Everlasting Lane

by Andrew Lovett

  Rustling the leaves.

  Grunting.

  Fangs?

  Gasping.

  Fur?

  Faster and faster.

  A ghostly bark?

  My heart set my whole body throbbing as, to my horror, the shape, burst into the clearing, revealing its true form.

  ‘I thought you might be here,’ said the shape breathing hard.

  ‘Tommie!’ exclaimed Anna-Marie, leaping to her feet and clapping her hands. And then, ‘What are you doing here, you toe-rag? You’re supposed to be in bed.’

  ‘I climbed out the bedroom window,’ said Tommie with a big grin. ‘She thinks I’m asleep. Ooh, is anybody eating those? I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

  Tommie sat and began to tell us, through mouthfuls of crisp, his adventures since the cricket ball hit his head. As he told the story, I wanted to laugh out loud. One minute he was never going to walk again; the next, he was unhurt but fooling the doctors and nurses into believing he was at death’s door. It was hard to know what was true—probably none of it.

  But Anna-Marie was fascinated.

  Tommie’s biggest complaint was that Mr Gale hadn’t been sacked and that he was expected to go back into his class as if nothing had happened. But his anger was slightly lessened by Mrs Carpenter having insisted Mr Gale visit Tommie at home. Tommie bloomed with pleasure as he described how Mr Gale, shame-faced, had stood in his mother’s parlour and promised, promised, promised that he would, ‘Never do anything so … so … so reckless again.’

  ‘I thought he was going to cry,’ said Tommie. ‘It was brilliant. And the best thing of all,’ he went, ‘is my dad’s going to take me on a special trip tomorrow. He says he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t have to.’ He giggled with glee. ‘Hey, Peter,’ he slapped my arm, ‘I’m going to miss another day off school.’

  ‘Well,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘I’m sure we’re all relieved that you didn’t get brain damage. On the plus side, it must have been a great relief to your parents to have the existence of a brain confirmed. Just think: if it hadn’t been for Mr Gale we might never’ve known for sure.’

  And then she smiled.

  And so did Tommie.

  So I said, ‘The Beast is dead.’ I didn’t even try to stop myself.

  ‘What? How?’

  Anna-Marie’s smile vanished. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Tell me. What happened?’ and Tommie wouldn’t give up, going on and on about it until, reluctantly, Anna-Marie began to describe our afternoon with Mr Merridew. As she told the story her face deflated like a punctured balloon but Tommie’s grew red with anger. He winced with each crunch of Mr Merridew’s stick. He was no fan of the Beast but by the time Anna-Marie finished his fists were clenched in fury. ‘Why would he do that?’ he said. ‘We should call the police.’

  ‘You’re too scared,’ I blurted out. ‘Anna-Marie said you’re scared of him. Mr Merridew I mean. Didn’t you, Anna-Marie? She said you were Tommie-Titmus.’

  ‘I’m not scared of him,’ protested Tommie. ‘You are.’

  ‘I’m not. You are.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ Anna-Marie looked at us both with disgust. ‘You two morons clearly haven’t been paying attention. If you really don’t think he’s scary, you obviously haven’t been listening. Or maybe you just don’t understand. That’s probably it.

  ‘But they are scary, Tommie—not Mr Merridew—but the things he says. They scare me.’ Tommie’s mouth fell open, his tongue speckled with crisp crumbs. ‘What if he’s right?’ she said. ‘Maybe you haven’t thought about that. What if it doesn’t matter whether we live or die? Maybe we aren’t any more important than ants. And close your mouth: I don’t want to see the inner workings of your lunch, thank you very much.’

  Tommie closed his mouth and swallowed. ‘That’s stupid,’ he said, meaning what she’d said about Mr Merridew but his voice was kind of shaky.

  ‘Oh,’ growled Anna-Marie. ‘What would you know about it anyway?’

  ‘Well, what about the Beast?’

  Anna-Marie bristled. ‘It was only a dog, Peter.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Kitty’s only a cat. My dad said that animals are people too.’

  ‘Goodness me,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Why does everybody’s dad have an opinion? Listen, Peter, the dog was in pain. Mr Merridew put it out of its misery. Don’t you—’

  ‘Well, I don’t want him putting me out of my misery,’ said Tommie. ‘I don’t want him to kill me just because I’m in pain.’

