A Long Time Dead (13 page)

True, he had experienced a short period of almost total panic, during which he had felt so desperate that he had actually phoned Charlie Woodend in Whitebridge. But then, in a sudden flash of insight, he had understood just what kind of game was about to be played out in this old American Army camp. And with that insight, calmness had returned.

He had not yet worked out what the resolution to the game would be – there were far too many factors in play for that to be possible – but he was sure that it
would be
resolved.

Charlie Woodend was probably already sifting through the evidence with the same earnest diligence he had shown when he was a sergeant.

But then, Woodend, as had already been established, was a greatly inferior being altogether.

So while Charlie rooted around in the dirt, all he – the superior man – had to do was wait.

Wait while events evolved.

Wait until the moment was right to take action.

He had entered a very dark tunnel, but when he emerged from it again – totally vindicated on all charges – the light would shine on him more brightly than it had ever done.

‘S
o what was that all about?' Monika Paniatowski asked, when she and Woodend had taken their drinks over to a corner table in the Dun Cow.

‘What was what all about?' Woodend countered.

‘All that stuff the landlord was saying. “Argument with young thugs over coloured boys”?' she repeated, in her best Devonshire accent. “Take my hat off to you for the way you handled it”?'

‘Oh that!' Woodend said, unenthusiastically.

‘Sounds like a good story to me.'

‘It's
not
a good story. As a matter of fact, I find it a thoroughly
depressin'
story.'

‘Why?'

‘Because in the twenty-one years since that incident occurred, things have only got only a
little
better in the United States – an' they've got a bloody sight worse over here.'

‘I'd like to hear the story anyway,' Paniatowski said.

Woodend sighed. ‘All right, if you insist,' he agreed reluctantly. ‘But if you're to understand it at all, you're goin' to have to endure a bit of a history lesson first.'

‘Fair enough,' Paniatowski agreed.

‘The American government started sendin' its soldiers over here in 1942,' Woodend said. ‘There were both black soldiers
an
' white soldiers. But they were kept separate.'

‘Do you mean that they slept in different huts?'

‘I mean they were in completely different
regiments
an' usually slept in separate
camps.
The coloured soldiers were never intended to go into battle. I think there was a general belief among the American top brass that they
couldn't
fight – or maybe
wouldn't
fight. They were only there to do the menial work – diggin' latrines an' the like. So, in that way, they were a bit like Victorian servants – never seen at all unless there was a dirty job to be done, an' their white officers had ordered them to do it.'

Paniatowski took a sip of her vodka. ‘Interesting,' she said.

‘We've had a bit of racial conflict over here in the last few years, ever since the West Indians started comin' across in large numbers, but we'd had no problems of that kind
before
the war. There were less than ten thousand coloured people livin' in Britain – and most of them were concentrated around the docklands of two or three major ports. Which meant that the majority of people livin' in this country had never seen a black face in their entire lives.'

‘So how did they feel about the coloured soldiers?'

‘They liked them. As a matter of fact, a lot of folk liked them more than they liked the
white
American soldiers. It's true that, in some places, the cinemas and cafés would have one section for the whites an' another for the coloureds, but that was more a concession to the white soldiers' sensibilities than because the locals disliked the idea of rubbin' shoulders with the coloureds. An' as for the girls, they were very struck by what they used to call the “tan” Americans.'

‘I imagine that some of the white American soldiers can't have liked that,' Paniatowski said.

‘They bloody
hated
it,' Woodend replied. ‘Most of them had been brought up in the belief that the coloured man was inferior, an' that the races should never – ever – mix. As I understand it, most of the coloureds who were lynched in the 1930s suffered that fate because they'd been accused of assaultin' white women. So can you imagine how some of these white soldiers felt when they saw local girls walkin' out on the arms of coloured men?'

‘Yes, I think I can,' Paniatowski said.

‘There was certainly a feelin' among some of the white soldiers that the coloureds had better be taught a lesson.'

‘How did the coloureds react to that?'

‘They weren't goin' to take it. For the first time in their lives, they found themselves in a situation where, if a white man hit you, you could bloody-well hit him back. An' they had every intention of doin' just that.'

‘Is that what happened in this pub?'

‘It might well have done, if they'd been equally matched.'

‘But they weren't?'

‘No, as things turned out, the coloured lads found themselves outnumbered ten to one.'

There were three of them in the jeep that night. Woodend was driving, and though Kineally would have undoubtedly have preferred to sit next to him, he had decided to follow protocol and travel in the back with Coutes. The real breach between the two captains – the Mary Parkinson breach – was still several days away, but even without that, they had so little to say to each other that they had scarcely exchanged a word on the journey between the camp and the pub.

The moment Woodend pulled the jeep up alongside the Dun Cow's skittle alley, it was obvious that something was seriously wrong. No one played skittles on a cold March evening, under blackout restrictions, yet at least a couple of dozen American soldiers seemed to have gathered in the alley, under the pale light of the half-moon – and were shouting in the harsh tones that men resort to when they have scented blood.

‘I don't like the look of that,' Robert Kineally said, worriedly.

‘Me neither,' Coutes agreed. ‘Riff-raff like them should be confined in barracks, not allowed to roam the countryside disturbing gentlemen's peace.'

‘It's not funny,' Kineally told him.

‘And I wasn't making a joke,' Coutes replied.

‘Look, those are
American
soldiers in that alley!' Kineally said, as if he thought that pointing that fact out would be enough to change Coutes's mind about the seriousness of the situation.

‘So they are,' Coutes said. ‘Which means that if they're anybody's concern, they're yours.'

