She hadn't been angry; but certainly reproachful.

  The best entertainment he could offer was dinner at the British officers' club, a film at the garrison cinema, and a return to the club to dance until it closed at eleven. Despite Aziz's contempt for the food at the club, the Italian cooks did wonders with military rations supplemented by a few local purchases. The wine was good and, like most Italian musicians, the band and the singer would have deserved success in any of the world's big cities. The film was a brilliant Hollywood comedy and George held Fay's hand, which she seemed to enjoy. He saw her only once a week, at most, and was sensitive to her slightest reaction. He thought she squeezed his hand more often and more fondly this evening than last time. At dinner she looked frankly into his eyes whenever he spoke to her, and seemed to be amused or interested by what he was saying. We'll see how it goes on the dance floor, he told himself. .

  It went well. He tentatively put his cheek against her hair, which wasn't much done those days, and she liked it. In the last waltz they danced cheek to cheek, which was heady stuff among the British of that time and in those circumstances: there was a certain implication of complaisance when a pretty nurse, much courted, danced so intimately. Girls in uniform had to be careful of their reputations, particularly overseas. They were incessantly pursued by men who wanted to bed them, and some of them were willing. Those who weren't took care to make their attitude plain. In that era it was not called priggishness, but self-respect. Most men preferred girls like that when they thought about marriage.

  Middleton was thinking about marriage. It had something to do with sexual repression, for he very rarely went with Italian girls. If he could have made friends with one and been able to take her about and visit her family, he would have liked to have a mistress. But when necessity could not be denied and he had to have recourse to some cold-blooded transaction, either through the offices of Salvatore "and his like or in some casual encounter around the airfield, leading to the barter of otherwise unobtainable luxuries for sexual relief, it always outraged his fastidiousness. But fastidiousness had to take a step back when his body tormented him healthily.

  It had something to do with the fact that he was going back to teaching and a nurse would make a good wife for a housemaster; which was the least of his ambitions: a good headship was what he aspired to.

  It had most to do with the fact that he found Fay an honest, affectionate and humorous girl of whom he was growing jealous.

  At dinner she said to him "You're a bit wrought up tonight. What's the matter?"

  In the cinema she whispered "You're crushing my hand. Relax."

  When they were dancing she murmured "If you tread on me again I'm going to kick your shin and then jump on your foot with both of mine. Why are you so tense?"

  He couldn't tell her about Bardoc or Taf or any of the really significant facts of his life. Each time he answered lamely, making a joke of it. Not the best sort of jokes to crack to a nurse, perhaps. "I'm getting a twitch." He pretended to have a tic. "My dear the noise, and the people, on camp. I can't sleep a wink." And "Operational tiredness, you know. I think I’ll take some leave. Coming with me?" She had looked at him, then, and smiled. But she didn't reply.

  When the driver slowed as they approached the place where he always parked for them, Fay said "No, go on, please."

  The driver gave her a startled look and Middleton leaned forward to ask gently "What's the matter?"

  "We'll go for a stroll when we get there." She reached back and touched his cheek.

  The nurses lived in a building separated from the hospital by a car park, where they left the driver. Beyond the nurses' home there was a garden and she led him there to a seat. When they had kissed and she had settled in his arms, she said "It suddenly seemed rather awful. Like the ten minutes break soldiers have after every fifty minutes of marching. A routine." She chuckled suddenly and kissed him spontaneously. "I don't really think that's for us, George."

  "I'm glad you feel like that. What is for us, Fay?"

  She looked up at him. "I don't know. Let's wait and see. But no more parked cars while the driver tactfully leaves us alone for ten minutes."

  For the next few minutes there was no need for talk, and then she moved away from him and said "What are you going to do about that leave?" She laughed. "Not that you seem to need it so much, after all. You're very relaxed now."

  He laughed with her. "I'd still like some leave. But I'd miss you, Fay."

  She sounded amused again. "That's not very subtle; and you often don't see me for ten days at a stretch. But let's think about it. When am I going to see you again?"
She had never asked him that before.

  "There's something I've been wanting to tell you: I'm going on detachment tomorrow."

  "Oh!” Her disappointment was plain; and his earlier uneasiness explained.

  "I don't know for how long."

  "Oh, George. Where?"

  "Can't tell you, I'm afraid."

  "I see." She nestled against him and remained silent for a while. "Well, how long d'you think you’ll be gone?"'

  "Two weeks, probably." He kissed her. ''And when I do get back, I’ll probably have to wait at least a week until you've got a free evening."