  ‘Well, funnily enough,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘I want to kill you because you are a pain. Listen,’ she said, ‘you know, that old poem … I mean, nursery rhyme: The Grand Old Duke of York?’

  ‘He had ten thousand men!’ I said.

  ‘That’s right. He marched them up to the top of the hill—’

  ‘And he marched them down again,’ said Tommie.

  ‘Well, done,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Congratulations. You know it. When I want a recital, I’ll know who to call. Now, what happens next?’

  ‘Well,’ said Tommie, ‘when they were up they were up.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Have you ever wondered, what if that’s all they do? They march up to the top of the hill and they march down again. And then they march to the top of the hill and they march down again: like that, over and over again, forever. What would that be like?’

  ‘It’d be boring.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘Because they’re people and that’s what people do, isn’t it?’ said Anna-Marie. ‘That’s what people’s lives are like. They get up and go to school, come home and go to bed, get up and go to school, come home and go to bed.’

  ‘That’s not all they do,’ protested Tommie.

  ‘It’s all you do,’ muttered Anna-Marie. ‘But how would they feel? The ten thousand men, I mean.’

  ‘They’d be bored,’ said Tommie, and I nodded.

  ‘No,’ groaned Anna-Marie. ‘No, they wouldn’t. I mean maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe, once they realised, if they realised, that it was all pointless, once they realised that they were going to go up and down that hill forever, maybe then they’d be happy. It wouldn’t matter if they were up or down or half way up, they’d be happy.’

  ‘Happy? Why?’

  ‘Because they’re safe. Life’s never going to surprise them and they won’t ever be worried or frightened or scared. It’s predictable. It’s pointless: that’s the point. Maybe you can’t even be happy until you realise how pointless everything is.’ She growled at our blank expressions. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘you know how Jack and Jill went up the—?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But,’ I cleared my throat, ‘if that’s true …’

  ‘Yes? What?’

  ‘Then why aren’t we happy?’

  Anna-Marie stared at me. ‘Oh, shut up!’

  I noticed again the procession of ants before me: shoulders sagging, stumbling over the rough edges of the branch, forever upwards, forever downwards: the ten thousand men. I leant over and began to press down on them with my thumb, one by one.

  Anna-Marie gasped. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Putting them out of their misery.’

  Anna-Marie got to her feet. ‘That’s it!’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough of you two. I’m going to find somebody intelligent to talk to; somebody who doesn’t speak to you with a mouth full of crisps or stare at you like a moron.’ Tommie and I glanced at each other uneasily as she collected together her sandwich wrapper and crisp bag. ‘How lucky we are,’ she said, ‘to live in Amberley. After all, every village in England should have an idiot of its own, and we,’ she concluded, ‘have two.’

  Tommie and I sat in silence watching Anna-Marie stomp off in to the woods. I looked at Tommie and Tommie looked at me. We had been left alone together exactly as neither of us wanted it. But we had to make the best of things. At times like this there w
ere only two real possibilities: football or—

  ‘Let’s play war,’ said Tommie.

  20

  Private Tom ‘Winston’ Winslow stroked his granite jaw with fingers so scabby they could barely feel the three days of stubble, just as his cucumber-cool mind was barely aware of the three nights that had passed since he’d last slept. At his feet, I, his loyal companion, Private Pete ‘Lambchop’ Lambert, bent low, ear to the ground. Deep behind enemy lines, hidden from the pop-pop-pop of the guns beneath a canopy of leaves, the last two survivors of the Amberley First Regiment, we took stock of our position.

  ‘A patrol: ten men,’ I whispered, ‘half hour back.’ I listened again. ‘Make that twenty-five minutes.’

  Winslow shouldered his rifle. ‘No rest for the wicked.’

  ‘There’s plenty of worms out there,’ I said springing to my feet, ‘for us early birds.’

  Many stories emerge from the chaos and carnage of human conflict, just as flowers bloom amidst the rubble, fully petalled, once the storm has departed. Here is one such tale, a tribute to the exploits of extraordinary men who fought for Britain in extraordinary times with pride and patriotism flowing freely in their veins; men who wrote the word ‘courage’ in the ever-present shadow of Monte Cassino—in letters of blood—for we waged our war with ruthless efficiency and efficient ruthlessness—

  ‘No, that’s wrong.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Germans were ruthless and efficient. We, the British, we were brave and … erm … resourceful.’

