Everlasting Lane (21 page)

Tommie and I sat in silence watching Anna-Marie stomp off in to the woods. I looked at Tommie and Tommie looked at me. We had been left alone together exactly as neither of us wanted it. But we had to make the best of things. At times like this there were only two real possibilities: football or—

‘Let’s play war,’ said Tommie.

Private Tom ‘Winston’ Winslow stroked his granite jaw with fingers so scabby they could barely feel the three days of stubble, just as his cucumber-cool mind was barely aware of the three nights that had passed since he’d last slept. At his feet, I, his loyal companion, Private Pete ‘Lambchop’ Lambert, bent low, ear to the ground. Deep behind enemy lines, hidden from the pop-pop-pop of the guns beneath a canopy of leaves, the last two survivors of the Amberley First Regiment, we took stock of our position.

‘A patrol: ten men,’ I whispered, ‘half hour back.’ I listened again. ‘Make that twenty-five minutes.’

Winslow shouldered his rifle. ‘No rest for the wicked.’

‘There’s plenty of worms out there,’ I said springing to my feet, ‘for us early birds.’

Many stories emerge from the chaos and carnage of human conflict, just as flowers bloom amidst the rubble, fully petalled, once the storm has departed. Here is one such tale, a tribute to the exploits of extraordinary men who fought for Britain in extraordinary times with pride and patriotism flowing freely in their veins; men who wrote the word ‘courage’ in the ever-present shadow of
Monte Cassino
—in letters
of blood—for we waged our war with ruthless efficiency and efficient ruthlessness—

‘No, that’s wrong.’

‘What?’

‘The Germans were ruthless and efficient. We, the British, we were brave and … erm … resourceful.’

‘Oh.’

—they waged their war with brave resourcefulness and resourceful braveness.

It didn’t sound as good.

I asked Tommie whether his dad had ever told him about the war. He gave me a funny kind of look. ‘People who go to war,’ he said, ‘never talk about it.’

We moved on: every nerve, every muscle alert to our surroundings.

‘What’s your position?’ I hissed into my walkie-talkie. ‘Over.’

‘I’m deep in enemy territory,’ replied Winslow. ‘Over. Ouch! Watch your rifle!’

‘You’re standing too close.’

‘Over.’

‘What?’

‘You’re supposed to say “over”,’ he said. ‘Over.’

‘I
know
,’ I said. ‘Over.’

‘From here,’ whispered Winslow, ‘we can make our way to those trees and, from there, follow the line of the river up and over those crags. Dozy old Jerry’ll never see us coming. We’ll give ’im a bloody nose.’

‘Just the two of us?’ I growled. ‘You’re crazy. You’ll get us both killed.’

‘Nah,’ sneered Winslow. ‘Your average Jerry couldn’t ’it Marble Arch with an ’Owitzer. When you’ve been at it as
long as I ’ave, you get to know which bullets ’ave got your details attached.’

‘What do you mean? I’ve been here as long as you have.’

‘Listen, Lambchop, if you’ve lost your belly, I’ll go it alone.’

‘Hey, I haven’t lost my belly!’

‘Okay, calm down,’ said Winslow. ‘Don’t lose your head!’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my head! I haven’t lost my head
or
my belly. Don’t worry about my head! Worry about your own!’

The rumble of a thick Italian river ran close by but no bird sang in that blood-stained valley. We flicked from tree to tree like tricks of the light, soundless, our fingers petting cold steel. And then we froze. Moving within a clearing less than thirty feet from where we stood, the unmistakable grey of Nazi uniforms, and the casual chatter of the enemy: their strange, metallic tongues carried easily in the still air.

‘Ach, schweinhund!’

‘Gott in himmel.’

‘Jawohl!’

Winslow smiled. ‘This is sweet,’ he said. ‘They’re too busy tucking into sauerkraut and schnitzel. They’ll never see us coming. We’ll spread ’em on a slice of good ol’ British toast!’

‘It could be a trap. We should take a turn around the park just in case it’s a nasty Nazi trick. If we’re not careful we could get clobbered.’

