Waiting For the Day

by Leslie Thomas

  Neither Gino nor Weber was sure what a Dak was. ‘The aircraft,’ said Butterfield, sensing their uncertainty and pointing upwards. He sniffed. ‘Real good guys, all of them.’

  ‘There are a lot of good guys,’ said Gino thoughtfully. ‘Millions.’

  ‘Missing,’ agreed Weber. ‘Everywhere.’

  Gino tugged the oars. Weber said: ‘We didn’t see any plane crashing.’

  ‘It crashed all right,’ said Butterfield. ‘God-dam Messerschmitt got us. I’m married, you know. So were two of the others.’

  ‘I didn’t know we had even one Messerschmitt in these parts.’ Weber shook his head. ‘He must have come in on the quiet. We heard some bangs but we thought it was at the quarry.’

  ‘They get a lot of stone from the quarry,’ put in Gino. ‘They use it for gravestones.’

  Butterfield looked distraught and cold. Weber put a sheet of canvas around his shoulders. The airman gazed about him at the blinking sea and then considered his two rescuers. ‘We were unarmed,’ he said. ‘Some crazy officer thought it was a good idea to fly us over here. To give us experience, he said. Experience of what?’ He looked appealingly at Weber. ‘What happens to me now?’

  Weber shrugged. ‘You can’t escape. You will have a nice time as a prisoner until the war is over. Which won’t be very long, the way things are going.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Butterfield. ‘Where will they put me?’

  Again Weber shrugged.

  ‘Try and avoid Berlin,’ said Gino.

  They reached the harbour mouth. There was a military ambulance on the quay and a group of soldiers with rifles. Butterfield’s eyes were frightened but Gino said: ‘Nobody’s going to shoot you. There are rules.’

  They reached the seaweed-covered slipway and the soldiers moved to meet them with two men bearing a stretcher. Everyone was eager to join in. A group of civilians stood at a short distance, mostly women, and they began to applaud as Butterfield was helped from the boat. The sergeant in charge of the soldiers glanced at them but a woman shouted: ‘Well done the Jerries,’ which eased his doubts.

  Although he protested that he did not need the stretcher, Butterfield, in his sodden flying suit, was laid on it and carried up the slipway to the ambulance. He half sat up, water draining from him, and waved gratefully at Weber and Gino who tenuously waved back. ‘Out of the war,’ said Weber. ‘Lucky boy.’

  They went back to moor the boat and take out the fishing tackle. The three fish they had caught that morning they gave to the civilians who appeared disgruntled that the catch was so small.

  ‘This is the last time I shall see this boat,’ said Weber lugubriously. ‘Tomorrow, maybe, I go. Remember how we found it here? After the war the owner will come back for it.’

  ‘They won’t let me take it out alone,’ grumbled Gino. ‘They’ll think I’m rowing to England. And, in any case, it would never be the same without you, Fred.’

  Impulsively, emotionally, they shook hands. ‘Where my duty takes me, I must go,’ recited Weber, making a long face. ‘Who otherwise will cook my general’s food?’ Sadly they began to walk up the slipway and Weber turned and saluted the boat. He then glanced sideways at Gino. ‘You perhaps could come to,’ he said shyly.

  Gino at first looked shocked. ‘But France, Fred? It’s soon going to be a battlefield. And I’m a civilian, a neutral. Italy surrendered two years ago.’

  ‘Best thing you can be in a battle,’ said Weber. ‘A neutral. You can hedge your bets. And there’s a little port not far away from my posting. There must be some fishing. As good as here maybe. I think I can fix it, you know. I’ll tell the general that we always work together. See what happens.’

  That night, when the occupying officers had eaten dinner and gone to their quarters, Gino was sitting alone in the kitchen; the women washers-up had all gone home. He had just opened a bottle of schnapps at their thick table when Weber appeared. ‘In ten minutes I have to see the general,’ he said. ‘He wants a bedtime drink.’

  ‘This stuff?’ asked Gino, picking up the schnapps bottle and thumping it lightly on the bare table.

  ‘Ovaltine,’ corrected Weber. ‘The English drink it. He had never heard of it until he came to Jersey but there was a store of the stuff in tins and he likes it sometimes. He says it helps him to sleep.’ He got to the point. ‘Do you want to come to France with me or not?’

