The Shadow of War

by Jack Murray

  They arrived at Abby’s flat. It was building that would have been fortunate to have been labelled non-descript such was its unsightliness.

  ‘Nice place,’ lied Danny with a grin.

  ‘Don’t you start,’ replied Abby punched him lightly on the arm.

  ‘Well this is it, then, Abby.’ Danny was about to launch into a short speech about how he should get back to his hotel. More flannel. He didn’t want the night to be over, but he also wanted Abby to feel safe. The speech was cut short as Abby kissed him. Abby smiled up at him and took his hand.

  ‘It’s just as nice inside.’

  6

  Liverpool, England: June 1941

  ‘So, this is it,’ said Arthur, sitting across from Danny, Bob and Phil Lawrence. Two weeks had elapsed since their return to London. Now they were all sat in a train carriage destined for Liverpool. They would take a ship from Liverpool to North Africa. Where else? The Germans were besieging Tobruk. The Allies were on the run. All of the ground won against the Italians was being lost. Yes, it was North Africa. All knew.

  The train journey took around five hours. Arthur and Danny played a song pun game to pass the time.

  ‘What’s the song where dogs are shouting at birds?’

  ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square,’ replied Arthur triumphantly.

  ‘Swine.’

  ‘What’s the song of a naked woman banging on the door of a house?’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Danny, completely at a loss.’

  ‘Love Locked Out,’ cackled Arthur. This raised a laugh around the carriage, including from Bob.

  The hours passed quickly for Danny and Arthur and even more quickly for Bob. He smiled along with the jokes and even threw in a few comments himself, but his eyes were vacant. Danny knew him well enough to know his friend was petrified. The knuckle-white grip on the seat told its own story.

  Every so often Bob would go for a walk into the corridor. It was all Danny could do to stop himself following his friend. His fear was that Bob would try to jump out from the moving train. He knew that to follow him would have been to betray him. But was staying in the carriage not a greater betrayal? If something happened, Danny knew his despair would be great, his sin greater still.

  As they neared Liverpool, Bob rose from his seat and walked into the corridor. By now Danny’s level of discomfort was overpowering. He had a sense that something was about to happen. This feeling crept into his mind, invaded his conscience and overpowered his guilt.

  He had to check.

  He rose abruptly from his seat. All at once Arthur got up too. The two men looked at one another.

  ‘Yeah mate, I don’t like this either,’ said Arthur.

  They walked out into the corridor, past a few soldiers smoking beside the open windows and through to the next carriage. There was no sign of Bob. The two friends glanced at one another. Danny pointed in the opposite direction. Arthur nodded and set off looking for Bob. Reaching the end of the next carriage, Danny crossed over into the second last carriage.

  There was no sign of Bob.

  Only one carriage remained and then he would be at the back of the train. Danny walked rapidly down the corridor, slowed only by soldiers standing by windows smoking. The train began to slow down as it travelled through Liverpool. Danny could see glimpses of the sea between the buildings. Only a few minutes more and they would be boarding the ship.

  The last carriage was less crowded, and Danny made rapid progress. He reached the last compartment. Bob wasn’t there. Danny cursed and began to retrace his footsteps. Perhaps he had just gone to the toilet. He made his way quickly back to where he had separated from Arthur. Arriving at the carriage, he saw Arthur standing outside their compartment. He caught Arthur’s eyes. It was there. Desolation.

  Danny ran forward, ‘What happened?’

  Arthur held Danny back from going ahead.

  ‘You can’t do anything, Danny. The doctor’s there.’

  ‘Doctor?’ said Danny wildly.

  The train came to a halt.

  ‘He’s been shot.’

  ‘Shot? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Do you remember Nelson? Young lad from the Midlands. He and Bob always used to hang around one another. They must have had a pact. Nelson shot himself in the leg, but the idiot had it on automatic. It’s a mess. Bob caught it bad.

  There was no time to explain and further. An officer came along the corridor calling for the men to disembark. Danny returned to the carriage feeling sick. He desperately wanted to see Bob. He grabbed his belongings from the overhead shelf and followed Arthur quickly onto the platform.

