Non-Suspicious

by Ed Church

  ‘Careful, Vic! You’ll get your other bleedin’ ear shot off!’

  Victor ended his Nazi-baiting charades and turned to see a familiar face approaching. Harry Wilson – his ‘mucker’. The term had a semi-official meaning in a prisoner of war camp. It was the person you looked out for and who, in turn, looked out for you. In its more general sense of mates or pals, Victor Watson and Harry Wilson had been muckers since joining the same regiment on the same day in 1940, with surnames that ensured they were paired together throughout their training. They were even captured in Italy on the same day. Now they counted the days to freedom together.

  ‘As long as he makes the ears match,’ said Victor. ‘I wouldn’t want to look silly now, would I?’ He returned to staring out over the flat, hopeless landscape while his friend joined him.

  ‘Not gonna do a runner, are yer?’ asked Harry in his broad Cockney. Born within a stone’s throw of the Boleyn Ground, he was always destined to be an avid West Ham fan. It was why turning up at Mill Hill Barracks at the same moment as someone bearing the name of his childhood hero had struck him as highly serendipitous (or ‘What are the bleedin’ chances?’ as he put it).

  ‘No danger of me doing a runner, old chap,’ replied Victor. ‘Even if you removed all these fences and the guards had sponge rifles. Spot of unfinished business for me in this God-awful place.’

  Unlike Harry, there had been no overriding influence on the young Victor’s accent during his formative years at the Foundling Hospital. Largely isolated from life beyond the institution’s walls – whether in Bloomsbury, Surrey or Hertfordshire – the key moment for Victor’s accent had been the day he discovered he could sneak out to The Rex picture house on Berkhamsted High Street and return to his dormitory without being missed.

  The 1930s movies of his adolescence had nourished previously neglected parts of his mind. They filled his head with a thrilling universe of idealised father figures, derring-do and escapism. It was only natural that he should start taking on the vocal traits of his new screen friends. The shiny citizens of his brave new world. If the ensuing voice had once seemed a little ‘old’ for him, the war had taken care of that. No-one in peacetime would have placed Victor and Harry at a few days either side of twenty-two.

  ‘You really wouldn’t go? Even if there was bugger all stopping you?’ asked Harry, already aware of the reason why. ‘All because Fritz has got your little trinket that says Sad Victor on it?’

  ‘Ad Victoriam,’ replied Victor, well-accustomed to the friendly teasing.

  ‘You’re a strange one, Vic. I’ll give you that. Who else manages to lose ’arf a finger and ’arf an ear to one bleedin’ bullet?’

  Old jokes re-told had a unifying familiarity in prisoner of war camps. It also allowed both men to deal with an unpleasant memory by wrapping it in the comfort blanket of humour…

  The Battle of Anzio. Early ’44. The second week of attritional stalemate. Victor scrambling to treat the wounded Harry and their pal, Sidney, while pinned down by enemy fire. Vic in the process of replacing his dislodged tin helmet, one-handed, when the magic bullet removed helmet, ear and finger in one ‘zip’. When his humour was at its darkest, Harry liked to say that at least Sid had died laughing at Victor’s sudden confusion (‘I’m sure I had an ’elmet round ’ere somewhere… And a finger… AND a fuckin’ ear!’).

  Harry’s own injuries had healed pretty well, leaving a thick mop of dark hair and a general dishevelment as his most notable features. Victor, by contrast, had learned all about maintaining appearances on basic resources at the Foundling Hospital. His hair was always combed and his uniform as presentable as possible. He was also reminded daily – by the sight of less fortunate prisoners – that he couldn’t be too upset about the dent to his good looks. Apart from the ear and the finger, he didn’t have a scratch on him.

  ‘Anyway, you know that medal wouldn’t fetch two bob down ’oxton Market,’ said Harry, giving his mate an elbow in the ribs. That was an old one too, but Victor still smiled.

  Beneath the individual shouts and catcalls of the crowd, both men became aware of a secondary level of noise. A murmur among the back row of spectators on their side of the pitch. The two pals turned to see the most brutal of all their Nazi captors walking down the rear of the crowd.

  Blondie.

  At least, that was the name he was known by.