  ‘Fred, my family …’

  ‘You haven’t got a family.’

  ‘In Italy. If I died in the fighting they would miss me.’

  ‘You haven’t seen them for years. A couple of old aunties.’

  Weber took the bottle and poured a glass each. ‘All right, Fred,’ said Gino with a thoughtful sigh. They shook hands. ‘See what he says. Whatever he decides, I will do. Why don’t you go now and get it over with.’

  Weber nodded and as part of the movement he swallowed the rest of his schnapps. He stood up as straight as he could, smoothed down his mess uniform and with a mocking and silent ‘Sieg Heil!’ with his single right-hand finger went from the room.

  ‘Sieg Heil,’ muttered Gino. He glanced around. ‘Bloody Hitler. It’s all his fault. And bloody Mussolini.’

  The evenings were very light now. It was May and outside the kitchen window there was a remaining glow in the sky. He wondered what being in a battle was like, if there would be places to hide. War was hell.

  Weber came back after ten minutes. ‘We must have a toast,’ he said triumphantly. ‘We are both going to France.’

  Gino’s heart fell and rose in almost the same movement. ‘You fixed it,’ he said flatly. ‘How did you do it, Fred?’

  ‘At first he would not hear of it. But then he said okay. I told him we were lovers.’

  At dusk the next day they went to the port, Weber in his Wehrmacht uniform and with his army kitbag, and Gino wearing his shabby best blue suit and carrying his once-smart suitcase. They looked down from the jetty at the bulky tugboat flying the French tricolour. ‘At least she’s flying the right flag,’ said Weber. ‘Keep the British away.’

  ‘In their hearts the British still like the French,’ agreed Gino. ‘Even if the French do not return the compliment.’

  A fussy St Helier port official with an extravagant badge on his cap told them to wait before boarding the tug. He was a Jersey man, his accent curiously South African. There was another important passenger. They watched as he arrived, with an armed escort in a military truck.

  ‘The American,’ smiled Gino. ‘He is coming too.’

  Weber shrugged. ‘There is nowhere to keep prisoners here, except in the prison. And you cannot put a man captured in a war in a common prison. That is for criminals. So the Yankee comes with us to France.’

  Butterfield was confused as he climbed from the car and he did not immediately realise who they were. He was wearing a grey boiler suit with a large orange circle on the back. They moved towards him and almost formally introduced themselves. ‘You guys,’ he breathed. ‘You saved my life. Thank you.’

  They laughed and said it was nothing. The two guards were concerned with getting their own kit aboard the tug so all three of them shook hands. ‘I think I’d rather stay here,’ said Butterfield, looking about him. ‘It seems a real nice little place.’ His face remained sad. ‘The plane crashed in the sea,’ he said. ‘And they didn’t pick up anybody.’

  Gino asked: ‘Did they give you plenty to eat?’

  ‘Enough,’ corrected Weber. ‘Nobody gets plenty these days.’

  ‘Fine. I did okay. I hope my wife gets to hear I’m alive. A Red Cross guy came to see me and said he would make sure she got news. And the fellas at my squadron as well. I don’t want them sending letters to her.’

  He peered over the edge of the jetty and saw the tugboat for the first time. ‘Good and strong,’ he said.

  ‘And she flies the French flag,’ added Weber. ‘It will stop your friends from bombing you.’

  Their conversation was halted by the arrival of a
motor hearse. It stopped and the harbour official directed the driver further down the quay. The escort soldiers came to polite attention.

  ‘This man was very important in Rouen,’ said the official. ‘He died when he was taking a vacation here. So now he goes home.’

  ‘Nice coffin,’ said Weber.

  ‘The coffin supplies are going down like everything else,’ said the official. ‘This must be one of the last.’

  Weber suddenly realised. ‘He’s not coming with us, is he? On this boat?’

  The harbour man shook his head. ‘No, no. The crew won’t have him. A cadaver is bad luck. He is going on the barge the tug will be towing.’ He pointed.

  ‘With the dead wagon, by the look of it,’ said Butterfield, joining in. ‘That’s quaint. The funeral car’s going too.’

