by Thomas Wood
The figure was still sitting in the front of the car, staring forwards as we sped through the streets of France, but then, towards the end, he would always try and turn around, he would always try and say something to me, but he never quite got round to facing me and never further than simply drawing breath to speak. Each and every time he got close, I would wake.
I resigned myself to staring at the steel of the ship as we charged our way across the oceans, hopefully, to Britain and not some desolate and forlorn island of exile where we would spend the rest of our lives.
I questioned why this was happening to me. I had done everything I could for my country, I had done everything within my power to make it back home so that I could continue the fight, and this was how they were treating me. As no more than a common criminal, one who had no rights, one who did not deserve an explanation as to what was happening or what was going to happen.
But then suddenly, my cell door opened. And I rapidly realised that I had been the only one from Captain Chain-smoker’s ship who had been imprisoned in this Royal Navy destroyer and it dawned on me that I was soon about to find out exactly why I had been treated in this way.
35
I felt awful. Not in a mental sense, my mind was ready for another fight with him, but physically, I was almost done. I was running on empty.
They still hadn’t allowed me to wash or take care of myself. My feet, which continued to tap on the cold, uncovered concrete, had giant blisters of a variety of colours all over them, the parts which weren’t covered in green blisters and yellow ones, were a deep purple colour, where the never-ending strain on them had simply caused them to bruise up like a brick had been dropped on them.
My hair had become so greasy that my hand practically slipped through my locks, rather than ran through them now and two or three strands had become matted as a result of my lack of attention and care over it. The stubble that rippled over my chin was beginning to grow wilder and was just as greasy as my hair, probably making me look at least double my age if I was given the privilege of looking in a mirror.
My hands were just like my feet, yellowed blisters on the heel of my hand, and my nails collected more dirt than a playful pig did, growing to such a length that I would have been able to kill the man now sat in front of me with one swift flick across his neck. The thought had crossed my mind more than once already.
The part of me that ashamed me the most was my mouth, the dirt and grime inside there would have put any housewife to shame, and there was so much mould over my teeth that I could barely feel the surface of them. Despite this, I took great pride in being able to make the officer feel completely uncomfortable with my breath, with every minute that he spent in my company feeling utterly repulsed at the green air that seemed to be filling the interrogation room.
I was glad that I was making him late for his dinner, he didn’t deserve to be on time anyway. There were men that were lying with their skulls caved in over in France who had made dinner reservations with their loved ones that they were no longer able to keep. Even I had made sure that I would have dinner with my mother as soon as I got back, but I wasn’t even sure if she knew that I would still be alive. I was beginning to think that I wasn’t.
I felt almost sorry for the girl that he would be standing up though. It made me think of Cécile, and how she would have taken it if I had not turned up to one of our dinner reservations or if I had suddenly abandoned her. Rather abruptly, it occurred to me that maybe that was how she felt, maybe they hadn’t told her the full story, or maybe they had told her a different tale altogether, because they certainly hadn’t told me the full story, of that I was certain. If they had, I wouldn’t have had repeated dreams about the mysterious shadowy figure in the front of the car and I wouldn’t constantly be feeling that I was the one that led Cécile out to a German firing squad every minute of my waking life.
He still didn’t quite believe me, and, in a way, I was glad that he didn’t. He thought that I was messing around with him, which gave me such a twisted sense of enjoyment as he struggled to comprehend what I had apparently done, that I almost burst into tears of laughter. I tilted my head slightly as I stared at him, and I could tell I was beginning to throw him off balance as I began to get inside his head.
I narrowed my eyes while I stared, and he unconsciously widened his in retaliation. I wondered whether this had been an assignment from Uncle Rupert at the War Office, to get him to try and prove himself that he can justify his immediate promotion to become the youngest major in the British Army. I could just imagine Uncle Rupert, a former Brigadier or some such rank, exploding at the pathetic excuse of a British officer in front of him, for failing to get the truth out of the murderous, insubordinate and cowardly soldier that sat in front of him. All he had been tasked to do was to get to the bottom of his story and work out who exactly he had killed and when, but he had failed to do that simple task. I began to grin as I imagined him being stripped of his rank and sent to the War Office to do some demeaning desk job that no one wanted to do, his ability to pull the ladies with the flash of his uniform now powerless as he hid in the depths of Whitehall.
As I had started to talk, he had begun to scribble down wild notes on the pad that was in front of him, stopping every now and then to ask another question, a sly distraction while he gave his hand a break before he knew he would have to carry on scribbling.
I deliberately spoke as quickly as I could, before hopping backwards and forwards in my story to make it as difficult as possible for him to follow. Halfway through I examined myself as to why I was even telling him, he hardly deserved it, he had treated me like a criminal. In truth though, it felt good to get it off my chest, I told him about everything; the way that Major Perkins had died, how Clarke had sacrificed himself so me and Red could get away, Private Evans taking a sniper’s bullet to his skull and ceasing to exist there and then, Red being blown to pieces by a mortar, how I had somehow betrayed Cécile and then continued on my journey totally alone.
