Where Have All the Bullets Gone? (21 page)

“It’s a giveaway,” Len said.

I waited, they didn’t give it away. It was fresh and sparkling and delicious. I remember my parents telling me of their Salad Days in India during the Afternoon of the Raj. They used to drink Heidsicke Dry Monopole, and here was I twenty years on drinking it for the first time.

I was wrong, we were pissed by eleven. We buy a second bottle for the journey.

“All Liap No. 26 back on the twain.”

A late purchase of some Brie and we glide from the station. In the distance we see the exquisite Château Sarat. How can people live in such luxury, while my parents are eating the furniture. Never mind, I’ll be rich one day, and if possible the day after that as well. We are at sea level, but none is getting in. What? We are
not
going to stop in Paris. This is a breach of the Geneva Convention.

“The rotten bastards,” says Len, who was looking forward to Paris, and is now looking back at it. Never mind, there’ll be another war. Before that we must open the champagne! We retire to the corridor. Like barbarians we shake the living daylights out of the bottle. This was the way Clark Gable opened it in San Francisco. We swig from the bottle and soon we aren’t missing Paris at all. We are jolted awake as the train suddenly screeches to a halt. Amiens. My God, we are reinforcements for World War One. “Oh,” says Len, “that stuff.” I didn’t know he’d had a stuff, he must have done it while I was asleep.

The RTO Sergeant is wobbling down the corridors: “Calais in two hours.” he calls. I must wash and brush up. Calais, one of the Sunk Ports.

“Have you ever seen the statue of the Burghers in Calais?” says Len.

“No, I’m waiting till they make the film.”

A last coffee in the Buffet car. The waiters are breathing a sigh that the culinary barbarians are leaving. But what bad cooks the English are — they even burnt Joan of Arc.

Still miles from Calais, yet the idiot Sergeants are getting their luggage down. Some are even standing at the door. In their tiny minds they think they’ll get there quicker. Why don’t they stand near a graveyard?

Our train is slowing. The canvas is grey, a spaghetti of railway lines, black industrial complexes, many of them bombed skeletons. A mess of railway sidings, rolling stock, here and there a burnt-out tanker; slower and slower and then in the middle of a sea of points, we are told, “All out!” Waiting in the grey gloom are three RTO Sergeants, all brass, bianco and bullshit. We split into two groups. “NCOs this way please.” (PLEASE???) We two-step over a hundred yards of tracks. NO. 4 TRANSIT CAMP says the sign, and who are we to argue. “In here, gentlemen,” (GENTLEMEN?) The Sergeant shows us into a Nissen hut. Beds and an iron stove.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” he says.

“How?” I say.

We are to report to the Camp Office for documentation. “It says here you’re a bombardier,” says a clerk.

“Yes, I’m a bombardier.”

“You’ve got sergeant’s stripes on.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s a tertiary appointment awaiting ratification through G5 Documentation.” That floored him. He stamped my Travel Warrant and we were free from the tyranny of twits.

The Hotel de Ville — Where British Tea and Buns held sway that Golden October day

Well, you see the postcard. Well, it’s much bigger in fact. A walk through the streets of Calais wasn’t exactly enervating, grey; rather like Catford on a good day. The Hotel de Ville is now Le NAAFI. We have le tea and le beans on le toast. I keep an eye open for any lads from le 19 Battery, it would be nice to see Driver Kidgell or Gunner Edgington; but no, 19 Battery are all in Holland and at this moment possibly all knee trembling in doorways. We finish le meal and partons pour le Camp. Army or not, bed is lovely, even though it’s made of wood with springs missing. A goodnight gesture as Len stokes up the fire. As I doze off, I hear rain falling. It will do le garden good.

