A New Kind of War (23 page)

Not a woman, but an emaciated child, with thick-painted red mouth smudged and spread pathetically beyond her lips, and boney shoulders above inadequate breasts: and (what was far worse) a frightful welcoming smile on those lips, below wide terrified eyes.

‘Hullo, Tommie —’

Devenish’s same free hand was already on its way, fingers spread so wide that they took her from collar-bone to collar-bone. ‘
Get out of the road, you silly little bitch
!’ He spun her back into the darkness. ‘Sorry about that, sir … But we’re going up the stairs—’

‘Cap-itan!’ Another half-naked figure loomed in the doorway behind an ingratiating voice. ‘I am Polish officer—officer of dragoons—’

‘
Get back!’
This time Devenish swung the machine-pistol menacingly to cut off the appeal. ‘You can be a general in the fucking Polish army, for all I care!’ The sergeant recovered himself as the sounds inside the room died down. ‘I’m sorry about that, sir—
You bloody lot
—
don’t you move a fucking eyebrow!
—
but we have to get on, sir! Up the stairs!’

‘Yes, Sergeant Devenish —’ But he was already addressing Devenish’s back as he spoke—

We’re going up the stairs
—

But the smell was still with him: a sour-sweat, old-clothes-and-cabbage, unwashed-wet-undried, peculiar smell—just as all the other undifferentiated human smells had been peculiar, each with its unforgettable nuance—

Then they were out into the open suddenly, through the final door, with the staircase doubling round on his left, with Devenish already swinging round on to it, leading him on—with the crash of boots ahead of them on the wooden stairs.

And—

They knew where they were going
! They had known long before they had smashed down the back-door—‘
This is just going through the motions, sir!’
—
and all that had been for the American major—
they knew where they were going
!

He accelerated after Devenish, with the canvas bag flying out behind him spinning off the wall on one side, and then off the banisters on the other.

And they were the real assault group, too
! That was obvious now, not simply because no else had burst in ahead of them, from the front of the building, but for a crowd of other good reasons which should have occurred to him, from the composition of the group—Amos de Souza as its brains, and Sergeant Muggins, David Audley and Sergeant Devenish as its brawn—to the simple clinching detail that
he was carrying the bag —

‘Whoa there, sir!’ Devenish restrained his headlong progress at the top of the stairs, his flashlight beam arcing over an ancient collection of trophies of the chase fixed high up on the wall above them: moth-eaten antlered stag’s-heads and yellow-tusked boars drooling cobwebs from gaping dusty mouths. ‘Steady now! Let the dog see the rabbit, then!’

Crash
! Huggins had put his boot through another door, just down this new passage to the right, that explosion announced.

Boom
! This time the concussion reverberated from behind and beneath them, echoing through the building just as Amos began his formula ahead down the passage: Colonel Colbourne’s assault on the main door below had commenced belatedly, even as they were deep inside the building.

Boom
! It sounded as though they were using a battering ram.

‘If you’d just like to come this way a bit, out of the road, sir.’ Devenish addressed him politely. ‘They’ll be coming up behind us—Major Macallister’s party. But they’ll be going the other way, like.’

Boom-CRASH
! The main door had come off its hinges in one piece, it sounded like. But Fred’s attention was drawn to his left in the same instant by Devenish’s torch, to a collection of tattered white-faced ghosts which was milling in the other passage, crying out in terror.

‘
GET BACK THERE
!“ Devenish roared, blinding the leading ghost even as the hallway below filled with the noise of Major Macallister’s party.

Crash
! Another door splintered ahead of them! ‘This way—up the stairs!’ Major Macallister’s shout from below reminded Fred unbearably of his old games-master, with its half-hectoring, half-encouraging note only a hair’s-breadth from falsetto. ‘Captain Hornyanski—are you with me? Sergeant Little—see to the American officer!’

So Major Macallister had his attendant American too: Fred looked quickly up their own passage, where torch-beams were flashing in between the silhouettes of moving figures. Was this good honest allied co-operation, or well-founded allied mistrust? Much more likely the latter!

‘Just hold it, sir.’ Devenish restrained him again. ‘Any moment now—
get back there
!’

