The Iron Stallions (24 page)

Then, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, they heard the Germans were withdrawing. There had been a fall in the amount of noise from ahead and gradually it became noticeably quieter. Finally Leduc arrived in a jeep. ‘Stand by,’ he said. ‘It seems to be happening.’

For a little longer they waited, gnawing at biscuits and marmalade, then they saw the brigade major’s jeep approaching at full speed.

‘We’re off,’ he said. ‘The New Zealanders are moving up through 2nd Armoured, and we’re going with them. When we’re in open country, we wheel right to the coast to cut the line of retreat.’

As they waited for the word to go, news came in that the Highlanders and the Indians had finally broken through and that nothing lay ahead. Suddenly the guns seemed to die and there was quiet apart from the distant crackle of small-arms fire.

As the word finally came, they no longer moved with the wary approach of the beginning of the battle but at speed. The desert was littered with scattered and burning debris. On every side lay the wreckage of a broken army and a tremendous exhilaration filled them. It was the end. Suddenly they all knew it.

As they pressed ahead, they ran into the remnants of an Italian Division which fought without hope and, overwhelmed, threw down their arms and fled. The southern flank lay wide open.

Everything began to pour after them – everything – staff cars, ambulances, water carts, signal vans, rear workshops and casualty clearing stations, all racing to get in front, to be part of the tremendous victory they suddenly realised they had won. Nobody knew where their headquarters were and nobody gave a damn. Rommel, the myth, the ever-victorious, had been out-thought and out-fought and the panzers were running down like an unwound clock for lack of petrol.

A mass of vehicles appeared and, as Josh began to worry whether there were tanks hidden behind them, he became aware of a startling change. First one white flag appeared, then another, then more and more until the whole column was a mass of waving banners. Small groups of men began to move out hesitantly, then larger groups until they couldn’t believe their eyes and even suspected a trick. But it was no trick. The enemy was surrendering in droves.

The battlefield was strewn with broken equipment, tattered uniforms, piles of empty shell and cartridge cases. The loot was enormous, pistols or automatics for everyone, brilliant dress uniforms gorgeously emblazoned, jewelled swords, silver and gilt belts, leather equipment, vast quantities of Italian money, and – more important – huge stocks of food such as they hadn’t seen for months.

Ackroyd, who seemed an expert on loot, advised them. ‘Their chocolate’s good,’ he said. ‘It’s supposed to make you randy. All it does to me is make me sick.’

‘What we want,’ Winder said, ‘is more war with the Wops.’

‘What I want,’ Josh said, ‘is a bath.’

‘Do you know what I’m going to do when I get home?’ Dodgin asked. ‘I’m going to turn on every bloody tap in the ’ouse and just listen to the water runnin’ away.’

They were weary beyond belief, filthy, unshaven, caked with dust and exhausted, their socks gluey masses, their necks and legs chafed by the sand and dust they’d stirred up.

‘I’m just trying to decide,’ Aubrey observed, ‘at what range my odour becomes offensive and how far away I should stand from my friends.’

As they halted they didn’t even bother to leaguer. Every abandoned tank had bottles of chianti inside; Italian pyjamas were seized, with Italian flags and champagne; almost every man sported an Iron Cross from a stock that had been found. They all knew the old routine was ended. North Africa would never be the same again.

‘You know what’ll ’appen,’ Dodgin said. ‘Now that we’ve won the war for ’em out here, they’ll send us ’ome to win it for ’em there.’

A vast column of prisoners trudged by with doped rhythmic steps. The inevitable dust rose in a great cloud from their feet as they plodded along four abreast, an endless crocodile stretching to both horizons. They were unkempt and dirty, their steel helmets over their eyes to break the force of the wind, and curiously the exultation the victors felt vanished at the sight of them, because they too had known hunger, wounds and defeat, and were just as bearded, fatigued and tacky-socked.

Nearby a small group of men were tending the last of the wounded and collecting the dead as they lay in their ungainly postures just where they had fallen among the scattered equipment. They watched them silently and for a moment the only sound in the desolation was the chirping of crickets and the rattling of torn paper caught in the thorn bushes. Then Reeves spoke.

‘You know,’ he said slowly, ‘all the time, I thought it would be me.’