‘I'm appealing to you, as a brother officer, to help me to …' Captain Kineally began.

‘If you're so concerned – if you
really
feel you have to do something – why don't you just call your MPs?' Coutes suggested.

‘It's over three miles to the camp. You know that as well as I do, Captain. And that means that by the time the MPs get here, whatever's about to happen will probably be all be over.'

‘Good point,' Coutes said. ‘So perhaps there's no point in calling in the MPs after all. Can we go and have a drink now? That is, I shouldn't need to remind you, the reason why we're here.'

‘You may choose to look the other way, but I'm going to investigate,' Kineally said disgustedly, as he climbed down from the jeep. He took a couple of steps towards the skittle alley, then stopped and turned round. ‘Want to give me a hand, Chuck?' he asked.

‘Why not?' Woodend asked, ignoring his own captain's meaningful glare and following the American officer.

The soldiers had formed a half-circle around the back wall of the alley, and trapped within that half-circle were two coloured men. Each of the coloured soldiers had acquired a weapon of sorts – one held a bottle in his hand, the other a short plank. The expressions on their faces said they weren't willing to go down without a fight, but they must surely have known that once the white soldiers rushed them, they wouldn't stand a chance.

‘Stop this right now!' Kineally bellowed.

The white soldiers, who'd been so absorbed by their own anger that they'd been unaware of the arrival of the two newcomers, turned around. When they saw an officer standing there, they fell silent.

‘What's going on here?' Kineally demanded.

One of the white soldiers, a man of middle height, and with a bad case of acne, took a step towards them.

‘This has nuthin' to do with you,' he said aggressively.

‘This has nothing to do with you,
sir,
'
Kineally countered
.

The other man looked down at the ground. ‘This has nuthin' to do with you, sir,' he said, in a surly tone.

‘What's your name, soldier?' Kineally asked.

‘Wallace. Harold Wallace. Private First Class.'

‘And what's happened here, Wallace?'

‘These two niggers—'

‘These two coloured soldiers,' Kineally interrupted. ‘These two coloured
comrades
of yours.'

Woodend stood by, watching in amazement and admiration. In the time it had taken the captain to walk from the jeep to the skittle alley, he seemed to have become an entirely different person. The diffident Robert Kineally now seemed a thing of the past. This man who had replaced him was towering and commanding – this new Kineally would not have been intimidated by the devil himself.

Kineally tapped the toe of his shoe on the ground impatiently. ‘Start again, soldier!' he said. ‘And this time, take great care to make sure I don't feel the need to interrupt you.'

‘These two ni … these two coloured soldiers came into the bar,' Wallace said. ‘They just strode up to the counter, as proud as you please, an' asked for drinks.'

‘And why shouldn't they have?'

‘You kin see them!' Wallace said. ‘Ain't it obvious?'

‘Did they do, or say, anything to anger you?' Kineally asked mildly, as if he were trying to be fair to everyone concerned. ‘Did they insult you in any way, Private Wallace?'

‘Sure they insulted me. They insulted me by tryin' to order drinks in a white man's bar.'

‘But it's
not
a white man's bar,' Kineally pointed out. ‘In case you haven't noticed, this is England, and Jim Crow laws don't apply here.'

‘You want these ni … these coloured soldiers … to go back home to the States thinkin' that they're as good as we are?' Wallace demanded.

‘We're not talking about them, we're talking about you,' Kineally told him. ‘And what I want
you
to do is obey the laws of the country in which you happen to be a guest,' He paused for a moment, to let the message sink in. ‘So what happened next?'

‘We invited these boys to come out into the yard with us,' Wallace said, ‘an' we was just about to teach them their place when you come in like the goddamned US Cavalry.'

‘In other words, these soldiers did nothing whatsoever to provoke you, but you had every intention of hurting them?'

‘Yeah. That's right! An' we're
still
gonna beat the crap out of them,' Wallace said.

‘I think not,' Kineally said calmly. ‘What you're actually going to is to apologize to these soldiers for your behaviour. And while you're about it, you may as well apologize for calling them “niggers”.'

An angry growl, like that of a wounded and enraged animal, rose up from the white soldiers standing behind Wallace.

‘I ain't gonna do no such thing,' Wallace protested.

‘Then I'll personally see to it that you're tried by a court martial on the charge of treason,' Kineally promised.

‘Treason! What you talkin' ‘bout? I ain't no treasoner. I love my country!'

‘If you truly loved it, you wouldn't try to undermine it by taking two of its soldiers out of action.'

‘They ain't soldiers. They're ni—'

‘You have one minute to make your apology, and after that, whatever you say it will be too late to save you from a court martial,' Kineally said firmly.

Wallace looked down at the ground again.

‘You ain't gonna do what he wants, are you, Harry?' a voice from the crowd demanded.

‘I don't know, Huey,' Wallace mumbled. ‘I just don't know.'

‘Thirty seconds left,' Kineally said.

‘You cain't do it!' the man in the crowd – Huey – screamed.

Woodend had a fix on him now. He was standing at the very edge of the half-circle. He was a big, ugly-looking bastard, with bad teeth and a rough scar running down his right cheek.

‘Fifteen seconds,' Kineally said.

Huey chose that moment to make his move. He broke free of the mob and rushed towards Kineally. He had a brick in his hand, and there was no doubt at all about what he intended to do with it.

Woodend let him get a little closer, then stepped into his path. A look of confusion crossed Huey's face, then it changed to a look of pain, as the sergeant's fist buried itself in his ample gut.