Authors: Mark Dawson
The men dispersed. Edward watched with wary curiosity as Joseph beckoned Billy across to him. The two went outside into the yard, moving a few feet away from the entrance hut. Edward moved a little to the left so that he could see them through the open doorway. They were too far away for him to hear what they were discussing but it was evidently heated. He could hear an angry tone in Joseph’s voice and Billy’s monosyllabic answers. Billy started speaking and then Joseph interrupted him angrily, his posture slumping as Joseph spoke, his finger jabbing in angry punctuation. Edward fussed with his shoelaces, casually observing the conversation as it became less fraught and then, finally, ended with Joseph placing a hand on Billy’s shoulder. Edward did not know what they had said. Had they been talking about him? It seemed likely. He heard a laugh rising from the yard, and, as he looked back outside again, he saw Billy’s happy face as he turned to face him. What had Billy said about him? He fretted about that, the sudden weight of worry making him sweat. He would have to keep a close eye on him, he thought. He had made such good progress with the others. Billy, though, was proving to be more difficult to persuade.
40
THE FIRST JOB WAS SET FOR FRIDAY AFTERNOON. They agreed to meet at the scrapyard. Joseph picked Edward up and they drove down to Charlton Marshes and parked behind George Costello’s Daimler, chocolate and cream with the prominent chrome grille. The driver was running a chamois over the windscreen, his peaked cap resting on the canopy. It was a beautiful motor and it looked out of place, parked there in front of stacks of salvaged metal and debris. They made their way into the yard. The trucks were parked alongside the hut, freshly painted with “DRAGON TRANSPORT” written across the sides. Tommy Falco was a whizz with mechanics and had broken down and then reassembled the engines, replacing worn out parts and changing the oil, filling the tanks with moody petrol that Ruby Ward had provided. By the time he was finished they were running nicely.
The others were idling outside the hut, dressed in the blue overalls that Ruby had procured. George Costello gave them the once-over like a sergeant major inspecting a line of men. Georgie the Bull looked as out of place as his car. He was wearing a tie with a fist-sized knot and shoes so polished you could see your face in them. He wore a panama hat and carried a gold-headed Malacca cane. He walked past one of the trucks and rapped his knuckles against the side. “Good job,” he said. “You’ve done well, lads. Looks authentic. I hardly recognise them.”
Joseph followed him. “They just need to pass muster.”
“Aye.” George sauntered back towards them, running the palm of his hand over slicked-back hair. “How are you, Bubble? You alright?”
“Yes, Mr. Costello,” Billy said. The nickname suddenly didn’t seem to bother him so much when George used it.
“Fabian?”
Edward looked from George to the hut and his mind lingered on the stories he had heard of the things that had happened here. Had Butler been brought here, perhaps? An evening of ‘persuasion?’ It made him feel frightened and uncomfortable. “Very good, sir,” he managed to say.
He eyed him carefully. “You look nervous.”
“Just keen to get started.”
“Ready to make some money?”
“Of course.”
George said, with a noticeable sneer, “Not the two-bob you lot were making spinning drums. This’ll be proper dough.”
“Yes, sir.”
George looked again at Edward in that hungry, lazy fashion he had. He couldn’t help but think of the way the big cats in London Zoo address the dead sheep that are tossed into their cage. He didn’t say anything else and turned back to Joseph instead. “You know what you’re doing?”
Joseph was calm and collected. “We’ve been planning it all week. Driven up on a dry run, scouted the base, we all know what we’re up to. It’ll run like clockwork.”
“What are you taking?”
“Refrigerators today. Big ones––for hotels and restaurants.”
“You’ve got buyers?”
“Ruby’s sorted it.”
“Won’t be hard to move,” Ruby Ward confirmed. “People will pay top whack––couple of hundred each. Can’t get them otherwise.”
“You lot best get going, then––go on, bugger off. I’ll see you tomorrow. And bring the money.”