After two years abroad, Josh found England smaller and less well kept, but its heart didn’t seem to have changed, and its fields, its trees, its hedges looked greener than ever. His mind was full of Braxby because Jocelyn’s letters had been little more than notes for some time and singularly lacking in warmth.

It was afternoon when he arrived and as his car stopped in the drive, a woman appeared in the doorway carrying a tray bearing several mugs of tea. She seemed a little awed by his rank and side-stepped shyly.

‘Morning tea?’ Josh enquired cheerfully.

‘Just the staff,’ she said. ‘Mr Davis, the inspector, takes his in the morning room just off the hall.’

Welcomed by the frenzied dogs, Josh stood for a moment in the doorway. The house was silent and, a little awed by the thought of being home, he sat on the monk’s chest opposite the portrait of his grandfather. In his childhood it had been the one thing that had always stopped him as he entered the house and now, for the first time, he realised how much like the old man he looked.

Rising, he put his head into the library. Everything was in its place, the skirting board, the picture rail, the door and the windows still wearing the old brown paint of his grandparents’ day. Curious to see where the tax inspector took his tea, he went into the morning room. Davis was sitting by the window, drinking from one of the best china cups and, noticing at once that there were new curtains, he wondered if Davis had made it possible to obtain them.

‘Tea break?’ he asked.

Davis, a good-looking man in his forties with a well-made body that was running to fat, jumped to his feet. ‘I’m running the show here,’ he said. ‘Inspector of Taxes.’

‘Couldn’t knock a bit off mine, could you?’

Davis smiled and nodded at Josh’s uniform. ‘I tried to get into the Army, too, but they said someone had to look after the country’s finances.’ He gave a little laugh as if he’d spent all the war explaining why he wasn’t in uniform. ‘I was very disappointed.’

Somehow, Josh didn’t believe him. He gestured at the tea cup. ‘Do you always take your tea in here?’

‘It’s a little habit we got into.’

‘Well–’ Josh smiled ‘–I’m afraid it’s a luxury you’re going to have to forgo because I shall be taking mine here for a while. I live here.’

Leaving Davis looking red-faced and confused, as he returned to the hall he heard a clattering on the stairs and saw two small figures hurtling down. As they reached the bottom, they stopped dead, suddenly tongue-tied and shy. They seemed to have grown enormously in the last two years.

Kitty looked scared but managed a wet peck at his ear. He smiled at Rosanna.

‘Do you kiss?’ he asked. ‘Or are you too big?’

Rosanna’s face was glowing. ‘Not likely,’ she said. ‘I like kissing. Specially you.’

As Josh bent, she kissed his cheek, then suddenly flung her arms round his neck and hugged him, almost throttling him. Determined not to be left out, Kitty clung to his leg. Touched by their pleasure at seeing him, he knelt and swept them into his arms.

‘It
is
nice to have you ’ome,’ Rosanna crowed, her face split in a gap-toothed grin.

‘What happened to your teeth?’ Josh asked.

‘Fell out.’ Her grin widened. ‘You’ve got a different badge on your shoulder.’

‘Yes. They made me a lieutenant-colonel.’

‘Why?’

‘The brigadier got himself made a major-general so the colonel had to be the brigadier. That left his job free, so they gave it to me.’

‘And what’s that ribbon?’

‘It’s called a DSO.’

‘Were you brave?’

‘They seemed to think so.’

‘That’s two you’ve got, because you had that little purple white one afore.’

Josh smiled. ‘I’ve got something for you both,’ he said.

The presents consisted of dresses and underwear he’d bought in Tunis. They were French and held them spellbound.

‘Frilly knickers,’ Rosanna said, awed.

‘Where’s Jocelyn?’ Josh asked.

‘She’s gone.’

‘Then who’s looking after you?’

‘Me.’ The voice came from the top of the stairs and Josh saw his mother standing there.

He ran up to her, two at a time, and kissed her. ‘Mother, what’s happened? Where’s Jocelyn?’

‘She left, Josh.’ His mother looked older and tired. ‘She felt she had to.’ She gestured at the library. ‘I think you’d better sit down and have a drink, dear.’

In the library, he poured drinks and turned to her.

‘She left several days ago,’ she said. ‘When she heard you were coming home. It wasn’t all that unexpected. She let me know so I could take over the children.’

‘But I thought you were occupied with the Red Cross.’

