Bent

by Joe Thomas

  ‘This way, Harry,’ Gardiner says. ‘Down here.’

  *

  The order is given: turn around, we’re getting out. And hold fire —

  They’ll pinpoint our position if you carry on, so fucking stop.

  You’re disappointed, you are, you were itching to have a crack, but you see the logic of the experienced soldier, your senior officer, Sergeant Fitzpatrick.

  So it's back to the dinghies.

  ‘Head down, Bob,’ you say, as you’re crawling along the beach towards the inflatables.

  There's Butch, close to you, shaking, shaken, the third member of your dinghy crew. Butch says nothing, and you grab his elbow and keep crawling

  You wade out in the darkness, the water cold and dark, an immense, cold, dark ocean, and you and Bob and Butch are trying to hop aboard this blow-up kids’ boat, with bullets flying past, bouncing like skimming stones, and you’re going to paddle this blow-up toy across the immense, cold, dark ocean, you are —

  ‘That way,’ Bob says, taking a position using his watch and the stars, and pointing. ‘Head down this line.’

  The bullets don’t stop skimming across the cold, dark water.

  ‘Put your backs into it,’ Bob hisses.

  But you don’t make much progress, and the bullets skim, and the water seems darker and colder and more immense, and the blow-up dinghy seems even less suited to this frankly impossible-seeming task of finding the HMS Safari.

  ‘They’ll have gone, by now, surely,’ Bob says, checking his watch again. ‘Could be a long night.’

  But you’re still not getting very far. Circling, you are, it feels.

  Then you realise, and you laugh, you look at Butch, and you realise and you laugh.

  ‘Shut it, Tanky, ‘Bob hisses, again. ‘What on earth is so fucking funny?’

  ‘Turn round, Butch, ‘you say, and you grab him and pull him to you. ‘He's all back to front, paddling the wrong way, the doofus,’ you laugh. ‘That's why we were going round and round in circles.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Bob says.

  And you all shift positions, musical chairs, bit of pantomime, and still circles —

  You laugh. You realise you’ve all just shifted and old Butch is still paddling against you. Again you laugh.

  And the bullets are skimming, and the water is dark, and cold, and immense, and HMS Safari has likely fucked off, and you’re laughing, you’re laughing, as your blow-up goes round in circles —

  *

  The alley stinks of piss.

  ‘You should clean this place up a bit, Wilf,’ Challenor says. ‘Whole place stinks of piss.’

  ‘That's good advice, Harry,’ Gardiner says. ‘You ought to think about coming in with rue, partners, like.’

  Challenor ignores this.

  ‘Then again,’ Gardiner goes on, ‘not technically my responsibility, this piss-stinking alley, is it?’

  Challenor looks up. The sun has got his hat on. The air is thick with smoke and noise. The buildings either side of this piss-stinking alley are offices, and the odd residential, and, no doubt, the odd front. Their windows are grimy. Dark shapes move about behind some of them, but they’re not very peeping Tom friendly, that's for sure. Perhaps the point, Challenor thinks. There are clouds swimming — front-crawling — through the blue sky towards Charing Cross Road.

  They come to the car.

  ‘Let's have it then, Wilf,’ Challenor says. ‘I’m not here for you to show off your motor, now am I?’

  And it is a nice motor, Challenor thinks. He can’t help himself. ‘This new, Wilf?’

  ‘Oof,’ Gardiner says, ‘this is the future, Harry.’

  ‘I thought rhythm and blues was the future, Wilf.’

  ‘Context, Harry, context.’ Gardiner runs his hand over his motor like he's smoothing a blanket. ‘October, mate, Earl's Court Motor Show, this little lovely will feature, you mark my words, Harry.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Gardiner's nodding, vigorously, staring wistfully at his motor. ‘48th British International Motor Show, half a million people from all over Europe, so they’ll have this on display for your wops and your frogs and your dagos, and you won’t be able to fucking parallel park on the Riviera for them, you mark them, Harry.’

  Challenor's nodding too.

  Gardiner goes on. ‘Look at it, Harry. Ford Zephyr 4, Mark III. Four because it's got a four cylinder, which is the minimum welly a man should require, in my humble. Mine's got transmission, too. Automatic, obviously, I’m not a mug.’

