There was something too casual about the way he slipped them into the conversation. I bought time with, ‘What does tri-partite mean?’
‘Three-way. Us, your people and the Frogs.’ After a respectable pause he prompted me again. ‘Major England and Private Finnigan. That’s not their real names, is it?’
‘I don’t know, Lieutenant, and I don’t care. The bastards have apparently abandoned me, haven’t they? Even so, I know hardly anything about them, and even if I did I wouldn’t feel inclined to tell you.’
‘That’s a pity, Mr Bassett. I might be instructed to send McKechnie and the Thing back to ask you the same questions. They can be particularly insistent.’
‘If my people have asked you to send me back to England, Lieutenant, then bloody do it. I’d be better off sorting this out with them, anyway.’
He got up; left me a deck of cheap Gauloises, and one of those French books of paper matches. He said, ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ and left me wondering how I was supposed to perform natural functions chained to the fucking bed.
There were white orderlies and black orderlies. I noticed the difference. The black ones were the ones who talked to me. Life wasn’t too bad for twenty-four hours if you call being chained to a bed not too bad. Then there was Kilduff peeking in through the wired glass window of the door periodically. I was an exhibit in a sodding zoo. Eventually he was there showing me to a tall, concerned-looking Bird Colonel with a sad face. I thought that I had seen him in the flicks. About fifteen minutes later McKechnie breezed in doing the Ostrich Walk, with my clothes over an arm. He was the all-over-happy man. He said, ‘Hi, Brother. You OK?’
‘Brother?’
‘Jive talk. All black folks talks jive talk.’
‘Stop taking the piss and talk normally, McKechnie, for God’s sake.’
‘Just trying to keep things light. It’s show time. Time to go visiting. I’ll get your cuffs; then you can get dressed. I threw that old shirt away. I got one of Binkie’s for you, from the laundry. He don’t know that yet.’
‘Can I get a wash?’
‘No time.’
He took the handcuff off. I rubbed my wrist where it had chafed. Although my clothes hadn’t been washed or pressed, my cap had been brushed: that was the American way.
‘Where’s my namesake?’
‘We gave him time off. Guessed it wouldn’t have been a fond farewell between you two.’
‘Right.’
McKechnie laughed.
‘I’m almost sorry to be giving you back.’
He left me to get dressed. The shirt was a good fit. In the institution’s main corridor I looked around for my minders. My legs didn’t feel too strong – but that was a combination of the beating, the dope and a day’s enforced bedrest. McKechnie was standing with Colonel Film Star and Kilduff, down by a set of double doors. Binkie’s lips were set hard and white: he no longer loved me.
McKechnie beckoned me to them using only his right forefinger. All he said to me was, ‘Walkies.’
They put me in the back of an olive drab Chevrolet staff car. I sat alongside the Bird Colonel, who offered me a cigar. Kilduff sat up front; McKechnie drove. The Colonel’s drawl was melodious and home-spun; just like he sounds in films.
‘Sometimes they pull me in when there’s a snafu to be sorted out. You jest sit there, son, and don’t worry; the Air Force is on your case now. The other fellahs . . . aargh, that is the United States Army, are mighty . . . sorry they made this mistake over you.’ Then he said, ‘Aargh’ again. It was a quiet, meditative sound. At first I thought that maybe he was in pain, then I worked out that that was the noise with which he finished most sentences. We both lit up. I asked, ‘Where are we going?’
‘You’re going back to your own people . . . and we’re getting one of our own back in return. I’ve done this sort of thing before; don’t worry.’
‘You keep saying that, sir. Don’t worry about what?’
‘Don’t worry about the fact that when your people found out you’d been arrested by mistake, they kidnapped an Army Colonel from out of an off-limits cat-house, and threatened to go international with the fool unless we produced you. The Army is very good at creating diplomatic incidents, you see . . . aargh . . . but never as creative about solving them.’ I found that his voice had a calming effect on me. I wanted to be his friend.
I asked him, ‘Haven’t I seen you in films?’
‘Might have done.’ He went on to tell me, ‘It helps with this sort of thing.’
‘What have you flown?’ That was me again.
‘B-17s and B-24s. Big bombers. Over Germany.’
‘Me too. Lancasters.’
‘Interesting, wasn’t it?’ That’s not how it sounded. It sounded like a sentence of twice that length.
‘What happens to me now?’ A thousand ideas were seething in my mind, but I was strangely unafraid. Gott mit uns, this time: definitely.
Kilduff said, ‘We get to give you back to your own people, and I hope they throw the fucking book at you.’
He was a bad loser. Real men are bad losers. That’s what they say, anyway.
‘When I walked into your place I had ID tags, and a pay-book.’
Kilduff said, ‘We’ll give them to the officers they send to collect you.’
‘. . . and my wristwatch and flying jacket. I’m not getting out of the car without them.’
‘You’re being very awkward, son,’ the Bird Colonel told