It all sounds reasonable, no need to see a solicitor after all. The channel steamer SS
Appalling
(the name of the ship has been changed to protect the innocent) is waiting. A tiny almost unnoticeable sign says LIAP
PARTY NO. 26 ASSEMBLE HERE
. We’ll never do it, it’s much too small to stand on. We move slowly up the gangplank like shuffling penguins. I’m humping a kitbag, big pack and trumpet case. The kitbag is vital, it contains all the hoarded underwear that my mother has promised will put me on the road to success in civvy street. And I will never be taken short. The officers in first class look down at our huddled mass from the top deck. “There’s one thing we’ve got over them, Len, we can see right up their noses.” A clatter of donkey engines and French steam; hawsers plummet into the waters. Cries of yo, ho, ho, and the ship slips from the quay into the muddy waters of Calais harbour, but soon we are free from the muddy French waters and out into the pure English Channel and its muddy waters. It’s very choppy; ere long the first victims are starting to retch. Whereas other ranks are seasick, officers only have Mal-de-Mer, as befits the King’s commission. Sleek white gulls glide alongside. In their total freedom, we must look like a bunch of caged monkeys. It’s getting rougher; three green men are throwing up at the rail. Thank God for gravity.

Landlords Ahoy!

F
rightening Folkestone on the Kardboard Kow! The golden seaport hove into view; I would rather have viewed into Hove. It’s raining, and doing the gardens good. We are close to the quay.

“It looks so bloody foreboding,” Len says. “I think I’ll go back.”

I remind him that his dear little wife is at this moment panting on her bed with the heating turned up and drinking boiling Horlicks.

The customs are pretty hot. “Read that, please.” I am handed a foolscap sheet of writing.

“Very good,” I say.

“Have you anything to declare?”

I declare that the war is over. He’s not satisfied. What have I got in the case. It’s a trumpet. Can he see it. He opens the case. Where did I buy this? In London. Have I got a receipt? Yes. Where is it? It’s in an envelope in a drawer in my mother’s dressing-table in Reigate.

He hums and haws, he’s as stupid as a pissed parrot. “Empty your kitbag.” I pour out a sea of my second-hand underwear. He turns it over and over. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The contents.” He thinks it’s the wrapping for something. Why have I got so many underpants? I tell him of my mother’s forecast of the coming world shortage that will* hit England soon. He is now pretty pissed off. OK. He makes a yellow chalk mark on everything. Next to me he finds a poor squaddie with a bottle of whisky. “You’ll have to pay One Pound Ten Shillings on that,” he says with malice aforethought.

“Oh no I won’t,” says the squaddie.

“Than I’ll have to confiscate it.”

The squaddie opens the bottle and hands it round to us. With devilish glee we help lower the level to halfway, then the squaddie puts the bottle to his lips and drains it. The customs officer is in a frenzy, says to an MP, “Arrest that man.”

The M P wants to know why.

“Drunkenness,” he says.

“He’s not drunk,” says the M P.

“Wait,” says the customs officer.

From the quay to the station, we are now free of military encumbrances. Just for the hell of it we go into a little teashop in the high road. It’s very quiet. Three middle-aged ladies are serving.

“Tea, love?” says one in black with a little white apron.

“Yes, tea love.” That, and a slice of fruit cake that tastes like sawdust. The sugar is rationed to two lumps. The war isn’t quite over yet. We pay tenpence. Folkestone station and the 11.40 train to Charing Cross. London is as I left it -black, grimy, rainy but holes in the terraces where bombs have fallen. Len and I split.

“See you in four weeks’ time, two stone lighter and skint,” he says.

I buy my first English newspapers for two years. The
Daily Herald
, the
Daily Mail
, the
Express
, the
Mirror
, the
News Chronicle
. I go straight for my beloved Beachcomber and find that Justice Cocklecarrot and the Red Bearded Dwarfs are still in court. He is sentencing a Mrs Grotts for repeatedly pushing the Dwarfs into people’s halls.

From Charing Cross I take the tube to Archway. Soon I am knocking on the door of 31 St John’s Way. A surprise for Mrs Edgington, she doesn’t know I’m coming.