‘There’s only two kinds of men on a battle field,’ muttered Tommie, ‘those who are dead,’ he cocked his rifle, ready for action, ‘and those who aren’t dead yet.’

Closer, closer, we crept upon our quarry until we could hear each other’s heartbeats echoing like kettledrums. The German troops continued to chatter, little suspecting that for them the war, and not only the war, would soon be over.

‘Himmel.’

‘Schnell!’

‘Manchmal, wenn ich denke, dass sie offen sind, meine Augen sind geschlossen.’

I held up a silent hand and mouthed: ‘On three: one …’

‘Aaargh!’ roared Tommie as he burst into the clearing, his gun low, spraying the Germans with bullets.

‘Two …’

‘Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na!’ he screamed. ‘Take that, Fritzy!’

‘Three!’ I shouted leaping from a tree-stump, my bayonet slicing Nazi head from Nazi neck. ‘K-pow! K-pow! K-pow!’ I roared as one, two, three German soldiers enjoyed an unexpected breakfast of Italian dirt.

It was over in seconds. Only the commanding officer remained: a pitiful creature, a quivering wreck of fear and cowardice, his face pale and his eyes as scared as saucers. In faltering English he begged for his life.

Winslow walked up to the cowering figure, indifferent to his pleas.

‘So, Hauptmann Gale, we meet again,’ he murmured. ‘Vera Lynne always said we would.’

The German officer ceased his babbling and looked at Winslow with curiosity. ‘You?’ he said. ‘But you’re …’

‘You know him, Tommie?’

‘I should say I do,’ said Winslow. ‘The Captain, here, and I have crossed paths (or should I say
swords
) before.’ He gently touched the side of his head. ‘I didn’t get this old war wound in a game of cricket, eh, Herr Hauptmann?’

The German put his hands together as if in prayer. ‘Gott in Himmel,’ he said. ‘Private Vinslow, if I had only known. I beg you for mercy!’

‘Mercy?’ laughed Tommie. ‘Mercy? Ha! There’s no mercy for you here, Mr Gale.’

He fired once—a single bullet—straight through the skull of the repentant Hun: a perfect round hole through which, briefly, a glimpse of blue sky could be seen as the body fell forwards with a thump.

Tommie lowered his rifle. ‘That was fun,’ he said.

Mademoiselle Marianne Le Dell of the French Resistance, golden tresses falling from beneath her beret, marched briskly along the lane to her rendezvous with Monsieur Merdeux. Merdeux had promised her secret intelligence of invaluable assistance to the war effort. Right now, however, her sixth sense was tingling. Like a gazelle sensing the lion on its trail she knew she was not alone. She took courage from her own fortitude and from the silver revolver, concealed beneath her petticoat, with which she was wont to ruthlessly despatch the Bosch. ‘Halt!’ I stumbled out of the trees onto the road. ‘Who goes there?’

‘Mon Dieu!’ gasped Mademoiselle Le Dell.

I pointed my gun at her. ‘Marianne,’ I said, ‘we have come to save you.’

Tommie and I had long suspected that Monsieur Merdeux was nothing but a Nazi stooge and whilst we knew that Marianne was both brave and resourceful (and resourceful and brave), we had sworn to prevent her from walking into a fiendish—

‘What the hell are you doing?’ enquired Mademoiselle Le Dell in flawless English. ‘Creeping up on me!’

‘I … I … There might be somebody following you.’

‘There
is
somebody following me,’ said Anna-Marie.

‘I mean it might be a madman.’

‘It
is
a madman. Why are you pointing that stick at me?’

‘It’s not a stick,’ I protested, lowering my gun. ‘It’s a … It’s a rifle.’

‘It’s a bloody stick!’

‘In fact,’ said Private Winslow, emerging from the brush, ‘it’s a Lee-Enfield rifle—number four, mark one.’

‘I might’ve known,’ sighed Mademoiselle Le Dell. ‘There’s always two Ronnies.’

