Les grunted. Then he said, ‘Some fellah.’ The way he said it made you glance quickly at him.
‘Good job he took it on.’ That was the driver again. ‘There’s supposed to be an intelligence officer up here somewhere, but it looks as if he got lost.’
‘Did he now?’ Then Les asked, ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah. We were in a convoy of six. The Master called through for us from his jeep. Recovery’s on the way.’
A mile or so further on we pulled over, and chinned it all out to the Major. He said, ‘Your bloody Pole, I suppose, Charlie?’
‘We don’t know that, but if it is, it looks like he’s got your job, sir. I wonder why they think you’re lost? I know that your signals are getting out. Do you want me to check the suitcase again?’
‘No. I’m getting acknowledgements and sign-offs back.’
Les mumbled something. I didn’t catch it. James explained, ‘If some bent bastard has paid off the soldier receiving my call-over not to pass it on to anyone else, then I am lost, aren’t I? Who else knows where I am?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep calling him my Pole.’
‘Then bloody do something about him. Get him off our backs. It’s more than my job he’s stealing. Look at the bloody silly load that wagon was carrying. Why had it got socks and beverages, when today’s urgent need is probably flour, potatoes, powdered milk and blankets?’
‘I don’t know, James, but I suspect you’re going to tell me.’
‘Because they all command best prices on the black market today, you silly little man. It’s just like the stock market: different products command different premiums in different places at different times. The laws of supply and demand.’ He thought that Pete was substituting his own stores requests for ours, and then hijacking them. After that he went into a sulk, and wouldn’t say any more until we had put another ten miles on the clock.
We stopped for a brew. Les said, ‘Major,’ with deliberate gravity. ‘Do you think we should go back for him? He won’t have an effing chance if the wolves fall on him.’
‘Too late, I suspect. Not our business anyway. Police stuff.’
‘Pete wouldn’t do this,’ I offered. ‘It’s too sloppy. He wouldn’t do anything he’d get caught for.’
‘That’s all right then. No point in going back and getting into trouble, is there?’ Then Les said to me, ‘Five bob. Five bob says that he nicks the lorry, and kills the Tyke.’
We shook on it. We were bloody well going to retrace our tracks again, weren’t we? Conscience is like being attached to life by a bit of elastic: it always pulls you back to somewhere you’d rather not be.
Back at the Matador we found Pete, of course, but with a couple of blokes and a great Thornicroft tank-recovery vehicle. That’s a six-wheeled crane with all-wheel drive, big enough to lift and tow a tank. In the Army’s world, big is big.
Les said, ‘I wonder if I keep Kate long enough if she’ll grow into one of them?’
I said, ‘There’s Pete.’
‘Glad you’re awake, Charlie.’ That was James again. He sounded bitter. ‘Are you going to get him to go home and leave us in peace, or shall I simply shoot him?’
I said, ‘Hi, Pete. Fancy meeting you again. I thought you were away with Tommo, printing money.’
‘Tommo’s met another Mädchen. One with legs as long as the Suez Canal, and tits like pyramids. I can’t get him out of bed.’
‘What are you doing then? The Major thinks you’re back in the black market, and stealing his stores.’
‘I told you I’d be OK: they’ve joined me up in the police to keep me out of trouble until the war in Europe is over: can’t be long now.’
‘You gotta be joking.’
But he wasn’t. He pulled out one of those little cards with the red stripes on it to prove it. James butted in, ‘I was going to arrest you, but changed my mind when I remembered that your partner might still come up with a nice little German property investment for me.’ He nodded at Pete’s pass, and asked, ‘That thing genuine?’
‘Yes, Major, it is.’
‘Explain. Make me believe you.’
Pete shrugged. He said, ‘OK.’ It sounded like ho-kay. ‘I try. Poles in exile congregate with other Poles in exile, so for several years I associate freely with my country’s political representatives in Britain. That also involved me with your black market, because most of them were up to our necks in it. You say it like that?’
‘You could definitely say it like that, Pete,’ I told him.
He continued, ‘It was a hobby. Now I’m supposed to go home, but your police have a big black market blowing up over here. Also they want to keep an eye on me because I am a Pole with interesting political connections. They solve both problems by signing up one to solve the other. That was a very English solution: I think that your Mr Clifford may have put in a word for me. I am not stealing your stores, I am finding out who is. I am a military policeman, Polish Division.’
I said, ‘We call that a poacher turned gamekeeper.’
‘I like that phrase, Charlie. I will try to remember it.’
‘Get the Guv’nor to write it down for you,’ from Les. ‘He’s good at that.’
‘When it’s all over I will return to Poland and join the Resistance. Maybe I told you that already.’
Les said, ‘Ain’t it a bit late for that?’
‘Resistance against the Russians, friend: the Germans have already run away.’
Les looked perplexed, ‘That don’t make sense. Didn’t we go to war to free
