Private's Progress (14 page)

At the guard hut a corporal instructed a man where to take Stanley.

The way led through the bleak compound, between the huts. There had been a recent shower, and though the wind had dropped the place was dismal and
dripping
. A few hopeful insects twitched and purred in the grass. From some of the huts Stanley could hear occasional noises, the click of a rifle bolt, a sudden snatch of song.

They went into a Nissen hut divided into
matchboard
compartments. The soldier indicated a door for Stanley to knock on.

Stanley knocked and from within came a voice sharply:

“Herein!”

Stanley went in and was startled.

At the desk sat a German officer in uniform, as startled as Stanley.

“Good Lord!” said the German officer.

“Good Lord!” said Stanley.

“I
T
IS
E
GAN,
isn’t it?” asked Stanley.

The German officer looked slightly embarrassed.

“Yes,” he said. “Well, sit down. I was just—no, over there.

“I was just trying it on,” he went on, recovering. “It’s very important to live the part.”

He began unbuttoning the German tunic and changed back into his own battledress blouse. Egan seemed to Stanley as earnest as ever. He had filled out a good deal over the past year. Stanley wondered where his northern accent had got to. His battledress was a good deal smarter than Stanley’s, which was still the peculiar anti-gas suit issued to him at Gravestone. Stanley noticed an M.C. ribbon sewn neatly above Egan’s breast pocket. He was now a captain and seemed to have made a success of the infantry. There was about him an air of keenness and authority. He also had a large and vigorous military moustache.

Once back in his own uniform, his composure
regained
, he dominated the little matchboard room.

“You must excuse me, Windrush,” he said. “I’m having a rifle inspection in twenty minutes. Must keep the men up to scratch. There’s nothing like hanging about inactive to dampen morale. I give them P.T., of course, just after reveille, and take them for it myself.
It’s essential to be an
active
leader all the time, as you know.”

Stanley thought how he would dislike being one of Egan’s men.

“Well,” continued Egan, “I’m surprised, rather, to see you, old boy. I didn’t know who else we were getting on this show.
Frontdienst?
”

“Pardon?” said Stanley.

“Any battle experience?” repeated Egan in English. “No? Well, that’s rather a pity. I like all my chaps to have it, but we’ll have to manage. And just a tip, old boy, I stick as far as possible to German with the chaps. Essential to keep in trim, and no one overhears us so it won’t alarm the rural population. I’ll tell you what, I’ll get you in one or two of the little night exercises I’m doing with the chaps—as one of them, of course, for a start—to get you into the way of it. I’ll allocate you to Corporal Arkwright’s section. He’s one of my best chaps: a regular and extremely keen. I’m having one tomorrow night. No, don’t interrupt, old boy. I’ll get that fixed up. It should be good fun. Perhaps you’d like to set out the chess-men while I hold this inspection, would you?”

“Chess-men?” repeated Stanley blankly.

“Yes, old boy. I’m getting rather interested in chess and chess problems these days. I have a Lance-Corporal Blankowitz who’s absolutely first-class. Now you’re here we can play together. One has to make one’s own
entertainment
, and we’re confined to the compound, of course.”

“Oh,” said Stanley. “Are we?”

“Of course,” said Egan, a little nettled. “You realise
that the interests of security make it essential. During hours of daylight the men are under orders to keep as far as possible inside the huts, too. Oh, and by the way, you must read up my Standing Orders as soon as possible. I’ll get an extra copy of my daily orders done for you to read.”

“Oh,” said Stanley. “Yes. I say, what time do we go to the mess for lunch?”

“We don’t,” said Egan.
“Es ist aus
Sicherheits-gründen
nicht gestattet.
Meals are cooked here in the
compound
, and ours will be brought over in forty-five minutes.” He looked at his watch again and put on his cap. “I must go for the inspection.
Auf wiedersehen.
”

A minute later Stanley could hear a faint cry of
“Achtung!”
from outside. Egan had begun to remind him irresisibly of a scoutmaster, minutely expert in the spirit of the jungle books, and letting it be known that he wished to be addressed as Akela.

Egan’s Standing Orders were pinned to the door. When Stanley went over to read them he found they were in German.