Joseph had divided them into teams. There were three trucks and five men. Jack McVitie and Tommy Falco were paired in one cab and Joseph had the middle one. That left Billy and Edward to bring up the rear. Edward was not keen on the arrangement, far from it, and it was obvious that Billy shared the sentiment, but Joseph had insisted. He said that it was important that they took the chance to get to know each other better. Edward couldn’t argue with the logic––they couldn’t afford ill-will––but the prospect of a long drive with him and his monotonous, tiring attitude was not something he faced with any sense of anticipation.
He cranked the starting handle, opened the door and hauled himself into the cab. Billy slid into the passenger’s seat. Edward made a great mental effort to be as friendly as he could be. “Alright, Billy,” he said. “Me and you, eh?”
“Looks like it,” Billy said glumly as Edward released the brake. He pulled out of the scrapyard, crunching through the gearbox, careful to leave plenty of space between the wagon and George’s DB18.
Edward turned onto the road and settled back into the seat. He grasped the gearstick awkwardly and tried to start a conversation. “Got any more bouts coming up?”
“Yeah,” Billy said.
“Really?”
He shrugged. “Couple.”
Edward persevered. “Who against?”
“Couple of chumps.”
“And when you beat them?”
“What?”
“When you beat them, you still plan to go professional?”
He gazed out of the window and said, in a faraway tone, “Eventually.”
The conversation was awkward, clumsy and unsatisfactory. Billy made no attempt to join in. He sat there, making no effort to hide his boredom, staring glumly out of the window. The atmosphere was tense and strained and there was no point in pretending otherwise. Edward gave up and they drove on in silence. The traffic was light and they quickly made their way beyond the suburbs and out into the countryside. Buildings give way to villages, fields and woods. He made sure they kept in touch with the others, maintaining their nose-to-tail formation. They made good time.
They were just outside Oxford when Edward noticed a change in the atmosphere. The feeling of awkwardness had become something more tense and, when he turned his head to look at Billy, he found that he was already looking at him. “All this,” Billy said vaguely, “you going to be alright with it all?”
“How do you mean?”
“The job. You ain’t going to be milky when they get there? Not going to piss your pants? We’re going to be able to count on you?”
Edward was nervous, certainly, but the suggestion that he might not be reliable was irritating and he let it get the better of him. “I’m not milky,” he snapped angrily.
“I wouldn’t normally say it, but there ain’t going to be no way we can afford it if you ain’t right in control.”
Edward hesitated while his mind ran over the welter of things he might have said: bitter things, recriminatory things, hostile. His mind went back to a similar question that had been put to him during the war, during a patrol in the middle of the monsoon, and to the way that the rest of the men had laughed at him. Richard Watson had joked that Edward was scared and he had been indignant, but the other men had found his reaction even more amusing, and eventually he had ignored them all and kept his own company. Watson and the others had died during the ambush that followed and Edward had been decorated so who was laughing now?
Billy was staring at him, his eyebrows raised, and so Edward said, “Jesus, man,” loading it with resentment, “compared to what we got up to in the jungle, this is nothing. This is child’s play.”
“Really?” Billy said, dubiously.
He laughed dryly, without humour. “You have no idea.”
There was silence for a minute. Edward stared at the road.
“Those Japs you topped––what was it like?”
Edward looked over at him severely. “I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Come on. Tell me. What was it like?”
“You don’t think about it. You just do it.”
“But what was it
like
? Shooting the buggers. Taking another fellow’s life?”
“You do your duty and that’s that.”
“This modesty, Doc, it don’t suit you.”
“Take the hint, Billy. I’m not going to talk about it.”
He sneered. “You ask me, it’s all bloody bollocks. You want us to think you’re some kind of war hero, but you ain’t. You ain’t nothing special at all. No better than any of us. You might’ve pulled the wool over Joe’s eyes, but you ain’t fooling me.”
The sudden outburst was shocking. Edward shook his head and gripped the wheel a little tighter. Billy put his feet on the dash and started to drum his fingers on his bent knees, making a show of his contentedness. They didn’t speak after that. Billy knew he had got under Edward’s skin, and he wanted him to know that he knew.