  She sat up and moved aside a little, to turn and face him. "No, George. For you, I'll cancel any arrangements I've made. But I'm not going to sit and pine for you. I 'II go out when I'm asked; provided it's someone I like: as I always do."

  "Of course. I wouldn't want anything else; or expect it. But I must admit I’ll be a bit jealous."

  "Will you? You needn't be, you know. Take care of yourself and come back soon. Take good care: I don't want you as a patient."

  "I defy the law of gravity every day. There's no reason why the next couple of weeks should be specially dicey.''

  She took his face between her hands and kissed him with a special sweetness. "Whom d'you think you're kidding, Buster?"

  "I must stop taking you to American movies."

  *

  Flt. Lt. Anstey assumed leadership as a matter of course, like his Commanding Officer. Sqdn. Ldr. Grimes took it for granted because he was in direct line of descent from eight generations who had sat in the House of Lords. Anstey assumed it as naturally because he was the third generation of a family line which had achieved wealth through commercial success. His grandfather had founded a firm of jam and pickle manufacturers and sent his children to expensive schools. His eldest son was Anstey's father, who had duly sent Joe to be educated at his own alma mater. Grandfather Anstey had been a tough Midlander who passed on his toughness to succeeding generations. Inherited authority and a solid fortune gave Joe Anstey as much self-confidence as ancient lineage and an even greater fortune gave to Lord John Grimes.

  Anstey relished responsibility and was looking forward to commanding the detachment on Bardoc.

  He had gone straight from school into the family business, agreeing with his father that three years at Oxford or Cambridge would be a waste of time. It would have been different if he were an outstanding sportsman with good prospects of a Blue, or academically gifted. As it was, he was keen to enter the adult world and begin training for the time when he would eventually take over as managing director.

  The day after the order to take a detachment to Bardoc kept him busier than he had ever been. But he had time to reflect, as he had been doing for most of his waking hours during the past twenty-four, on the quality of the men who were going with him.

  Robin Truscott was a good navigator and a brave man. Like Anstey, he was a volunteer. There was a certain misleading weakness about his fair good looks, but although he tended to follow any leader too readily, he was reliable and determined. He had completed his second year at Oxford, reading mathematics, when war was declared, but did not stay to finish his degree: that was his first post­war objective and he often said ruefully that it would probably take him two more years instead of one, because he had forgotten so much.

  Middleton and Tindall were a first class crew about whom Anstey had no worries.

  Charlie Teoh's flying was sometime erratic but he showed dash and courage; and his unwavering cheerfulness was as great an asset in difficult times as skill. He had gone to a lot of trouble and expense to come to England from Hong Kong at the beginning of the war. The only depression to which he ever admitted was concern for what the Japanese may have done to his parents and the rest of his family.

  Harry Tunks was a good partner for him: almost as short as his pilot, he was also blessed with a jolly disposition. He had barely started work as a sixteen-year-old clerk in London Docks when the war began; and, as he lived in the East End as well as worked there, had experienced the worst of the blitz. Two years later he was conscripted. Like Tindall, he had served for a couple of years as a sergeant before being commissioned. His cockney pugnacity complemented Teoh's dash and, though it was unnecessary, he always urged him to, as he said, "'ave a gao". He detested Germans, with whom he felt he had a personal score to settle for what they had done to London.

  Bradley was an uninspiring, colourless person, but reliable and conscientious. He did everything that duty demanded, if with an excess of caution, but was basically dedicated to surviving the war and returning to his dull post behind a bank counter.

  His navigator, Aziz, was of a very different kind, but the two of them worked in harmony. Aziz had been educated in England and had come down from Cambridge as the war was about to happen. At the university he had won a Blue for hockey and nearly got another for cricket. In the intervals of striking various sorts of ball, for he was a good racquets and squash player as well, he had read modern languages. He had volunteered to be a pilot but failed at advanced flying training school: although perfectly co-ordinated, he never got the real feel of an aeroplane. He had counted himself lucky to be allowed to remuster to navigator.

  Anstey's crews therefore comprised six volunteers and two conscripts. Three were married men; himself, Bradley and Tindall: the first two with a child apiece.

  It was an averagely constituted fighting force, with the advantage of two years' service together in North Africa and Italy. Anstey had no qualms about its effectiveness.

