Silent War Read online

  ‘You run this place?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yes. I own it, too.’

  ‘Useful.’

  ‘I thought so too. David put it in my name for tax reasons I think. When he died it was mine: like a going-away present.’

  ‘Miss him?’

  ‘Not so much now. It’s been three years.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘That’s because you are a man.’ Birds have been trumping me in conversations like that for years. I hate it. But I didn’t hate her, because she next said, ‘Let’s get drunk and talk about him all night; it’s good to see you, Charlie.’

  ‘It’s good to see you too . . .’ and then I paused because of the name thing. ‘The silly thing is I don’t think I ever learned your name.’

  ‘It’s Irma.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bozey’s bird. Who used to be Tommo’s bird. You’ll have heard all the crap that’s being talked about recycling these days, well we were far better at it in the 1940s and ’50s: the war had taught us how to recycle living people.

  I got drunk with Irma, and then she took me somewhere and put me to bed. When I awoke in the morning a radio from another room was belting out ‘Lady be good’ as if it was a bounce – good old Benny Goodman. I followed the noise, and found Bozey tucking into bacon sandwiches.

  He said, ‘You’d better get some of these inside you; there’ll be precious few where you’re going – they’re all Muslims over there, so they don’t eat pig.’

  ‘What do they do with it?’

  ‘In the war there was an athletic belly dancer in one of the Cairo nightclubs; she had a very interesting act with a pig.’

  ‘Ow!’ I said, because my head hurt when I moved it. ‘Why don’t women get men to do that sort thing to entertain them?’

  ‘Because they’re too grown-up already, but I suspect they’ll get round to it eventually. Good morning, boss. Headache?’

  ‘Yes. Your woman’s a mean drinker. How much did I get through last night?’

  ‘Less than her. She’s still sleeping it off. I’ll get you something . . .’ He pulled a bottle of PX marked Coca-Cola from their fat refrigerator, popped its cap, dropped in four aspirins and shook it up. When he finally poured it into a tumbler it looked and tasted just like Coke should. It took about five minutes to do the job, and then I began to feel exceptionally happy – as if I could party all night.

  ‘How did you know I was going to Egypt?’ I asked him. ‘Did I tell you yesterday?’

  ‘You may have, but Mr Halton called the office after you had gone. He told me; he’s worried about you.’

  ‘He bloody should be. He’s sold me back to the RAF.’

  ‘Only for a while, he said.’

  ‘How long is a while? A long while or a short while?’

  ‘Don’t know, boss. I’m not that much in his confidence – you are.’

  ‘Fat lot of good it’s done me.’ I looked around for the first time. We were in a nice new kitchen, in a decent-sized apartment. I found myself smiling at a portrait photograph of David ‘Tommo’ Thomsett staring back at me from the kitchen dresser. Just at that moment Benny came on from the radio station again with a slow number, ‘Someone to watch over me’. Just one of God’s little messages.

  I observed, ‘Irma was Tommo’s girl. I met her in the Black Forest or somewhere.’

  ‘I didn’t know if you’d mind.’

  I nodded. I wasn’t going to tell him that if I minded it was because I’d rather fancied her myself.

  ‘Life goes on, Bozey; even if sometimes we don’t want it to. Tommo wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Halton does. I think he’d rather have you back where he can see you, until you ship out.’

  ‘I know. I was just running away from it for a couple of days. I’ll get the next flight out.’

  That was that really. I jumped a BOAC York into the new airport at Heathrow. I can’t say I liked the place; it hadn’t the style of Croydon. There was something about the new terminal building that reminded me of a refurbished toilet in a three-star hotel. I’ve flown out of there hundreds of times since and never changed my mind.

  Old Man Halton had a new office at the Cargo Side so I sidled over there for a showdown. The door of the office was the same colour as our aircraft – red. I reckoned he was angling to get the mail contracts away from BOAC and BEA. The receptionist behind the small counter in the front office was a redhead. She was wearing a red suit, but was about two sizes too big for it . . . which was interesting. The smile on her face was upside down. I reckoned she’d look quite interesting upside down, but I didn’t have a chance – the Old Man came out from his own place as soon as he heard my voice. He smiled as he pulled me through, and said, ‘Don’t bother to ask her out, Charlie. She’s already quit.’

  ‘So would I, sir, if you dressed me up like a carrot.’

  He laughed, and began to cough a cough that had started in the trenches at Loos, and had held out for thirty-six years so far. He poured us a couple of fingers of Dimple each – it wasn’t his favourite tipple, but there seemed to be a fair bit of it around – and waved me to a seat across the desk from him. His slow cough rumbled all that time, like thunder in the distance, and whenever he finished it left him breathless.

  ‘You should see a doctor about that,’ I told him.

  ‘I do: all the time. Frieda nags me about it.’

  I noticed how quickly he’d brought her name into it, but ignored that.

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘That I died several years ago, but no one noticed. Cheers.’

  He’d told me the joke before. I raised my glass, wondering if it was the last drink he’d pour me before I was sacked.

  ‘Cheers. I’m sorry I ran off to Berlin, boss; I needed a couple of days to think. Getting called up was a bit of a shock. Nothing happened while I was away.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Did I cause a problem?’