  Gino said: ‘They could not just put the coffin on. Not by itself. That is no respect.’ They watched the hearse slowly descend the open ramp at the front of the barge.

  There was a man standing near, so unkempt they thought he was some harbour tramp until the official saluted him and told the others he was the tugboat captain.

  ‘Cargo,’ the captain said. His name was Henri and he was smoking what seemed to be a sliver of brown paper which stuck to the corner of his mouth. ‘We come in with cargo and we go out with cargo.’ He indicated for them to follow him and the entire party, including Butterfield and the escorts, went a hundred yards and looked down into the barge. The hearse, with the lid of its coffin in view, was now settled on the deep deck, separated from the rest of the cargo by a wall of wooden crates.

  There were two damaged military vehicles, several motorcycles, and among the pile of crates a rough cage containing a big, restless, black dog. A solemn man climbed a ladder from the interior of the barge. His suit had been pressed so many times it was almost threadbare, his black tie creased and his white collar frayed. He patted the hearse fondly when he was at roof level.

  ‘Take good care, captain,’ he said in his Jersey accent.

  ‘He won’t be seasick,’ said Henri in familiar English.

  The man said: ‘I mean the hearse, captain. We only have two now and the other one has to be pulled by a horse.’

  Gino said: ‘I have seen it. Very pretty.’

  ‘The horse keeps dropping his dollops on the bonnet of the car.’

  The captain said: ‘If you’re worried about your car, why don’t you come with us?’

  The black-suited man looked shocked. ‘Out there? You’d be lucky. I don’t mind death, I’m used to it. It’s dying I can’t stand.’

  He went off at a quick shuffle. Henri sniffed the dusky air and as though he had received a signal in this way he indicated that they should follow him back to the tug, down the gangway and on to the deck. The harbour official saluted them as they went. ‘Best of luck,’ he said.

  *

  Everything aboard the tug stank of leaking engine oil. In the main cabin, optimistically called the salon, there was a bottle of Armagnac on the round and rough central table and a dozen greasy glasses. A pygmy-sized black man busily filled the glasses. When the captain nodded to him curtly he went out and returned with some pig’s trotters and bread.

  They grouped around the table, crowded into the grubby dimness. There were Weber and Gino, Butterfield, less downcast than he had been, the two German guards who had only talked between themselves, and a primitive-looking ship’s engineer.

  Henri the captain said: ‘Because nobody here is French but you all understand some English, except the two Hun guards,’ he glanced disparagingly towards them, ‘I will speak in English. I worked for twenty years in England. Folkestone.’ He raised the first glass. The black man was standing near the door, also holding a glass. They all raised their drinks. Butterfield choked over his.

  ‘We must have a lifeboat drill,’ Henri continued. ‘Because the maritime regulations say so when passengers are aboard. Well, my advice is, in an emergency, to keep away from the lifeboats. They cannot be used because of woodworm and rust. There is a small boat on deck, a jolly boat, which will float free if the ship sinks, but the chief engineer here and our two deck-hands sleep very near to it and would be the first in it, followed close behind by me.’ He raised a congratulatory toast to the uncouth engineer who responded and then grimaced about him as if he was prepared for anyone who argued.

  ‘There is a locker on deck, near the gangway,’ continued the captain. ‘It contains life-jackets but only some are in good condition, very few in fact, so I think that you should go to the locker after this and each search out a suitable one, no holes.’

  He drained his glass. The black man wriggled his way through and refilled it and the others’, whether or not they had been finished. ‘Are we expecting trouble, captain?’ The voice was Butterfield’s. ‘Could we be attacked?’

  Henri shrugged. ‘Oh, I hope not, Mr Yankee. We fly the French flag and if an aeroplane tries to attack us we will wave white flags also. Like hell. It is a pity that you do not have a spare Stars and Stripes with you. They would take some notice of that.’

  ‘I don’t carry one,’ said Butterfield.

  Henri went on: ‘The danger on this voyage is not from the sky. The British and the Americans know we sail between St Malo and Jersey once a week and they have never attacked us yet. If they see us they flap their wings. No, the danger is from little things that cannot see our flags. They have no eyes, only pricks. All over them. I am talking about mines, round things with spikes. Big regions of la Manche, the English Channel, are laid with these mines, British and German. There is a swept passage near the French coast which is free and this is the way we go. That is why it takes so long. But there is always the risk of some drifting mine finding us. And we must know this.’