  A non-commissioned officer. And a psychopath.

  Those he had already passed turned their heads to see what he was up to. A few among those he was yet to reach glanced back down the line, curious at the murmur, then quickly reverted to ‘eyes front’ and shuffled their heels further in.

  Whereas some of the older guards – the weary veterans of the Great War who just wanted a quiet life – were referred to with the adjective ‘German’, Blondie was a proper ‘Nazi’. A believer right to the end. Even his barrel chest and rosy cheeks seemed to mock the very physical form of the skinny inmates.

  He had once delighted in the bloodlust of kicking to death some poor Russian who dived too near his feet, clawing up a splash of thin soup spilled in the mud. The talk in the huts was that Blondie had got a sexual thrill out of it. The sick Kraut bastard. Depending on who you believed, he had killed between five and seven prisoners and maimed ten times that number with fists, boots and pickaxe handles…

  His eyes settled upon Victor and Harry. Away from the crowd. Two gazelles detached from the herd. He made his way over to them. Hands behind his back. Barrel chest thrust out. Slow, strutting strides. A murderous, 6-foot, Aryan peacock.

  ‘Was ist ihr los?’… What’s going on?

  With the help of the more talkative guards, and popular lessons given by a Canadian prisoner – a schoolteacher before the war – Victor had picked up far more German than Harry. He took it upon himself to speak for both of them.

  ‘Reden nur’… Just talking.

  ‘Und?’… And?

  ‘Und nichts’… And nothing.

  Blondie took his time looking the Englishmen up and down with his icy blue, master race eyes beneath his light blond, master race hair. Victor and Harry were both now aware that the rearmost rows of the crowd had all turned to silently watch the encounter. The only football-related noise now came from the other three sides of the pitch.

  The Nazi’s penetrating gaze eventually came to rest on Victor’s disfigured ear. He leaned closer to examine it like a doctor. Victor looked straight ahead, into the eyes of several hundred fellow prisoners now looking his way, transfixed. Blondie raised his right hand and began flicking the remainder of the ear. Two, three, four times. Victor blinked once, slowly, only opening his eyes after the final hard flick.

  Blondie lowered his hand. He was bored by that now. Instead, he inhaled to the full capacity of his massive lungs and leaned in so his big lips were within half an inch of the ear. Then he roared with every ounce of his considerable vocal strength.

  ‘KANNST DU MICH HÖREN?’… Can you hear me?

  Spittle covered the side of Victor’s head. Blondie dissolved into fits of laughter at his own joke, his big chest heaving and his red cheeks turning even redder. It took a full twenty seconds for him to compose himself and straighten up from his doubled over position. When he did, his contortions of hilarity had turned him 180 degrees and he found himself facing row after row of silent, staring prisoners.

  ‘Was?’ said Blondie, calmly… What?

  He tried to look as many in the eye as he could. A few turned back to the football. Others carried on staring.

  ‘WAS?’ he bellowed at the remaining eyes with his caveman lungs, throwing his arms out to the side in challenge. The remaining observers began turning back. The show was over. Victor began to think perhaps he and Harry had got through it.

  He was particularly relieved Harry hadn’t done anything silly. If his mucker had one fault, it was that he’d spent over half his camp time in the cooler for ‘insubordination’. It began in their first week, when a St George Legionnaire
had been sent in to try to recruit other defectors. Harry had thrown a full latrine bucket over the English Nazi with a shout of ‘De faeces are defecting’. Both were swiftly hauled out of camp. Albeit at arm’s length.

  Victor’s silent gratitude that Harry hadn’t tried anything silly did not last long. The chance to play to such a large audience was simply too much to resist. As the final one or two brave and curious souls turned their attention back to the football, Harry took a deep breath and threw himself to the ground behind Blondie. The match seemed to hit a lull at just the right moment. Pushing his mimic skills and knowledge of German to the limit, he shouted:

  ‘Wales scheisse! Schottland scheisse! Deutschland Meister!’

  Wales shit! Scotland shit! Germany champions!

