The Machine Gunners (12 page)

Now was the moment. Chas took a deep breath.

"Only trouble is, Dad, it's so heavy. I can't hold it steady." Mr. McGill looked up at him with a slow grin.

"I knew there'd be a catch. Want me to make you a tripod for it?"

"Yeah!" In his moment of triumph, Chas felt a rat. It was a much worse pain than parting with his beloved railway.

Mr. McGill was good at his work. He liked a technical problem, and he had time to solve it. The German bombers turned their attentions to Birmingham and Liverpool; the gasworks for once did not break down. The tripod was finished in a week.

Mr. McGill made things to last, in quarter-inch steel and inch gas-pipe, solidly welded together, and given a black finish to proof it against rust. The tripod held the round body of the telescope just fine. It would hold the round body of the machine gun equally well, and if the legs were bedded in concrete...

"Got a funny case here, Sarge," said Fatty Hardy. The sergeant groaned. More than bombers or the coming Invasion, he dreaded Fatty Hardy's funny cases. Pinched sandbags, missing machine guns, haunted houses... The constable was a lunatic.

"What is it
this
time?"

"It's a woman with a funny story."

"Let her in to tell it then. I haven't had a laugh in weeks."

"I didn't mean a
joker,
Sarge." Hardy looked baffled.

"Oh, send her in and
go."

The woman perched herself on the edge of a chair like a bird, clasped her hands and closed her eyes.

"Let us pray," said the sergeant, before he could stop himself. It was the tiredness that did it.

"Let us pray indeed, young man. For these are the Latter Days when the Foul Beast shall be loosed from the Pit. Book of Revelation, chapter thirteen, verse eleven."

Oh Lord, thought the sergeant, she's one of Those.

"What is more, the servants of the Foul Beast have been machine-gunning my mother."

"Your what?" gasped the sergeant, nearly falling out of his chair.

"Three days ago, as I live and breathe, I'd just taken Mother her cup of tea and was reading to her from the Good Book when something came through our roof and smashed the
God is Love
that hangs over her bed."

"What sort of something?" asked the sergeant cautiously. The woman dug in her purse and dropped a flattened bullet into his hand. The sergeant could see it wasn't British.

"What happened then?"

"I ran to the window and saw their Fearsome Machine fleeing God's Wrath, going straight up into the Heavens."

A strange choice of direction, thought the sergeant, but caught his tongue in time.

"German?"

"It bore the Crooked Cross." The sergeant tossed the bullet thoughtfully up and down. It had been that German fighter that exploded all right; the one everybody called the Teatime Sneaker.

"Where do you live?"

"Simpson Street—across the river. Are you the War Damage?"

"Am I
what?"

"The War Damage. Mrs. Spink said if I reported it to the War Damage, they'd come and mend the hole in our roof, and give us a new
God is Love."

"Madam, I am
not
the War Damage. But leave your address and I will send round the man who is." The woman sniffed and left.

The sergeant sat on. It didn't make sense. The Teatime Sneaker had been a reconnaissance plane, relying on stealth. Why should it open fire on a street miles from any military target?

Nervous rear gunner? But Simpson Street lay at right angles to the Sneaker's flight path. Even a nervous rear gunner would not turn his gun through ninety degrees of slipstream before going trigger-happy.

Were they all mad in that plane? It had climbed vertically immediately afterward, which was a mad enough thing to do. Or had something upset a normally steady crew?

Something like being fired on from the ground? By a machine gun whose bullets missed and landed among houses across the river? But they were
German
bullets...

The sergeant banged his fist on the desk and swore. That missing machine gun. What a fool he'd been.

The sergeant surveyed
God is Love
and its line of bullet holes. The text was not alone on the bedroom walls at Simpson Street.
God Bless this house
with a border of blue kittens and pansies hung above the empty fireplace.
Thou God seest Me,
stitched round a large and malevolent eye, hung over the door.

Not only God's eye surveyed the sergeant; the bright beady eyes of the old lady in the bed followed him everywhere.

"Aven't gorra fag, 'ave ya? I'm right gasping. She won't let me 'ave them, yer know. Says they're ungodly. Her and her God. She's potty, yer know. It's a case when a pore old body can't 'ave 'er deathbed comforts."

