Avalanche of Daisies (23 page)

‘Now what?' Victor whispered as the first car sped away with their illegal load. He was glad to have the job done because the bombs had been much closer in the docks, close enough, in fact, for them to hear the ambulances and fire engines speeding through the streets, which had made him feel very uneasy.

‘Now we pay the Skibbereen for what we can sell and get rid of it pronto,' Phossie told him, equally quietly. ‘How much cash you got?' And when Victor told him. ‘Spend to the limit. That's my advice. Nothing venture, nothing gain.'

It seemed sound advice, so Victor kept half a crown for his immediate needs and spent the rest. Then he and Phossie transferred the sugar to their cardboard boxes and set out again to visit the local grocers. There was a lull in the raid so the streets were full of shoppers.

‘Stick with me for the first two or three,' Phossie advised. ‘I'll show you the ropes. Then you'll have to find your own patch. Don't worry. It'll be a doddle.'

He was right. The black market was everywhere. The very first grocer Vic approached on his own was only too happy to see him and asked if he could get him some eggs ‘later in the week'. The next wanted to know if he'd got any peaches, the third was after corned beef.

By the end of the day, he'd made enough money to treat Phossie to a slap-up meal in a restaurant in the West End. And that was a revelation too, for although a five shilling maximum had been placed on restaurant meals in 1942, the rich obviously didn't take any notice of it and the bill that evening ran to nearly five pounds.

‘Now thass what I call living,' he said as Phossie drove him back to their dingy lodgings. ‘If that wasn't
for those ol' buzzbombs that'ud be a great life. They're the flies in the ointment.'

‘We'll go to Chelmsford,' Phossie decided. ‘They all been after me for eggs an' bacon today. What say we travel overnight? I'll show you how to drive an' we can take it turn and turn about.'

It was an admirable idea. The further they went from Hitler's bombardment the better. And eggs would be sure to sell.

It was a busy week and a highly profitable one. By the end of it Victor had learnt to drive the Humber – more or less – begun to carve out a nice little corner for himself and earned so much money that he'd dined out every evening, bought himself a new suit and some earplugs and decided to buy a car or rent a better flat.

‘I'd rather go on the razzle,' Phossie said. ‘What say we go up West Sat'day night? Few drinks, grub, bit of a laugh. We could find a couple a' tarts if you like. What you say?'

Victor could just imagine the sort of girls Phossie would knock about with. ‘No thanks,' he said. ‘I've got a girl actually. I don't need to find one.'

‘Lucky dog!' Phossie admired. ‘So
that's
why you want a flat. Gettin' it regular, eh?'

Victor preened but didn't elaborate. He had no intention of letting someone like Phossie know anything about his private life.

‘Oh well,' Phossie cut in, ‘you'll cut off and see her this Sat'day then.' And he shrugged his shoulders, making the best of it. ‘Not to worry. I'll find one of the others. Never short of company, me.'

But in the event they spent Saturday night working for the Skibbereen. A call came through just as they were enjoying their first beer of the evening and within twenty minutes they were in Limehouse, watching as the Skibbereen concluded his negotiations with a couple of dockers.

‘You're from Whitbreads if anyone asks,' he informed his team and left the six of them to carry four dozen cartons of whisky out of the corner of the warehouse, where they were stacked and waiting, and into their cars.

‘Where's he gone?' Victor asked, as he and Phossie filled their boot.

‘To his club probably,' Phossie said, sliding the last carton onto the back seat. ‘Too many buzzbombs about.'

The words were barely out of his mouth when they heard the familiar tinny rattle of a buzzbomb on its way towards them. It sounded as though it was directly overhead. It couldn't be, could it? But when they looked up, they suddenly saw the bright flame of its exhaust spurting into the little oblong of night sky between two warehouse walls, and before either of them had time to say anything, the engine cut out and they heard the awful rush of its fall. They flung themselves into the dirt, instinctively covering their necks with their hands, breathless with sudden terror. If the warehouse comes down, Vic thought, we shall be buried alive – if we're not cut to pieces. And his heart struggled in his chest, like a bird desperate to free itself.

