At the Break of Day (34 page)

She shook his hand, and walked past him to Luke and Mario, gathering the boys around her until Jake said, ‘He’s gone. You’ve lost us five pounds.’ He was smoking grass and she took it from him, and ground it into the floor, taking him to one side. Her back hurt, her legs ached, she had served coffee until the steam had dampened her hair, until she could stand the ringing of the cash register no longer. She was angry.

‘If you ever smoke that goddamn stuff in here again you’re out.’

‘You don’t own us.’ Jake’s head was down, his shoulders hunched, and it was like Sam again in the rec when she had first come home, but this time there was no Jack to stand by her. This time she was alone but it didn’t matter, she was still angry.

Rosie looked round, called Luke over. ‘He’s smoking grass in here. Mario’s been good to us. He could be in trouble. I’ve told him he’s not to do it again or he’s out. This is your band. Your decision. But if you want to play here again, smoking is out. Right?’

They had no choice. She knew that. They couldn’t practise anywhere else. Luke took Jake to one side. She waited. She saw Luke pat Jake on the shoulder then look round and nod. She smiled, and she knew that there would be good days and bad days, but for now, she was strong enough to carry herself through.

‘He’ll be back. Don’t worry. He’ll phone. I know he will.’

He phoned back in March when her skirt was too tight to be done up any more. He offered the band twelve pounds to play in Surbiton, expenses on top of that, and so one night Rosie asked Luke to stay late at the café and told him that they must practise much harder. They were in the real world now. They could go on, even to the US, but there was a great deal of work to be done.

She told him that he should write out more arrangements, then maybe he should try the cornet. Luke agreed, kissed her cheek, said he was sending another band along to see her.

The next day the baby moved, for the first time, and a call came through from Stone’s Club near Birmingham. She talked the fee up to fourteen pounds and now she took a ten per cent cut which the band agreed was really not enough, but she wouldn’t take more.

That night she wrote to Frank and Nancy and told them of Luke, glad that at least there was one lie less. But as she sat in front of the gas fire which plopped and hissed, the room seemed empty and bare. There had been no letter from the father of the child that had fluttered inside her and no one to share her pleasure.

A truck took Jack straight towards the North. The enemy were in flight, the Sergeant told him and the twenty others who sat either side of the vehicle, lurching and bouncing past refugees and burnt-out tanks from the earlier United Nations retreat.

Jack leaned on his rifle, looking out at the snow which still covered the rice fields. He would write when he arrived. He would tell Rosie that he loved her, that he always had and always would. That he was coming home, when this was over.

‘Shouldn’t be long before we’re home then, Sarge?’ he called out to Sergeant Rivers.

‘Who knows? Let’s hope you’re right,’ the Sergeant answered.

They travelled for hours jolting along in the wake of the enemy, passing supply trucks returning empty from the forward positions. There were ambulances, too, but they didn’t look at those. Jack flexed his shoulder. It was stiff but that was all. He looked out again at the hills splashed with snow. He wouldn’t think of Tom either. He had to get home to Rosie.

He lit a cigarette, the match flame was fierce in the cold. He lit Bert’s too, then tossed the box along to the Sergeant. There was a heavy smell of sulphur. He and Rosie would go to the hop-yards when he returned. He drew on his cigarette, jigging his feet to keep warm. Christ, it was cold. But it would be cold for the Chinese too.

They reached camp, leaping down and moving in single file off up the track to Hill 81, hearing the revving of the truck, the grinding of gears as it reversed then turned, leaving them, heading back to Pusan to pick up more troops, more supplies.

‘Get on up that hill,’ the Sergeant barked. ‘Might be a bit of nice digging to welcome you back, work you little invalids in before you go running off towards the border doing your good deed for the West.’ He was pointing, jerking his hand, his eyes red with tiredness, his voice hoarse. He looked old.

They headed on up the hill, straining their heads forward, carrying their rifles in both hands across their body, then, as the going got steeper, in one hand as they dug in their boots and their rifle butts, cursing, sweat pouring down their backs.

‘Great to be bloody back,’ Bert groaned in front of Jack, his boots thick with mud where so many feet had thawed the snow. The sun had gone by the time they reached the top. They went straight to the field kitchen, eating where they stood, looking round at the supplies piled up; the ammo, the Stens, the mortars.

