A Soldier's Tale (2 page)

So in the evening I says to Charlie, my offsider, I says, Charlie, I says, let's take a butcher's up that road.

What for? he says.

Oh, just for a walk, I says. Maybe there's some loot up there, or even a nice bit of crumpet.

That'd be all right, says Charlie, but he didn't sound as if he meant it. He was rather small and quiet, and I don't think he'd ever had a woman. And anyhow I was only teasing him.

So we walked a piece down a side road and we come over a bit of a hill. The other side there was a dip and a sort of open place and a cottage with a garden. We was looking down on it, pretty much hidden behind a hedge, and we could see one side of the cottage with some vegetables growing and a little shed.

Doesn't look like much, I says, and I was wondering whether to turn it in when the door opened just a crack so that someone could look out. Then it opened wider and out come a girl with long red hair and she stood on the back step looking about and listening
for trouble. And well she might because you didn't know who might be around—French or Yanks or us or German stragglers.

When she'd had a good look and decided it was all clear, she came right out. She was carrying a wooden bucket which she took to a sort of iron stand-pump in a corner of the garden and began to pump water into it.

Come on, Charlie, I says, let's see if we can chat her up.

So we walked down the hill very quiet like along the road that was thick with dust and soft underfoot. We could hear the pump going swish-clunk, swish-clunk for a while, then it started again, swish-clunk, swish-clunk, like she was drawing another bucketful.

Presently it stopped again just as we come up to a little wicket gate.

Hullo, I says, hullo Mamzelle. Parlay voo onglay?

She was just going back to the house with the bucket, and as she spun round she dropped it and it sprayed water all over the path. Her hand went up to her mouth and she stood there all white in the face under that marvellous red hair—real copper, it was, like copper beeches, like you don't often see.

She was so dumbstruck to find me there behind her—I'd come up very quiet, see?—that when she
started to run it was too late. I'd slipped in the gate and up the path and was between her and the cottage.

Then she says, Ingleesh? and it sounded silly because she must have known the uniforms.

Yes, I says, now don't be frightened, I says, because we won't hurt you, comprenay? Not, hurt, you. Just want a drink of water and a bit of a chat.

That seemed to relax her a little, but she was still wild and wary. Charlie come up the path behind me, looking unhappy and lost, and I think that settled her some more because he wasn't really terrifying, was Charlie. Anyhow, she stepped back on to the strip of grass so that I wouldn't be too close as I passed her, but at least she didn't try to run for the cottage.

When I'd drawn another bucket of water, she handed me an old aluminium mug and I dipped it in and drank. The water was cool and sweet, like water is from a good well. She was watching me all the time, still ready to run, and I watched her over the cup.

(And as he told me this he sipped his tea and rum, staring over the rim of that cup into the thin, blue flame of the Primus.)

Big brown eyes she had, with very clear whites, and she stared at me steady-like, turning to face me still
as I carried another mugful of water to Charlie.

That's good water, I says. Clean. Sweet.

Yes, it is good, she says. It is from the ground, natural.

I know, I says. I live in the country, like this here.

I live in the city, she says, in Rouen. I come here to keep away from the bombs.

I don't blame you, I says, bombing is bad. And you're safe here now. We won't hurt you. We're your friends.

I know, she says, but men are men. But you are welcome for the water.

I could see she wanted us to go, but then she says, Is it to stay this time? Will the Germans come back?

All the French were like that. They couldn't believe that we was there to stay. They had a sort of feeling, a lot of them, that the Germans couldn't really be beaten. Supermen. Well, we showed 'em, didn't we?

Not on your nelly, I says. We're here to stay. You'll never see them Huns here again.

I picked up the full bucket and carried it over to the step and put it down. Aren't you going to ask us in for a bit? I says.