The explosion rocked the ground they were lying on and the roar of it seemed to go on for ever. Then they heard a crash like a wall collapsing and the thud of tumbling debris, and that went on even longer.

But the warehouse walls didn't fall and presently the echoes died away and the debris stopped falling and they stood up and dusted themselves down and saw that they'd all survived and began to make obscene jokes to cheer themselves up.

‘That could ha' been Potter's Wharf,' Phossie said, squinting up at the dust cloud.

‘What do they store there?' Vic asked.

‘Food,' Phossie said, still squinting.

‘Might be worth a look then,' Vic said. ‘What you think?' glancing round at the others. This was getting really exciting.

So they scrambled into their cars and drove off before the doors were shut, just like an American gangster film.

‘If it
is
Potter's,' Phossie explained as he drove, ‘we've got ten minutes at the most, then the civil defence'll be there. It's been a noisy night so with a bit a' luck they might be busy somewhere else, but we can't bank on it. We'll have to work like stink.'

The wharf was shrouded by clouds of brick dust and couldn't be seen but it was obviously the centre of the dust storm so they all plunged straight towards it. By now they were wild with excitement and heedless of the danger, scrambling over piles of broken brick, dodging smashed pipes, crunching over broken glass, eager for loot.

There was plenty of it, for although one side of the warehouse had vanished, as far as they could see, there were packing cases everywhere, looming out of the dust like a herd of humped beasts, some smashed open, some lying on their sides spilling tins, some virtually intact. But all of them too heavy to carry.

‘We need a wheelbarrow or something,' Victor said, peering round wildly. And saw a tarpaulin, thrown across yet another heap of cases. Perfect. Grab it quick before the others see it. Then it was simply a matter of filling it with tins and lugging it back to the car, passing two of the others as they staggered out of the dust under the weight of half a broken packing case.

They'd made three trips and were on their way back for a fourth when there was a spurt of fire directly ahead of them and part of the building was suddenly ablaze, belching black smoke and scarlet flames behind dust clouds which were now eerily and dramatically brick-pink.

‘Scarpa!' Phossie yelled and they both hurtled to the car. It was packed to the ceiling and very heavy to drive. But they got it away and the civil defence hadn't arrived and nobody could have seen them, thanks to all that dust. What a success! Fucking marvellous! They laughed and swore all the way home.

It wasn't until they were inside the house that it occurred to Vic to wonder what had happened to the others.

‘That's their look-out,' Phossie said. ‘It's every man for himself in this business. Let's have a look an' see what we've got.'

So they wiped the dust from their looted goods and found that what they'd ‘liberated' was tinned food from the USA, corned beef, peaches, jam, rice pudding and stewed steak, all of it eminently saleable.

‘We'll make a fortune!' Phossie predicted happily. ‘A fortune! And we don't even have to pay a cut to the Skibbereen. That's the beauty of it. It's all Freeman's. Courtesy of Adolf Hitler. How d'you fancy a tin a' steak for supper?'

‘Good old Hitler!' Victor said. Now he'd be able to buy that car. Then he'd find Spitfire – there couldn't be
that
many tram depots even in London – and he'd take her a box full of goodies or some nylons or something and see if she'd like to go out for a spin. Anything was possible now. Somewhere deep in the more honest recesses of his mind he knew that what they'd just been doing was stealing and that it was against the law, but there was no point in thinking about that now. If they hadn't taken the things, someone else would have done. Or they'd have been ruined by the fire brigade. In fact, when it came down to it, he and Phossie had shown a lot of guts running into a bombed building. Not many people would have done that. ‘What a night, eh?' he said.

‘That's war for you,' Phossie said happily opening a
tin of steak. ‘There's a lot to be said for it. Gives people an appetite. They want better things. We supply better things. Profit all round. I'm all for it. They can keep it going as long as they like.'