  Challenor's not sure about this.

  ‘Look at the lines, Harry, the colour.’

  It's sky blue, Challenor sees, and looks up. It matches this bright, sunny day, Gardiner's motor does.

  ‘The Krauts will be pissing themselves when they see it, Harry. Perfect for an Autobahn, it is, a motor like this.’

  Gardiner's caressing the motor's lines, running a single finger along these exquisite lines.

  ‘Look at the way it turns up a touch at the back, a notch on the sides, mark, Harry, the positioning of the wing mirrors. This car is something, that's for sure.’ Gardiner pauses. ‘It's the future. Mark my words, they’ll all be in them, the jet set, on the continent, after Earl's Court in October.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, Wilf.’

  Gardiner turns. ‘So you understand, Harry, now I’ve said all this, quite how upset I am about what happened yesterday.’

  Challenor nods. ‘Go on.’

  Gardiner opens the passenger door. He gestures for Challenor to look inside. Challenor leans in. He can see that the front seats have been sliced and shredded with a thick knife, a hunting knife, Challenor thinks. He looks in the back. The back seats have also been sliced and shredded with what looks like a hunting knife, a hefty blade, the sort that leaves quite the lacerations to whatever it is applied. There is a message, it appears, scrawled in what looks like lipstick around the lacerations on the sliced and shredded back seats.

  The message, if Challenor is reading it correctly, states:

  YOU

  This scene moves Challenor. He is moved a little more than he would have expected, he realises.

  ‘You can see, Harry, now,’ Gardiner says, ‘quite why I am so upset.’

  ‘They’ve made a mess, Wilf, I’ll give you that,’ Challenor says.

  ‘You know what it means, don’t you?’ Gardiner asks.

  ‘I do, Wilf, yes.’

  There are two messages here, Challenor thinks.

  First message is -

  We can get in your car and not leave any signs of a break-in

  Second message is -

  You don’t do what we say and were going to cut you up

  ‘You can see why I’m quite so upset, can’t you, Harry?’

  Riccardo Pedrini. Johnnie Ford -

  King Oliva.

  This is very likely their handiwork, Challenor thinks. Pedrini's threat to old Wilf Gardiner, Challenor knows all about.

  What are you going to do about it?

  This is their signature, all right. He's heard their plea, their defence, in the past. He's heard what they’d say, if he got hold of them now -

  ‘A big showdown for power is coming and when it does come it will be a bloody battle.’

  *

  You bend your backs. You paddle hard. It's slow progress and bullets pop little spouts of water around your dinghy, like pebbles thrown by boys into a pond. This cold, dark, immense ocean is a pond now, a series of ponds.

  You compose yourselves as the firing lessens. The bullets pop only from time to time. The spouts are fewer and fewer. You compose yourselves enough to take a compass bearing. You’re pretty sure the submarine wont be there.

  ‘She's not going to be there, no fucking way,’ you say.

  Bob says, ‘Helpful, Tanky, helpful.’

  You paddle on, but you’re reaching further and further down to the water, the cold, dark, immense body of water beneath you is getting further and
further away. Your paddles barely brush the surface.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Bob says.

  Butch is shivering, saying nothing.

  You lean over the side. And you see it. You see the emergency air bottle, the canister, has been knocked, and it's kicked in, and it's inflating the dinghy, it's still blowing it up.

  ‘The bloody things still blowing up,’ you shout.

  But you start to laugh again. You’re laughing as the dinghy gets fatter and fatter, and you’re going slower and slower and any chance now of meeting the Safari must be less than zero, surely.

  You’re laughing, and you’re not scared, you’re not scared of death.

  You don’t wait for Bob to let you have it, so you lean over the side and you adjust the release valve. And the release valve wails, it lets out a high-pitched wail, which immediately gives away your position in the middle of this dark, cold, immense ocean that you’re in.

  And the enemy hears this wail and opens up again. Bullets skitter across the surface of the water, and you think of ducks and drakes, you think of ducks in a fairground shooting gallery, you think of ducks in a barrel.

  And you think of Doris. You think of Doris ‘cos you’re not scared, you’re not scared of death.

  You bend your backs. You paddle hard.