‘We finks you’s walking into a trap, miss,’ said Tommie,

‘dahn the dog and toad.’

‘That’s
frog
and toad, you berk.’

‘Mr Merridew’s a collaborator,’ said Tommie.

‘You might be in danger,’ I said.

‘You’ll be in danger if I have to stand around listening to this hogwash for very much longer!’ snapped Mademoiselle Le Dell.

‘Oh, come on, Anna-Marie,’ said Tommie. ‘It’s only a game.’

‘Well,’ said Marianne, ‘I do not play games. Now, bog off and leave me alone!’

With that she walked off, her heels clicking on the surface of
La Petite Route Éternelle.
And, as she departed, leaving a whiff of Gauloises and a waft of Chanel no. 5, I heard her muttering to herself:

‘Imbéciles.’

We rested awhile, basking in the warm Italian sun, shadows striping our faces, but our rest was disturbed by the sound of footsteps. Somebody was walking … no, stumbling through the undergrowth. Winslow put a stubby finger to his lips. We waited, rifles cocked, breath bated, for the sound to pass.

‘Someone’s up to no good,’ muttered Tommie. ‘Come on, let’s follow.’

We moved more skillfully than our quarry: sometimes side by side, sometimes separating leaving the mysterious figure at some point between us. I looked around. Our pursuit was taking us far deeper and far darker into the woods than I had ever come before. The trees here were wild and twisted, struggling free of the earth rather than simply growing from it. As we moved through the dirt and dust, down towards the very lowest point, I noticed how the forest turned its back on the light leaving the darkness undisturbed.

Tommie and I met on a narrow ridge overlooking a dark clearing where the sound had come to a halt. I heard a gust of wind and the high branches going clickety-clack, like God was Hoovering the trees, and then as we began scrambling down towards the pit, approaching the clearing, the unmistakable sound of panic.

As before we burst from the undergrowth with a yell. But there were no Germans here, just a single soldier in British uniform. The man was on his hands and knees with his back to us, scrabbling around in the leaves and undergrowth. He seemed unaware of our presence so Tommie walked up to him: ‘What’s up, chum?’

I could see now that, in his arms, the soldier held the body of a girl or woman, her flesh shiny like the white skin of a hard-boiled egg; hair matted against her cheek; blood: some crusty, some moist and jelly. The whole image is printed in my mind like a photograph on silver plate.

The soldier had turned his head quickly to see who had spoken, and, as he did so, I stared. You see, it was my daddy. Not as I remember him at home but like he looked in that photograph on the telly: young and handsome. He looked at us with pleading in his eyes.

‘Oh, Peter,’ he said, his voice hoarse like gravel, ‘you’ll be
the death of me.’ And then, ‘Anyway, do you want your cake now,’ he said, ‘or will you save it for later?’

‘This isn’t any fun,’ I said.

‘Oh, I know,’ said Tommie as we trudged back towards the lane, ‘we could be Americans. We could parachute into occupied France.’

‘No.’ It was stupid being on the same side.

‘All right. You can be the Jerry and I’ll be the British.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be a Jerry.’ I felt close to tears and not like playing anything. I walked off down the lane, tossing my branch into the trees. Tommie ran after me, still carrying his own stick like a rifle.

‘Well, be a Jap, then,’ he panted, drawing level. ‘I’m never the Jap. My dad says the Japs were worse than the Germans.’

‘Anna-Marie’s right. I don’t want to play your stupid games.’

Tommie’s mouth twitched with fury. ‘They’re not stupid,’ he said. He pushed my arm. ‘They’re not stupid:
you’re
stupid.’ I shrugged him off and carried on walking. He tried to trip me from behind but missed. ‘You’re an imbecile,’ said Tommie. ‘Anna-Marie says it. You’re always staring at her like a retard.’

I stopped, blushing with embarrassment. ‘Well, you’re a bog brush! Anna-Marie says so.’

We paused a moment devising new insults. ‘You’re a birdbrain,’ spat Tommie, ‘and your mother’s a loony. That’s what my mum says.’