‘There are plenty of younger women for that job, dear, and I find I’ve grown rather attached to them. In fact, I think you’re going to have to bend your mind a bit to their future, because they’re going to find it hard going back to the East End after Braxby.’

Josh didn’t answer and she hurried on, pushing past the awkward subject of Jocelyn. ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘Your cousin Konstantin’s in this country. In American Army Intelligence. He tried to get into the United States Air Force but it turned out he was colour blind. Perhaps it’s as well, because the air forces are having dreadful casualties. Everybody seems to have suffered.’

‘I’ll bet Uncle Robert hasn’t.’

His mother smiled. ‘No, dear. And, I might add, he’s still dropping hints about this house.’

Josh was silent for a moment, then he lifted his head. ‘Why did she leave, Mother?’

‘I don’t think she could face you.’

‘A man?’

‘Of course.’

‘That chap who runs the tax office here?’

His mother sighed. ‘Well, perhaps he started it. But I suppose you mustn’t blame Jocelyn too much, dear. This wasn’t the place for her. It never was. She was bored. She missed London and people. She just wasn’t a sticker. She redecorated the morning room, then she seemed to lose interest, and when the bombing stopped she started going back to London for week-ends. But the week-ends eventually became weeks and once even a month. I’d been coming here a lot, long before I finally took over.’

‘And the tax man?’

‘I don’t know, dear. I don’t even know if there was anything or whether he just felt flattered by her interest. In fact, the women who work for him are most helpful. They like the children and they’re most obliging and look after them if I have to go out. I dread to think of the income-tax demands that are sent out. Rosie enjoys helping.’

It was all a little bewildering and very different from what he’d expected.

‘Where’s Jocelyn now?’

‘I don’t know, dear.’

‘Didn’t she even leave a note?’

His mother rose and, crossing to the desk, produced a letter. It was ironic that for the first time it was thick and really looked like a letter.

‘
Don’t judge me too harshly
,’ Jocelyn asked. ‘
I think I wasn’t really cut out for Braxby. I tried but it didn’t work and you were away too long. I’m not really the type to look after children and horses and dogs and lots of fields. And now, you see, there’s somebody else. You were away so long, and I need people…
’

It went on for six pages. The writing was large and scrawled but, for the first time, she had taken the trouble to open her heart to him.

‘
Don’t try to find me, Josh
,’ she said. ‘
It would be too silly really. I think I shall get married again. It seems to be in the air these days. He says he wants children and, though I’m not sure I fancy that, perhaps I could get used to it. I hope you find somebody else because Braxby needs somebody cleverer and more steadfast than me. Somebody like your Mother. I always felt so awkward and lumpish, and she seemed to know instinctively what to do…
’

As he finished reading, Josh looked up. His mother was watching him.

‘I hope it’s going to be all right, dear.’

Josh nodded. The one thing in his mind was that, if nothing else, Jocelyn had tried to be honest with him. She’d known herself better than he had and had avoided saddling him with a sour marriage. And when the thing had begun to go wrong, she’d got out of his life, neatly, tidily, with no strings attached, so he could start again. There was more to her than she realised.

The second front everybody talked about was still a long way in the future, and leave, to which Josh had been looking forward for weeks, suddenly seemed empty. There was no one about he knew. Even the village pub had strangers in it from a unit in training on Braxby Fell. They were younger than Josh and, in his civilian clothes, elbowed him out of the way to get at the bar.

When Orne appeared, limping down the drive with a dog at his heels, he stiffened as he saw Josh and almost saluted.

‘Sir!’ The pleasure in his face warmed Josh. ‘You’re home! How’s the Regiment?’

You wouldn’t recognise it. Not many of the old faces around after four years.’ Josh pushed on quickly. It didn’t pay to dwell on the death of friends. ‘Place looks good, Eddie. You happy here?’

Orne’s smile widened. ‘That I am. Took to it like a duck to water. So did the missis and the boy.’

‘How do you get about?’

‘The tractor, sir. They allow us fuel, o’ course. I’ve also got an old horse. I’ve fallen off once or twice, mind. No grip wi’ me right leg, see. But I found a nice old cob. Never gets excited. Not even when one of them Yank lorries comes hurtling round the corner. Once a cavalryman, always a cavalryman, I suppose. We’ve put the south paddock to oats. Backfield’s let out for cattle. The land’s in good shape wi’ all the fences mended. Me and my lad did ’em.’