Authors: John Gardner
When he spoke it was with the voice of the old sea captain Billy Bones out of
Treasure Island,
combined with the Angel of Death, both of them Eton and Cambridge.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “Here I am at last.”
“Good grief,” Shed Hutt gasped. “Barty Belcher in the flesh.”
“And with a bump-up, young Shed; bump-up to half Colonel and your CO to boot. Your new CO, come to take over from the late lamented Timsy Weaving.” Big smile flashed all around the room, taking in every last one of them. Then, “I spy strangers,” looking at Tommy hard.
“Bart Belcher,” Tommy said. “Long time no see, Bart.”
“Hon Tom, eh? Not seen since we all got kaylied, last day of school.” He fixed Tommy with a pursed smile, stern and as though he knew something about the Detective Chief Superintendent that nobody else knew. “You investigating the demise of the former Commanding Officer of this shower, or just on a social jaunt?”
“Here on business, Bart,” cosy and on good terms with Belcher. “Do you speak true? Are you the new CO of the Heavy Glider Conversion Unit?”
“Very much so,” he saw Curry and the smile momentarily froze on his lips. “Joined the cops have you, young Shepherd? I heard you were dead.”
“Gross exaggeration, Bart. Out of proportion when put against the facts.”
“Glad to hear it. Where’s my adjutant?” looking towards the door.
“Here, sir.” A second officer appeared, a captain, spruce, bandbox smart with all the same badges and brevets as those worn by the Colonel.
“Captain Carter,” Belcher introduced him. “Leslie Carter. Thought it best to bring my own man, because all you chaps are going to be pretty busy. Now, listen, this is an order I’m taking all officers to London tomorrow: meeting at COSSAC. Talked to them today and they tell me they can use all the brains I can bring up. You can come back here when we’re finished in London, make ready for going on Christmas leave, right? And you’d better make the most of it because I’ve a feeling you’re not going to get much leave in 1944.” Thin smile all round: quick, off and on. “Shed?” He called, a little loud.
“Sir?”
“Immediately you’re back from leave you’ll give me a quick course on the Horsa – me and Les Carter, both.”
“Piece of cake, sir.”
Nobody seemed to know Captain Carter and Curry whispered to Suzie, “Grammar school, I’d guess, wouldn’t you?”
Then, before they knew it, Tommy was between them, arms outstretched resting on their shoulders and propelling them to a quiet corner away from the knot of officers gathered around their new CO who was buying drinks at the bar.
“You know something I don’t, Shepherd?” he began.
“Such as?” Curry had dropped his smile, all grave and serious now.
“Such as why anyone here might want to do away with you, and Suzie here? She’s of special interest to me as you probably know by now. Has been for the past three years.”
Curry nodded. Waited for more.
“Someone tried to chop you two,” Tommy continued. “And for what it’s worth I think it was the same person who killed Tim Weaving. The same persons, I should say because there are at least two of them.”
“Who went off with you in search of the sniper, Tom? From among the officers here?”
“The whole bloody lot, Curry. All three of the buggers, led by Shed Hutt. Some of his sergeant instructors were around as well. Didn’t see how many, but I did see that affected bloody Sergeant Major join them, coming down the hedgerow on the far left, carrying a rifle. All of them were armed to the teeth. Damned Commandos and Airborne they’re like private armies, got weapons from everywhere, British, French, German, American. You expect them to appear with stuff nobody’s seen since 1911.” He drew a quick deep breath, “and watch Belcher, their new Commanding Officer, rogue elephant that’s what he is, always was. Known him since the year dot. Don’t trust him. He’s a vain braggart. Know what he did when he got his MC? Telephoned the News of the bloody World, that’s what he did. Fella doesn’t get much lower than that.”
Curry gave a curt nod. “We’ll go and get my car then, Tom. Got an appointment in London.” He hadn’t seen Colonel Belcher come up behind him.
“Can’t go yet,” boomed Belcher. “You’re guests here, got to show you a bit of regimental hospitality, what. They tell me the catering’s reasonable here, and…”
“We really should be getting away, sir,” Shepherd very firm and earnest.
“You know best, young Shepherd,” reluctant and a shade put out. “I provide anything for you? Transport? How you off for transport?”
“A lift over to the sergeants’ mess might help, sir.”
“Drink? Have a drink before you leave? How about you young woman?”
