Rising Summer (8 page)

‘Don’t get excited, Woodie,’ I said. ‘It’s only me.’

‘Thought it was,’ he said, peering. ‘She said it would be.’

‘Who said?’

‘The Wac sergeant. You been followin’ ’er?’

‘Why not? I’ve just won her in a raffle down at the pub.’

‘Don’t gimme that. Think I’m daft? She told me you’d been actin’ queer, lookin’ at ’er in the pub with staring eyes. That ain’t good, yer know. She said you were creepy and asked me if you’d got a prison record.’

‘Poor woman, what a sad case,’ I said. ‘Enjoyed your chat with her, did you?’

The gormless turnip smirked. ‘She told me what a healthy change I was after your staring eyes. You ain’t gone peculiar on ’er, have you? Tell you what, I think I fancy ’er meself, I think I wouldn’t mind meetin’ ’er under the ATS shower.’

‘All right, lovey,’ I said, ‘I’ll hold your rifle while you join her in the ATS ablutions. But take your towel with you or she’ll think you’ve come for more than a shower.’

‘What d’yer mean?’ he asked.

‘And keep your trousers on as well,’ I said.

‘Eh?’

‘Or you’ll get arrested yourself,’ I said and went off to bed.

‘
RIGHT,’ SAID MAJOR MOFFAT
. Broad, rugged and vigorous, he had been a territorial officer when the war broke out and had worked his way up from first lieutenant to battery commander by sheer dedication. He expected similar dedication from everyone in uniform. He also expected military smartness. Even the ATS personnel weren’t safe from his eagle eye. If he saw any girl with the slightest wrinkle in her khaki stockings he’d rap out, ‘Pull ’em up, girl, pull ’em up.’

He had seven men lined up in the workshop, including me. He cast his glinting eyes over us, looking as if he was quite sure one of us was a traitor. His enormous Dalmatian hound and Staff-Sergeant Dix stood by. The dog was not without the right kind of instincts, especially where food was concerned. I think it knew one of us was to be served up for its dinner.

The spare petrol cans were to be checked in our presence. The major, on a point of principle, wished us to know the inspection wasn’t going to be carried out behind our backs. All seven of us had been logged as having taken out transport on a particular day. I was sure I knew which particular day. No-one cared to advise the major that there was a certain amount of friendly
casualness
concerning spare petrol, that it came under the heading of perks.

The cans were brought from Staff-Sergeant Dix’s office and placed in a neat line. The major surveyed them and his hound nosed them. The major smacked one gloved hand with his cane. ‘Staff-Sergeant Dix,’ he said, ‘in the event of any of these cans being empty, I’ll want to know which vehicles they belong to and which driver or drivers used that vehicle on said day. I’ll want to know why it was that use of spare petrol wasn’t reported, wasn’t logged and wasn’t even bloody well noticed.’

‘Sir,’ said Staff-Sergeant Dix smartly.

‘A quantity of petrol has been removed from the premises of a civilian,’ said the major. ‘It’s being analysed. I hope it doesn’t prove to be WD petrol emanating from here. It could mean the gallows for some despicable fairy. Is that clear? Carry on, staff.’

Sergeant Dix produced a notebook. A gunner in denims put his hand on the can chalk-marked number one.

‘Full,’ he reported, as he hefted the can.

‘Bedford, sir,’ said Sergeant Dix, referring to his notebook.

Number two can, full. A Morris. Number three can, full. The Austin utility. Number four can, empty. The Hillman, Major Moffat’s own official transport.

‘What?’ said the major.

‘Empty, sir,’ breathed the workshop gunner hoarsely and the major cast a fiendish eye at Sergeant Dix, who referred again to his notebook.

‘Yes, Hillman, sir,’ he said faintly and carried on dazedly. The fifth and six cans were both full. ‘Sir?’ said Dix in an ill voice.

‘Almighty Jesus,’ said the major and looked at his driver, Lance-Bombardier Burley, lined up with the rest of us. Burley closed his eyes and silently prayed. The Dalmatian rumbled impatiently. The major walked slowly around the cans. He struck the empty one with his cane. It rang hollowly. Getting his breath back he said, ‘This one belongs to the Hillman, you say?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Numbly, Sergeant Dix explained that each can had been carefully numbered before being lifted from its vehicle and placed in his office, all under his careful supervision.

‘You weren’t told if a can was full or empty?’ enquired the major.

‘Orders, sir, were that we were only to number the cans and deposit them under lock and key.’

‘The clot who lifted that can from wherever didn’t mention it was empty?’

‘No, sir, not to me,’ said Sergeant Dix.

