unbombed little village –
or, not quite peaceful . . . because there was a group of American army vehicles in the centre of it now – a big white-starred staff car, and a jeep with its rain-hood up, and a 15-cwt . . . and a large American NCO, with chevrons half the way down his arm, chewing his cigar regardless of the rain.
The sight of the American cautioned Fred to acclimatize himself to Occupied Germany, in the American zone: no British NCO, required to wait in the rain for his officer, would have dared to smoke a cigarette so openly, let alone a cigar. But the Americans, for all their readiness to accept appalling combat casualties, were civilians at heart even more steadfastly than the rank and file of British. And now that the war in Europe was well and truly over he must expect an even more pronounced decline in military discipline than he had observed among his own countrymen, with which Colonel Michaelides so often taxed him.
‘Not far now.’ The little man humoured him, like a father with a tired child in the back.
‘To Kaiserburg?’ Fred felt the big car stretch itself uphill, under the dripping forested slopes of the Taunus Hills.
The Kaiser’s Burg – yus.‘ Sniff. ’An‘ a nasty, dirty night it’s goin’
to be – like it always is when we’ve got a job on.‘ Another sniff.
’Bloody rain!‘ He twisted towards Fred. ’Not like where you’ve been, eh.‘
‘No!’ He answered automatically, as the memory of the crystal dummy4
clarity of the evening light and the inviting waters of the bay of Marathon tugged him momentarily away from
‘The Kaiser’s Burg – huh!’ The little man appeared not to have heard him. ‘It’s only temp’ry billet, mind you . . . ’Cause . . . we’ve bin movin‘ around down ’ere, amongst the Yanks, like . . . An‘ the Colonel – it suits ’im, bein‘ wot it is ... an’ ‘im bein’ wot ‘e is –
suits ’im down to the bleedin‘ ground!’ Bigger sniff. ‘No bleedin’
electrics . . . an‘ we only got water because it’s bin pissin’ down, so the cisterns is all full.‘ He twisted towards Fred again. ’We were in shirt-sleeves up North, in May – would you believe it? An‘ in June, it was a treat . . . On’y good thing, bein’ ‘ere
‘What job?’ Fred plunged straight in as the little man drew breath.
‘Ah – ’ The little man fiddled maddeningly among the controls, switching switches on and off quickly, until a feeble yellow glow finally illuminated the trees ahead, totally useless in the half-light and the rain ‘ –
Yes – but you could be lucky, sir – arrivin‘ late, like . . . ’cause it wouldn’t be fair to send you out . . . always supposin‘ we ever gets dummy4
there – ’ he pushed his face up against the rain-smeared windscreen again, peering into the gathering murk ‘ – all these little roads looks the same to me, this time uv day . . . An’ most uv ‘em don’t go anywhere, anyway –’
Fred’s heart sank as he identified the familiar whine of the totally useless and incompetent driver, who was accustomed to following the tail-lights of the lorry in front, and believed that maps were for officers only.
‘No! I tell a lie!’ The little man sat bolt upright as he looked directly into the muzzle of an 88-millimetre gun, his voice joyful with recognition as the car crunched past the enormous tank on which the gun was mounted. ‘Not far now!’
Fred swivelled in his seat, to peer back at the abandoned monster through the rear window, his irrational fear dissolving slowly.
‘That’s wot we call “our signpost” – proper useful it is,’ confided the little man as the tank disappeared in the rain and the overcast behind them, like a dead dinosaur sinking into its primeval swamp.
‘Gawd knows ’ow ‘e got ’ere, up the top. Prob’ly just lost ‘is way, like I thought we ’ad. But Mr David sez ‘e was most likely just goin’ ‘ome through the forest as the crow flies, an’ this was where
‘is tank run dry. But ’e’s a yarner, is Mr David.‘
‘A ... yarner?’ Something stirred in Fred’s memory. ‘Mr David?’
“ ‘E tells yarns – makes up stories. Wot ’e sez is that everythin’s got a story behind it, to account for where it ends up. An‘ it’s the same with people – like for you an’ me, sir: we ain’t ‘ere by
are, or wot we done – ‘ The death-rattle was repeated, but happily now because the little man knew where he was at last’ – which in
‘Not that I’m aware of, no.’ Fred searched for something in the cobwebby attic of the past which still eluded him because it was hidden under more recent rubbish. ‘Mr David?’
‘Yes. Captain –’ The yellow headlights caught the loom of something substantial through a thinning screen of trees up ahead. ‘
– there we are! Wot did I tell you. “Not far” – didn’t I say it?’
Through the driving rain and the trees the substantial something became long pale yellow-brown stone walls – crenellated walls, almost medieval, except that they were too low for the siege-warfare of those days and far too untime-worn to be anything older than nineteenth-century work.
‘Yes.’ It was a barracks, of course: now he could even see the two low towers, with their distinctively unmedieval low-pitched tile-roofs, on each side of a double gateway, as the car swung off the road and transfixed them momentarily in its headlights – up here, in the middle of nowhere, what else, of course? ‘It’s a barracks, is
