Noose (14 page)

‘And did she know you were … that you'd been in this special … this special, well, in touch with Dad?'

‘My pictures had been in the Press, of course,' she said. ‘Your mother would have seen them, I expect.'

‘Dad has the cuttings. I think she spotted you and wanted to leave at once.'

‘Yes? Well, obviously, I have to recognize that she might have heard rumours. These tales take on a kind of abounding strength and self-perpetuation, don't they?'

‘What kind?'

‘There'll almost always be gossip, won't there, Ian?'

‘I was puzzled at the time,' he said. ‘And disappointed, I think – pulled away suddenly from that jail-gate gang for I didn't really know what reason. I'd been getting lionized. I was a sort of exhibit, the one who'd made this occasion at the prison possible.'

‘But I don't want you to assume Laurence – your father – was the cause of my divorce.'

‘Your divorce? Certainly not.'

‘Career pressures as much as anything. I'd done some Government Service exams and tests and to my astonishment passed first place for my intake. All right, I think I'd always known I was reasonably bright, but this – well, imagine! I'd left school at fourteen, no college, yet I could come out top in a quite tricky lot of papers. I was offered a very desirable and demanding job. I grew up. Home life suffered. I'm still a consultant there, but am able to pick and choose when I work. That's necessary because Frank might get a posting to some far-distant spot.'

‘Consultant where? Which part of Government Service?'

‘I still feel for … I still feel very obligated to your dad,' she replied. ‘Isn't it inevitable? And, of course, I'll do everything – shouldn't say this, should I? – but I'll do everything I can for you here, although I'm only the CO's missus, not the CO, and quite often his missus
in absentia.
It's a kind of contact with Laurence, isn't it – I mean, via you?' This time she let the name stand, the name she'd known him by. ‘That's precious to me, even so long after.' She touched his arm very briefly. ‘Now, I fear I must talk to some others. I have my duties! I'll drop you a note through your pigeon hole in the Mess if I have any further thoughts.'

‘Well, thanks. But you mustn't inconvenience yourself.'

‘I'll enjoy helping. I'm away a fair bit, but I should be able to make sure things go well for you.' She put two fingers to her closed lips, signalling that she shouldn't say or do this, but had said it, and said it twice, and would try to do it.

He considered it would be wisest not to tell his parents he'd run into Emily Stanton, née Bass, here. Old resentments might surface again in his mother.

I
t wasn't quite cold enough to freeze the mud in the trenches up near the control tower. Trenches? These dimples in the ground hardly deserved the word, Ian thought: nothing like those deep, lived-in networks of the First World War he'd read about as a kid and seen sepia pictures of. There had been a song still around when Ian was a child making fun of the exceptional care for their own safety shown by some officers and non-commissioned officers at the front. It went:

If you want the sergeant major, I know where he is, I know where he is;

If you want the sergeant major, I know where he is, I know where he is.

If you want the sergeant major I know where he is:

He's down in the deep dugout.

 

It was a simple melody playable on that pocketable, popular Great War instrument, the harmonica. The tune might owe a bit to that nursery song about ‘the big ship Ally Ally Oh'. But move forward a quarter of a century to another World War, the Second, and there'd been no deep dugouts for sergeant majors to hide away in during bombardments. In 1940, troops sent to guard this airfield from possible Nazi invaders had been hurried and careless about the digging. Blockhouses on the perimeter were supposed to stop the enemy. If they got this far, it would be only a matter of holding them for a couple of minutes so the tower could be sabotaged and evacuated. These basic, two-man, shallow ditches were considered enough for that kind of token defence. Most likely the walls had started to crumble before the spades were out.

Move forward again. The Second World War is over, too. The airfield and its accommodation blocks have been transformed into this Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU). Now a couple of months into his National Service, Ian already spends most of the time thinking far, far ahead to his release date, and to days and nights with Lucy Armitage again. Also, of course, to a job where he would not have to wear boots and linger in mud. Especially tonight he kept thinking about both good aspects of the future.

