by Andrea Levy
It was my auntie May suggested night school. ‘Gilbert, your face so long it souring me milk. Go, go.’
Night school in the city. Oh, I bit at the hand that fed me. What of sacrifice, what of obligation, what of family? Duty, tell me of duty. I was as ungrateful as my fickle brother. Six days my mother cussed me until, on the seventh, sensing her defeat she suddenly regained her artfulness and said, ‘Son, why you no teach your sisters Doreen and Pearl to drive? Then you can go.’
Elwood rubbed his hands together with joyful giddiness at having his boyhood friend back. You see, he lived near Kingston. He told me, ‘You can help me and Mummy around the place a little and we feed you up.’
And I told him, ‘Yes, and in the evening I would go to night school.’
We toasted the arrangement with the cake my mother had made me. It was a deal, it sounded good. Until early the next morning when Elwood showed me to his truck. Part metal, part rubber but mostly held together with prayer. ‘Gilbert, see there, you deliver me produce.’ It was a man-eating truck – my head got trapped under the hood, tying, pushing, banging and poking so it might work for another day. I had no time for night school. The only law I learned was that of the combustion engine.
A wireless operator/air-gunner or flight engineer. With my excellent cake-baked education and my exemplary grades in all exams, those pompous men sitting in the recruitment office in Kingston had told me that, when reaching England, I would be trained as a wireless operator/air-gunner or flight engineer. I would be a valuable member of a squadron, second only to a pilot in respect and responsibility. With a service record like that, those military men had assured me, once the war was won, Civvy Street would welcome me for further study.
‘It’s good authority I’ve got that you can drive,’ Sergeant Bastard insisted.
‘Not me, Flight Sergeant. No cars where I come from, sir.’ This was an audacious lie and a mark of how grave the situation had become. But with this sergeant believing anything primitive about his West Indian charges, it was worth the try.
Our commanding officer, Flight Lieutenant Butterfield, addressing us West Indians, began, ‘Men. The second front is well under way and our greatest need now is for men on the ground. Some of you, in fact most of you, who had originally volunteered for air-crew duty will need to remuster for your trade training. We need ground staff. You will need to remuster for ground-staff duty.’ So many of us had to remuster that there was a dimming of the light as our sights were ordered to be set lower. Small-island men, like Oscar Tulloch with his hopes of flying through the sky on metal wings, medals pinned to his glorious chest, found himself as he had left his island, with a broom in his hand. James was to be a navigator, he was to go overseas. ‘A navigator!’ Sergeant Bastard smirked. ‘Well, you should know then, Airman, you are overseas.’
‘A posting to the front, Flight Sergeant.’
‘This is the front – the home front.’
‘A battlefield, Flight Sergeant, sir.’
‘Tell them down the East End of London that this ain’t a battlefield.’ The discussion over, James was sent to train for radar. Hubert got clerical duties. Only the college-educated Lenval was lucky. His trade tests no better than any of us but his skin a little lighter, he became a flight engineer.
You see, there is a list, written by the hand of the Almighty in a celestial book, which details the rich and wonderful accomplishments his subjects might achieve here on earth: father of philosophy, composer of the finest music, ace pilot of the skies, paramour to lucky women. Now I knew: beside the name Gilbert Joseph was written just one word – driver. All endeavours to erase, replace or embellish were useless. I knew that combustion engine was going to get me again.
‘I was told wireless operator/air-gunner or flight engineer, Flight Sergeant, sir.’
‘This is a war, Joseph, not a shop. Motor transport. Hear me, Airman.’
See, look, watch it come back. Driver. Yes, sir. I was off to be trained to do something I had been doing since the age of ten. Perhaps Elwood was right when he warned me: ‘Be careful, Gilbert, remember the English are liars.’