  It wasn’t exactly sophisticated satire, but it did the job. The crowd erupted, turning to face the big Nazi, half of them hurling insults at him − the other half realising the role of the skinny Cockney and responding with laughter and pointing. The anonymity provided by a wall of noise emboldened the prisoners to give full vent to their feelings about Blondie’s parentage and the exact nature of his relationship with Hitler and other animals.

  The colour rose higher in Blondie’s cheeks and his massive chest began heaving once again – now through rage rather than laughter. He tried, impossibly, to stare down every one of his hecklers. He wanted to kill them all and enjoy every second of it. In the end, he realised he would have to settle for just one kill…

  Turning round, he bent at the waist and thrust a hand down towards his ventriloquist. The plunging fingers grabbed a fistful of Harry’s shirt and hoisted him into the air – a human version of the mechanical pincer grabbing a cuddly toy. The noise level from the crowd went up another notch while play on the pitch ground to a halt. Spectators on other sides were now rushing round to find better vantage points. Then the players and officials joined the stampede.

  As soon as Harry’s feet were back in contact with the ground, Blondie spun him round to face ‘no man’s land’ and grabbed a fresh handful of shirt between his shoulder blades. The weight loss suffered by every prisoner meant there was plenty of material to get hold of. The Nazi was in complete control – six inches taller and twice as heavy as his prey. He took a step towards the low wire and the death zone beyond it, forcing Harry ahead of him. A fresh roar went up from the crowd. Blondie was using Harry to play a land-based version of walk the plank.

  The nearest watchtower guard – so motionless in the face of Victor’s taunting moments earlier – was now fully engaged, beginning to raise his rifle. He needed no reminding of his orders. Anyone stepping over the wire was to be shot. There was nothing in the small print about whether or not they were forced over.

  Victor lunged in and grabbed hold of Harry’s collar, trying to pull him back towards safety. He may have been a few inches taller than his friend, but he was similarly weakened by prison life. Blondie smashed him out of the way with his free hand then drew his service revolver and pointed it at him on the ground.

  The sheer weight of numbers joining the crowd meant those at the front were being forced closer to the action. The gap had closed from twenty yards to six or seven, the mob now numbering several thousand. Every watchtower guard had their weapons trained on the front row. A mixture of rifles and fixed machine guns. Fingers on triggers.

  Blondie waved his own revolver back and forth along the line in a ‘keep back’ motion. He looked like a lion defending his kill from hyenas. Then he shoved Harry another step forward. The wire was against his shins now. The nearest watchtower guard closed one eye – he had him perfectly lined up.

  ‘Murderer!’… ‘Hun bastard!’… ‘You’ll bloody hang for this!’… The individual shouts merged into one pulsating mass of hatred.

  The wire began to strain against Harry’s shins, his centre of gravity moving further and further over it. He was on the very tips of his boots now, ankle tendons straining to keep toes on the ground, physics making him desperate to take a little step. Blondie was savouring every moment of having the Englishman’s life in his hand – it was the ultimate God-like power. But it would only be truly God-like if it ended in the taketh away bit. He gave Harry a final shove.

  The right boot came off the ground first, passing over the top of the wire. As it neared its fatal appointment with the ground on the other side, Harry felt a despairing tug on his shoulder – Victor. It yanked him back and spun him at the same time. The new impetus was not quite enough to bring him upright, but the spin might yet save him as he tried to swing his right leg back to safety, like the arm of an unstable crane.

  Victor’s desperate lunge to save his mate earned him a backhanded bludgeon from Blondie that sent him face first into the ground. With the last few joules of rotational energy, Harry managed to get his right leg back over the wire, then found himself bent forward at the waist, windmilling both arms in a desperate attempt to stop himself toppling forward. The fourth or fifth whirl of arms brought him vertical, finally restoring his balance.

  Amid the profanities being hurled at Blondie were simpler, instinctive reactions – the audible gasps of circus spectators who had just witnessed a death-defying trapeze act. Even Blondie thought it was good sport to see a life hanging so literally in the balance. But every show needed a grand finale… As soon as Harry was upright, he felt himself being lifted by the waistband.

  Blondie was simply going to throw the English wretch over the wire.

  Felled and stunned, Victor could only look back at the fate of his mucker and try to make his voice heard above the cacophony behind him.