There were look-outs on all sides and there was staccato firing in the distance, to the right and left and dead ahead.

‘We move out in the morning. Chase the little buggers. Get your ’eads down where you can,’ the Sergeant said, pushing past, cleaning his mess tin with a crust of bread.

Jack did the same, then swilled it with water, put it back in his pack, heaved that up on to his back again and headed towards the fox-hole where Bert was standing, beckoning to him.

At least there was no digging. That had all been done on the last advance and their hole was crowded but there was room against the sides. He didn’t sleep in his sleeping bag. He had thrown that away. It was cold, bloody cold, but he slept. But not before he had thought of Rosie and the words he would write when the sun came up.

The Sergeant called them at first light and Jack ate breakfast, heaved at his pack, hearing the thuds and clinks all around. He could hear firing and now there were Mustangs high overhead.

‘Keeping the pressure on,’ an older regular said, nodding at Jack as he wrote his letter, standing up, pressing on Bert’s pack, telling him to stand still for Christ’s sake, while he told Rosie that he loved her, that he was coming home when his National Service was over. Begging her to forgive him, sure that she would because he knew she loved him too.

‘Come on, get over here,’ the Sergeant called and Jack stuffed the letter into an envelope, then pushed through the men to the Padre who had held a service as the field kitchen was packed up. He took letters from the men, waving to them as he set off in one direction and they in another, down the hill, taking up the pursuit, heading towards the firing.

It was then, as he dug his heels into the slope, looking out towards the peaks and snow-shrouded shrubs, that he felt a hand grip his shoulder and heard Nigel’s voice say, ‘Well, you old reprobate, here we are again. Bet you wish you were back cutting the grass with those scissors.’

Jack swung round, stepped out of line, gripped Nigel’s arms, wanting to hug him but their eyes said it all and it was enough. Jack saluted then, heard the Sergeant shouting, ‘Come along, if you don’t mind, Sir.’

Nigel grimaced, and moved on down the hill as Jack fell back into line.

‘Catch up with you later, Private,’ he called back.

Jack laughed. ‘Yes, Sir.’

And it was not until that evening, when they set up camp, bivouacked between boulders, crouching into the existing hoochies, taking two-hour watches, straining their eyes, cursing the men behind who stumbled on old tins left by the previous occupants, that they had time to talk, pressed up against the perimeter look-out.

‘Too much pressure, dear boy. Simply had to take a commission.’ Nigel was grinning but he didn’t turn, he didn’t take his eyes from the land around.

‘Yes, Lieutenant Sanders. The pips look exquisite. How long have you been out here?’

‘Just two weeks.’

Jack knew it could not have been longer. There was no fear in Nigel’s eyes and there was still youth in his face.

‘We’ll soon clear those gooks,’ Nigel said.

‘Maybe, but they can march on rice, oatmeal, dried peas. They’ve been fighting with Mao for years. They plan and execute. They’re professionals, mobile, take advantage of the terrain. They may be poorly armed but they take weapons from the dead. And they keep on coming.’ Jack remembered the bugles, the screams. He remembered Tom and the burning man. ‘Just keep your head down, especially now you’re leading my platoon.’

They were whispering, listening. There were tracers in the distance. There were flares but he felt better now that Nigel was here, especially with Tom gone.

Nigel looked at him now. ‘You’re different, Jack.’

‘I’ve been here longer than you and I’ve grown up a bit. That’s all.’

He punched Nigel’s arm when their relief came and crawled into his hole, thinking of Rosie, thinking of Suko, thanking her for all that she had shown him.

They set off the next morning as dawn broke. There had been no bugles, but then there wouldn’t be. They were the ones chasing this time, weren’t they? They marched all day, between hills, alongside paddy fields, the snow and mud clinging to their boots, their thighs sore from the slapping of their wet trousers. Patrols were sent out. The way had been cleared by the troops up ahead. They marched, they slept, they listened.

On the fourth day they were up with the forward troops and the firing was closer and all around. As evening came they straggled through dark hills. There were trees, there were shrubs and large boulders, and Jack looked to each side, straining his eyes.