“Bloody
Gründlichkeit,
” muttered Stanley to himself, and began to decipher them, making very heavy weather of it. Finally he gave it up and began
resignedly
to lay out the chess set for after lunch.

“My mate, I think,” announced Egan with
composure
.

He was throwing himself wholeheartedly into his German role, and often when he had said something aloud in English Stanley would catch him muttering a
German paraphrase under his breath. This time he muttered
“Schachmatt!”

“Yes, it is again,” admitted Stanley, for the
fourteenth
time since he had arrived.

It was getting towards dark on the evening of the fifth day. As Egan went to draw the blackout curtains and switch on the light Stanley said awkwardly, “I say, Egan, this night op of yours tonight. Do you really think I should—I mean …”

“Certainly I do,” said Egan firmly. “I don’t like to press the point, but you must remember I am in
command
here.”

They were interrupted by a knock at the door and Brigadier Tracepurcel, attended by Cox, came in.

Egan snapped to attention and said briskly:
“Herr General?”

“’Evening,” said the brigadier. “’Evening,
Windrush
. Righto, Cox, put that bag down and get some food. Thanks.”

He sat down on the edge of the table and lit a cigar.

“Wash out any business you’ve got on tonight,” he said. “We’re off.”

“Sehr gut, Herr General,”
said Egan.

“Yes,” said the brigadier. “It’s laid on for one a.m. We emplane here and land at a forward airfield. If all goes well Trip to Scarborough will go forward
tomorrow
night.”

He drew in a gratified fashion at his cigar.

“Well, just run along and warn your ruffians, Egan,” he said. “They’re to take their German stuff in kitbags. Then come back and we’ll eat something. No point in moving yet.”

When Egan had gone out he wandered round the room humming. He paused at Egan’s daily orders and scrawled
Ausgestrichen
across them.

Stanley opened his mouth and said: “Sir——”

“Mm?” said the brigadier, looking over the chess set distastefully.

“Oh, nothing,” said Stanley. “For a moment I didn’t quite relish …”

“Ah,” said the brigadier, breaking off his inspection of the place, “I was forgetting our supper.”

From his grip he brought out a cold chicken and three bottles of whisky.

Egan came in at this point.

“Would you care for a game of chess, sir?” he asked politely.

“Mm?” said the brigadier, “No thanks. Get the cards out.”

Cox knocked on the door at midnight and called in. “One hour, sir.”

“Come in, Cox.”

Cox found the brigadier playing patience in a blue haze of cigar smoke. The poker game had ended some time earlier when first Stanley and then Egan had adopted horizontal positions under the table.

The three bottles were almost empty.

“Sir?” said Cox, unmoved.

“The two gentlemen who are sleeping will want coffee,” said the brigadier, apparently almost entirely unaffected by the carouse.

“Sir,” said Cox.

The brigadier picked up first Egan, and later Stanley, and propped each in turn at the door of the Nissen hut. In each case he selected one of the fire buckets hanging outside, prodded the thin ice on the surface, and gently tipped the contents into each face.

“Grand,” he said each time at their instant recovery. “An hour to go.”

When they went in to change he straightened his battledress and lit another cigar.

“Good thing there were only two,” he said to Cox, coming in with the coffee. “The third bucket had sand in it. Are we all set? Grand. I’m going to have a talk with Captain Egan’s men. Oh, and Cox, you can finish up the Scotch.”

“Very good, sir.”

The brigadier went off humming happily across the compound.

The big transport aircraft hung over the banked clouds in the first light of the next day.

Stanley jerked awake in his seat and looked bleakly out of the porthole beside him. He felt very stiff and chilled.

Egan, beside him, was already awake and looking offended. He turned to Stanley and confided in a shout above the noise of the engines.

“I think it was a rather bad show the skipper’s
insisting
on our drinking and then chucking that freezing water over us,” he complained. “That fellow Cox came in just afterwards. And I rather think the brigadier’s flying the plane now. He went forward as soon as he woke up.”

“I hope he knows what he’s about,” said Stanley, secretly rather pleased at Egan’s displeasure.

They fell silent again till presently the aircraft dipped down through the cloudbank and finally rolled along the one undamaged runway of the ex-Luftwaffe airfield at Bad Schilderhaus. Stanley winced at the bomb craters rushing close by his window, and in the end shut his aching eyes till the plane stopped.