As I drew my story to a close, he continued to write for a good few minutes more, almost impressing me with the capacity of his recall, to be able to write something that I had explained a good five minutes ago. He began to grow on me in a way, maybe that was what he was good at, maybe that’s why Uncle Rupert had given him this job. But I also noticed how he had eventually got it out of me, not by talking to me and persuading me, but by simply slowly applying the pressure in all manner of ways.
I didn’t think it was fair, but he had done his job, just as I had done mine.
As I wrapped up, I began to breathe like a mad man, almost as if I had just completed a marathon, which, in some ways, I had done.
Suddenly, he shot up from his chair, making the same awful squealing noise that it had done a few hours ago, but this time it didn’t clatter into the wall that was behind him. He didn’t seem angry this time, he seemed quite calm, content even. He didn’t stop scribbling onto the notepad in front of him, instead opting to take the pad with him and write while he walked.
He stopped for a moment as he got close to the door, and he surprised me when he spoke, shocking me even more in the only question he asked since I had told my story.
“What’s your shoe size?” He had either realised my not so subtle hints that I could really do with a pair of shoes on the cold, unprotected ground, or he hadn’t quite finished with me yet and the tapping on the slightly damp floor was beginning to grind him down in ways that I thought unimaginable.
I answered reluctantly, as if it was some sort of trick question, or a coded message to bring in the killing squad, but he simply nodded as he left the room, apparently going to get me my first pair of shoes since being arrested. If he happened to pull this one off, I considered asking him for some more things, some better clothes in fact, a top maybe that didn’t smell like it had been dragged through a field of horse manure, and a pair of trousers that weren’t so ripped that they flapped around as soon as I stood up. For a moment,
I even considered asking if I could see a barber, to rid myself of the greasy, matted hair that sat on the top of my head, and to shave off the suffocating stubble that had sprung up around my chin.
I found myself longing to get back into the routine that I thought I had detested passionately, daily bulling of boots and polishing shoes, the morning habit of having a shave, no matter how much growth had sprouted overnight, the rigorous timings to everything; I longed for it all. I hadn’t had a structure to my life for the best part of three months, ever since we had started to retreat and the tank battle that had led to us being the only tank for miles around.
As he presumably wandered around the stores, trying to find some size nine boots that would be suitable for me, I couldn’t help but think of everyone else. I thought about the other soldiers that I had seen in the pub, the one that I had seen on the train and even the ones that had boarded Captain Chain-smoker’s vessel in France. I wondered how all of them were getting on. I assumed the group that were on the boat with me had made it home some time ago and had been released back to see their families for a day or two, before being plonked back into retraining ready for another posting. The soldier I saw on the train could quite possibly have been back in Britain by now if the success of the American golden ticket was anything to go by. The other soldiers in the pub though, I had no strong feelings either way as to how they were faring. It was likely some had made it through into the unoccupied zone as I had done, but it was equally likely that some had been found out on their way through and were now either in prison or dead.
I hoped that Henri and Frankie were still alive, still assisting other lost soldiers in their bid for freedom. I hoped that they had laid off the kidnapping and beating routine for now though.
Just as quickly as he had left the room, he re-entered, dangling a pair of boots in front of my face for a moment, as if he was taunting me.
“Just one more thing,” he said, as if the boots were to be given to me on a precondition of answering this question.
“The Captain you saw in the woods, the one you say you accidentally killed. Was he definitely dead when you left him?”
I pondered my answer for a moment, I already knew the truthful answer to it, but I withheld my reply for a second, in case I had mistakenly killed the Prime Minister’s nephew and there was a bounty on my head or something awful like that.
“Yes…yes, unfortunately I did.”
As soon as I had answered, the boots were released and splashed into the shallow puddle that I had been pattering my feet around in for the last few hours.
“Good good.” He announced playfully, as he folded up his pad and tucked it under his arm, also retrieving his cap from the table.
As I looked down at the boots, I noticed that he had tucked a pair of woollen khaki socks into them. They weren’t just any old socks, to me they were the best socks in the world; they had no holes, they were dry and most of all they would protect some of my blisters.
“Put them on old boy, you’ve got an appointment to keep.”
36
As I began to stumble around getting up from my chair, my feet felt both utterly destroyed but also incredibly blessed. The socks and the padding from the boots felt absolutely divine on my poor feet, but the pain that shot up from them as I walked made me creep along on the outsides of my feet, giving me quite a distinctive walking style to say the least. As I took my first few steps, I began to feel the socks dampen slightly as the blisters began to weep awfully and the scabs on the heels of my feet began flaking away.
I was beginning to hope that my new best friend wouldn’t want these socks back in a hurry, especially as I didn’t much fancy the idea of ripping them off in front of company as they had already begun to stick and fuse to the skin. I grimaced and winced with every step I took, before my best friend, Captain Jameson, called ahead to an invisible man to bring a wheelchair for the man making the funny noises behind him.
