‘He’d be some kind of businessman, then? This friend of yours.’
‘What was that you said earlier about people asking too many bleeding questions, Private?’
‘Just testing, sir,’ he told me, and grinned.
‘How are we travelling to your Major’s club?’
‘In your car, sir. Understand you have a little corker.’
Who had been talking?
‘Mr Clifford is a bit of a bastard, isn’t he?’
‘Not many would disagree with that, sir.’
‘The Squadron Leader led me to believe that you were already in France.’
‘So we were, sir. Now we ain’t.’
As we filled the small back seats of the car the Private looked up at the cloud base, licked his right forefinger and held it up. Then he turned to me and said, ‘Shall us have the hood up, sir? It’ll rain before we reach London.’
The little sod was right, too.
‘Are you driving, or am I?’
‘You, sir, if you don’t mind. I’ll keep an eye on your driving, if I may? The Major said to look you over.’
‘Oh he did, did he?’
‘Yes, sir. Definitely.’
After half an hour he said, ‘OK, sir. That’s enough. If you’d care to pull over I’ll drive the rest.’
I’d managed thirty-five miles without grinding a gear: no problem.
‘OK, am I?’
‘Frankly, sir, you’re effing useless, but nothing a bit o’ practice can’t cure.’
There endeth the First Lesson, and commenceth the Second. I studied him all the way to the big house in Highgate we were bound for. I hadn’t realized the little Singer was a racing car. From time to time he whistled as he drove. Always the same tune. ‘Lili Marleen’. Note perfect.
It was a huge old red-brick Victorian terraced house on Highgate Road, a wide, gently undulating road looking out into Highgate Woods. Through the trees I could see a late cricket match was under way, and hear Australian voices. A neatly painted sign on the door said, Officers’ Club. There was a threehouse gap in the terrace about a hundred yards further on. Finnigan told me, ‘That’s where the first bomb fell on London. Poor bugger was lost. I wonder if he got a medal for it?’
‘We staying here?’
‘Yes, sir. Don’t bother to unpack much. We’ll be moving on in the morning. There’s a big garage round the back: I’ll put your car up on blocks for when you come back, and stick the keys in the tail pipe, just in case you don’t.’
‘You’re very thorough.’
‘Smashing little car, sir. It would be a pity to waste it. It reminds me of a Clyno I had before the war. My missus sold it to some RAF bloke when she was short.’
I couldn’t stay angry at him for long. Not when I agreed with him. It was a smashing little car.
The airy front room of the house was a bar. There was only one person in it: a tall, round-shouldered soldier with blackrimmed spectacles, a thin dark moustache and a bit of a stoop. He was wedged into a utility armchair, and looked about 190 years old. He was probably one of the 1900 vintage. A uniform jacket with an Intelligence Corps shoulder flash was gracing the back of an upright chair. He was wearing a Fair Isle sleeveless cardie over his uniform shirt. I decided that I liked that. He looked up from a small notebook he was studying, and said, ‘Oh. Hello. You met Raffles then?’
Raffles? Private Finnigan said, ‘The Major doesn’t like Finnigan. He calls me Private Raffles, instead. Lots of other things as well.’
The big chap stood up, and held his hand out to me. He had to drop it a couple of feet before we could shake hands. He said, ‘You’re Bassett, and I’m England.’
I was quite glad that he’d got that right. I’d always heard you had to be quite sharp to get into I Corps. He’d caught my glance at his jacket and added, ‘Don’t let the badge fool you. I’m an agronomist: farming and nutrition. College lecturer before the war, and doing more or less the same now.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you about that when we get along.’
‘My last squadron were always telling me that.’
‘Maybe they wanted to get to know you first,’ Finnigan told me. Or was it Raffles?
He showed me where I could kip for the night, and where the kitchen was. We made a stack of sandwiches from tombstone-sized cuts of bread, and cut slices from the largest piece of cheese I had ever seen. Butter didn’t seem to be the usual problem, either. I had the weekly cheese ration for a family of four between two wads. The Private caught my look and said, ‘It’s a shitty war.’
‘Yeah, but the only one we got. I’ve heard that before. Do I call you Private Finnigan, or Private Raffles?’
‘Private anything.’ He shrugged. ‘Raffles: the Major rarely calls me the other.’
‘Why does he call you that?’
‘You’ll have to ask the Major that yourself, sir.’
There weren’t any other people in the place. We joined the Major back in the bar. The Private opened a couple of bottles of beer – drinking his own from the bottle, but pouring mine into a glass. The Major was on scotch and sodas: eventually he sighed and tucked his little notebook into a jacket pocket and buttoned it in. The conversation was a serious war conversation. Who was in what show at which theatre, and whether the Troc was worth what they were charging for it. Raffles excused himself after the one beer, and headed for his room. The Major held up his glass and asked, ‘Would you oblige? Get yourself one if you’d rather.’
Behind the small bar were a dozen bottles of the precious commodity, and a couple of lead-wrapped soda siphons, part full. I didn’t take a second asking.
‘Is anyone else living here, sir?’
He slurped the scotch and soda I gave him before replying.
‘No. It says Officers’ Club outside, but there are only two supply-side officers in the Corps