  The darkness is dense, pitch black, and you understand this phrase now. You think about North Africa, try to picture where it is, how long it would take to paddle back to Algiers.

  Cheers, Algiers; Algiers, cheers, you think.

  Sergeant Fitzpatrick is in the dinghy close by. The firing has stopped and Fitzpatrick is close by!

  ‘How long it’d take, sarge?’ you ask. ‘How long you reckon, to paddle back, to paddle back to Algiers?’

  Fitzpatrick replies. ‘Well make it.’

  That's it, you realise:

  That's SAS-

  Confidence —

  No task too big, no detail too small.

  Storyteller

  Harold ‘Tanky’ Challenor tells me two stories.

  And only the one of them is true, he says.

  The SAS boys are on training schemes in Algeria, trekking by a river. Tanky's carrying a bottle of beer, and he is very much looking forward to slaking his considerable thirst. But a bit of horseplay with one of the lads, and the bottle of beer ends up in the river. Tanky dives in to fetch it back. A crocodile clocks him and fancies some lunch. Harold ‘Tanky Challenor takes care of that crocodile with his army-issue knife and then climbs back out with the bottle held high like a trophy. And he very much enjoys his cold brown ale.

  He's captured in Italy. SS interrogation: right old leathering. In the prisoner of war camp, he befriends a washerwoman. Using her nail file, he cuts through the barbed wire, escapes in her clothes, and walks miles south across Italy to rejoin his regiment.

  Which one is true?

  Does it even fucking matter?

  Two

  ‘That mad bastard Challenor!’

  Challenor stalks the Mad House. He prowls the corridors. He's looking for Police Sergeant Alan Ratcliffe who, a few hours earlier, Challenor has heard, witnessed Wilf Gardiner threaten Johnnie Ford with a hammer. On top of this, on the way to West End Central, Wilf Gardiner informed Police Sergeant Alan Ratcliffe that he - Wilf Gardiner - is currently assisting Detective Sergeant Harold Challenor with an investigation into protection rackets in Soho run by Johnnie Ford and Riccardo Pedrini and, by association, Joseph ‘King’ Oliva.

  Challenor's steaming, steaming along the corridors of West End Central, the Mad House.

  He's not happy.

  Where the fuck are you, Alan?

  Challenor means business. He doesn’t mess about, Challenor.

  The corridors are empty. The word has got out that Challenor's not happy, and he suspects that these two facts are not unrelated.

  Where the fuck are you, Alan?

  Police Sergeant Alan Ratcliffe is not in the office. He's not in the locker room. He's not in the canteen. He's not in the cells. He's not in any of the interview rooms. And he is certainly not in the corridors.

  Where the fuck are you, Alan?

  Challenor has also heard that on the way to West End Central, Wilf Gardiner remarked to Johnnie Ford that when they got there, arrived at West End Central, he — Wilf Gardiner — was going to finger the lot of them, and that ‘them’ was understood to mean Johnnie Ford, Riccardo Pedrini and Joseph ‘King’ Oliva.

  Challenor has also heard that on the way to West End Central, Johnnie Ford has remarked to Wilf Gardiner that he knows exactly what will happen to him if he is indeed to finger the lot of them. Ford added, Challenor has heard, that Wilf Gardiner's woman will not want to be seen with Wilf again after what they will do to him, should he indeed finger the lot of them.

  Where the fuck are you, Alan?

  Challenor knows Gardiner's woman: Elizabeth Ewing Evans. He's heard that she was there and witnessed this conversation.

  He can’t find her either.

  Where the fuck are you, Alan?

  *

  You’re silent, your back is bent, you’re paddling hard. You’re silent, all of you, to save your breath. It's a long paddle back to North Africa, after all.

  Your paddles bite deep into the water. Your breaths are heavy with effort.

  And then —

  A beautiful sight —

  The HMS Safari looms like a surfaced whale.

  It's called a Nelson's blind eye when you ignore orders, in the Navy, when you know you’re doing the right thing.

  And the enemy must have known there was a bigger ship out there, you cant have paddled from North Africa, so there was considerable risk involved, you realise.

  Good lads, the Navy. Staunch.

  They hand round shots of Nelson's blood, a mud-thick, dark Pusser's rum, and you nail yours, and get hold of another.