  The whole of the platform was a chaos of green uniforms. Danny turned as he heard the shouts of officers, all running around like scared jack-rabbits giving orders to soldiers who weren’t listening. In the distance, Danny saw two stretchers being loaded onto a waiting ambulance. Danny caught a glimpse of Bob. He was unconscious. He looked around for a way of getting to the ambulance but his pathway to the vehicle was blocked. Then he felt a hand on his arm. It was Arthur. Beside him was Phil Lawrence.

  ‘Leave it, Danny, there’s nothing you can do,’ said Lawrence. Danny resisted for a moment. ‘That’s an order, Danny,’ continued Lawrence gently.

  Danny knew his friends were right. His body slumped. Arthur patted his back. They looked at one another for a few moments. Then a sergeant came along and started to organise the soldiers in Danny’s section. A few minutes later, they were marching from Lime Street station towards the docks. As they neared the waterfront, they could see the mutilated buildings. The devastation caused by the heavy bombing over the last few months. Up ahead they saw the troopship. It was painted black. Arthur glanced at Danny.

  ‘Welcome to hell.’

  Danny smiled but his heart wasn’t in it. The image of Bob, on a stretcher, being loaded like the ambulance, rose before his eyes. He was desperate to know the extent of the injuries. There was no question about what had happened. If he recovered, he would probably be imprisoned. Worse, he would have to live with what he had done for the rest of his life. But hopefully he would live. Hopefully Bob would survive the war. Would he, though? The idea of death rose from time to time in his mind. Normally, it was fleeting. A momentary lapse in his defences. Right now, it no longer felt like an abstract idea. It was real and, with each passing day, its presence was coming closer. He shivered in the cold air.

  Fear was something he’d always been aware of. But it felt like something independent of him. It was not tangible, yet it had a presence except as a shadow in the eyes of a man, in the colour of his skin, in the involuntary shake of his hand. Fear was something you felt. But only sometimes and never for long. Never did you think about it or try to trace its source. It was there somewhere. Lurking; smiling at you. Waiting for a moment to make itself known. Then, it would strike; rippling through your body and laying siege to your mind. Poor Bob. He’d known what he was going to do for a long time probably. To have lived with the knowledge of what he was going to do and, then, to have carried it out. This had taken courage. At that moment Danny realised that courage and fear exist alongside one another. One is a prerequisite for the other. He closed his eyes and offered up a long forgotten prayer to his friend and to himself.

  Night was drawing in and he felt an icy wind beat into Danny’s face. He walked up the gangplank staring at the shiny black steel of the ship. A few lights danced on the murky water below. His body shuddered again; he was impatient, now, to get into the warmth of the ship. Apprehension gripped him. He turned and looked behind him. Phil Lawrence was grim-faced. Arthur, too. They nodded to one another as they reached the top of the gang plank.

  The ship’s bosun met them.

  ‘What Regiment?’

  They told him.

  ‘H Deck,’ said the Bosun not looking up from his clipboard.

  The three men followed other soldiers towards a hatch. As they arrived, Lawrence touched Danny’s arm and he and Arthur stop
ped and looked out at Liverpool. The scene below on the quay was chaotic. Hundreds of soldiers were queuing to go up the gangplank. To their right they saw a tank being loaded onto the ship by enormous crane.

  ‘This is it, boys,’ said Lawrence.

  ‘It is,’ agreed Arthur, drawing on a cigarette.

  They stayed for a few minutes, impelled to watch the scene below; imprinting it on their memories. This would be their last view of England for a long time.

  Perhaps ever.

  Chapter 8: Italy 194 1

  1

  Naples, Italy: July1941

  Naples was a kind of heaven decided Manfred. Sure it was a little too hot. The evident poverty could be overpowering at times and the looks on the faces of the Neapolitans at no point suggested they were welcome, but still…

  Naples was a place that the romantic in Manfred could not deny. It was as if God had spread a marine-coloured quilt across the bay, banned clouds from the sky, insisted that music rather than words be spoken, that girls be dark and alluring, that food should be a form of communication not just nutrition. Manfred and Gerhardt tried everything the city had to offer.