The sergeant offered a bent Woodbine and lit it. She sucked in smoke, her face wreathed in beatific smiles. Like a baby having its bottle.

"That's the first this week. Mrs. Davies slips me one when she calls, but she's laid up with her sciatica."

"Where d'you put the ash?" asked the sergeant nervously. The old lady pointed to the rose-wreathed chamber pot under her bed.

"Last time the doctor came to test me water 'e nearly 'ad a fit."

"Excuse
me,"
said the sergeant. He must get on with his job. He tied a piece of string with a weight on the end to the bullet holes in the ceiling. Then he put his head against the shattered
God is Love
and looked beyond the string, through the window. He was now looking down the path the bullets had come... they had come from a clump of trees across the river, with a chimney pot sticking up through them...

"Help!" gasped the old lady, breaking into a paroxysm of coughing. The sergeant thought she was starting a fit, her eyes were swivelling so wildly. But he finally realised she wanted him to take the cigarette.

He had just taken it when the daughter burst in. The old lady must have hearing like radar!

"Smoking!" said the daughter triumphantly. Her eyes alighted on the Woodbine in the sergeant's hand. "This whole room stinks like the Foul Pit."

"I told 'im you wouldn't have smoking, Ada," said the old woman, "but he wouldn't heed. He took advantage of me lying here 'elpless."

"So
you
say. I'll think my own thoughts about what happens to those who abuse God's Truth, on Judgement Day. Meanwhile, Sergeant, I'll ask you to leave. You're only here on sufferance. You're not even War Damage."

"Madam, I have my job to do."

"What's that? And what's this rubbish?" She pulled at the string that dangled from the ceiling. It came loose, pulling half the ceiling with it.

"Look at all me plaster. On me best carpet. Get out, or I'll set the police on you."

"Madam, I
am
the police."

"Have you got a search warrant?" she screamed. The sergeant decided it was time to Flee the Foul Tempter.

All the way back over the river on the ferry, he tried to work out which was the little clump of trees on the north bank he had seen beyond the string. But there were so many clumps. It would be a long job finding it.

At last came the morning when Rudi found he could walk. But walk where? To a policeman, a prison camp? It was tempting. Warm blankets, a bath, hot soup and bread, comrades who spoke German. But the problem was getting safe to the prison camp.

He knew how much Garmouth had been bombed. Night after night he had lain under a thin wooden roof while bombs rained down; while searchlights revolved like the spokes of giant wheels; while fires burned and the bells of fire engines clanged through the streets.

People who had been bombed hated enemy fliers. Rudi had seen the capture of a British flier in Berlin, the first night it had been bombed. The man stumbled along between two Wehrmacht, who used their fixed bayonets to keep the German civilians back; civilians who threw stones and dog dirt at the airman and his captors alike. One woman had leaped in screaming and clawed the flier's face. That was when the officer had ordered his soldiers to fire their rifles in the air. But suppose the soldiers hadn't been there? There were stories of airmen hanged from lamp posts, run through with pitchforks.

Rudi opened the holster on his belt. Alone of his possessions, the Luger pistol was clean. That would deal with those who brought ropes and pitchforks.

Then there was the pain of being a prisoner. All his life Rudi had hated being fastened in. Once he had run away from the
Oberschule
because the master had locked him in a closet. All his boyhood he had roamed the streets, until his mother accused him of turning into a criminal. But he was never a criminal; he just had to be free.

But where could he go to stay free? He must stick to wasteland, where no English went; old dumps and bombed houses. And he would walk to the sea, which the British called the North Sea and the Germans the German Ocean. There might be a boat he could steal, or a Swedish cargo ship to stow away on. It was a forlorn hope, but before he was captured or killed he would look once more on the sea.

He closed his holster, fastened one large sack round his middle with a lump of rope, and draped another, marked
A1 Cattle Cake
over his flying helmet. He must keep on his flying helmet, or else he could be shot as a spy. He thought with his new beard and mud-encrusted trousers he might pass as a tramp.