  ‘You lot stuck around for us gormless pongos?’ you ask one of the sailors. ‘Why were you silly bastards waiting for us?’

  The sailor grins. ‘We were halfway ready to come and help,’ he says. ‘The skipper was putting together a landing party. Lucky you, eh?’

  Good lads, the Navy. Staunch.

  You get hold of a tot more Nelsons blood and nail it.

  Cheers, Algiers; Algiers, cheers.

  *

  Challoner's steaming, the radio's on in his office, where he is pacing the tiny room. The news -

  News he listens to with agitated interest -

  News of his old stomping ground, Algiers -

  In Algiers, he hears, Colonel Hassan has seized control. This is only, how long, he thinks, two, three weeks since independence?

  He's steaming, but he raises an eyebrow to his old stomping ground:

  Cheers, Algiers; Algiers, cheers.

  The radio moves on from the news and old Neil Sedaka's singing about breaking up being hard to do.

  Challenor doesn’t fancy Neil Sedaka much.

  Where the fuck are you, Alan?

  Where -

  Radio's moved on from old Neil Sedaka. Challenor sighs a sigh of relief at that. A moment of respite. A, you know, what's the, what's the word, a lull. He's bent right out of shape, is Challenor, and he needs this lull, this respite, he thinks.

  Radio news is back on: Oswald Mosley's been hammered at a rally in Manchester. His right-wing mob's been proper turned over by the sound of it, and old Oswald's taken something of a personal leathering.

  Good, thinks Challenor. Good -

  Worthless Nazi cunt -

  Good.

  Challenor would likely have a go himself, he thinks, if he ever came across Mr Mosley.

  We weren’t hammering the krauts for the fun of it, he considers.

  What are you going to do about it?

  And old Oswald's Nazi sympathiser chat is also bang out of order with respect to the German boys Challenor locked horns with. Not the SS - oh no sir, not those nasty little fuckers - but the infantry, the lads, the lads Challenor, yes —
the lads Challenor locked horns with.

  What are you going to do about it?

  What are you going to do about it?

  So-

  Yes, very good news indeed.

  Still-

  Where the fuck are you, Alan?

  Where -

  ‘Detective Sergeant Challenor,’ says Police Sergeant Alan Ratcliffe, his head poking around the door to Challenor's office. A word?’

  Alan,’ Challenor says. ‘It’ll be more than one word, I hope.’ Challenor gestures for him to sit down. ‘Sit down, Alan,’ he says.

  ‘Cheeseman,’ says Ratcliffe.

  ‘That's only one word, Alan.’

  Ratcliffe smiles. ‘Well, you know the others.’

  ‘I think I likely do.’ Challenor smiles back. Alan John Cheese-man, Alan, I believe is who you’re talking about. Why don’t you - why don’t you fill me in on it all, either way, eh, Alan?’

  ‘Short version?’

  ‘No detail too small, Alan.’

  Police Sergeant Alan Ratcliffe shifts in his seat. ‘We’ve been keeping an eye, as you are well aware, on the Phoenix and Geisha clubs, at your request of course, knowing that something of a feud is developing between Wilf Gardiner and Johnnie Ford's boys.’

  ‘Yes, Alan.’

  ‘Earlier this evening, one of our PCs - PC Laing - spotted Ford, King, Pedrini and Alan John Cheeseman gather at the Lyric pub on Great Windmill Street. You know it?’

  ‘Yes, Alan.’

  ‘The lads seemed tense, according to PC Laing, and he decided to hang back and see what might be going on. Sensible lad, PC Laing.’

  ‘Yes, Alan.’

  ‘PC Laing calls me and I decide to set up a watch with immediate effect at both the Phoenix and Geisha clubs.’

  Ratcliffe pulls a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and gestures with it. ‘Do you mind, guv?’

  ‘No, Alan.’

  Ratcliffe takes a long drag from his cigarette and exhales, slowly. ‘So outside the Phoenix club we see Wilf Gardiner's car. You know it? Very nice motor, distinctive, hard to miss.’

  ‘Yes, Alan.’

  And Wilf Gardiner is standing next to his car, on the pavement side, right by the entrance to the Phoenix club. And his missus -Elizabeth Ewing Evans — is standing next to him. You know her?’