‘Maybe she is,’ Alberto told us. ‘Maybe she’s not. She won’t go as far as Lübeck. She will go with my friend back to Italy: he has a small clinic.’
James glared at me for breaking in, but picked up my thread.
‘He has a name? Your friend?’
‘Carlo.’
Carlo: know thy enemy.
I tried again. ‘They will expect you to catch them up: in Bremen. Where would that be?’
He shot a must I? glance at James, who nodded encouragingly. Then he said, ‘The Hanseatic Hotel: it’s just outside the docks. They took it for a hospital last year. They need people like me.’
I couldn’t help it. I said, ‘No one needs people like you. You’re a fair-weather Commie who betrays his friends: I’ll bet you were a Nazi when Musso was waving the flags.’
James spoke quietly. He said, ‘Bravo, Charlie.’ He wasn’t the first to say that.
Alberto sniffed. ‘I did not know them all that well,’ he told us.
I don’t know why the Italian upset Les so much. I think that it was his attitude. Les said, ‘You make me sick. I don’t know why. The only reason I’m not going to kill you now is because I can’t be bothered, and it would get a policeman I know into trouble. That’s all. That’s all that’s keeping you alive.’
‘Your officer wouldn’t let you.’
‘His officer,’ James said gently, ‘would recommend him for promotion, and a medal, if he did.’
Les didn’t leave it at that. He put on the earnest-toiler-in-the-fields face, which always unnerved me, and said, ‘I do want you to believe this. I want you to ask in every town you go to, for the rest of your life, is there a small, curly-haired Englishman there; one who keeps his cigarettes in his hat?’ He touched his grubby old black beret.
‘Why should I do that?’
‘Because if I see you again, I’m going to kill you.’
The Italian smiled. He had a brilliant, winning, playboy’s smile. The signorinas probably loved it. He said, ‘I do not believe you.’
I gave them something. I said, ‘Then you are very foolish.’
A shadow passed across the Eyetie’s smile; but not for very long.
In the ward outside I found myself keeping to my word. I always like doing that. The kid in the blue shirt gave me his smile again. It was no different from the Eyetie’s, except that it was genuine. Les and James wandered slowly on. The wounded boy showed me his right hand. It was under bandages, and looked a funny shape. I asked, ‘Is that a Blighty one?’
‘Too right, Father. Is it Father?’
‘Padre will do. What did you do to it?’
‘A Jerry cannon shell. Small job. Lost the little finger, and it smashed through the middle. I didn’t even feel it for a few seconds.’
‘I know an American tankie that that happened to. He’s had a run of bad luck. First he lost part of a little finger, then his middle finger completely, then his complete hand. He says he’s leaving bits of himself all over Europe.’
‘Is he going home, Padre?’
‘No. He says that seeing as he’s come this far, he wants to get to Berlin.’
‘I want to get to Accrington.’
‘I think you have a better brain than he does, and a better chance.’ Then I told him, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go now. Say hello to England for me.’
‘I will, Padre, and thank you for stopping.’
I didn’t turn to wave as I walked away from him. That was never my style. Even when I wanted it to be.
The nurse I’d seen doing the hundred yards earlier was at the far end of the ward, near the door I was aiming for. I could see James and Les stopped outside, waiting for me. She was still now, and had changed her grubby apron for a fresh green one. She had a good clean smile, and tired eyes. Most of Europe had tired eyes these days. I asked her about the boy in the blue shirt. She said, ‘Oh, yes. Him. He’s a nice lad, isn’t he? Minor wounds in the hand, but gut-shot – very messy when they brought him in.’
‘Will he make it?’
She sized me up to see if the truth was in order. I don’t know what decision she reached, because she said, ‘Fifty-fifty. No better than that.’
‘Here’s hoping,’ I told her.
‘Here’s hoping,’ she agreed back.
Les had been earwigging. He said, ‘At least you could have said, God willing, Charlie.’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think that I have that sort of pull.’
As we walked down the steps to Kate, Les started again.
‘Well. That explains that, doesn’t it?’
‘What?’ James and I said it together.
‘Free love. That’s why your Grace will go with anyone. She’s obviously a Commie, just like the Wop says. They’re all for free love, that lot. That’s why we lost in Spain. The Anarchists were OK, but your Commie couldn’t leave off fucking for long enough to win the war when he had the chance.’
James said, ‘That could be oversimplifying it, old man.’
And I said, ‘That’s just what those artists we met in Paris were like. They weren’t Communists.’
‘ ’course they were. Common knowledge. Reds to a man. Perhaps that Redcap Sergeant was one: didn’t he ask you about free medical care in the future, sir?’
‘Yes, Les; but that doesn’t make him a Communist.’
‘They must be bloody everywhere. We’ll be finding them under our beds next.’
‘Reds under the beds? I like that,’ James told him. ‘Do you mind if I write it down?’
Twenty-One
When we sat in the car the penny finally dropped.
I told them, ‘That American Police Lieutenant Kilduff, and his goon Bassett – they weren’t looking for me officially. They were after the three grand. It was going to be a quick hit: there and back in two days – I’ll bet they didn’t tell anyone where they were going. Now the Yanks think that they’re AWOL.’
‘Well done, Charlie,’ James told me, and, ‘now: lean back, close your eyes and answer the questions I