With the heavy clump of Major Macallister and his minions on the stair below him, Fred resisted the urge to move. But looking to the left he saw that the flock of ghosts were shrinking back into their own darkness under the combined threat of Devenish’s gun, the major’s shout, and that metal studded tread, and felt a pang of sympathy for them: whatever they were, innocent or guilty, they were the conquered—and
vae victis
—
the conquered had no rights
!

Crash
! Another door caved in—

Fred abandoned the ghosts, with the metallic taste of powder in his mouth and the old excuse in his brain, which he remembered all too well from Italy and Greece:
We didn’t start this
—
and we didn’t make the rules
…
so hard fucking-luck, then
!

‘Come on, sir—this way!’ Even with the sound of Major Macallister at his back Fred also remembered the snappy reply from the ferret-faced drunken gunner captain to that anodyne disclaimer:
Then what’s the difference between us and your average Jerry, then? So
…
they obey their orders
—
right? Hic! And we
—
hic
—
we obey orders too
!

‘For Christ’s sake, sir!
Come on
!’

Fred let himself be pulled, with all the commotion of Major Macallister meeting the ghosts behind him, beyond the first and second doors down the passage. And then Devenish was pushing past him into the third door, without deference, leaving him no choice but to follow.

Once again, the concentrated sweaty-clothes-and-cabbage smell assailed him, stronger in the confined space of the room than outside, even before he could sort out its contents in the combined light of Devenish’s and Audley’s torches. And then for a moment Audley and Devenish seemed themselves to be the main contents, well-armed, well-fed and well-washed in the centre of their stage, and dominating the room’s occupants huddled in its furthest corner.

There were five of them, he saw: all males—and somehow it was a merciful relief that there wasn’t another naked painted-and-smudged child like down below—all males, in varying states of dishevelled undress and standing in the midst of the wreckage of their bedding—old army blankets and stained mattresses.

‘Right then! Let’s be having you, then!’ Devenish’s voice took on something of the tones of any sergeant-major addressing an awkward squad of recruits, mixing resignation and brutality in equal parts, with only the merest Angostura dash of encouragement.

The huddle shuffled uncertainly within itself, those more at the back resisting the efforts of those more at the front to replace them, terrified by the sound of the words without understanding any single one of them.

‘Get them up against the wall, Sar’ Devenish—if you please.‘ Audley’s voice, by contrast, was conversational, edged with fastidious distaste.

‘Sir!’ Devenish took a step forward, his boot crunching on something breakable and already broken in the darkness below him. ‘Get in line there! Hands high—up—up! Come on, you buggers! In line—in line!’ The jerk of his gun galvanized the huddle into feverish activity, if not actual obedience, with those who half-understood hampering those who didn’t.

‘Come on!’ Patience exhausted, Devenish took another step forward, jabbing at the disobedient minority of the group with the combined torch-beam and muzzle of his gun to encourage them to imitate the majority. ‘Against the wall! Hands up—up—
up
—
UP
!’

All this flurry of activity seemed to stir up the smell, so that it was pungent in Fred’s nostrils, and bitter tasting in his mouth: it was as though their fears were increasing their smell, adding the sweat of terror to all their other odours, like foxes hounded to no-escape by hounds.

‘Faces-to-the-wall—if you please, Sar’ Devenish.‘ Audley pronounced the words carefully, one after another, as though he was concerned not to stutter.

‘Sir!’ For an instant Devenish said nothing, as he struggled with the problem of obtaining obedience. ‘
ABOUT- TURN
!’

The furthest man on the right turned immediately, to face the wall. And then the man next to him turned after him, as though by osmotic action.

‘Go on! Face the wall!’ Devenish jabbed at the next man, and as he followed suit at the next, down the line, until they were presented with a line of backs, in creased shirts and dirty vests overlapping crumpled trousers or hairy legs, as the last of the line conformed.

‘Yrrch!’ Audley’s torch beam fell away, momentarily sweeping over the room, over the blankets and mattresses and across scuffed suitcases and an ammunition box on which a bottle with an encrusted candle in its mouth was set. Then it came up again, and an untidily-furled umbrella stabbed along its line, towards the obedient man on the right. ‘That’s one, Sar’ Devenish—thank you.‘

‘Sir!’ Devenish stepped forward again. ‘
YOU THERE
!’