* * *
IT TOOK LONGER THAN THEY HAD PLANNED, nearer three and a half hours than two. There was a diversion and they approached the base from a different direction than they had when they had scouted it before. The new perspective emphasised how enormous it was. There were rows and rows and rows of huts, all organised with geometrical precision. They drove for a whole ten minutes alongside the wire fence until they came to the gatehouse. Edward pulled the truck off the road and stopped. A private approached the passenger side with a rifle. His nervousness reached a crescendo and he found himself holding his breath.
Billy wound down his window.
“What’s your business, sir?” the guard asked.
“Moving surplus goods.”
“Where are your papers?”
“Here.” Billy handed down the requisition form that Butler had faked for them.
The soldier squinted at it dubiously. “What are you here for? It don’t say.”
“Surplus goods.” Billy’s tone was brusque.
“For who?”
Edward leaned across the cab. “Major Butler,” he said.
“Butler?” The man was doubtful. “No-one’s mentioned it to me.”
Edward started to get very nervous indeed. They were vulnerable. The other two trucks had pulled off the road and were parked behind them, pinning them against the gate. There were another two men in the guardhouse and he knew each of them would have a Lee Enfield. If the sentry didn’t believe their story, there would be nothing for it. Their truck certainly wasn’t going anywhere.
They were helpless.
Edward leant over again. “Why don’t you speak with him?” he suggested brightly. “Get him on the phone.”
As he spoke, Billy reached into the bag by his side. In the corner of his eye Edward watched as he started to withdraw the butt of a Webley revolver. There was nothing he could say without alerting the soldier’s attention so he reached across the seat and rested his hand across Billy’s, gently holding it against the bag.
The guard returned the credentials. “I haven’t heard about nothing getting moved but that’d be par for the course. They don’t tell us nothing. Sorry to keep you waiting, chaps––it all looks in order. Do you know where you’re going?” Edward did, but he allowed the guard to provide directions. “On your way, then,” he said when he was finished. He lifted the gate for them. Edward hurriedly put the truck into gear and motored through before the man could change his mind. The others followed close behind.
“What the hell is that?” he muttered tightly.
Billy slipped the gun back into his bag. He smirked at Edward’s dismay, calmly fastening the bag again. “Shooter. What’s it look like?”
“No-one said anything about guns.”
“You never know, do you?––looked like we might need it for a moment.”
“What are you talking about?
“Tight spot, could’ve been important.”
Edward was incredulous. “You were going to shoot him? How long do you think we would’ve lasted? This is an army base, you bloody fool. It’s full of soldiers.”
“Calm down,” he said in a gloating tone. “We’re inside now, aren’t we? No need to panic.”
His tone was patronising, the way you would talk to a child. Edward clenched his jaw, refusing to look at him for fear of further losing his temper. “I’m not panicking,” he said.
Billy saw how much he had rattled him and didn’t let up. “I knew you was milky,” he leered. “I bloody well knew it. The first sign of trouble and you’re all over the bloody shop. What the hell Joe was thinking getting you involved, God only knows.”
Edward turned away from him. He was sweating and shaking. For a moment he heard his voice denying that he was scared but then he realised that he hadn’t spoken, that the words were like a phonograph playing in his head, and that Billy was looking out of the window again, carelessly, and that he needed to pay more attention to driving the lorry.
He gathered himself. The private’s directions took them along the main road through the base. Edward had been there before but the place was larger than he remembered. It had been a small staging post for two or three thousand men when he had passed through on the way to India, seven years earlier. It had grown out of all proportion since then and fifteen thousand Americans had been stationed there during the preparations for D-Day. Nissen and Maycrete huts were arranged in neat rows, radiating out from a central hub. The accommodation was arranged end-to-end, prefabricated corrugated iron walls and asbestos roofs. The Americans had built basketball courts and a baseball diamond and advertisements for Lucky Strike cigarettes and Oreo cookies could still be found in the windows of the stores. He imagined that the United States must look like this.
Butler was waiting for them on the hard-standing outside the administration block.
“What did he want on the gate?” Joseph said to Edward once they had parked.
“They didn’t know we were coming.”
Butler shook his head. “What?”
“They had no idea.”
“I told them––”
“Never mind,” Edward said. “We’re in now. Make sure it’s sorted out next time. Now––where’s the gear.”