Suzie declined with a matching show of firmness, so, finally an RAF driver ferried them back to the sergeants’ mess where Curry’s dull green Vauxhall Ten stood, lonely in the large parking area to the side of the wood and block building.
Thanking the driver they watched him turn the jeep around and head back towards the officers’ mess.
“Is this so terribly important, me meeting Elsie?” Suzie asked.
“Not really, but it’s important we get ahead. You’ve worked and played with Tommy Livermore. What’ll he do next? In your opinion what’ll he do?”
“Well, to his mind he’s made one pass through the family: the regiment, people Weaving was working with. He’ll see the real father and mother, and the sister, but not yet. He’ll go for the other girls next. Julia Richardson, the fiancée, and, what was the other one, Anne Fooks?”
“Ann Tooks. Yes. More or less what I thought, and that’s important. We should see them first, before Dandy Tom gets at them.”
“Game’s afoot, Watson, eh?”
“A foot, a yard, a couple of miles. Let’s go.”
They took two steps towards Curry’s car when it erupted in a ball of flame, a deep, throaty explosion that seemed to come from somewhere near the engine, a deep single horrible amplified drum stroke, then the blast blowing towards them like a cyclone, hot and full of deadly shrapnel.
For the second time that day, Curry threw himself on top of Suzie, pushing her onto the ground.
As she rolled and climbed onto her feet again, breath knocked out of her, trembling with shock, Suzie gave a little strangled cry. “Oh bugger,” she intoned. “Bloody nylons.”
Chapter Eleven
SUZIE WAS STILL trembling when they got her back to the officers’ mess, her legs wobbly and unable, for a time, to take her weight, let her stand or walk. Curry just looked pale: both of them aware they’d been quite near death – “Another five paces and you’d have bought it,” Tommy said – and their hands shook trying to hold the big enamel mugs of tea. Suzie, with a wan smile, said that another two steps and she’d have needed ODO-RO-NO – a deodorant much in demand.
Finally she stood up from the big sofa in the ante-room, then sat down again quickly, feeling she didn’t exist, that inside she’d been excised, as though all the muscle in her body had been sucked out by the explosion, her bones fragmented and her mind expunged. She had been all but eliminated and, for a moment only, knew it was as though she’d never been born.
Colonel Bart Belcher came in as they were lifting the mugs in two-handed grips, gingerly getting them up to their lips, swallowing and gasping, burning their mouths.
“Strong, hot and sweet?” he enquired of the mess waiter who had, on Shed Hutt’s orders, brought the tea.
The mess waiter told him, yes, and the colonel said, “Best thing for shock, strong tea with plenty of sugar.” While he was speaking a RAF doctor, squadron leader, came bouncing in, saw the colonel’s insignia, bounced out again, deposited his greatcoat then came in for the second time and asked the colonel’s permission to look at the patients.
“We’re okay, doc,” Curry said adding, “Aren’t we, Suzie?”
“Right as rain,” Suzie wasn’t all that convincing.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” the doctor confident, brim full of medical knowledge, walrus moustache and a barrelful of laughs.
“The doc’ll be the judge of that,” Colonel Belcher added unnecessarily. Suzie wondered if he was a bit of an unnecessary man, didn’t like him.
“Need somewhere to examine them,” the doc looked around searching for a likely door and the mess sergeant came out from behind the bar and said they could use his little office. “I’ve got this caboose round the back,” he told them. “You’re welcome to use that.”
The doctor thanked him while Suzie was ready to give him an argument because she knew caboose was the wrong word but somehow didn’t want to take him up on it when the time came.
The doctor smiled at her. “Take you first, Miss … er … Miss…”
“Mountford,” Suzie supplied, then tried to get up, couldn’t at first because her legs wouldn’t do the trick, so the doctor put an arm round her shoulders and lifted her up, walking her along until they got into the mess sergeant’s office where the doc gave her a swift going over, all the little tests.
“You seem to be okay?” it wasn’t quite a proper question. “No bruises? No abrasions except your knees. You’ll be as right as rain.”
They had got the pair back to the mess in an ambulance that had turned up the same time as a fire engine and a squad of RAF Regiment men. The car was a blackened skeleton by the time they put the fire out, and an armaments officer was soon probing about giving notes to a corporal with a clipboard.
Tommy was poking around with Shirley Cox and Dennis Free following him like a couple of trained guinea pigs, sniffing out devious bits of electrics trying to work out whether the explosion had been triggered by fuse, or timer.
