‘She was a looker, I suppose?’ James.
‘Too bloody well fed for this end of the war, if you forgive me for saying, sir. Big everything: like those Viking women you get at the opera.’
I hadn’t a fucking clue.
‘Valkyries, Charlie,’ James explained to me. ‘Didn’t you tell your friend with the one hand to paint that on his tank?’
‘It’s a brand of sardines,’ I told him. ‘My dad used to like them.’
‘Probably still does,’ James said. Then he asked the MP, ‘What happened?’
‘They abandoned the Eyetie, sir: stole away like thieves in the night. Took a good few armfuls of medical supplies, and a Corps bicycle, come to that.’
‘What happened to the Italian?’
‘The rude soldiery gave him a bit of a kicking. He was in the small field hospital at first. We heard that the doctors and nurses here were making too much of a fuss of him. He was one of theirs, after all: a member of the Lodge – the ancient and honourable society to promote the interests of medical personnel over all others. It was medicine crossing frontiers, and all that guff. Do you think we’ll ever get free medicine the way they tell us, sir?’
‘If we do, it probably won’t be worth having . . . so what did you do?’
‘I sent a couple of lads to fetch him back over here, where he belonged, or put him to work. Fucking criminal. Begging your pardon, sir.’
‘Were you gentle with him?’ James asked.
‘Very, sir: I have no idea why we got the phone call.’
‘What phone call?’ I’ve told you before: I just can’t resist it.
‘The phone call from our Brigadier at the HQ in Fromme, sir . . . telling us to release the prisoner on parole.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘To put my fucking prisoner back in the fucking hospital if I didn’t want to end up there my fucking self, sir. They were his exact words.’
‘Where is he now, your prisoner?’
‘Back in the hospital; filling himself up on hospital rice pudding, and touching up the nurses, I believe, sir.’
‘Would you mind if I asked him some questions?’
‘He won’t give you the time of day, sir,’ the MP told me. ‘But be my guest. Ask him as hard as you like.’
Les yawned, sat up and looked like an alert and loyal soldier. There must have been a reason for it. He asked James, ‘Excuse me, sir. Would it be OK for me to ask if there was the possibility of us joining the next food queue? I’m starving. I’m sure that you and the Padre are as well.’
James turned to face our host again. All he did was raise a friendly eyebrow like a semaphore signal. The Sergeant shrugged, and said, ‘It’s only bully and mash, but you’re welcome to it, gentlemen.’
There wasn’t a proper Officers’ Mess, so James and I were put to a table by ourselves in the Sergeants’ dining-out tent. The difference between our table and those of the five sergeants we shared the canvas with was that the cook wiped down the sauce bottle before he placed it between us. The Big Man was right: it was Mash and Bully, capital M, capital B. Les was shipped off to eat with the Ordinaries. I’ve seen him and James do that before. Then they compare notes when they get back together. It gives them a definite edge. James and I didn’t have anything to bring to him this time; the sergeants didn’t speak much whilst we were there. It was as if we were Untouchables who had wandered into a high-caste wedding breakfast by mistake. The only thing I really remember was the tea. British MPs make the best cup of char in the world. Afterwards the Major asked his driver – just to put them into the Army’s preferred context, ‘Did you learn anything, Les?’
‘Two things. First that you can recognize the German bird the fight was over because she looks like Jane. That’s Jane with a decent herbaceous border.’
‘What was the other thing?’ I was in this too.
‘That you’d do better to forget your Grace, sir. She’s shagging anything that stands still in front of her for long enough. She was probably the real reason for the fight: she’s always trying to put one over on the German bird.’
‘She doesn’t sound too different from before.’
‘And don’t that make a difference?’
I felt suddenly tired.
‘Not in the short term, Les. I’ll get her back for them, if I can: it’s as if I owe them and her something. After that, I don’t know.’
‘They’re good at that, the moneyed classes,’ James told us. ‘Making people like you feel obligated.’
‘You’d know all about that, I suppose, sir,’ Les snarled. It was that snarly edge to his voice that killed the easy feeling we had been enjoying.
We met Albie at the door to the sanatorium, at the top of wide shallow stone steps covered by a long Victorian glass awning. It had survived, miraculously intact. He was leaning against a small soldier. His crutch had black, stand-up hair a cap would never sit on, and a cheeky smile. I asked Albie, ‘Did you know that that Eyetie MO was in here?’
‘Not when you were here. I do now. I sent someone to tell you. They’re probably still looking for you. This is Donny.’
Donny grinned, touched his brow and said, ‘God bless America, Father.’ He had a strange musical, grating voice. Albie had been right. You could have taken him for Irish.
‘He will, son, He will . . . I shall ask Him personally.’ Then I asked Albie, ‘You off?’
‘Yeah. Before I lose anything else.’
His colour was better. Fractionally. Les told Donny, ‘You look after him, son.’
Donny replied, ‘Yessir.’ Maybe he knew something about Les that we didn’t.
James could be very good when he tried. We had to walk round, through or over about five levels