But there was this other war under way, though distant. And so there was the Korea call-up. Although the Lincolnshire airfield no longer needed defending even notionally, airfields in that new, distant war might. Ian and the rest were here to learn how to do it. Tonight's mock battle might help show them. Some graduating officers would get sent to the war; the RAF Regiment's job to keep installations secure so the aircraft would have somewhere to take off from and come back to. Korea was rough terrain – a lot tougher than Lincolnshire, but Lincolnshire would have to do for this training exercise.

Very little worth securing still existed on the OCTU airfield. It was a learning centre, a kind of outdoor academy. The control tower did remain and was manned off-and-on in case of fog diversions, but an aircraft putting down here in 1952 was an event, and then only small machines – an Anson or Tiger Moth: nothing operational since 1944, apparently. Instead, for six or seven years, in day exercises, night exercises, camouflage exercises, consolidation exercises, counter-attack exercises, the trainee officers had churned up the bottoms of these minor dents in the clay that Ian and the rest occupied tonight. In the winter, there would always be several inches of cold, thick mud to engulf your boots, smear and kill their gleam, and strike through to your feet, except when it had iced over hard. A driving, large-flaked blizzard blew across the field now and the trenches stayed gluey.

White Course, with Officer Cadet Ian Charteris in charge for this exercise, must play-act the backs-to-the-wall British, hanging on to an airfield menaced by enemy ground troops. Green Course, under OC Raymond Bain, were the attacking North Koreans, who wanted the field and the planes if possible, but, in any case, to put the airstrip out of use as a bomber base. Ian knew he and Bain were probable main contenders for the Sword of Honour – top cadet award – at the end of training. Bain might be a little ahead and a victory tonight could clinch it. He'd done brilliantly in orienteering and small-arms and rifle tests on the range. By custom, each Sword of Honour graduate stayed on here at the OCTU for a spell, to help train new intakes. It sounded a very nice, comfortable and safe number. Nicer and more comfortable and safer than Korea. In fact, though, almost anywhere would be more comfortable and safer than Korea. If Ian missed on the Sword and got Korea he would go, naturally. No option. He wasn't sure what Lucy's attitude would be. Emily Stanton had wondered, too. Perhaps any woman would wonder about the impact of such a long separation and such intercontinental mileage. Of course, officers shouldn't have these selfish, unsoldierly thoughts. Most officers probably did, though, and especially officers who were only officers because they'd been drafted.

‘As a matter of fact, the snow and wind tonight make it more authentic, you see, valuably more,' the Wing Commander said with filthy enthusiasm when someone wanted the exercise ditched because of conditions. ‘Damned harsh climate, Korea. No picnic. You need to get the feel of a place where it's no picnic. Absolutely. A mistake to imagine your time in the Service will be a picnic. If some of you are sent out there you'll look back and thank us at the OCTU for running this little show in less than perfect weather. Oh, yes. Acclimatizing. Hardening.'

White Course took up guard and resist posts in front of the tower at half-past seven and it was now just after nine. They'd heard nothing from the enemy all night. Green had until ten o'clock to make and complete their attack, taking five White Course prisoners how they liked, and removing them as hostages. Ian would have expected Green to get their assault over quickly, so everyone could scoot back to the warmth of the Mess bar. But, of course,
they
were not deployed and immobile, their feet gripped and chilled by mud. They had the excitement of their scheduled onslaught to keep them warm. They would be moving about. But
where
would they be moving about? Anywhere, and invisible so far.

Harry Nelmes, alongside Ian in the miniature trench, said Green must hope the stretched suspense would get at White's nerves. It was typically Oriental: subtle, patient, attritional. And Ian thought, yes, and if the rest of their plan was as effective as this, they'd as good as won. No talking. No smoking. ‘This is war,' said the Flight Lieutenant umpire, on a quick tour of White's positions. ‘You must maintain that reality. You don't advertise your positions by chit-chat and tobacco glow. The enemy is redoubtable, ruthless, alert to any signs of relaxation in your unit, Charteris.'