Fourteen
Gilbert
Driver-cum-coal-shifter was not an official trade in the RAF Table of Trades for Aircraft Hands, but I had been ‘coking’ for so long I felt it should appear. Age limit: none. Vision: blurred. Feet: frozen. At countless bleak and wintry railway stations in Lincolnshire I had shovelled more than my rightful share of the wretched black rock from lorry to truck. Coal dust! That rasping black grit seeped down so far into my hair that when I chewed it felt like the Almighty was scouring my head with sandpaper. My nose blew silt. Through five layers of clothing, including a bulky overcoat, that dust, that granular rock, was tickling my bare flesh when I undressed. A group of us complained to the CO. This coking felt like punishment, we told him. ‘We’re turning as black as Joseph, sir,’ someone said.
Until our CO chastened our mutinous zeal with the words, ‘Our men overseas are going through much worse than anything you airmen have had to endure.’ And a light rain of soot fell from my hair as I bowed my humbled head. But two days later, ‘Joseph, you’re down to sort the Yanks out.’
A nice long solitary ride, pretty girls waving, old men saluting and the legendary Yank hospitality at the end of it. Charlie Denton assured me I was jammy: ‘That’s all right that, Gilbert. It’s a bit of a comfy chair that run.’ Happy he said he was, tickled pink it was me.
My orders were to drive a truck to the US base up near Grimsby. There I was to retrieve ten wooden crates that contained shock absorbers suitable for our Spitfires. ‘Spitfires,’ the CO emphasised, ‘not Mustangs. Make sure they give us the right ones this time.’ How our shock absorbers ended up on a US army base – not even air force – was one of the mysteries of war. But blame was flying back and forth like bullets in a battle. The Americans were ‘bloody Yanks, arrogant sods, belligerent blighters’ for refusing to just deliver the wayward parts to us. No, they insisted someone from the RAF go to their base to identify and certify that the parts were correct before they could be released. This was not the first time this situation had arisen. Charlie Denton went the time before, staying overnight and coming back with enough Chesterfield cigarettes to keep him in best friends for weeks. It was a lucky man who got the cock-up-with-the-American-army run.
‘He’s coloured, sir.’
‘He’s what?’
‘He’s coloured.’
‘Ah, shit. Coloured, you say?’
‘Black, sir.’
‘Yeah, thank you, Sergeant. I do know what coloured means. What the hell are they playing at? Fucking Limeys.’
Now, the building I was standing in had, at a guess, taken only a few minutes to erect. Stuck together with chewing-gum, the only thing separating me from the American army officers was a wall made from a thin piece of board no thicker than the cover of a book. Perhaps if I had been standing in the room with them at the time, the substance of the exchange might have differed a little but let me assure you its audible clarity would not.
‘Shall I send him out?’
‘You said he’s coloured.’
‘He’s British, though.’
‘British! Who cares? British – it’s still trouble. If I send a coloured down to that unit, it’s trouble. Fucking Limeys.’
‘Shall I send him back?’
‘How coloured is he?’
‘Enough, sir.’
‘Ah, fuck. That Limey CO is playing around with me. Allies, he tells me. He may be air force but we’re all in this together, he says. Allies! Stuck-up Limey bastard. He didn’t like me pointing out his stuff’s in the wrong place. Our fault, he says. He didn’t like me telling him what day it was.’
‘Could we get a coloured unit to show the—’
‘No, no, no – am I gonna reorder the entire US Army just because some stuck-up Limey sends me a nigger? Not on my watch. He sent that black just to piss me off. Fucking Limeys. I’ll get him on th
e phone. These niggers are more trouble than they’re worth.’
‘What shall I do with the coloured driver, sir?’
‘I don’t know. My problem is what to tell this Limey asshole. Truck too small or what? Probably the only truck they’ve got. No, some paperwork missing? That oughta do it. Tell him to wait or get him something to eat. They always want something to eat.’
‘Send him to the mess, sir?’
‘No, not the mess, for God’s sake – he’s coloured!’
Reflex makes you do strange things when you have been bred to be polite, respectful and courteous. I leaped across the room, feigning curiosity out of an almost opaque window so this sergeant might not suppose I had heard their exchange. Chest out, arms by my side, was I to salute a US Army NCO?
‘At ease, Soldier,’ the sergeant said.