  ‘The War Office became a little agitated. The woman who phoned me seemed to think that you weren’t above setting off another little war, if you were sufficiently browned off.’ That made me smile. I wondered if she had been Dolly, but then remembered Dolly was off getting married somewhere.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That if you wanted to start a war I wouldn’t dream of stopping you, and since they hadn’t a chance of catching you, they should just cross their fingers and wait for you to come back . . .’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And she put the phone down on me. Best thing all week.’ He engaged in a bout of explosive coughing again, and I played advantage by not giving him a chance. As soon as he finished I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t marry Frieda. We don’t like each other enough. I don’t want to hurt you or Mrs Halton, but that’s just how it is.’

  Halton went into displacement activity. He got us another couple of drinks: bigger ones this time. Then he sighed, and almost mumbled, ‘I always knew you’d stand aside as soon as you found out Charlie . . . always knew you’d do the right thing. Thank you.’

  I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, so I tried to look intelligent and hoped for the best. ‘That’s all right, boss.’

  ‘How long have you known about Robert?’

  I hadn’t known about Robert at all, but, whoever the bastard was, he’d appeared at the right time to give me a way out. I hope that I now lied smoothly. When you lie to people you like it’s important to do it well.

  ‘Since it started, probably. Are they serious?’

  ‘She says she loves him.’ He sounded like a caring guardian, but undid the sentence with a shrug.

  ‘Maybe my going a couple of thousand miles away isn’t a bad idea at the moment.’ I told him. ‘She can go out without worrying that I’m around the next corner.’

  ‘Do you think that would concern her?’

  ‘It’s what another woman I knew once told me, and I trusted her judgement – still do, but don’t know where she is.’

  I could see
the conversation was in danger of becoming maudlin, so I switched the points on him and we talked about the airline business and, as it turned out, the road haulage and coach travel businesses, because the Old Man was branching out. He’d bought five big Fodens and a couple of Duple coaches, and based them at Watford – not too far from where we sat. Halton Air was now just an arm of Halton Transport, although I hoped that it was still where his heart lay. It was inevitable that we’d eventually talk about my impending departure, and I was still half inclined to think he’d sack me.

  He didn’t apologize for keeping me in the dark, but asked, ‘Where are they sending you?’

  ‘Egypt, I expect. I haven’t heard anything good about it, except a story about a belly dancer and an imaginative pig in a Cairo nightclub.’

  He ignored the last part. ‘What do they want you to do?’

  ‘Dunno. Radios I expect. It’s the only thing I’m any good at.’

  ‘How much are they paying you?’

  ‘Dunno, boss: not as much as you. Most of the men I knew in the war lost rank after it, and the turds from the officer schools all floated back up to the top again.’ He ignored that as well. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me to find that I’m a sergeant again.’

  ‘I’ll make up the difference.’

  ‘Thanks, but why? I mean, why would you do that?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to lose you, of course. Halton Air was making a loss until you began to manage it for me.’

  ‘That was a fluke. The Airlift came along just at the right time for us. Anyway, I thought we were dropping down the league again.’

  He gave me the three-minute cough before observing, ‘In six months’ time, when we’ve linked up our own road haulage units and coaches with the aircraft, the work will come rolling in again. You’ll see. We’ll have the only integrated transport company in the country.’ He was always ahead of the game, Old Man Halton. When he finished coughing there were specks of blood on the white lawn handkerchief. So, the Old Man didn’t want to lose me. I could have said, You could have fooled me, but you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, do you?

  Later he asked me if I wanted to go on leave until I got the brown envelope.

  I told him, ‘No. I don’t think so. I’ll hang about for a while to make sure Elaine has got the hang of things, and I’ll also spend some time with my boys.’

  ‘I told you to bring them along some time, didn’t I? Boys like aeroplanes and lorries.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, sir.’

  He laughed and then he coughed. He laughed because I’d just told him to mind his own business, and we both knew it. I just kept my work and private life apart. That was my way.

  Just before I left him I told him that he had a third share in one of the most notorious nightspots in Berlin. It stopped him coughing for all of a couple of minutes.

  The girl in the outer office said her name was June. Flaming June, I thought.

  Sometimes it happens just like that: the dice roll for you. Less than a minute into a conversation with her I said, ‘I’m only up here for a night. Can you come out with me?’

  ‘You’re Mr Bassett, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie . . .’

  What I’d had in mind was an evening in a pub and then chancing my arm, but she replied, ‘There’s a lovely new restaurant in Hounslow.’

  ‘OK then?’

  ‘OK, Charlie.’

  I had my hour in a pub after all, waiting for her to get off work. The owner was a burly man in his fifties, who stood the other side of the bar, polished the glasses and made conversation until my date came along. Just before June arrived the radio above the bar launched into a jaunty old Tommy Dorsey number. I recognized it, but couldn’t place it. It was playing when she walked in.

  ‘What’s that called?’ I asked him, but it was June who answered,

  ‘It’s “Satan takes a holiday”.’

  Yeah. The next number was ‘What is this thing called love?’ I’ve told you before; God’s sending out His little signals all the time, but we’re usually on the wrong frequency for decent reception.