  ‘Oh.’

  —they waged their war with brave resourcefulness and resourceful braveness.

  It didn’t sound as good.

  I asked Tommie whether his dad had ever told him about the war. He gave me a funny kind of look. ‘People who go to war,’ he said, ‘never talk about it.’

  We moved on: every nerve, every muscle alert to our surroundings.

  ‘What’s your position?’ I hissed into my walkie-talkie. ‘Over.’

  ‘I’m deep in enemy territory,’ replied Winslow. ‘Over. Ouch! Watch your rifle!’

  ‘You’re standing too close.’

  ‘Over.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re supposed to say “over”,’ he said. ‘Over.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Over.’

  ‘From here,’ whispered Winslow, ‘we can make our way to those trees and, from there, follow the line of the river up and over those crags. Dozy old Jerry’ll never see us coming. We’ll give ’im a bloody nose.’

  ‘Just the two of us?’ I growled. ‘You’re crazy. You’ll get us both killed.’

  ‘Nah,’ sneered Winslow. ‘Your average Jerry couldn’t ’it Marble Arch with an ’Owitzer. When you’ve been at it as long as I ’ave, you get to know which bullets ’ave got your details attached.’

  ‘What do you mean? I’ve been here as long as you have.’

  ‘Listen, Lambchop, if you’ve lost your belly, I’ll go it alone.’

  ‘Hey, I haven’t lost my belly!’

  ‘Okay, calm down,’ said Winslow. ‘Don’t lose your head!’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my head! I haven’t lost my head or my belly. Don’t worry about my head! Worry about your own!’

  The rumble of a thick Italian river ran close by but no bird sang in that blood-stained valley. We flicked from tree to tree like tricks of the light, soundless, our fingers petting cold steel. And then we froze. Moving within a clearing less than thirty feet from where we stood, the unmistakable grey of Nazi uniforms, and the casual chatter of the enemy: their strange, metallic tongues carried easily in the still air.

  ‘Ach, schweinhund!’

  ‘Gott in himmel.’

  ‘Jawohl!’

  Winslow smiled. ‘This is sweet,’ he said. ‘They’re too busy tucking into sauerkraut and schnitzel. They’ll never see us coming. We’ll spread ’em on a slice of good ol’ British toast!’

  ‘It could be a trap. We should take a turn around the park just in case it’s a nasty Nazi trick. If we’re not careful we could get clobbered.’

  ‘There’s only two kinds of men on a battle field,’ muttered Tommie, ‘those who are dead,’ he cocked his rifle, ready for action, ‘and those who aren’t dead yet.’

  Closer, closer, we crept upon our quarry until we could hear each other’s heartbeats echoing like kettledrums. The German troops continued to chatter, little suspecting that for them the war, and not only the war, would soon be over.

  ‘Himmel.’

  ‘Schnell!’

  ‘Manchmal, wenn ich denke, dass sie offen sind, meine Augen sind geschlossen.’

  I held up a silent hand and mouthed: ‘On three: one …’

  ‘Aaargh!’ roared Tommie as he burst into the clearing, his gun low, spraying the Germans with bullets.

  ‘Two …’

  ‘Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na!’ he screamed. ‘Take that, Fritzy!’

  ‘Three!’ I shouted leaping from a tree-stump, my bayonet slicing Nazi head from Nazi neck. ‘K-pow! K-pow! K-pow!’ I roared as one, two, three German soldiers enjoyed an unexpected breakfast of Italian dirt.

  It was over in seconds. Only the commanding officer remained: a pitiful creature, a quivering wreck of fear and cowardice, his face pale and his eyes as scared as saucers. In faltering English he begged for his life.

  Winslow walked up to the cowering figure, indifferent to his pleas.

  ‘So, Hauptmann Gale, we meet again,’ he murmured. ‘Vera Lynne always said we would.’

  The German officer ceased his babbling and looked at Winslow with curiosity. ‘You?’ he said. ‘But you’re …’

  ‘You know him, Tommie?’

  ‘I should say I do,’ said Winslow. ‘The Captain, here, and I have crossed paths (or should I say swords) before.’ He gently touched the side of his head. ‘I didn’t get this old war wound in a game of cricket, eh, Herr Hauptmann?’