  ‘If I live through this, I’m going to live here, Manfred,’ said Gerhardt pointing to the Teatro di San Carlo, the opera house located in Piazza del Plebiscito. Manfred looked at him strangely. ‘Well, not exactly there. You know what I mean.’

  The two boys laughed and ordered another coffee. They were sitting in mute wonder outside a bar watching the world pass them. The most important decisions they had to take that day were what to eat and then were to find female company before they headed out to North Africa the following morning.

  ‘How about we desert?’ suggested Manfred as yet another beautiful young woman passed them on the street. He was only half joking.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Gerhardt, who’d noticed where Manfred’s eyes had been fixed. ‘Let’s desert.’

  -

  Manfred looked across the Mediterranean Sea. The coastline of Sardinia had long since disappeared from view. It was early afternoon. Waves sucked and seethed beneath the stern. A blustery wind grabbed water and hurled it into the air like sugar being thrown at a children’s party. The sky was a pale chrome yellow with hints of pink flush. For Manfred, the Mediterranean skies offered infinite varieties of colour and tone. No wonder artists had flocked to the Cote d’Azur, he thought. He sucked in the salty air and let the wind cleanse his face.

  This was the second day aboard ship. The texture of the sea and its colour was permanently in flux. The evening before they had left Naples it was a pastel blue sheen, unmarked, chaste almost, reflected against a pale purple sky. This morning, hundreds of miles out from Italy, it was angrier. The turbulence made the water corrugated. This created a rolling rhythm that changed the colour of the sea, sometimes bottle-green, sometimes black and grey. In the distance there were patches of cerulean blue. Manfred was mesmerised by the colours.

  The first morning had brought a welcome reunion with Lothar. He had also been sent for additional training on tank mechanics. Of Mathias, nothing was known. The friends assumed he was probably in North Africa. This was their destination, also. They speculated on the chances of meeting him again.

  ‘He’s dead now,’ said Lothar. ‘He was never meant to fight. Poor guy.’

  Then he shrugged a well-you-know-it’s-the-truth shrug. They all laughed but inside no one doubted it was true. More of life is determined in the womb than we would like to think. This is not just physical or even intellectual inheritance. Mathias was the son of a university professor. He looked it. He was no Aryan ideal. Too smart, too soft and too weak. Tommy would find him out.

  Gerhardt clipped Lothar on the head with his cap. They all laughed. The unkindness of the remark was lost in a greater reality. They were all going to face the same dangers as Mathias. Whatever physical edge the other boys felt they had it would almost certainly be lost amidst the physical vastness of the desert, the ferocity of the enemy and the appalling anarchy of war.

  Beside Lothar was a young man called Sepp. Lothar had befriended him at the last camp they were stationed. He was from a village south of Dresden. In many ways, he was like Lothar. Short, squat and, as Gerhardt had pointed out to Manfred, not the brightest. However, his open smile and manner had instantly appealed to the two boys.

  ‘It could get stormy,’ said Sepp,

  ‘What would you know, country boy,’ mocked Gerhardt, good-naturedly.

  Sepp looked unhappy. He looked up at the sky and said, ‘I heard one of the crew say this. Let’s see how much you’re laughing when the sea whips up.’

  Another recruit, Christian, whom they had met at the officer training was already looking green. Christian was quiet-spoken and seemed a mass of contradictions. Bright to the point where anything he said sounded more arrogant than helpful, he was rescued from being ostracised by a cynicism that was as funny as it was reckless. He never referred to Hitler as anything other than ‘the corporal’. This recklessness was calculated, however. He never made this reference in the presence of senior officers.

  Gerhardt glanced at their friend and then back to Sepp and Manfred, ‘I think one of us is ready to go.’

  The two boys laughed, albeit nervously. The prospect of being on a ship in the Mediterranean Sea was dangerous enough without the weather adding complications to their journey.