  We were the last to leave the restaurant and when it was empty they let us dance a couple to the radio. The last song was ‘I’ll be seeing you’. I think it was that guy Sinatra.

  Her bedsit, in a suburban house in a suburban avenue, was a comfy little room. There was a heavy crocheted cover on the bed, and a gas fire. We made love as if we had known each other for years.

  I’d meant what I’d said. I went down to Lympne the next day and threw myself into the books and forms. Elaine looked subdued when I walked in. I wondered why, but thought I’d let her come out with it in her own good time. She couldn’t even conjure up a quick grin when I offered to make her coffee, so I loaded up two mugs with black Camp and topped off each with an inch of Five Bells – that’s export-strength rum. She took one hefty swig, and then spluttered.

  ‘Strewth, Charlie, what did you put in this?’

  ‘Navy neaters. OK?’

  ‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’

  ‘I’ve done worse.’

  I had, actually . . . or rather we had. Once upon a time. But that was three years past, and she’d had a son since then and, as I told you, I’d met her husband and rather liked him. It’s always best to quit when you’re ahead, but, thinking about it, it was she who’d done the quitting, not me. So I asked, ‘What’s up?’

  ‘My Terry.’ Husband. He flogged long-distance lorries up and down the Great North Road. It had meant that before the kid came along she might have had too much time on her hands. I know that sounds unkind, but that was the way we looked at things then. Learn to put up with it: I have.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘Nothing. He wants to change jobs and drive for Mr Halton; that’s all.’

  ‘You’ll see more of him if he’s based at Watford.’

  ‘I know. That’s the problem. I like it just fine with him only home at weekends, and now I realize that I feel guilty about that: I’m being selfish. I ought to be a better wife.’

  I waited for an intro and the first few bars before leaning over, and dabbing the end of her nose lightly with my forefinger. I said, ‘Maybe someone should tell you that it’s sometimes OK to be selfish. It’s allowed; and what’s more it’s probably good for you.’

  I had leaned towards her. Now I straightened, and began to turn away. She had smiled and blushed. Momentarily the Elaine I had known had shown herself. I also knew that if I had reached towards her she wouldn’t have pulled back. But I didn’t. I did the right thing for once. I’ve told you before: the women in my life are like buses. I wait weeks for one, and then a small convoy arrives all at the same time.

  She said, ‘I don’t want you to go away, Charlie.’

  ‘That makes two of us; neither do I. But I don’t think I can get out of it.’ I made a joke of it. ‘I’ll send you something from Egypt. What can you get out there?’

  ‘One of my uncles brought me a beautiful photograph album from Alex once: it had a black leather cover with Egyptian hieroglyphs painted on it. It’s almost full now. You could bring me another: I’d like that.’ She rummaged in her handbag for a handkerchief, and dabbed at her eyes – her make-up was running. What had I said now to upset her? Nothing apparently, because she asked, ‘What would you like me to do for you?’

  That was asking for it, wasn’t it? But I made a reply that surprised even me.

  ‘Why don’t you write to me? No one else will: letters from home to keep my morale up.’

  She waited for ages before she replied; as if I had asked her for something far more important. Then she made up her mind and said, ‘OK.’ Then, ‘Panic over; now you can give me a hug.’

  ‘Before you go home,’ I promised, and fled.

  I sipped my coffee slowly in my own office, took the conversation apart, and put it back together again. Then I understood something about myself. I understood that I had a difficulty with p
eople liking me or loving me, and wondered if that was why my girlfriends never stuck around for long.

  It was time to go home and ask Maggs about it: she always knew what to do.

  I’ve probably told you about Maggs before. She’s the person who was bringing my two boys up when I was away. Which was all too often. I had a nerve regarding them as my boys, if I come to think about it. I’d found Dieter on a battlefield in Germany in ’45, and Carlo dropped into my life in Bremen about a week later – the son of an ex-girlfriend who was heading east. It’s a long story, but I’ll tell you sometime if I haven’t already.

  When I was away they lived with Mrs Maggs and my old major above a pub in Bosham – that’s a small port near Chichester – and they lived with me in the prefab next door when I was home. I’d signed DP papers for them a couple of years ago, but now the local authority was getting iffy, and we were making a proper adoption of it. What that meant was that I had to behave myself until everyone said yes, and gave me the forms to prove it. I’d had two interviews with an old biddy in the Council Offices already. I thought she was against me until she came up with a woman from the local WRI to sponsor my claim . . . the only problem was that both made it plain they’d prefer me to be married, or at least engaged. Now that Frieda was out of the picture I had a problem, didn’t I? I thought I’d better go down for a couple of days and see how the land lay.

  Before I walked away from Elaine she hit me with a limpet of a kiss out of the blue; I hadn’t seen one like that from her for a couple of years – not even at Christmas. I pushed her gently off with a laugh, and said something like, ‘Go away and stay married.’

  ‘I will, but sometimes it’s not quite enough.’ Another girl had told me that another time, and I’d got into trouble with her too. As she turned away I put my hand on her bum. Round as a football. I have been known to weaken.