But then, to Fred’s surprise, he jabbed the man next to Audley’s choice in the small of the back with his gun. ‘
AND YOU
—
AND YOU
—
’ He touched each man in turn, down the line ‘—
OUT
!’

The marked men lowered their arms uneasily, almost unwillingly, half-turning towards their persecutor.

‘
NOT YOU.’
Devenish addressed the obedient man, who was also lowering his arms now, ‘
YOU STAND FAST!’
The obedient man’s hands shot up again, higher than ever.

‘
The rest of you
—
’ Devenish’s voice came down to ordinary harshness ‘—
out you go, then
!’

And out they went then, shepherded past Fred by Devenish, with Audley’s torch-beam playing on them, one after another, and Devenish bringing up the rear.

‘Major Fattorini!’ Audley addressed Fred for the first time since they had broken into the place. ‘Empty out the bag—on the floor, please.’ He indicated a patch of bare floorboards, on the edge of one of the filthy mattresses.

An army boot
—
a tangle of unfolding battledress uniform: trousers mixed up with blouse, and beret falling with them, accelerated by gaiters and belt, and another boot
…
but inhibited by something else, which had become entangled in them
—
He shook the bag again.—

Christ! It was a Sten! And complete with its magazine
! ‘Don’t worry about that, old boy—it’s got no firing pin.’ Audley stirred the uniform with the tip of his umbrella, flipping out one arm from the blouse. ‘A corporal, by God!’ The corporal’s chevrons showed. ‘So it’s “
Corporal
Keys” then!’ Pause. ‘Right then, Sar’ Devenish—get on with it if you please.‘

‘Sir!’ Devenish grabbed the man by his shoulder, swinging him round. ‘Right then, you bugger! You get your clothes off—and you get into that British uniform down there …
understood
?’

The man stood still, his arms only half-lowered, gaping into the light uncomprehendingly in a moment of silence within the room, which somehow separated them from the more general world of noise outside it—a confused commotion of bangs and crashes and shouting, and boots stamping.

‘
Whoof.’
The man broke their private moment with the pain of receiving the butt of Devenish’s sub-machine gun in the pit of his stomach, which bent him double, and then muttered in agonized German.

‘Stop it!’ The umbrella rapped Devenish across the shoulder sharply. ‘That’s not the way—’ Audley caught his anger too late as the German quickly started to disprove him by stripping his clothes off even before he had undoubled himself from the pain of the blow, throwing off the unbuttoned shirt and then ripping at his trouser buttons.

‘Sir—?’ Devenish pivoted slightly between his target and Audley, but remained still balanced, ready to deliver more encouragement.

Now the shapeless trousers had joined the shirt, revealing spidery-thin hairy legs and genitals pathetically wizened in adversity, when fear out-ranked every other feeling.

‘No matter.’ All the shame and embarrassment was Audley’s from his voice. ‘Just get on with it.’

‘Sir!’ The answering growl started with Audley, but continued over the German who was already busy proving that he understood English by fumbling with the unfamiliar khaki uniform with clumsy fingers.

‘Christ O’Reilly!’ exclaimed Devenish in sudden exasperation, thrusting his sub-machine gun into Fred’s empty hand. ‘Take hold of this, sir—and keep the light on the bugger—right?’ He threw himself down on his knees in front of the man, slapping the hands away, and addressed himself to the fly-buttons urgently. ‘Stand still, damn you!’

Fred watched, fascinated, as Devenish pulled and pushed and buttoned and tightened the man into the uniform, cursing and blinding in a continuous monologue undertone as he did so—

‘Christ O’Reilly
—
hold still!
—
if I hadn’t been born unlucky I wouldn’t be here
—
hold still!
—
where’s the other boot, then?
—
I had a good wife, and good kids, and I left ’em all
—
lift your foot then, for fuck’s sake
—
and a good job in a safe reserved occupation
—
where’s the sodding gaiter?
—
but I was born stupid, as well as unlucky, wasn’t I!
—
that’s the bloody left one
—
where’s the bloody right one?
—
oh no! I wanted to be a soldier didn’t I!
—
could have been building aeroplanes, I could
—
sleeping between sheets every night
—
drawing good money
—
give us your bloody arm then
—
what am I doing, then?
—
I’m fucking-dressing fucking-Jerries in the middle of the fucking-night, is what I’m doing?