  ‘Machen Sie es nicht!’… Don’t do it!

  He reverted to English.

  ‘For God’s sake, man!’

  As Blondie completed his backswing before launching Harry, a new voice cut through the chaos, away to Victor’s left.

  ‘SCHMIDT!’

  The big Nazi paused and looked towards its source. Victor and the crowd did the same. Harry, suspended in the air, kept his eyes screwed shut. A tall German officer in crisp grey uniform was striding along the narrow strip that still existed between the mob and the wire. He was flanked by half a dozen uniformed underlings. The few prisoners in the crowd who had seen him before muttered his name.

  ‘Oberst Lührsen’… Colonel Lührsen… The head of the camp. Even without a detailed knowledge of German army insignia, his status was self-evident thanks to the usual rule (the more ornate the epaulettes and the more dramatic the hat, the higher the rank). And Oberst Lührsen was the big cheese around here.

  ‘Das ist genug, Schmidt.’… That’s enough, Schmidt.

  At least they all knew Blondie’s real name now.

  With visible disappointment at being denied another kill, the psychotic polar bear of a man dropped Harry flat on his face (having his eyes screwed shut didn’t work in his favour as the unseen ground slammed into his nose). Three of the underlings ran over and roughly dragged him to his feet – dazed and with blood trickling from a nostril – before hauling him away past Oberst Lührsen and towards the main gates.

  ‘What about Blondie?’ came a shout from the crowd followed by more on a similar theme. ‘Get the bastard in bloody shackles!’… ‘Court martial the ape!’

  No underlings approached him. Like a sulking child, Blondie trudged past Oberst Lührsen with a half-hearted salute and set off back towards his quarters, the crowd whistling and jeering him on his way. His blood was still up and now he had a seething sense of injustice. Maybe he would bump into a Russian on the way.

  Victor was still sprawled in the dirt, heart racing, cheek and forehead throbbing from their meeting with Blondie’s mighty paw. He rolled onto his back, closed his eyes and waited for mind and body to find some calm. The thin chain with his prison dog tags was lying across his face. He was too exhausted to move it.

  ‘Du auch’… You too.

  He allowed his head to roll in the direction of Oberst Lührsen’s voice and let his eyes fall op
en. Two more underlings were running his way. Victor offered no resistance as they pulled him to his feet, the crowd again giving their opinion at seeing another victim detained while Blondie went on his way. The dazed prisoner was roughly ushered across the short distance to the Colonel before being presented to him.

  ‘Ich habe nichts gemacht,’ said Victor… I haven’t done anything.

  ‘Es hat nichts damit zu tun. Es geht um etwas anderes’

  … It has nothing to do with that. It’s something else.

  Chapter 12

  Friday, 22nd April 2016

  Holloway Road, North London

  Brook could feel a sheen of sweat on his brow by the time he neared St Mary Magdalene Church. The natural place to start looking for the Lumberjack, aka Judas Iscariot, was where he had last seen him – the same place Victor Watson had died. The detective stepped off Holloway Road and into the now familiar grounds, scanning for a distinctive red-and-black checked jacket as he went. He doubted the homeless Lumberjack would have selected a different ensemble for today (if nothing else, it would spoil the new name that Brook now seemed to be assigning to him).

  The churchyard had a different feel this time. Restored. Normalised. Like a car when a dent is beaten out. The dent may only be a tiny area of the vehicle, but it still defines the whole of it to the observer. The same was true of a dead guy in a churchyard.

  Brook stood in the same spot as his earlier visits and turned full circle. A couple of dog walkers and a mum with a pushchair were the only other people in the grounds. Then he tried casting his mind back to the strange events of that morning – Kev, Sandy Sanderson, Baz or Daz and that weird DS from Homicide. He soon realised he was looking at the bushes through which the Lumberjack had stumbled to give Sandy ‘the fright of her life’. There was something he wanted to check about the bench he had been on.

  Approaching it from the path side – rather than using the Lumberjack’s more direct route through the bushes – Brook could see the remnants of free newspapers and magazines strewn across the wooden slats of the seat. He crouched to try and recreate the view the Lumberjack would have had while lying here… Even in daylight, it didn’t amount to much.