The Scotsman looked mollified. He said, ‘I put in a handful of ground oatmeal when I can get it: you can stir in a great gobbit o’ clotted cream if you hae’t. The kiddies go for that.’
‘Will you give me your recipe?’ James asked. ‘I’m going to open a restaurant in England after the war: it could be a novelty dish.’
The Stovie Man said that the Canadians hadn’t got any heavy stuff, so they were using Bofors light anti-aircraft guns to keep our heads down, and he said, ‘. . . an’ they’re being a bit half hearted about it. I don’t think they want a proper scrap. I’m thinking they’re waiting for someone to come and sort it out. Just like us. Excuse me a minute . . .’
He slid down to the stove at the bottom of the pit, and returned with two ally mess tins of grey and pink goo, which he handed to the kids. Every time I saw it, it had a different consistency. This time it looked like jellied dogs’ brains. They scooped it out with their hands, wolfing it down like, well . . . wolves. Maybe they were the Werewolf soldiers the Canadians were worried about, disguised as ten-year-old girls. They had nearly finished the food before he got back with two more, on big wide soup plates, for the women. One of the plates had lost a great chunk of rim. The girl with the eyepatch held her mess tin back out to him. A Bofors shell exploded with a sharp crack maybe a hundred yards away. The Scottie smiled at her, but shook his head.
He asked James, ‘Can any of you speak the lingo properly, sir?’
‘Les and I can get by; Charlie’s still a bit green . . .’
‘Les is not here,’ I reminded him.
‘Then that leaves me, I suppose. What did you need old boy?’ James.
The soldier smiled at the women again before he asked, ‘Can you tell them that there is more food, but that it would be wiser to wait half an hour before their second helping. I’m thinking they ha’en’t eaten for a couple o’ days. Too much in one go will mak ’em sick.’
James said, ‘OK, soldier . . . I can manage that.’
He turned so that he was facing them, and said about three sentences, speaking clearly and slowly. Both women smiled weakly. Eyepatch pulled the outstretched mess tin back, and cradled it to her body. There was a rattle of small-arms fire which seemed further away. A single multi-engined aircraft droned high overhead.
I said, ‘The firing’s getting further away. Are you ready to move on, James?’ I wasn’t going to call him sir, sitting in a bomb hole waiting for the next shell to catch us.
‘Give it ten, old son . . . let ’em get a bit further.’
I rolled over to face Cliff. He was about six feet from me. He had his revolver in his hand. He had had it in his hand since we’d left Les with Kate. I still don’t know who he didn’t trust – me, the Canadians, or the odd scraps of Scottish soldiery we came across from time to time. Most of those had been in cellars, shell holes and bomb craters just like the bloody Somme battles thirty years earlier. Cliff must have picked up on that, because as I turned to him he said, ‘Don’t you think that this is the better ’ole, compared to our last one?’
‘Don’t know what you mean . . .’
The Scot guffawed, and James gave his silly little giggle. The Scot told me, ‘Dinna mind them, sir. The Better ’ole was a musical entertainment from the First War. My father took me down to Glasgow to see it. To the music hall. You’re too young to ken that.’ Sure enough; he was closer to James’s and Cliff’s age than to mine. Then he started to hum, and then quietly croon a song that I took to be connected to it. It was ‘What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?’ Possibly not the best thing to be singing to a ten-year-old girl who maybe only had one left, but she didn’t understand the words anyway. She smiled at him through her fear, and hugged her mess tin closer, as if it was a doll.
I asked Cliff, ‘Will you be straight about something with me, sir?’ Perhaps the truth would make me strong and joyful. Pause. Maybe five-beat.
Then he said, ‘Only possibly. There are always other considerations.’
This time the five-beat was mine. I could always choose not to ask.
First of all I told him, ‘The Major and I have already worked out that I’m not supposed to catch up with Grace and bring her and her baby back to England. I’m supposed to chase her into the welcoming arms of Mother Russia, where she and the baby will disappear into the snowy wastes for ever.’
Cliff eye-wrestled with me: he didn’t blink. I asked, ‘Did you know that when you sent me out here?’
‘No, Charlie. I didn’t.’
‘Would you have still sent me if you had known?’
‘Yes, Charlie. I rather believe I would.’
‘What did you know?’
There were three rifle shots. Two from in front of us and far to the right, and one answering shot from what I presumed was our side. It seemed even further away.
‘What I told you: although I suspected that there could be alternative plans that I knew nothing about.’
‘And you didn’t ask?’
‘Always better not too, old son.’
‘And you didn’t think to mention that to me or James?’
‘No. I kept it nice and simple, my ear to the ground, and my eyes wide open. For what it’s worth, I think that the Bakers actually wanted them found and brought back to begin