“And make sure they have one waiting for us as well!” My ears pricked up and all the pain that was racing through my body suddenly froze. We were leaving whatever this building was, we were going somewhere else, which meant that I would get to see the daylight properly for the first time in weeks.
A young, ambitious looking corporal raced around the corner with a wheelchair, which I promptly flopped down into with a great sigh. I couldn’t help but get excited to leave this military prison, but I couldn’t quite help but think that Jameson and his superiors hadn’t finished with me yet, and that there was some sort of greater importance to my being here. I was being treated as a very important person at the moment, Jameson had summoned a wheelchair for me, and another when we got to our destination, which probably meant I wasn’t for the chop. I was yet to hear of a soldier being wheeled out in front of a firing squad, but there was a first time for everything.
Jameson gave nothing away on his face as he waited at the open front door for me, instead seemingly trying to strike fear into me as I waited. A car pulled up, a black one, just like the one that I had been kidnapped in in Paris, and a smartly dressed driver got out and opened the doors for us.
“You’re going to have to hop out for now, I’m afraid. We’re going for a drive.”
With the assistance of the overenthusiastic corporal, I heaved myself from the chair, feeling dirtier than ever and began hobbling out of the prison building and towards the car. The sun shone brighter than it had ever done before, and I almost felt sick as my eyes struggled to comprehend what was going on, acting as if I had just landed on the surface of the sun itself. The sun’s rays were warm and welcoming, but my skin had become so pale that I felt like a piece of newspaper being held rather too close to a candle and I could almost feel the corners of my skin begin to peel and curve upwards as they rose to meet the flame.
“Come on old boy, don’t want to keep this one waiting,” he said, chuckling, and I began to think that it was his Uncle Rupert at the War Office who had requested to see me, but then again, if he had, I would have hoped that he would have treated me to a nice warm bath and a clean-up.
“We’re heading up to London,” he announced proudly, “We’ll be about an hour. London might have changed a little bit since you were last there.”
I didn’t doubt it. I had last been there in the July of 1939 and now, according to the newspaper that Jameson handed to me for the journey, it was now the 1st October 1940. I was surprised when I first saw the date, it had seemed that within a flash, I had been sent out to France, and now here I was back home again, after what felt like only a few weeks of running that had turned out to be almost five months.
As I began to skim read the front page, I quickly became alarmed at what Jameson had meant when he said that London might have changed somewhat. I read all about ‘Mad Wally the Warden’ and his bravery in one of London’s most bombed districts and how he could apparently predict where the next bombs were going to fall, so he could save himself, and the other Air Raid Wardens in his unit.
The main headline was how schoolchildren were being taught First Aid, in an attempt to stop so many people succumbing to the injuries sustained by flying glass from German bombs.
“They’ve bombed London?!” I almost screamed at Jameson as we continued driving towards the very same London plastered all over this copy of the Daily Mirror.
“Yep. Been going for over three weeks now, every night.”
“But the women and the children?”
“They don’t care, Alf, they didn’t care about the French women or their kids, they certainly won’t care about ours.”
I continued reading, trying to glean bits of information from Jameson about how the war was going, and questioning the barbarity of the Luftwaffe for knowingly dropping thousands of tons of bombs on women and children who lay quaking in shelters all around, not knowing if the sound they heard next would be their last.
Jameson lowered the paper for me as we approached badly hit areas of London.
“See what
I mean?” he said as he pointed to a school that was now half eaten up by piles of rubble and earth.
Our driver seemed to know exactly where all the road closures were, expertly weaving us in between the great craters that engulfed parts of roads, and around bits of rubble that had toppled from the tops of buildings.
Unexploded bombs seemed to be down every single side road we drove past, a solitary police officer standing at most of them, making sure that the kids that loitered around the street corners didn’t begin kicking great big rocks at it, testing its tolerance.
Almost all the windows down one street were practically non-existent, and I watched as one shopkeeper stopped sweeping the shards of glass that had carpeted the road, so that he could step onto the pavement as we sped past. Wiping his brow and inspecting the amount of glass he had swept from the road and into the gutter, he went back to keeping his shop for the rest of the day.
Children played and dallied around bits of homes that now littered the street, some of them walking up the gangway that had been formed in the rubble and playing around in what appeared to be an almost perfect cross section of someone’s home, the wing backed arm chair still sitting there loyally, covered in dust, waiting for its owner once again.
London was changed, it was morphed beyond all recognition and yet, no one seemed to really care. People still wandered around with shopping baskets, the children carried on playing and the police officers continued to holler at them. Life was carrying on as normal. War does funny things to people, but to London, it seemed like they were all taking it in their stride, in some ways, they looked like they were enjoying it.
Before too long, we reached the busiest parts of London and, as we sped past Trafalgar Square, I was glad to see that Nelson was still stood atop his column, keeping watch over London during what appeared to be one of her darkest times.