It was obvious what the major thought. That an empty can had been filled from the Hillman’s can. His face was a study, his eyes a metallic grey. He addressed us. ‘You bleeders,’ he said. We stood rigidly to attention. ‘It’s an out-and-out fiddle, you hear me? By God, I never thought I’d live to see the day when some conscripted disciples of Fagin would frame their battery commander. You horse-tails, which of you is the big shot, eh? Who’s the smart Alec who’s master-minding the piracy?’ He walked up and down the line, eyeing each of us in turn.
He
knew he’d not only been diddled, he also knew he had no hope of discovering how. His dog seemed to share his frustration. It growled. ‘Down, Jupiter,’ he said, ‘down, boy. You’ll have to wait. But we’ll get ’em. The whole festering bunch are in on it, I shouldn’t wonder. But who’s the ripe pineapple, who’s the po-faced ringleader?’ He looked piercingly at me. ‘Is it you, Hardy?’ I kept quiet. ‘You’ve got all the chat and the crust and he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?’

‘Who, sir?’

‘The village black marketeer, Jim Beavers.’

‘I wouldn’t call him that, sir.’

‘I’ll get the bleeder,’ said Major Moffat, ‘and anyone else who’s his partner in crime. This is a deferred hanging party. All right, dismiss them, staff.’

Dismissed, we filed out. The Dalmatian rumbled. I made my way to the orderly room. Heads lifted as I entered. Corporal Deborah Watts, standing beside Sergeant Johnson’s desk, showed a slight wrinkle in one stocking.

‘Pull ’em up, Deb,’ I said.

‘Beg your pardon?’

‘Yes, message from Major Moffat. Pull ’em up.’

Knowing what that meant, Corporal Watts took a look at her stockings. ‘Some people,’ she said and retired behind her desk to sit down and do what was necessary.

‘Well, Hardy,’ said Sergeant Johnson, ‘been remanded pending a court-martial, have you?’

‘Tim, was it really you?’ asked Corporal Deirdre Allsop, currently the ambition of a GI from Baltimore
and
accordingly looking most of the time as if the war was a bit of an irrelevance.

‘Was it me what?’ I asked, sitting down.

‘Were you the juice flogger, that’s what,’ said Bombardier Wilkins.

‘It fell down dead,’ I said.

‘What did?’ asked Frisby, in line to become Cecily’s friendly psychoanalyst.

‘The inquiry. It fell down dead. False alarm.’

‘Sounds like the triumph of iniquity to me,’ said Sergeant Johnson.

‘No, survival of the innocent,’ I said. ‘Jesus was with us.’

Later, I ran into Sergeant Masters. In the hall. ‘I was coming to see you,’ she said. ‘What happened?’

‘Not guilty.’

‘You got away with it?’ she asked disbelievingly.

‘It all went up in smoke,’ I said. ‘You’re a good old sergeant, thanks for your help and I’m overlooking what you told Gunner Dunwoodie about me.’

‘I’m touched,’ she said, ‘but why I let you turn me into a half-wit I’ll never know.’

‘Hand of friendship, that was,’ I said. ‘Look, we could have a few dates, if you feel keen enough.’

‘I think we’ve already got a date,’ she said.

‘Have we? I didn’t know.’

‘I’m working on it,’ she said and whisked away up the stairs to her out-of-bounds sanctum. Her stocking seams were arrow-straight.

I called on Jim that evening. In the twilight. Halfway
down
the village street, I met Minnie. What a walking advertisement she was for all that the rural life of Suffolk could do for a cockney girl. Not only had she acquired a healthy country look, but her fair hair was the colour of ripe corn. But was it Suffolk or Camberwell that had made a minx of her?

In a blue dress, she danced up to me. ‘Oh, you Tim,’ she said in her usual scatty way.

‘All right, you Min, take it easy, I’ve had a long day.’

‘Blessed old war,’ said Min, ‘but bliss meetin’ you. I’ll put it down in me diary tonight, like I always do. I’ll put down I met Tim and ’e give us a good ’un.’

‘What good ’un?’

‘Kiss,’ said Minnie.

‘Not likely, I’m fighting that.’

‘Won’t do you no good, Tim,’ she said, her smile stunning. ‘Glad you got off, Mum said if you didn’t she’d knock Dad’s block off.’

‘How’d you know I got off?’

‘Little dicky bird flew in, didn’t it?’ she said and laughed. Then she gave me an accusing look. ‘Dad said you’re gettin’ to know that American girl sergeant. You’d better not.’

‘Better not what?’

‘Break ’er legs, I will, both of ’em,’ said young Miss Beavers.

‘Listen, you daft infant—’

‘Ain’t an infant,’ she said, ‘nearly a woman, I am. You Tim, don’t you go takin’ American girls out or I’ll fall down dead. You wait for me, I’ll be old enough soon.’

