‘What about the third time?’
‘Some lost Scotch soldier looking for his regiment, apparently.’
I had that sinking feeling. It probably showed in my face.
He said, ‘Don’t worry about it, son. Too late for that. Just give yourself a good scrubbing off – without breaking the skin – and hope for the best.’
‘Ha bloody ha!’ He gave me a sharp look; a ranker’s look; so I sullenly added ‘. . . Sir,’ and explained, ‘You’ve just taken all of the magic out of it.’
This time his look told me that he thought I was a bleeding idiot. That was all right: I felt like one. As we left I remembered something that Les and my dad agreed on, and asked James to tell me how to say I love you in double Dutch. I held her by the shoulders and looked her full in the eyes. She smiled and giggled. I stumbled over the strange words a bit, but eventually got them out. I don’t know what her response was, but it sounded nasty. That was after she barrel-housed me with a slap that almost broke my jaw. Time to depart.
Les wouldn’t let go of his Sten, which worried me because he still wasn’t right. He insisted on sitting alongside me in the front, rattling the bolt moodily. We drove in silence at first, along straight, featureless roads. Eventually he asked me, ‘Why so forlorn, little man? You really liked her, didn’t you?’
We talked about women in the way men do. Something between a boast and the confessional. I think that each of us had said more about himself than he had wanted to, because after that there was just the swish of Kate’s rubber on the arrow-straight road, and the growl of the big Humber engine. Eventually the brooding silence got to me, and I said, ‘That was just like being back on the squadron. We seemed to talk sex all the time then. It feels like years ago.’
‘That’s because you had sex to talk about,’ Les said. ‘It must be that bloody blue uniform you Brylcreem boys ponce about in.’
‘Jealous?’
‘ ’course I am. Aren’t you, now that you’re as scruffy as the rest of us?’
‘Gerd didn’t seem to notice.’
The sky we were driving into was a deep creamy yellow, and the poplars lining the road stood out against it as black. At one point I must have seen movement from the corner of my eye, and glancing to the left saw a familiar trio of American P-38s overtake us at treetop height a field away, flying in the same direction. I made eye contact with the nearest pilot. I think that Les waved to him. The guy just stared. I couldn’t see his face, so why did I sense the malevolence rolling out of him? That was just as the furthest half-rolled out of their little formation, and climbed away forward.
Les grunted. Then he said, ‘Wake up, Major . . . and get down behind the seat please.’
I asked, ‘What’s up, Les?’
‘That bastard bears us ill will. I know it.’
‘Don’t be dumb, Les. They’re on the same side as us. We’ve got bloody great white stars all over Kate for them to see.’
‘Look, sir, just do what you’re told for once.’ He had wound down his window, and put two spare Sten magazines on the floor between his feet. The Sten was round his neck again. When he cocked it the click had an air of finality about it. ‘You can argue the toss with me afterwards. If you see a black dot in the sky in front of us just weave old Kate from side to side as fast as yer can; but keep her on the road.’
‘A dot like that one?’
‘Yep,’ he said, and half climbed out of the window and into the slipstream, sighting his Sten forward as if it was a rifle. Light twinkled around the rapidly growing black dot, like fireflies, and I started to weave Kate, with my foot jammed down on the throttle. Part of me was saying, This isn’t fair. Another part of me was urging Les to kill the bastard. Les didn’t shoot back. Bullet and cannon shells kicked up the road and ploughed the verges on either side of us. A sudden crash coincided with the car filling with tiny cubes of shattered glass.
James said, ‘Oh my!’ but it was muffled by his panzer cape.
By the time that Les fired, the aircraft having a go us at was clearly identifiable as one of the three Americans. I don’t know how Les managed it, but in between the time that the Yank was within his range and passed over us, he got two full Sten mags off at him: I saw the pilot jink his beast left, right, left, and then jerk the nose up. I think that Les had either laid bullets on him, or scared him. After all, if you’re trying to murder your Allies, you don’t expect one of the bastards to murder you back, do you?
Les shouted, ‘Don’t stop; don’t stop,’ as he slid back into his seat, and immediately changed a third mag into his gun. ‘I’ll spot for you. Weave again when I tell you.’
But he didn’t, because the Yank didn’t come back. The actual attack was over in less than a minute.
Kate was full of pieces of glass. They tinkled like water in a stream as they fell from the Major’s cape when he resurfaced. An American cannon shell or bullet had hit the mirror mounted on Kate’s driver’s door, blown it through the driver’s side window, and out through the rear window. When I got out of the car later I glittered with glass fragments and glass dust, like a snowman in a garden. I had a scratched cheek. That was our only honourable wound from the fight.
We pulled off the road at the next farm. It was deserted. The