And I think she was just going to say No. Please, she says. But she's looking over my shoulder and her face has gone white again, dead white. You've heard
it said, white as a sheet? Well, that's how she was, really, as white as bed-linen. So I turns quick and brings my sten round to the ready, because although I knows that Charlie's there, I don't like anything happening behind me I don't know about.

All it is is three Frenchmen standing there in a little row by the garden-wicket, staring at us.

They're all right, I says. They're your people.

No, she says in a low voice. I know those men. They are here to kill me.

What for? I says.

They say—they think I am too friendly with Germans, she says.

Well, were you? I says.

She shrugged up her shoulders and two patches of colour come back like flushes into her cheeks. She bit her lip. Then she says, Perhaps I am foolish. I had to live. But they will kill me.

We'll soon see about that, I says. Just watch my rear, Charlie. And I walked back down the path to the wicket and the three Frenchmen standing there. They all had black berets and baggy old clothes, and they wore those red, white and blue Resistance armbands and they carried old Lee Enfield rifles and ammo in bandoliers. A proper Fred Karno's army they looked, standing there.

What, I says, are you doing here?

Now there were three of them, like I said, but they were all different. One was just a kid, with black hair and bright blue eyes. One was big and strong and stupid-looking. And one was thin and grey with stubbly grey hair and a few days' growth of greyish beard and very pale eyes. He looked old and fierce like an old wolf. He was the one that spoke, quite well but with a very strong accent.

Monsieur, he says, we are come to arrest that woman.

Are you police? I says.

We are of the Resistance, he says, proud-like.

What's she done? I says.

Then the kid says something and they all gabbled away very angry till the old one told them to shut up. Then he says, Monsieur le Caporal, we have no quarrel with you, you are our friends and allies. That woman is an enemy to France.

She's French, isn't she? I says.

He makes a noise like an angry dog. She is traitor, he says, collabo, friend of Germans.
Putain
. Sleep with German officers.

The big simple one gives a silly laugh and makes the finger sign. The old one snarls at him again.

She goes with Germans, he says, and she is traitor.
Informer. She betrays Resistance men to the Gestapo.

And what will you do, I says, when you've arrested her?

The old man said nothing to me, but the kid must have asked him what the question was, because when the old man told him the kid pointed his rifle and said, Boom boom, and the old man nodded.

I turned and called out to her, You hear what they said about you? Is it true?

She hangs down her head and says something in a low voice.

Speak up, I says, I can't hear you.

Not true, she says.

Then I begin to get an idea. Wait here, I says to them. I'm going to talk to her, and you shan't take her until I tell you.

Then they started all shouting together but I ignored them and walked off up the path.

Charlie is waiting like the patient little bloke he is, and I says to him, I'm sorry, Charlie, I says, but I might just stay on here for a day or two. Would you mind very much waiting a little while and maybe doing a message for me? You don't need to worry about that rubbish, I says, looking at the three of them jabbering away at the gate.

That's all right, Corp, he says—and I think he
looked a bit relieved—I'll just hang on here and have a smoke. You take your time and let me know what wants doing.

(Saul told me all this part of the story without any indication of how he thought or guessed or felt. Of course, simple people don't analyse their emotions. At best they give a token indication, like: Proper wild I was; or, I was scared, I can tell you; or, I rather fancied her. But for the most part they retell acts and speeches—I says this, I done this—in a compulsive recall and very often in a historic present tense, as if what memory holds is still happening now. They are not recalling but describing what is still present to them. It was all of this, an experience he had relived a hundred times, in speech and act. The emotions of it were just as real to him, and that was why he couldn't describe them, for we can identify feelings and dissect motives only once they are passed. And then, at that particular time, there was something more. At least, that's how I see it—that he was quite tentative and uncommitted, at that stage. He saw her as an available woman who might find it difficult to refuse him. He also saw her as a victim threatened by the three Resistance avengers, whom he disliked both as clumsy amateurs and as silly foreigners. Mainly it
was his hunter's instinct that was aroused, sensing prey and enemies, enjoying his own stealthy vigour, willing to follow a trail alertly, inscrutably, and see where it led.)