‘Where the fuck are we?' Dusty Miller growled, turning a filthy face to Steve, as they scrambled out of their troop carrying vehicle. ‘I can't see a fucking thing in all this fucking dust.' Like everybody else in the company he was taut and irritable, afraid that they were lost or off-track, afraid that the Germans were alongside them, or ahead of them, or behind them – Christ no! Not behind them! – afraid that everything was going wrong, just plain afraid.

Steve had to spit grit before he could answer. Not that any answer was possible. Officially they were back with the 11th Hussars again and in the front line, in open country north-east of Caen, but at that moment it looked as though they were lost. ‘Could be anywhere,' he said. ‘Anywhere
else
preferably.'

The operation, code-named Goodwood, had begun in the standard way early that morning with a massive air bombardment. More than two thousand planes had been used, half of them RAF heavy bombers, so the destruction had been formidable – entire streets flattened, guns twisted in their mountings, fuel tanks and ammunition dumps exploded like firework displays, German tanks hurled bodily into the air. The brigade had watched with great satisfaction, saying it was ‘enough to soften anyone up'. But there was a price to pay for it, especially in the long rainless days of mid July and the price was more dust than they'd ever seen in their lives. By the time the planes left the area, it was inches thick and every time the tanks advanced they blew up such a storm that the troops following in their
TCV's were temporarily blinded and cut off from one another.

Even the old campaigners said it was the worst they'd ever experienced. They'd driven through sandstorms out in the desert and stirred up a sand-cloud with every yard they travelled, but there the terrain had been open before them and the clouds had soon settled behind. Here the dust was incessant and pernicious, swirling perpetually before their eyes, thick, rust-red and foul-tasting, clogging their eyelashes and filling their mouths with grit. It obscured the road, turned trees and troops to looming ghosts, even masked the massive
outline of the tanks and the TCV's. It burdened their helmets and kit, turned their boots to stone and their guts to water, for it was the perfect cover for snipers and sudden death could lurk behind every evil swirl of it.

And now the column had ground to a halt and the TCV's had caught up with the tanks and nobody seemed to know what direction they were supposed to be travelling in. And Steve and Dusty had been sent out to reconnoitre.

‘A fat lot a' good this is,' Dusty said, kicking the dust with the toe of his boot. ‘How're we supposed to see with all this muck in the air?'

All around them intercoms crackled with bad temper and swearing mouths spat back, tense with fatigue and fear. Apparently there was a traffic snarl-up somewhere in the rear. ‘Yes, I
can
read a fucking map. I just can't fucking
see
, that's all.' ‘Up yours!' ‘If you did
your
fucking job we wouldn't
be
fucking stuck.'

It alarmed Steve to hear what a state they were all in. They were tense and afraid, which was fair enough, but they were taking it out on one another, which was frightening. Even the major was irritable. ‘Well pull your bloody finger out,' he said into his intercom. ‘We're a sitting target out here. We need some info and we need it quick.'

Steve and Dusty could just about make out the outline of the tank immediately ahead of them. It was inching forward again, its tracks grinding, and the tank commander had his head out of the hatch in a vain attempt to see where he was going. They watched him as he adjusted his earphones, his right hand pale below the dark cloth of his beret. To the left, the dust had cleared enough to show that they were on a flat stretch of plain, to the right they were passing woods. But they'd hardly taken it in before they were suddenly and violently under fire, the shells landing much too close – bursts of black smoke with a brilliant scarlet centre – red-hot shrapnel flying up and out in large jagged chunks. Before the major could be given his answer, the tank commander was hit, blood and brains spurting backwards from his head and spattering the turret.

The major was in the field standing beside Steve and Dusty, swearing and giving orders. ‘Get him out, for Chrissake! Get that bloody hatch clear! Come on! Come on!' And they obeyed with the instant response of men under fire and in utter terror, scaling the tank, tugging the lead from the commander's earphones, hauling him through the hatch, lowering him to the earth, working so quickly it was all done in one movement. He was unconscious and extremely heavy, his body floppy and hard to lift, and as they lowered him to the ground, his head left a smear of blood and brains all down the side of the tank.