Early February drifted in. Bernard was putting bets on for me with a runner he knew at his local. I always lost, but I was training for after the war: I was going to be a racing journalist. I didn’t know much about the horses but I liked the idea, and I’d seen Prince Monolulu on the cinema newsreels.
A few days before Frau Doktor signed my movement order Bernard strolled in unannounced, took the upright chair to its limit with his mass, and told me, ‘Your dad’s looking in tomorrow, sir. Him and your uncle.’
‘Good. I was wondering how Dad was.’
‘Most people write letters: you could try that.’
‘I’m going to get paid for what I write.’
‘You’re a mercenary little bugger, sir, and useless with the gee-gees. Anyway, he’s just popping in to say goodby-ee for the present. Him and your uncle.’
‘Why? Where are they off to?’
‘France. Then Germany most like; I almost envy them.’
‘Don’t be daft, they’re old men.’
There was a bit of a hiatus then: because they would have been round about the same age as Bernard. He asked me, ‘They were in the trenches, weren’t they? During the last lot?’
‘You know Dad was. You swapped trenchie stories with him over Christmas, didn’t you?’
‘So I did. What did he do over there?’
‘Pioneer. They both were. Dug holes for other people most of the time. They probably dug yours.’
‘There you are then. His Country needs him again, and all that; only as a civvie on better wages. Loads of the old fellahs are doing it. Loads of spondulicks around, apparently. The front is moving so fast they need people who can dig trenches quickly. Your old man spotted his chance.’
‘Silly sod! What if he cops it?’
‘I don’t think that he cares much, sir. Like father, like son. Why is that?’
‘He evacuated my mum and my sister with him to Scotland when our house was doodlebugged last year. My uncle found them a flat. Dad found a job. There was something the matter with the stove in the flat. He got home from night shift one morning to find them dead in their beds. It changed him. Changed us both.’
‘Is that what you fell out over, sir?’
‘Yeah, but only for a couple of weeks. No point staying mad at the only one you’ve got left.’
‘But he still feels it, I’ll bet. Him and his brother both. So they’ve gone to take it out on the Jerry, by digging trenches all over his allotments.’
I wanted to leave hospital in my uniform. Frau Doktor was there to say goodbye. She had to lean down to kiss me, and I was surprised when she did. When Gloria did the same I felt her hot little tongue slide briefly into my mouth, like a wren in a hedgerow.
She asked, ‘Will you come back and show us how you are?’
‘Of course.’
‘I know you’ll never write.’
‘How?’
‘You haven’t written to anyone from here, have you? You’ll not come back either.’
‘Give me another kiss.’
She obliged. She was an obliging sort of girl.
‘Yes I will,’ I told her. ‘I’ll come back for more of those.’
It was a lie, but her smile was half worth it. Cliff thumped my half-filled old leather case and Tommo’s two heavy kitbags into the space behind the front seats of the Singer.
‘Strewth. What have you got in these?’
‘Don’t know. I’m minding them for a friend.’
I drove and crashed the gears all the way to Bedford, until I got the hang of it again. Cliff rested his arm over the low door and watched the grey-green countryside sliding past, pretending not to notice. I told him, ‘We should have put the hood up, it’s bound to rain before we get back,’ and of course it bloody did.
Three
‘. . . I don’t need it, sir. All I need is a week for what I’ve got to do.’ Goldie had been asking me about the two weeks’ crash leave I was entitled to.
Then he said, ‘Good-oh,’ and ‘. . . Famous,’ and noticed me looking at a patch of sticky tape covering a piece of skull where a hank of his famous fair hair was missing. He patted it gingerly. ‘Left a bit in Holland. Bloody Germans, I think. You’d think they’d give up.’
‘I keep on wishing they would, sir. They’ve lost. Where shall I report when I get back?’
‘Motor pool. If you need a car choose yourself a good one. One of those big Humber staff cars should do the trick.’
‘Motor pool, sir? What about the radio workshop?’
‘Christ no, old man. Old Stan was back in time for Christmas, like Santa Claus – walked over the front line in Belgium somewhere. You’re an officer now, and one squadron radio officer is more than enough. We found him a new Sergeant: we had a bit of a run on Sergeant W/Ops last year, didn’t we?’ I understood that I wasn’t supposed to reply; I had been one of them, after all. ‘. . . so we’re lending you to Major England. Liaison. He’s probably over the other side right now – he has a batman he calls Raffles. You’ll find them good value: altogether a cushy number to let you get your eye back in.’
‘What will I be doing with Major England, sir?’
‘Buggered if I know, the brown jobs never tell us anything, but it’s something David Clifford has cooked up. He said you were a handy driver. Know anything about cars?’
‘Very little, sir.’
‘Piece of cake. Earth, fire, air and water: they run on the same principles as medieval magic. You’ll soon get the hang of it. I was a medievalist at Cambridge; that seems