The Sergeant came along, speaking to them all, but quietly. ‘Seems like a good place for a bloody ambush. Keep your wits about you.’

Jack looked ahead to Nigel, who turned. ‘Did you tell them, Sergeant?’

‘Of course I bloody told them,’ the Sergeant said under his breath and then, more loudly, but not too loudly, ‘Yes, Sir.’

No one spoke, they were all listening, walking, praying. So far so good. Jack was breathing through his mouth. The air was cold. There was enough light to see his breath. It was crazy. No one would hear his breath over the noise his bloody feet were making. And over the noise the Centurion tanks that had joined them this afternoon were making as they came up the pass behind them.

He turned. He could see their antennae waving. He looked ahead at Nigel, his head turning from side to side. His shoulders were rigid. Jack’s were too. Everyone’s were.

Then the firing started, small arms thwacking into the ground around them, mortar thudding, screaming.

‘Return fire, get some cover. Keep your heads down,’ the Sergeant was shouting, waving his arm towards the paddy fields. They were wet, cold. Jack ran, then sprawled down, full length. The tanks were firing, but one was hit by mortar and exploded. The track was slippery and another tank keeled over into the paddy field.

The Chinese were swarming down the hill now, firing burp guns, throwing grenades, and the bugles were blowing. The endless bloody bugles. Jack looked across at Nigel.

‘Get your head down, Sir,’ he called and Nigel spun round, then ran crouching towards him, throwing himself down beside Jack. Firing as he did so. The rifle butt rammed hard against Jack’s shoulder as he fired, again and again, but he couldn’t even feel the pain.

The barrel was hot. He reached for more ammunition. Nigel moved along the line of men, talking, helping to reload the Sten. The Chinese were falling but more were coming in their place.

‘Don’t they know they’re supposed to be retreating?’ Jack ground out.

Bert lay on his side reloading. ‘Bloody little buggers,’ he said again and again, but now they were fading. Fewer came to replace them, and Nigel called, ‘We’re to make our way across the base of the hill on our left. Orders from HQ. Meet up there with a US Infantry Brigade, or what’s left of them. Take casualties with us.’ He was speaking in short bursts, as though he’d been running, but Jack was panting too. It was fear.

The first squad moved east while Nigel stayed with the rearguard. Jack ran with the first squad, then set up a rearguard under the Sergeant while Nigel and his men broke out, and ran past them. Now Jack, Bert and six others held the Chinese again who faded and left.

‘That’s what the book says should happen,’ grunted Bert.

‘Make the most of that piece of perfection then, sonny,’ shouted the Sergeant as he passed.

They marched through the night towards the US Infantry Brigade and ate breakfast with men who drawled and looked like Ed, and Jack, though he loved Rosie, could not speak or eat with them.

The UN forces pushed north relentlessly day after cold day and Jack’s platoon slept, ate, and marched, forcing the Communists back, seeing the airstrikes on the hills in front, the burning napalm, and he turned from that, feeling sick.

At night he watched the mortar scoring across the cold sky and wouldn’t smoke the American cigarettes which Bert had been given.

It became commonplace to storm an enemy-held hill, firing, gripping the shrubs, pulling themselves up, hurling grenades, fighting hand to hand, plunging their rifle butts into heads, hearing screams all round, Chinese and British. Each time they took the hill, they herded prisoners into lorries then sat, their legs weak, vomiting, their stomachs churning from the smell of death. But at least Rosie would soon have his letter and, at least, soon, this war would be over.

At the end of March the Chinese were pushed across the 38th parallel and Jack’s unit dug in on a hill which was scattered with the debris of previous battles. They stepped over abandoned Chinese and American equipment, they picked up pay books and identity tags and the Captain sent these back to Seoul which was once more in the hands of the United Nations.

Digging in was difficult in the sandy, frost-hard ground but none the less they tried.

Nigel and Jack talked on watch and Nigel said that the UN and Truman would be looking for a political settlement after throwing back the enemy, but MacArthur wanted to carry the war to Manchuria.

‘He’ll have to go,’ Jack said. ‘Or there’ll be another war, with atom bombs this time.’ He stared across the quiet sky, thinking of Nagasaki, and Suko’s parents.