Egan got his men and their gear out, and formed them up on the concrete apron. Brigadier Tracepurcel came cheerfully out of the crew compartment.

“Grand fun, Robin,” he was saying to the pilot. “No, I’ve never landed one this size before.”

Behind the partially wrecked hangars two trucks waited to take them onwards. They were installed into the trucks, and waited while a column of tanks jangled by on the road. Then the trucks emerged and moved off, passing piles of rubble and occasional old women
picking
over the remnants of broken houses. They followed garish military sign-posting and diversion notices for half an hour and then bounced slowly over a busy pontoon bridge, littered extensively at each end with discarded equipment.

“The Rhine,” said the truck-driver.

Beyond the broad river they ran on for three miles and halted in a large village, in front of a house-agent’s office. Stanley dismounted with the troops, whom Egan directed through an arch into a courtyard for rest and feeding. An ornamental iron lantern hung over the arch, and above the door the proprietor’s board still announced
“Häuser Agent—Versteigerer”,
though the door was off its hinges and the window-panes largely
gone. The stonework of the place was chipped and scored with splinters of recent missiles, and of the house-agent, or indeed of any of the village’s
inhabitants
, there was nothing to be seen.

In the courtyard they ate breakfast to the noise of incessant military traffic on the road outside.

“I’m going off now,” announced Brigadier
Tracepurcel
. “I’m going to tie things up with Jimmy
Dagleish’s
Div. H.Q. and the L. of C. people. Our vehicles for Trip to Scarborough will arrive this afternoon. All personnel are confined to the house buildings and yard till further orders. Final briefing at 1800 hours this evening, after I’ve inspected everyone in German kit.”

In the course of the afternoon the iron doors of the courtyard were shut and the troops changed into
German
uniform.

Egan was looking worried.

“I wonder if you’d give me a bit of advice, old boy,” he asked Stanley. “The fact is, I’ve got rather attached to this moustache; in fact I could hardly imagine myself without it now. But the trouble is, it doesn’t look at all right with this German uniform. On the other hand, if I shave it off, I don’t know what it will look like or what the men will think. They’ve never seen me without it.”

“Well,” said Stanley. “It certainly does look wrong. I should have it off, personally.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Egan a little
distractedly
. “Well, here goes.”

When he had finished, Stanley had an idea.

“It’s just occurred to me,” he said. “It wouldn’t really have mattered. We’ll be operating in the dark, after all.”

“It’s a bit late now,” said Egan huffily. “It’s done now. But I must say you look odd in those riding boots.”

Just before dark the brigadier came back with their German vehicles. There was a captured Mercédès staff car and three powerful trucks. These were handed over and seating allocated.

After the briefing there was another meal, and at nine the convoy moved off.

Stanley gulped a little and fingered his Schmeisser machine-pistol. He shifted his feet among the grenades on the floor carpeting. Cox sat in the driving-seat with one of Egan’s men beside him. Brigadier Tracepurcel sat by Stanley, looking more enormous than ever in the long grey overcoat and braided cap, puffing very contentedly at his cigar. In the Mercédès there was very little noise, except for the pattering whine of the thick bulletproof tyres. Egan’s three trucks followed at short intervals. Oddly enough it did not seem
particularly
strange to Stanley to be in these circumstances, and apart from the thought of the unknown ahead Stanley felt comfortably
en famille.

The dimmed headlights picked out a check point ahead, and Cox halted. Military police torches poked in at them, and they were waved on.

“Forward area from here,” said the brigadier. They all cocked their weapons and edged cautiously on till they slowed at another post.

“This should be the Eighty-Ninth Tanks,” said Uncle Bertram. “Ah yes.”

A lieutenant-colonel peered in and said, “Good evening, sir. Hauptmann Wegweiser is here and ready.”
He opened the door and the agent who was to guide them, dressed as a German captain, squeezed in.

“You’re all clear to the fork five hundred yards ahead, sir,” said the colonel. “If you keep to the right beyond that you should be all set.”

The dimmed side lights of the convoy were switched off and the tension increased. They sat there for two minutes to become used to the faint moonlight, and then Brigadier Tracepurcel snapped, “Move!”

The four vehicles ran quietly forward along the grey ribbon of the road.