Pete did what he always did if he was being asked to reveal his serious side: he took the piss.
‘If Poland is returned to the Poles,’ he told Les, ‘I will personally see that you get a medal from my country after the war.’
One of us had to bring the conversation back. Me.
‘We thought that broken-down lorry had been set up to be hijacked by you and Tommo, and sold into the black market.’
‘And you left him? That was kind. You used to be braver than that when I flew with you.’
He always knew how to put his finger on the button.
James admitted, not too gracefully, ‘You’re right, of course. That’s why we came back.’
‘I know. The British always do the right thing in the end,’ Pete told us.
He had a tall Redcap sergeant, and a nifty jeep with side screens and all of the gear. This man strolled over banging his stick against his knee. Why do they all do that? He saluted very smartly, which embarrassed us all over again, and asked James, ‘Excuse me, sir. You would be Major England, sir?’ James smiled, and slouched something like a salute back. The MP continued, ‘There are some folk a bit worried about you, sir. No one’s reported your signals for several days, and anyway you’re supposed to be about two days north of here . . .’
Les’s face flushed suddenly. You never knew in advance what was going to trigger his anger. I held my hand up to James, hoping he would just keep the guy going, and dragged Pete into the lee of the Thornicroft.
‘What’s happening to the Major’s signal traffic? He’s radioed it in, getting an acknowledgement, and then bugger-all happens. This is the second time we’ve been told he’s off contact.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Some bent bastard is cutting him out.’
‘You want me to fix it?’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just li’ that.’ Both of his hands were held at waist height, and extended parallel to the ground. It was that comedian’s catchphrase again. We’d used it on the squadron. It made us both laugh.
I said, ‘Thanks, Pete.’
‘It’s not a problem.’ Then he paused, and gave me the look. He said, ‘Why don’t you and your people toddle off now, and leave me with my problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You guessed wrong about this lorry being abandoned to the black marketeers. It’s the rest of this focking convoy we’ve lost. Five lorries, a jeep and twelve men, including a Lieutenant Fielden who won an Olympic silver for running something before the war. Everybody’s panicking except Pete. Situation normal.’
‘Who’s stealing the stores?’
‘Some bad Czech with an unpronounceable name. Pete will fix it.’ I suddenly remembered his characteristic way of speaking of himself in the third person.
‘You want us to fuck off, and leave you to get on with it then?’
‘It would be best, Charlie. I fix the Major’s radio traffic, OK? See you in Berlin, OK?’
‘. . . and now you’re really a policeman?’
‘Yes, but only for a little while.’
Ah hell. Bugger him. I tried to tell James and Les. Les sniffed. James said, ‘I know. We heard you – I’ve a phone call to make, I think.’ James wandered off to Pete’s jeep.
‘Where the hell does he think he’s going to find a working telephone in this part of Germany?’ I wondered.
‘You found one a few days ago. I guess he’s guessed that the Redcap has a field telephone rigged in his posh jeep. Wanna fag?’
*
‘You believe the coppers, old man?’ James asked when he drifted back.
‘Every time I do,’ I said, ‘they lock me up in prison, or handcuff me to a bed. It’s not very encouraging.’
‘What your Polish johnny says is more or less right. Seems there’s some Czech airman ripping the arse out of the black market by getting his supplies sent up by the Army for free, and I got caught in the middle of it. He’s upsetting all the proper racketeers, so Charlie’s Pole has been recruited to sort him out. Apparently this guy doesn’t need to steal our stores; we deliver them to him. You ever heard the like? He calls small convoys forward, pretending to be folk like us, and has the stores out of them.’
‘I think it’s confusing. I don’t know who’s on our side any more.’
Les told me, ‘No one is, Charlie.’ He waited a full thirty seconds before he spoke again. ‘No one ever was. Are we going to bleedin’ Bremen, or what, sir?’ he asked me. ‘It seems to me to be getting further away from us every day.’
Twenty-Five
It bloody rained, and we got stuck between a column of muddy Brit Sherman tanks and a small convoy of smaller Morris trucks full of troops. There were about ten of them being shepherded by a Dingo scout car, and each contained about ten men. The tanks didn’t stop for nightfall, but outside yet another small German town the infantry did. So did we.
I helped James whilst Les brewed up. I rigged his aerial for him; looping it over the highest branch I could reach. He held his earphones up to one ear only, which meant that I could listen in to the other earpiece. He had done that before when he was worried about signal strength, and his keying. He needn’t have worried. I told you he had a good hand. His signal was all encrypted, of course; so it meant bugger-all to me. So was the acknowledgement from the other end, and the brief message that followed it.
Then the operator sent something in clear. He or she sent Tuesday’s Child, which brought me out in goose bumps. The Major signed off and put the ’phones back in their rig in the suitcase lid. He looked tired. Asked me, ‘What did you make of that, Charlie?’
‘Different hand, different operator. The way someone uses a Morse key is like