‘I’ll fall down dead myself in a minute. Why aren’t you indoors doing your homework?’

‘Done it, now I’m going to see Aunt Flossie.’

‘You ever going back to London to live?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know, do I?’ she said. ‘Except I like it here. D’you like it here?’

‘Well, it’s got to be better than Burma.’

‘I know one thing,’ said Min and laughed and went on her way. She turned. ‘Goin’ to be your best girl, that’s what I know.’ And she laughed again.

I went to Jim’s cottage and knocked on the front door. His missus appeared. I was fond of his missus. She was thirty-seven and as handsome as a squire’s wife. Suffolk had laid its rich rural mark on her too. She was brimful of female health. Her brown hair was thick, her brown eyes full of milk chocolate. She was generous and warm-hearted. Her smile showed it. And she looked a picture of Suffolk ripeness in a white sweater and a pleated brown skirt. The sweater was her own knit. She was what Aunt May would have been if life had been kinder to her, a complete wife and mum.

‘Why, Tim ducky.’ Her smile became even warmer. ‘Come in, do, there’s a love.’

We were friends, me and Missus. I’d done one or two odd jobs for her, like re-hanging a door and fixing a couple of disjointed banister rails. Jim only did outside jobs. He couldn’t stand messing about in the house. There was no profit in it.

‘Jim in?’ I asked, stepping through the front door into a little hall and accompanying Missus into the parlour which was full of good old-fashioned furniture.

‘Jim’s down the pub,’ said Missus, ‘he’s had an ’ard day. Sit yourself down, Tim, you been up against it yourself lately. Still, it’s all come right, we heard.’

‘Yes, I heard you heard. How did you hear?’

‘Dicky birds, love. One come by and flew in.’ Missus sat me down on the sofa and plumped cushions up for me, her bosom softly brushing my shoulder. ‘All that fuss over a bit of petrol with a war on and all. You’re a nice young chap, Tim, like Jim was when I met him in Camberwell years ago. I’ll make us a cup of tea while you wait for him, he’ll only be a couple of hours.’

‘How long?’

‘Don’t you worry now, you and me can have a talk. And would you like a ham sandwich? I’ll make one.’

‘I don’t know I ought to be here two hours, Missus, with Jim at the pub and Minnie at your Aunt Flossie’s.’

‘Oh, you met her on the way did you?’ smiled Missus. ‘Growin’ up, that girl is. I sent her to Aunt Flossie’s so Aunt Flossie could give her a talkin’-to about growin’ up. Best if girls get talked to by their aunts and not their mums. Now you sit there, I won’t be a minute.’

She wasn’t long. A pot of tea and a ham sandwich appeared in no time at all. Like Aunt May, she was a marvel in a kitchen. In a kitchen, women do wondrous works. Women are born to make men fit to face life. We all ought to have one. It hardly matters that some of them are a bit barmy.

I didn’t ask where the ham came from. It was off the bone. Jim and Missus both had ways and means. She shared the pot of tea and the sofa with me.

‘Minnie says she likes Suffolk, Missus.’

‘Likes you better, Tim, a bit gone on you, that she is.’

‘Can’t you find her a growing Boy Scout?’

‘Our Min? That girl’s gone past Boy Scouts, love. Got her eyes on you.’ Missus frowned. ‘We can’t let her get you, though, not at her age, can we? Mind, she’s comin’ up for sixteen soon and fancying her chances. Jim and me can’t have that, sixteen’s still too young. Not that she won’t make a nice bride when she’s eighteen.’

‘I’ll be old enough to be her dad by then.’

‘Course you won’t, Tim, what a daft thing to say and she’s got a dad anyway. She’s got female curiosity too, you know how it is with growin’ girls.’

‘Don’t know a thing,’ I said, ‘I’ve never been a growing girl. I’ve been a growing boy, but that’s all in the past now.’

‘Ah, you’re a manly young chap,’ said Missus in Suffolk fashion and smiled softly. ‘You got nice ways too, but you’re a bit shy, like. Haven’t you never had a girl, Tim?’

‘I’m saving myself for when it’s legal, Missus.’

‘Legal wedlock I expect you mean, ducky. Best we talk about these things. You don’t want to hold back, not when you could be a pleasure to a woman.’

‘Eh?’

‘Mrs Ford across the street now, she said you’re the nicest soldier she ever met. Look at the way you mended her shed when you had a Sunday off.’

‘I didn’t mend it, Missus, I stood it up and rebuilt it. Somehow her evacuee, young Wally Ricketts, had managed to push it over.’

‘Yes, all the trouble you took over it,’ said Missus warmly. ‘She was that grateful, what with her hubby bein’ away at the war and all. She said you didn’t want payin’, not a farthing, not anything.’