‘Why not just kill him then?’
Warboys turned away. Pat said to her, rather harshly I thought, ‘Get back in, love. Your father’s waitin’ for yer,’ and pushed her back to the cab in front of him. Pete and I clambered into the back, and he dismounted the MG. When we were rolling he said, ‘I told you. Just like that bloddy rattlesnake.’
I watched Leonidas from my place at the tailgate until he was out of sight: he didn’t move, and didn’t raise his head to look at us. I suspect that Pete did as well. After a few minutes the distance and the dusk consumed him. Up in front I could hear a cheerful and animated conversation, and a lot of giggles. She was looking for allies before we dropped her off.
Collins was waiting for us at the main gate at Wayne’s Keep. We all got down – probably they felt as stiff as me. Pat walked the girl over to Collins like a postman delivering an awkward-shaped parcel. Collins asked her, ‘How are you, miss?’
She just nodded for the minute, and didn’t reply. He stood her by the gatehouse door, and came over to us. Fags all round. I told you I could get on with his sort of officer. He said, ‘Thank you, Tony,’ to Warboys, and, ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ to the rest of us. And, ‘Any trouble?’
‘Apart from her?’ Warboys asked him. ‘No. They were glad to get rid of her. I think half of the men in the parish were fighting over her. It looks like a first-aid station after a trench raid up there.’
‘What shall I tell her father?’
‘Just tell him she’s been mistreated, and that she’ll need medical support after she’s been evacuated. She could well be pregnant, but let him find that out for himself.’
‘Was she mistreated?’
‘No idea, sir. She was laughing, flirting and joking all the way back, but that could be nerves. Time will tell, I expect.’
Pete gave me the look, but neither of us said anything. Pat shook his head.
Collins asked, ‘What about the pilot?’
Warboys said, ‘Nothing, sir. Nobody said a dicky bird, and I rather think that if they had him, or had killed him, they would have told me. It’s not their way to hide their atrocities, is it? They want us to hear all about them, so our politicians will make a quick decision to bugger off.’
‘But you’ll let me know?’
‘Of course. The first.’
‘I’ll get her back to her family after the doc’s certified her for travel.’ He turned away. He’d already said thank you once. It wouldn’t have been his way to repeat himself. As he reached the step leading inside the girl burst into tears and threw herself at him. He had no choice but to hug her. Pat Tobin grinned wickedly at him as we climbed back into the wagon. Once we were rolling Warboys asked, ‘What was all that about, Pat – the sudden cloudburst?’
‘She’d noticed something,’
‘What?’
‘That he was a captain, while you’re only a lieutenant, Mr Warboys. She was renewing her insurance policy, that’s all.’
Pete snorted alongside me. Pat turned to look back through the small rear cab window at us. I thought he suddenly looked tired; older.
‘My place, OK? It’s bigger than yours, and more comfortable. I feel like doing a crate o’ beer in.’
I don’t know where the others came from, but there must have been a dozen folk there eventually. Pat had a big quarter he had converted from an office and workshop. It was far roomier than Watson’s – I wonder why the old man never complained. I ended up on a posh leather settee with Collins’s woman Thirdlow; she had tucked her knees up between us, and smiled at me over a gin and it. I was half a dozen beers ahead of her already, and in the hazy zone.
‘You recovered that girl lost in the mountains. Well done. Cheers.’ She raised her glass.
‘Collected her, you mean. Warboys did all the work. She’d been found by some GCs who didn’t know what to do with her.’
‘That’s not quite what I heard.’
‘Are you really a policeman?’
She said, ‘Mmm.’ Then, ‘What do you think?’
‘I think nobody’s who they say they are any more. We’re like all those old Venetians, wearing masks in bed so they don’t know who they’re sleeping with.’
‘Dominoes – I think you’ll find they called them dominoes.’
‘And when you pull off someone’s mask—’
‘You find another one underneath. Yes, I know. Who are you? I ask myself.’
‘I’m a radio operator, you know that. You’ve seen where I work.’
‘But I’ve just pulled off your radio operator’s mask, and found someone else altogether underneath. One of Mr Watson’s funnies.’ She smiled, but I noticed her shoulders shaking, so the smile was probably a laugh as well.
‘Is that what you think?’
‘No, Charlie, it’s what I know now. Maybe we should be friends.’
‘Why not . . . what was your name again?’
‘Ann.’
‘Why not, Ann? Wannanother drink?’
‘Why not?’ Almost my favourite words.
I lost track of her after that. She went off after different game. I made a mental note to remember that she held her drink well. Pete chatted up a WAAF stores sergeant, and I didn’t see him again for days. Pat danced with that bruiser of a woman a foot taller who gazed out over his head with a glazed, dreamy look in her eyes – Watson’s new aide-de-camp. Watson himself came over for a word, but I was halfway to Berlin in my head by then. My stomach was churning with memories I hadn’t asked for. I don’t know when he turned up. He said, ‘Well done, Charlie. I knew you’d come in handy.’
I made room for him on the settee, but he didn’t sit down.
‘I don’t know when I last drank this much beer,’ I told him. The sir got
