Later Les said to me, ‘That bullet was tumbling when it reached you? Yeah?’
‘Yes, Les.’
‘Then it could have clipped you, blown out the screen without enough energy left to actually pierce it?’
‘So it goes through Kate’s tank, along the Major’s leg, through your bum, bounces off the seat frame, bounces off my arm and tears my jacket, hits the windscreen, breaks it, hits the door window, breaks it, and then bounces back into the car? Is that it?’
‘I think so, Charlie.’
‘Is this important?’
‘Yeah. It’s one of the stories you tell afterwards. Know what I mean?’
I didn’t. This was still my first war. I hadn’t had an afterwards. I said, ‘Yes,’ because a future was not something I wanted to talk about.
James hobbled up on a light cane stick he’d borrowed from someone, milking it for all he was worth. He said, ‘I heard that the British tank squadron that passed through us last night got a bit of a doing in a valley the other side of Korne. I’ve got a feeling I know that valley. The Yanks are coming through in half an hour. Your pal Albie could be with them.’
He was. Well, most of him was, anyway.
It was a nasty flat-looking tank. All tanks are nasty tanks. As soon as someone opens a door you get that smell from them like a partly blocked latrine. The name Marlene had been painted out, and replaced with the words past caring and a sloppy exclamation mark. A forward hatch swung open, and thumped back against the armoured decking. It sounded like the tolling of a large church bell. A head popped out of the hatch, like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. The head was small, had brush-cut black hair, olive skin and slitty little eyes. I’m sure that we mustn’t call them slitty little eyes these days.
The Major said, ‘I think I see a chink in your armour, Albie.’ When no one laughed he added, ‘Sorry; I couldn’t resist that.’
The oriental said, ‘That’s very funny. I haven’t heard that one before.’
Albie was sitting on the turret turned towards us, with his legs dangling over the side. He had found a grey German officer’s cap with a shiny black peak from somewhere. He said, ‘He’s not a Chink.’
I said, ‘He must be a Jap then. Aren’t we supposed to be at war with his lot?’
‘Loyal Japanese. He’s Japanese American: we got thousands of them. He must be all right because RKO sent him to me. He’s a genuine film star. He’s been in Charlie Chan films.’
‘My name’s Charlie,’ I told the olive-skinned gnome. ‘What parts did you have?’
‘In most of the films I got to say Yeth, Master, or, No, Master. Then I died.’
He had a great, soft speaking voice that made you smile.
‘I saw those bits,’ I told him, ‘and I thought you died very well. I thought that you had a great future in dying.’
Albie said, ‘So did Uncle Sam. That’s why he sent him to me. My people are always dying. I asked for a professional, for a change.’
Then I asked Albie, ‘What’s his name?’
‘Ito. We call him Hero; geddit?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Hero Ito. Hiro Ito. Isn’t he King of all the Nips, or something?’
Then I noticed his eyepatch.
Les was faster than me. He asked, ‘Sir? Albie?’
‘Yes, driver?’
‘What the fuck happened to your eye, sir?’
‘I bashed it against the 50-cal magazine. The Cutter said that he’d take it away for me, because it would never work again. Didn’t hurt that much.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Round here somewhere.’
As we strolled off James offered, ‘You don’t think that the Cutter is collecting enough body parts to assemble his own American, do you?’
He finished the sentence with a thunderous great sniff, which rumbled around his sinuses like the early phase of an earthquake.
I suppose that we now had the excuse to jack it in if we had wanted it, but in my case the choice was either going on to Bremen with them, or going to Bremen on my own. Part of me believed that Cliff had only set me off in pursuit of Grace because he thought I’d cock it up: he’d never thought I’d catch her – but at the same time he could turn to the Bakers and say, We tried. Now I was this close I wasn’t going to stop, even if they wanted me to.
We waited for a day. We cleaned out Kate’s cabin, and Les bartered petrol for a replacement front screen. It came from a Vauxhall, so it didn’t quite fit, but it was better than nowt. We couldn’t do anything to the passenger side window, so Les stretched a cut-out flour sack over it, which he wedged in place with wooden pegs. He used two more tapered ones to seal the bullet holes in the petrol tank, tapping them firmly into place with a wooden mallet.
‘Navy taught me,’ was all he’d say about it.
When I told Les that they didn’t have to stay with me he laughed. Then he said, ‘I’ve a bigger pain in the arse now than you, Charlie, and I think that the Major wants to stick it out. Anyway something’s gone wrong with our comms system, and I think he’s keen to find out what.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘He’s not likely to tell you, is he, sir?’
‘What is the problem?’
‘It seems like the stores he calls forward don’t always get sent up; an’ other things do instead. Some bastard down