  The German put his hands together as if in prayer. ‘Gott in Himmel,’ he said. ‘Private Vinslow, if I had only known. I beg you for mercy!’

  ‘Mercy?’ laughed Tommie. ‘Mercy? Ha! There’s no mercy for you here, Mr Gale.’

  He fired once—a single bullet—straight through the skull of the repentant Hun: a perfect round hole through which, briefly, a glimpse of blue sky could be seen as the body fell forwards with a thump.

  Tommie lowered his rifle. ‘That was fun,’ he said.

  Mademoiselle Marianne Le Dell of the French Resistance, golden tresses falling from beneath her beret, marched briskly along the lane to her rendezvous with Monsieur Merdeux. Merdeux had promised her secret intelligence of invaluable assistance to the war effort. Right now, however, her sixth sense was tingling. Like a gazelle sensing the lion on its trail she knew she was not alone. She took courage from her own fortitude and from the silver revolver, concealed beneath her petticoat, with which she was wont to ruthlessly despatch the Bosch. ‘Halt!’ I stumbled out of the trees onto the road. ‘Who goes there?’

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ gasped Mademoiselle Le Dell.

  I pointed my gun at her. ‘Marianne,’ I said, ‘we have come to save you.’

  Tommie and I had long suspected that Monsieur Merdeux was nothing but a Nazi stooge and whilst we knew that Marianne was both brave and resourceful (and resourceful and brave), we had sworn to prevent her from walking into a fiendish—

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ enquired Mademoiselle Le Dell in flawless English. ‘Creeping up on me!’

  ‘I … I … There might be somebody following you.’

  ‘There is somebody following me,’ said Anna-Marie.

  ‘I mean it might be a madman.’

  ‘It is a madman. Why are you pointing that stick at me?’

  ‘It’s not a stick,’ I protested, lowering my gun. ‘It’s a … It’s a rifle.’

  ‘It’s a bloody stick!’

  ‘In fact,’ said Private Winslow, emerging from the brush, ‘it’s a Lee-Enfield rifle—nu
mber four, mark one.’

  ‘I might’ve known,’ sighed Mademoiselle Le Dell. ‘There’s always two Ronnies.’

  ‘We finks you’s walking into a trap, miss,’ said Tommie,

  ‘dahn the dog and toad.’

  ‘That’s frog and toad, you berk.’

  ‘Mr Merridew’s a collaborator,’ said Tommie.

  ‘You might be in danger,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll be in danger if I have to stand around listening to this hogwash for very much longer!’ snapped Mademoiselle Le Dell.

  ‘Oh, come on, Anna-Marie,’ said Tommie. ‘It’s only a game.’

  ‘Well,’ said Marianne, ‘I do not play games. Now, bog off and leave me alone!’

  With that she walked off, her heels clicking on the surface of La Petite Route Éternelle. And, as she departed, leaving a whiff of Gauloises and a waft of Chanel no. 5, I heard her muttering to herself:

  ‘Imbéciles.’

  We rested awhile, basking in the warm Italian sun, shadows striping our faces, but our rest was disturbed by the sound of footsteps. Somebody was walking … no, stumbling through the undergrowth. Winslow put a stubby finger to his lips. We waited, rifles cocked, breath bated, for the sound to pass.

  ‘Someone’s up to no good,’ muttered Tommie. ‘Come on, let’s follow.’

  We moved more skillfully than our quarry: sometimes side by side, sometimes separating leaving the mysterious figure at some point between us. I looked around. Our pursuit was taking us far deeper and far darker into the woods than I had ever come before. The trees here were wild and twisted, struggling free of the earth rather than simply growing from it. As we moved through the dirt and dust, down towards the very lowest point, I noticed how the forest turned its back on the light leaving the darkness undisturbed.

  Tommie and I met on a narrow ridge overlooking a dark clearing where the sound had come to a halt. I heard a gust of wind and the high branches going clickety-clack, like God was Hoovering the trees, and then as we began scrambling down towards the pit, approaching the clearing, the unmistakable sound of panic.

  As before we burst from the undergrowth with a yell. But there were no Germans here, just a single soldier in British uniform. The man was on his hands and knees with his back to us, scrabbling around in the leaves and undergrowth. He seemed unaware of our presence so Tommie walked up to him: ‘What’s up, chum?’