Back in the mess, Curry Shepherd went into the doctor’s, makeshift surgery after Suzie came out, still unsteady on her feet.
The doc did almost the same things he had done with Suzie, felt all over for suspected broken bones, did a few tests, tried the reflexes with a little rubber hammer, looked into his eyes with an ophthalmoscope, and his ears with a little light – his auriscope – talked all the time, happy-happy, then got him to spread his hands out in front of him, palms down, fingers open, watching them moving about as though they had a mind of their own, the fingers waving around like an aspen leaf in a force nine gale.
“You’re going to have to take it easy for a while,” the doctor cautioned.
“Got to get to London, doc,” Curry said, concerned and showing it. “Imperative.”
“Well you’re not driving yourself there,” the doctor looked grave. “Out of the question.” He said. “Why’ve you
got
to go?”
“Important meeting. Essential.”
“Essential in the sense that it could endanger the war effort if you didn’t go?”
“Absolutely. It is
that
serious.” Curry performed a weaving motion with his body, like a boxer preparing for a fight.
The doctor swallowed, then did a slow nod, “Well you shouldn’t drive yourself for at least twenty-four hours. Bloody dangerous if you did.”
“Then I’ll have to resort to that old Navaho Indian trick of begging and pleading for transport.”
Curry picked his way back into the ante-room where Suzie was sitting up, still drinking tea and being chatted to by Tommy Livermore who was leaning forward, one hand on her arm, Cathy Wimereux and Dennis Free stood quietly by the door, keeping to themselves, not eyeballing Tommy, a bit sheepish.
Tommy was saying he was concerned for her. “Almost had your head and horns blown off so you must be feeling a bit shaky…”
“I’ll be okay, Tommy. I’ll be fine…”
“Look, I’m sorry. Right? Really sorry.” She knew he wasn’t talking about the shooting and the explosive device.
“If you’re talking about us, it’s been coming for a while, Tom. I think we’ve both come to a decision.” Idly she thought
this goes deeper, deeper than death,
then considered that was a bloody silly thing to think: sounded pretentious and stupid.
“Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“No, but…”
“Just watch out.” Quiet, almost a whisper. “People in Curry’s line of business can be dangerous.”
“Tommy, I’ll be fine.”
“Can’t be too careful.”
“She’s just told you, she’ll be fine…” Curry was standing right beside him.
“I’m sure, yes” Tommy looked unconvinced.
Suzie said something about having to get to the meeting in London. Tommy raised his eyebrows, “And how’re you going to bloody get there now Curry’s car’s gone for a burton?”
Curry said he’d find a way, he’d fix it, talk to the colonel, and Tommy shot back a crack about secret squirrels having more pricks than a secondhand dartboard. Unpleasant. For a moment Suzie thought they might exchange blows, but Tommy just glared at Curry, who glared back and Suzie tried to glare at both of them.
Eventually all the glaring got too much and Curry said he had to arrange the transport. “You be alright?” he asked Suzie.
She nodded, and reluctantly he left the room.
“Tommy there’s nothing between us – Curry and me, I mean.” As if she had to explain.
Tommy grunted.
“Curry didn’t ask for me,” she began. “It was his boss, apparently. Tommy, us … well, it’s just come to a natural end … I had a great time, you made a woman of me and we worked well together.” In the back of her head she heard an old song,
It is best to be off with the old love,
Before you are on with the new.
And she didn’t even know if they were the right words, just hearing a memory, her mother and father singing it around the piano, Daddy playing like he always did when they had family parties at Christmas.
The Indian Love Lyrics
and a song they really loved called ‘The Beggars’.
How jolly are we beggars
Who never toil for treasure,
We all agree in liberty
And poverty befriends us
Come away,
Come away,
Let no evil care be found,
Mirth and joy,
Never cloy,
While the sparkling wit goes round.
And she began to cry, big breathless sobs so Tommy moved towards her, ready to be of comfort, but she pushed him away. Just stayed there knowing it was all a mixture of the shock of being shot at and then the bomb in Curry’s car and her half-decision to end it all with Tommy who had been so wonderful and then proved to have some habits she didn’t like and wasn’t really the man she thought him, or the one painted in the newspapers – Dandy Tom Livermore. All men, she thought, most men anyway, were the same. Feet of clay she supposed.