  ‘How will we know?’ enquired Gino nervously. ‘There is some warning?’

  ‘There is a fucking great bang,’ said the captain.

  *

  Late that night in the shadowed salon they began to play cards. Outside it was calm. The cook had produced a prodigious cauldron of cassoulet, thick with everything, and they had emptied the dish, the German guards gobbling three helpings each and then scraping the iron container. They drank a lot of vin ordinaire and two more bottles of Armagnac. Butterfield produced a roll of American one-dollar notes and one five-dollar note which caused the others around the table to gaze at him and ask to examine the money.

  ‘The dough got caught in my boot,’ he said, smiling a little. ‘The guards just didn’t find it.’

  The German soldiers asked to hold one green note and having done so and examined it, returned it with deference. Henri put some grisly francs on the table and the chief engineer produced a filthy bundle of money from various countries, some of it current. One of the guards played for both of them because they did not have enough Jersey occupation notes to play singly. Gino shrugged that he did not know how to play and he went with Weber up to the deck and into the mild but misty night.

  The sea was slopping indolently against the hull of the lumbering tug, the mist hung around them like a shroud, and they could hear the dog barking aboard the barge rolling invisibly behind.

  Below decks the captain had just said: ‘Pontoon,’ with quiet triumph. He laid the cards down and added: ‘Vingt-et-un,’ to make himself fully understood. As if slapping the king and ace on the table had triggered it, there was a huge explosion which tipped the vessel sideways and sent a cannon-ball of flame through its hull. None of them had time to scream.

  On deck, Weber and Gino were flung to the rail and then overboard as the ship staggered sideways into the water. Both were stunned but the coldness of the sea jerked them back to consciousness. They were splashing around in a circle. They could both swim but Gino not well, having last been in the sea at San Remo in 1938.

  The tug was on fire amidships. They watched, stupefied, as the burning bridge collapsed, making the sea steam. Weber caught hold of Gino and they hung together desperately in the small waves.
Then they saw the empty jolly boat from the deck, bobbing towards them through the fog as if wanting to help.

  Neither man ever remembered how they managed, gasping as they were, to get over the low side of the boat. Weber slid aboard on his belly and sucking in air got Gino over the side too. They lay sobbing in the bottom of the craft for several minutes before Weber managed to straighten himself and pull himself upright. He tugged at the Italian until he was able to sit up also. ‘He said it would be a big bang,’ shivered Gino.

  There was a locker at the bow of the boat. Gino opened it and pulled out two blankets and a half-bottle of Scotch. They thanked God, individually and together, wrapped themselves in the blankets and swigged the Scotch.

  They drank half each. It warmed them as much as the blankets. Softly and sadly Fred Weber began to sing:

  ‘Auf einem Seemannsgrab,

  da blühen keine Rosen …’

  Gino regarded him dolefully and said: ‘I wish you wouldn’t sing that.’

  Nothing could be seen of the tugboat now, only pieces of wood, some smouldering, lying on the water. Then they saw Butterfield. There was no mistaking his fair hair and the bulk of his body. ‘The Yankee,’ said Weber. ‘Get him out.’

  There were no oars in the boat and they manoeuvred it with their hands until they had reached the young man. ‘Don’t spill us over,’ warned Weber as they got their hands under his armpits. Then, as an aside: ‘Every day we seem to be getting this man out of the water.’

  But this time they were too late. He was really dead now and they let him slip back into the sea. ‘Now his wife will get another message,’ said Gino. There was no sign of anyone else.

  They sat, sad and shivering, beneath the blankets in the small, bobbing boat. It was like the times they had spent fishing, although they were happier then. Then the boat began to leak.

  The water came in regularly. ‘Another half an hour and we will be swimming,’ said Weber. ‘Bail with our shoes.’ He looked at Gino’s flimsy pre-war footwear. Use mine. They will hold more.’

  He took off his German Army boots and they began to bail, although some water escaped through the lace holes. After ten minutes they were exhausted. Then they heard a dog barking.