  He had been told to select the ground component himself. The forthright Flight Sergeant Tucker was an obvious choice; the best type of old style flight mechanic, who imposed discipline by example. Together they had chosen four fitters, four riggers, two armourers, a wireless mechanic, an instrument repairer, and six aircrafthands. There were also two cooks, a medical orderly, two clerks, two wireless operators and two radio-telephone operators.

  The squadron commander had detailed Hargreaves and Grummit as medical and Intelligence officers, and there was also an operations controller.

  Finally there was the R.A.F. Regiment section. Pilot Officer Foster, in command, filled Anstey with a certain amount of apprehension; he was so keen. Foster had a manifest touch of the bloodthirsty about him. His ambition to serve as aircrew, in any capacity, had been frustrated: he was long-sighted and his visual standard fell slightly below the mark for pilot, navigator, air gunner, bomb aimer or flight engineer. He had volunteered ferociously for flying duties as soon as he left school at eighteen, and served for three years as a frustrated wireless operator on bomber stations, rising to corporal. He had leaped at the opportunity to join the Regiment and was alarmingly keen to get at the enemy's throat. Anstey could see that he would welcome any attempt by the Germans to invade Bardoc.

  He was lanky and pink-cheeked, with the glinting eyes of a zealot, and fanatically athletic. His very short haircut and Roman nose gave him a frighteningly military look. When taking part in battle exercises he tied a leather boot lace to the sides of his steel-rimmed glasses and around the back of his cropped skull.

  When Tommy Tindall had taken stock of him, he paraphrased the Duke of Wellington to the delighted youth: "I don't know whether you'll frighten the enemy, chum, but you bloody well frighten me." And said to Middleton later: "I think yon Foster reckons he's Errol Flynn."

  Under Foster were a sergeant who looked dour and capable, a corporal who blinked constantly and eight morose and uneasy-looking young airmen.

  At sunset on the night of the big briefing a party of Royal Engineers had gone o Bardoc to lay prepared steel plate, sections of linked metal pierced for lightness, on a grass airstrip that had been occasionally used by light aircraft before the war, and until two years ago by the Germans as an emergency landing ground. The p.s.p. was being laid to form a runway only twice the width of a Beaufighter's landing wheels and as short as consistent with minimum safety. There was no time to do mor
e. Beaufighters were notorious for their vicious swing to the left on take-off. Flying in and out would not be without its problems.

  The ground officers and men of the detachment were to sail at sunset forty-eight hours later in a tank landing craft, taking with them Grummitt's mobile surgery and a jeep. They were accompanied by a second landing craft loaded with equipment and stores.

  Anstey was to lead his four aircraft in at first light the next morning.

  Six

  von Trampel conducted his life with a measure of Teutonic inflexibility, although he was by no means the archetypical square headed caricature German officer. He had always been thin, and since his wounding had become gaunt, which made him seem taller than his five feet ten inches. His head was narrow and his face aquiline. He looked austere but was not devoid of a sense of humour, although it was not of a kind shared by everyone; but he had been the only member of his family who really appreciated Nanny Mcleod's caustic wit.

  He had a rigid sense of what was fitting for an officer of the Imperial Fleet, and his habits, which he mistakenly thought were hobbies, gave him less true pleasure in themselves than in the recognition that by practising them he was behaving correctly. He had adopted them because they were appropriate, and not from genuine interest. Naval command meant solitude, so he had always carried a small library of the classics in German, English and French. He listened to music because a gramophone beguiled many lonely hours; and chose classical music because he had been brought up to it and believed that it was the right taste for a gentleman. He bought paintings of seascapes because they were suitable to his profession and he felt that, as a mariner, he was automatically an authority on maritime art. He collected books on, and studied, fish because he had abundant opportunities to catch or observe them. Moreover on holidays in Scotland since boyhood he had been taught to use a rod. He also made a study of sea birds. He was at least a logical man.

  At Taf he had the consolation of music and literature, but admitted to himself that neither compared favourably with the alleviation of his lonely lot which he obtained from Eva. The comparison reminded him of a story told by a jocund British naval officer he had met on a visit to Portsmouth, about the vicar who admitted that he would give the whole of Genesis and Exodus and most of Leviticus for the inch and a half above the top of a chorus girl's stocking. At the time, von Trampel had not quite understood the significance of the joke, which had caused great mirth among the other British officers. But now he understood what it was all about; and endorsed it, if reluctantly: for he still felt he ought to get more pleasure from music, painting and literature, marine life and bird watching, than from a woman's body. His preference for carnality over the classics implied both a lack of culture and a weakness and he was not sure which he resented more.