Go inside, I says to her, I want to talk to you.

So she goes in the door and inside there is this big kitchen with a black coal-range and a big, old woodbox beside it, and a scrubbed table and china set out on a dresser.

I shut the door and she turns round quick at the end of the room and stands there with her arms across her chest and her hands gripping her shoulders, hunched, angry.

Look, I says, I'm not going to hurt you. You don't have to be afraid.

What do you want? she says, but I thought I'd better not answer that one just yet.

You're in trouble, I says. I can help you if you let me.

How can you help me? she says. What do you want?

Suppose I just walked out, went back to camp? What would you do?

She almost choked on that. They would kill me, she says, when they had finished with me.

It's Friday today, I says. My unit's resting and I don't think they'll move before Monday, maybe later. So long as I'm around, they'll never come near you.

You can stop them, you alone? she says, sarcastic-like.

Yes, I says, them and twenty more like them. Amateurs. Civvies.

I was sitting at the table and taking out a fag. She watched me take it from the packet and tap it and put it in my mouth and light it. She licked her lips.

May I have one of them? she says.

So I passed her the packet and she lit one and her hands were shaking. The first drag she took down very deep, with her eyes shut, and coughed on the smoke as she breathed out. It must have been a long time since she'd had a fag, you could see that. Then she says, No matter how long you stay, they will be waiting. They hate me and they are very patient. They will wait.

Why do they hate you?

She didn't answer that, so I says again, Why do they hate you? What have you done?

You would not understand, she says. You English will never understand. The Boches have been here four years. We had to live with them.

She turned round and stood at the side window, where they could see her.

You had better go, she says, there is no help. The longer you make them wait the more angry they will be. Perhaps if it is done quickly—

If I stay till Monday, I says, that's two and a half days. All sorts of things might happen, they might go away.

So she walked up and down the room in her old, green dress, still hugging her arms across her chest, and I let her alone, because even if she was what they said she was, well, she had her pride, I suppose. Though in the end she didn't have much of a choice, did she? Then, it was funny, she says like making an excuse, There is not much food in the house.

If that's what's worrying you, I says, just leave it to me. You hungry? I says, and she pulled a face and nodded.

So I ask her straight, I says, You'll let me stay then?

She didn't answer but she nodded and turned away.

Then I opened the door and there was old Charlie sitting on the step, having a smoke and reading a comic book that he had picked up from a Yank.

Charlie, my old china, I says, I got some jobs for you, is it all right?

Sure thing, Corp, he says.

I want you to go back to camp, I says, and ask Corporal Bird in the cook-house for a sackful of
spare rations, enough for two till Monday and a bit to spare. Tell him to pick good stuff out of the ration packs, and plenty of it, because he owes me one, he'll know why. Then, I says, get me my toilet gear and a towel out of my pack. And ask Micky Godfrey in the RAP for some french letters. And tell Sergeant Grice I'm doing a solo recce up in them woods we talked about and I'll see him on Monday, but you know how to get me if I'm needed in the meantime. You got all that? I says.

So he ticked off on his fingers, There's the rations, and your gear, and the f-f-french letters—oh, and tell Sergeant Grice.

That's a good boy, I says, and bring all the stuff back here. And look in my big pack and get out the bottle of that Calvados wrapped in the spare shirt. And the packets of fags.

Right ho, Corp, he says, and walks down to the gate. The three Frenchies stood there as if they wouldn't let him pass, so I just held up my sten and waved it at them, and walked down to the gate. They stood back and let him pass.

I stood by the gate watching him up the road, and then I turned and looked at them. I'd given them names now: Wolf-face and the Brat and Big Stupid. Wolf-face and the Brat were grinning at me, but
angry-like, showing their bad teeth. Stupid just stared at me as if he couldn't believe, or something.