He said good-by to the rabbits, and stuffed his pockets with frozen brussels sprouts. Then he set off, beginning to sing to himself in that peculiar monotone he had heard tramps use in his childhood. It was a bitterly cold day; not many people were about. But as he was cutting down a back lane, a woman came out to her dust bin with a dish of scraps; a stout body in a flowered apron and checked carpet slippers. She stared at the approaching shambling figure. Rudi hummed
Ich hatt einen Kameraden
in a high-pitched whine. He looked at the scraps hungrily; cabbage and lumps of pie crust.

The hand that was scraping them into the bin with a knife paused. Rudi halted and looked up, making his eyes wide so the white showed all around.

"Where
you
from?" asked the woman. Rudi understood her; he had done English at
Oberschule.
But he daren't reply, for his accent was strong. Instead he mouthed gibberish, and pointed first to the plate, and then at his mouth. The woman's face melted from doubt to kindliness. She offered the plate timidly. Rudi clawed up the scraps and thrust them into his mouth. Even in his fear they tasted marvellous.

"Wait!" said the woman, holding up her hand. She vanished back into her yard. Rudi wondered whether to run, but he couldn't. His ankle was too painful and the back lane was too long. He waited what seemed a lifetime, until the woman reappeared with half a loaf and a large wizened apple. Now there was a man behind her, her husband doubtless. He had a bald head, a thrusting chin, a collarless shirt and red braces, into which he stuck his thumbs aggressively.

"What you hanging round here for, pestering women?"

"Meerp, meerp, ugama," said Rudi, earnestly.

"Hush, Jack," said the woman, "can't you see he's a dumbie?"

"Riffraff," said her husband. "I'd shoot the likes of those. No use to the War Effort at all."

"How much use are you, always on the Sick with your back?" asked the woman, a spark kindling in her eye. "Leave the poor bugger alone. He's not doing you any harm." She thrust loaf and apple into Rudi's hands. "Here yar, love, and the best of luck."

"Ug, ug, meerp," said Rudi, and shambled away. He could hear the man and woman start to quarrel as they entered the house.

Rudi wandered on till he found a bombed house in a huge wooded garden. The gates were wired together, but he got over them somehow. The house was abandoned. But it had water trickling from a burst pipe in what had been the kitchen; and one room still had a roof, and glass in the windows. There were old pink mattresses thrown about, and torn curtains for bedding. Even plenty of broken wood for a fire, if he had only had matches. Why, he could live here for weeks.

He settled down and ate the apple, and half of the bread. He made himself leave the rest till later. He'd been luckier than he deserved; the tramp disguise was working. It wouldn't have worked in Germany. There were no tramps there now. Hitler had put them into the hospitals and they were never seen again.

He started. Footsteps sounded on the gravel drive. He peeped around the filthy curtain. A man in a blue uniform was staring at the house. Gestapo? Did the British have Gestapo? He wore no gun, carried no truncheon, but wore a tall pointed hat.
Polizei?
The man limped and looked very tired. Even in his own present state, Rudi felt sorry for him. It would be a pity to shoot him.

Was this the moment to surrender? It would be so easy, that walk to the
Polizei
barracks. What could seem more harmless to hostile civilians than a
Polizei
walking with an old tramp? And once in a cell, he would be safe from ropes and pitchforks.

But Rudi was a gambler at heart: on horses, at cards, even on racing two cockroaches. And at the moment his luck was holding.

He heard the sergeant enter the house; heard his heavy boots echoing from room to room, coming nearer. All Rudi could do was get behind the door, Luger in one hand, loaf of bread in the other.

The door opened; the sergeant's helmeted head appeared. It seemed to Rudi he was looking for something on the floor, not for a person. Rudi held his breath, finger on trigger.

The door closed. Rudi waited till the footsteps receded, and then took several great panting breaths. The sergeant left the house, and went around in back. Rudi crept from room to room, watching him. The back garden was wild and huge, with old statues and urns overthrown by the bomb's blast. The sergeant began to walk among them, down toward the back fence where a mound of tumbled rubble lay under the trees.

The sergeant paused, then began to pick his way gingerly. Suddenly, his shiny boot vanished up to the ankle.

"Damn and Hell!" The sergeant slipped and nearly fell, hanging onto a sundial for support. His boots were covered in thick yellow mud. He shrugged, and turned back toward the house, rubbing his boots on the long grass as he came. He passed, and his footsteps faded.