Coloured, black, nigger. All these words had been used to characterise me in the last few minutes. Insults every one. But funny thing is, not one of those aspersions caused me so much outrage as the word ‘soldier’! I am not a soldier, I am an airman. ‘Airman Joseph,’ I said, which made the sergeant reply, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’ I stood easy as he carried on. ‘Listen, ah . . . Soldier, no . . . umm . . . Airman, we’re not quite . . . umm . . . umm.’
As he struggled there was my Mother-bred instinct again. Could I in some way help this man out of this unfathomable plight? He looked a shy man. In peacetime, let me see, he would be serving in a ladies’ hosiery shop, turning berry-red when big-bosomed women wanted something that would fit.
‘You’re gonna have to wait a while,’ the sergeant finally told me. ‘You want something to eat?’
‘At the mess, sir?’
‘No . . . no . . . not at the mess . . . umm . . . umm. I’ll get someone to bring you something out.’
The officer from the other room called out for this sergeant. When the useless door had been closed behind them he said, ‘Finch, send the coloured back. I swear that CO Limey bastard was laughing. He was laughing! “Is there a problem?” he says. Ten minutes in Alabama and he’d have a fucking problem. He knew I couldn’t use a fucking coloured here. He just sent him to piss me off. He thinks he’s fucking won this fight. He was laughing. Thinks he’s pulled one over on us. Yeah, sure, asshole. Get the nigger outta here.’
‘He was just getting something to eat, sir.’
‘Feed him, feed him. Do what you want. But not in the mess, unless you want trouble. Just get him outta here, then get some private to check the parts and truck ’em over. Believe me, this is the first and last time those fucking Limeys get past me.’
When the sergeant returned to me, he smiled. ‘They’re bringing you something out but you can go back to your base after that, Airman.’
I had not, as far as I could tell, either identified, signed for or transported any crates containing shock absorbers suitable for Spitfires. And yet this man was telling me my job was done. ‘My orders, sir, were to pick up some parts.’
‘Yeah, that won’t be necessary.’
‘Sir, I am sorry but I do not understand.’
‘Listen, Soldier, it’s all taken care of. Just go back. It’s okay.’
‘What reason will I give for returning without the parts?’
It was at this point that the sergeant’s face began to burn its berry-red. But the officer from the other room called out, ‘Sergeant, bring him in here.’
The officer’s feet were on the desk. Younger than his voice suggested, he smiled steadily on me. His big white teeth standing to attention – each one pressed into the service of putting me at my ease. He swung his legs to the ground, stumped out a cigarette and leaned earnestly forward. Then, relaxing back on his chair, he opened out his arms and said, ‘What can I say? I just explained it to your CO. You see we had a coupla trucks up your way so we stuck the parts on. Save you the bother of picking them up. We checked them ourselves in the end. Who cares whose fault it is? I told your CO. We’re allies. The parts in the right place is all that matters. It’s all square. Parts should be there . . . today. If not today tomorrow. Wasted journey. There’s nothing left to pick up. But the sergeant here tells me he’s taking care of you. Yankee hospitality, eh?’ Several more teeth were put to work before he said, ‘Dismissed, Soldier.’
I had heard every word the officer had said to his sergeant, but it was not until that bashful man brought out my food to me like I was a dignitary come to visit that I began to appreciate the situation. Was it the square-bashing at Filey, the trade-training in Blackpool, the posting to the airbase in Lincolnshire that made me forget? Perhaps it was my crew – white men every one – Charlie, Bill, Raymond, Arnold. Or the white women in the town – Enid, Rose, that other one with the roving eye. Was it the comely Annie from the Swan? Or was I now so used to England that it just escaped my mind? Of course! If a coloured man finds himself on an American army base surrounded entirely by white people, then, man!, he is in the wrong place. How could I forget? ‘I am loyal to my flag but you would never catch no self-respecting white man going into battle with a nigger.’ No, not master-race theory – Jim Crow!
A coloured man in their stores. Let me set the scene. Astonished mouths gape like children at their first picture show. Wide surprised eyes flashing from one to another. Pens, paper, tools, anything their hands held tight, would clatter to the floor. Huffing-puffing chests would have arms resolutely folded across them. ‘What are you doing in here, nigger? This ain’t your place.’
‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I have been sent by the RAF to find our plane parts.’
Man, I would be lucky if I could finish that sentence before I was chased from the place. How could a nigger work with American white boys? See them running to their CO demanding justice. No fear of rank would stop them. They will not, they tell him, they will not work with a nigger, British or otherwise. No Chesterfield cigarettes for me. The tale I would take back? The day a mild-mannered Jamaican man caused the US Army to riot.
An hour later and I would not have seen them. The vague silhouettes of these two coloured GIs would have vanished into the blackout. Company was what I saw. Alone and feeling a little nauseous – my stomach revolted by the quantity of rich food I had gorged at the American base. Roast beef and fried potatoes. Bread so plentiful the five thousand could have invited family and all would have been fed. Real butter and peanut butter and so much coffee it slopped inside me like water lapping on a shore. Was it gluttony or politeness that stopped even one mouthful being wasted? Perhaps it was the distress on the sergeant’s face as he continued to check my progress. ‘When you’re finished, Soldier, you can go,’ he told me, two times. On both occasions I was unable to respond owing to the bread and peanut butter having sealed my mouth as effectively as wattle and daub.
But a long journey in blackout is not something to savour, it is something to share. Whose surprise was greatest? Mine, at seeing coloured men once more – the first since hearty backslapping farewells in Blackpool, prior to the postings that peppered us West Indians around the country? Or theirs – for the astonishing good fortune that had them chancing upon a coloured man with an empty truck going their way? They jumped up into the cab and both men examined me as if witnessing a vision of the Virgin Mary.
‘You British?’ one of them finally asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I hope I don’t cause offence if I tell you that to my eye you don’t look British. You must be rare as a sunbeam in a cave.’
‘I am from Jamaica.’
‘Jamaica, England?’
Had no one outside the Caribbean ever heard of Jamaica? I did not yell or cry out in pain, although I should have. ‘No, Jamaica is in the Caribbean,’ I told them. But this made no impression on their look of puzzlement. ‘The West Indies?’ I tried.
‘Well, you could have landed from a twinkling star, I’m still pleased to know you. Name’s Isaac Hunt but no one calls me that unless they’re mad and yelling. To a smiling face I’m called Levi. Don’t ask me why
unless you’re ready for a long story. And this here is Jon – christened Jon, called Jon, been Jon all his life. Both of us born and bred in Florida, USA. But Florida is the reason we know each other not how we know each other if you get my meaning. And who have I had the pleasure of addressing, Soldier?’
‘First,’ I told him, ‘let me make it clear that I am not a soldier. I am a volunteer with the British Royal Air Force. The RAF.’
‘A flying man.’
‘Perhaps. My name is Airman Gilbert Joseph.’
‘Pleased to know you, Airman Gilbert Joseph. May I ask which name people who call you a friend usually use?’ I said Gilbert but he said, ‘Then, Joseph, I hope you won’t mind if I call you by that name.’
Throughout this whole discourse the man called Jon sat like an idle puppet staring straight ahead. Nudged into life by Levi, the two held their hands up for me to shake. Impolite as it was to make them wait, I was at the time concentrating on driving the truck. In twilight you can trust nothing your eyes see because your mind believes this half-light to be a dream. And this on a small country road in blackout where manufactured light had no permission to guide me. Is that a tall man in a black cloak or a tumbling wall? See that phantom, could that be a tree? Did a rabbit run or did I blink my eye? All was quiet, waiting for this handshaking civility to be executed before conversation could carry on. Once on a familiar straight road I relaxed enough to take their patient hovering hands in turn. As soon as this was achieved Levi began to talk again, which left me to wonder whether company was indeed a good idea.
‘First leave off the base in months,’ he said.
Of course, I must explain that at the time I did not realise Levi had only just begun.
‘Three months, I believe. Although Jon here may say different on account of he keeps a little book where I figure I can remember but then I do forget. But, Joe, all I know for sure is that I’ve been desiring to see a pretty-dressed English woman for a long time.’