Twenty-Eight
I guess that I awoke at about dawn. My left arm, with her right wrapped through it, had gone to sleep. She had half turned towards me during the night. My right arm was stretched across my chest and hers, and my hand was inside her grey ovies, against an amazing breast. She stirred as I removed my hand. There weren’t many people moving about . . . an uncanny quiet, disturbed by snores, and the occasional low murmured conversation. I was still rubbing the circulation back into my arm as I reached the steps. James was at the bottom of them smoking a cigarette: the smoke smelled like Turkish tobacco.
‘Morning, sir.’
‘What O, Jeeves.’
‘You should save that for Les.’
‘Yes. Sorry old man. I keep forgetting that you had the operation.’
‘The operation?’
‘Made into an officer; they scoop most of your brain out – must be an operation. Didn’t you notice?’
‘No, sir. I didn’t notice.’
‘That’s how you can tell; once they take your brain away, you never notice. Fancy breakfast?’
‘Yes, sir. What’s cooking?’
‘Dampers: flour and water pancakes. We still have loads of flour, and a big tin of jam for the kids: Les will bring the rest up today.’
‘How long will what’s on your lorries keep these people going, sir?’
‘ ’bout four days, if they’re careful. But that’s not the point. There will be a Supply Sergeant along as part of the package. He’ll have a radio man with him, and between them they’ll organize it into a regular supply run.’
A shadow fell over us. It was Les. I looked up. Bright sun was pouring through the opened cellar doors, and I could only see him in outline.
‘It’s been the Major’s major contribution to war theory so far: instead of drawing all of the DPs together in hundreds of thousands, in ’uge camps and feeding stations, the Major worked out that we can save more of them by coping with smaller numbers in the areas we find them, using field kitchens. Two or three hundred at a time . . .’
‘DPs?’
‘Displaced persons. Remember that one; you’re going to hear a lot of it for the next few years. Europe is full of them.’
‘ ’morning, Les,’ James said. ‘You’re right: the next few years will see the biggest demographic changes in Europe since the Stone Age.’
‘Demographic?’ New word for me.
‘The numbers that tell you where and how people live.’ Even bloody Les knew it. Then he apologized. ‘If you hang around the Major long enough, you get to pick up long words.’ Then he sniffed. I didn’t mind.
We climbed up into the sunlight. Blue sky and big fluffy clouds. A bit of a nip in the air. Like Pearl Harbor. Sanderson had washed and shaved, and was now going through a routine of callisthenics. Les sat down on the top step and examined Alan’s rifle, which was stowed in a narrow sack, like a holster. When the Scot came up, pulling his shirt on over a surprisingly clean singlet, Les asked, ‘What is it?’
‘.303 Ross Rifle. Canadian job. Best sniper rifle in the theatre.’
‘That you? A sniper then?’
‘A marksman. Yes. I lost my taste for it eventually.’
For the first time I noticed the dull khaki badge sewn on his shoulder under his regimental flash.
There was a jeep parked at the cellar entrance: a jeep with a big black radio bolted into the back, above one of the wheel arches. A ghastly duet warbled back at us from it: it was ‘A Pretty Girl Is Just Like a Melody’. Les said, ‘It’s good, ain’t it? I got tired of all that Yankee stuff. This is coming from a British Forces station somewhere in ’olland.’
No one answered him. Eventually James said, ‘Whatever happened to Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth?’ and before anyone could answer asked, ‘Anyone seen Cliff?’
I offered to be the search party, and as I descended the steps again I heard this: James – somewhat reproachfully I thought, ‘Whose jeep is it, anyway?’
Les, ‘Our’n.’
‘You didn’t give them Kate in return?’
‘ ’course not, sir. What do yer take me for?’
I heard Alan stifle a snort. Privates didn’t talk to Majors like that in his mob.
Les went on, ‘I gave them fifty of Charlie’s dollars, an’ a couple o’ thousand bad occupation DMs. Kate would never have made it across to here, an’ I think the jeep’ll get us across to Charlie’s ’ospital without walkin’. I was thinkin’ of you, sir.’
‘That’s a load of old bollocks.’
‘Sir.’
I found Cliff in a smaller vaulted brick space, at the very back of trog city. He was sitting at a bench topped by a surprisingly large, modern-looking frame of telephone switch-gear. He had stretched his arms on the bench, and cradled his head on them. I noticed that his shirt cuffs and collar were frayed, and that he could do with a haircut. He wasn’t anything like dead.
Ingrid appeared at my shoulder: she moved as sneakily as James. She had something black and steaming in a cracked mug.
‘I brought him coffee. Not real.’
Cliff sat up, and groaned. He looked at me on one side of him, and the girl on the other. She put the mug down close to his hand, and said, ‘It is not real.’
He smiled. He said, ‘Neither are yours, Fräulein Michelin.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘Don’t worry love, bad English joke. Especially bad with your boyfriend standing alongside me.’ He yawned and stretched. ‘Did I go to sleep? Must be getting old.’
I asked him, ‘Did you hear Hitler?’
That seemed to bring him up short. He said, ‘Thank you for the coffee, Fräulein. Do you think you could find a cup for my friend Charlie here?’
What he was saying was, Sod off because I have something to say to Charlie that I don’t want you to hear, but he was doing it politely. Ingrid was brighter than either of us, when she said, ‘Of course,’ and turned to leave, she wasn’t talking about