“Oh Spike,” she’s drying her hands. “What are you doing here?”

I tell her I’m doing leave here.

“When are you going back?”

Can I come in first? Tea, would I like some tea. Ah! at last an
English
cup of tea and a dog biscuit. (JOKE) I explain my accommodation difficulty. What is the difficulty? Accommodation. Yes, I can stay here. “You can sleep in the basement.” Mr Edgington’s not in, he’s gone out to get a paper. Yes, he’s well. Son Doug? He’s been called up. The Army. Did I know Harry was getting married on leave? He’s been caught at the customs with some material he’d bought for Peg’s wedding dress and the bastards have given him detention. Mr Edgington is back. Ah Spike. “When are you going back?” He’s tall, thin, at one-time handsome. An ex-Guards Sergeant from World War One, he was badly gassed in France. He is in receipt of a small war pension. Alas he smokes, it will do for him one day, as it would his youngest son Doug…I dump my gear in the basement. Would I like some lunch? Toad-in-the-hole? Lovely grub. I set myself up in the basement. There’s a coal fire, but remember it’s rationed! Best not light it until the evening.

Leading question. Can Mrs Edgington see to find room for Sergeant Betty Cranky for a day or so? Yes, there’s Doug’s bedroom going spare. I tell her, good, because I’m going spare. I phone Betty: Hello Betty, knickers and boobs, can she get up with knickers and boobs this week knickers and boobs? Yes, she can, knickers and boobs.

“Mrs Edgington, can I have egg and chips for tea?” I light the coal fire. Mrs Edgington has lent me Doug’s ‘wireless’, a little Bakelite Echo set. These were the days of quiet broadcasting — Christopher Stone playing gramophone records in steady measured tones, unlike the plastic arse-screaming hyped-up disc jockeys with crappy jokes, who get housewives so hyped up with fast mindless chatter and ghetto-blasting records that they are all on Valium. I spent the afternoon reading the papers and listening to long-forgotten programmes. Sid Dean and his band are broadcasting live from a tea dance in Brighton. How very very nice. The News! Alvar Liddell, ace broadcaster and Master of Wireless is telling us in profound adenoidal tones that Mr Attlee, the Prime Monster, with all the impact of sponge on marble, is meeting with the Soviet Ambassador, where they are promising each other there will never be another war, and babies are found under bushes. Churchill is at home in Chartwell doing the kitchen. Henry Hall has been in a car crash in the key of E flat. Woman’s Hour: how to knit socks under water, and hints on how to make the best of rationed food (eat it).

I am staring into the glowing coals, sometimes I stare into the glowing wallpaper or the glowing lino. I decide to take my legs for a walk before supper. Do I want the door key? It’s where no burglar can find it, on a string in the letterbox. I’m wearing my red and blue Artillery forage cap. In the London gloom it looks like my head’s on fire. I stroll to the Archway and its grumbling grey traffic. The evening is lit with those ghastly green sodium lights that make the English look like a race of seasick Draculas. Down Holloway Road, remembering that it was down here Edward Lear was born. I stop to see what the shops have to offer. Displays of crappy furniture, boasting that you can see the ‘natural grain of the cardboard’. I go down to the Seven Sisters Road. None of the sisters show up, so I come back. I pass Hercules Street, with not a person in it weighing more than ten stone. Manor Garden, Alexander Road, Landseer Road; the last two would turn in their graves to see what the names had been used for. Giesbach Road? Who chooses them? What grey, dull, mindless idiots sit and debate these improbable street names, streets that should be called Grotty Road, Dog Shit Street, Crappy Avenue, Terrible Building Road, Who-in-their-right-mind-built-these-Mansions. Mind you, it’s got worse since. Ah! this is better. The fish and chip shop. A cheery fat sweating man with six hairs serves me. “Three pieces of rock salmon and a penn’orth o’chips.” He sees my medal ribbons.