  ‘That’s all we need,’ said Christian, to no one in particular.

  ‘Cheer up,’ replied Manfred, we’ll be there by tomorrow morning.

  ‘Oh great, I was worried for a minute there,’ responded Christian sardonically. ‘I’m going back down below. Wake me when the war is over.’

  Manfred stayed on deck and watched as the sky slowly changed from pastel to grey. Clouds lolled into view one after another until they formed an unbroken grey ceiling. By late afternoon this had become a grey-black stucco. Heavy, unyielding – a promise of trouble. The sea changed also.

  The gentle pitch had become something steeper. Waves rose menacingly, slapping over the side onto the deck. The rain had been released from the pregnant clouds. Sky and sea became one. Manfred watched all of this enthralled. It only occurred to him that he was feeling unwell when he saw a few of his comrades rush onto the desk to throw up. Soon the deck was covered in sea water and vomit.

  Manfred went below deck hoping against hope that having something to eat might settle his stomach. The galley was empty save for a few hardy souls intent on showing off their strong stomachs and sea legs. He walked over to one soldier who was in a hammock near to his.

  ‘What are they serving?’

  ‘Nothing hot. Apparently, the cook can’t keep the pans on the stove,’ replied the soldier.

  Manfred nodded and went to collect a tray. He returned a few minutes later with sausage and some bread.

  ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  ‘Go ahead. Johann Kupsch,’ said the young man holding out his hand.

  ‘Manfred Brehme. You seem all right,’ said Manfred glancing seaward.

  ‘I sail. At least I used to sail. Before all this.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Manfred genuinely interested.

  ‘Hamburg. It could be stormy there also,’ said Kupsch. He was slightly older than Manfred, very much the Aryan ideal. Like Manfred, he was a Fahnenjunker. Manfred looked down at his food. It was as unappetising a meal as he had ever seen, but he was committed now. He sensed the eyes of Kupsch on him. To turn back now would have been ignominious. He lifted the sausage and began to eat. Bile rose immediately in his stomach and he fought hard to keep it down.

  He glanced up at Kupsch who had an amused look in his eye.

  ‘Enjoying it?’

  ‘No,’ replied Manfred truthfully, putting down the sausage with something approaching relief.

  ‘You did well.’

  ‘Thanks. Doesn’t feel like it though.’

  However, Manfred was quite pleased at the comment and risked another bite of the sausage. He lifted
it up mechanically and did not look at it. This seemed to help, and he was able to swallow it without the desire to gag.

  A sudden pitch in the ship had the two young men clutching their trays. Both burst out laughing. The ship was now swooping, soaring then plunging in an endless cycle. Manfred accepted it was only a matter of time before he joined the others atop.

  ‘One good thing from all of this, though,’ pointed out Kupsch.

  Manfred looked up querulously. What could possibly be good about what he was feeling at that moment, he wondered?

  Kupsch smiled at Manfred’s reaction before continuing, ‘The British will hardly send any planes out in this. Maybe we can get to Tripoli without being attacked.’

  This was cold comfort but yet it made sense. It was an awful trade off, though: feeling like death on this ship or risking death in more clement weather if it meant running the gauntlet of RAF patrols from Malta.

  They parted a few minutes later. Manfred made his way below deck. He moved along the corridor like Charlie Chaplin, rolling and bumping against the walls; against the poor souls who had been unable to make it above and conducted their business in the corridor. The stench was horrible. There was little Manfred could do for them when he was feeling every bit as bad.

  He headed into the large area below deck where his hammock hung alongside Gerhardt’s. He saw his friend lying there, dead seemingly or, more likely, wishing to be so. Just behind Gerhardt lay Sepp. He was wide awake. He looked at Manfred. He could neither disguise the terror he felt as the waves crashed against the side of the ship nor the nausea. Moments later he turned away and retched on the other side of his hammock. A few other recruits made half-hearted efforts at complaint.

  With an enormous effort of will, Manfred levered himself up into the hammock and shut his eyes, praying to a God he barely believed in for some respite.