Which reality? This was Lincolnshire. In the nearby town of Grantham, there were well-stocked, traditional-style shops run by people with traditional-style British names, like Roberts, Tomkins, Hardcastle. Korea was Korea, and possibly twice as awful, with the enemy knowing the land better than you. But the minor awfulness of Lincolnshire winter would do, thanks. Ian and Harry took it in turns to watch across the airfield. Nelmes had the duty now. Looking that way, you took the wind and snow in your face, and after a few moments' vigil, hostile, swirling devilkind seemed to be galloping at you, white on White. It reminded him a little of those smoke-swathed figures in the public air-raid shelter in 1941. But they'd been real. So far, charging warriors here were figments brought on by weather-driven optical illusion.

Crouched for shelter against Harry's feet, Ian wondered how Green would go about the actual rough physical business of getting their prisoners. He felt a bit weakened, worn down, by the cold, by girl-lessness, by dawn reveilles, and might not be much good if it came to hand-to-hand stuff. The trouble was that, even if you spotted the attack early enough, and let off all your blanks in roughly the right direction, the umpire didn't say who'd been killed until afterwards. By then, anything bruising and worse could have happened. Bain played prop-forward for a rugby club somewhere, and for the OCTU, and knew about intelligent thuggery.

Half-past nine nearly. Harry and Ian changed over. Thick snow crusted Nelmes' helmet and forehead and the shoulders of his greatcoat. Ian sighted his rifle into their arc of fire and the moisture where his elbow rested seeped through to the skin. The cold hurt him between the eyes and he started seeing things again. Occasionally the wind dropped and in the spell of near quiet he heard the gentle, moist amassing of snow on soil, and then on snow, a friendly, wholesome sound and a credit to Nature, but not one he thrilled to, and, really, only pleasant if you knew you'd be getting out of it soon.

And, suddenly, this subdued pitter-patter was drowned. Out of the white-dotted darkness came the raw blare of music: a jangling, combative din from some hugely amplified band and a woman vocalist, careering up and down the octaves without mercy. At first, Ian couldn't decide where it came from. Green had a wind-up gramophone with them, instead of the standard Bren? In a minute, though, he realized it must be roaring from the tower amplifier. This pointed out over the runways to sound a warning hooter for landing pilots who'd forgotten to get their undercarriage down. It had to be loud enough to register over engine noise. Someone had connected a record player to it.

The music seemed oriental – shrill, full of wailing and sing-song words from the vocalist. Obviously shocked and panicked by it, one White Course cadet in the trenches loosed off five blanks rapid, probably directed any old where. Ian did an all-round hard gaze, suspecting a diversion. Nothing came, only the blizzard.

It lasted three or four minutes and then the music stopped. A weird sort of laugh followed over the loudspeaker. ‘What is it?' Harry Nelmes asked.

‘A ploy.'

‘What ploy?'

‘Listen,' Ian said. ‘Stay watchful.'

Someone started to speak in place of the music. The voice was male, disguised by an assumed, Far-Eastern, comic accent, but Ian thought he identified Bain from Green, commander of North Korea's foray team: ‘You out there, poor bloody Blitish Tommies? In the snow storm and the dark we sneaked past your trenches. We clever tloops. We winning tloops. We in tower. You hear me OK, yes? We going fight you, give you nasty time if you don't surrender now. Hurry, please, to capitulate. We will see white flag, even on snow-white background. We would like to be kindly to you, oh, yes. War can be honourable. But war can also be velly savage. Oh, yes to that, too. No chance at all is what you have. You all nervous in cold? Tligger happy, yes? Bang, bang, bang. You velly fed up? Me have idea for your boss, OC Ian Charteris. All Tommies come here, be captured, yes? Velly, velly easy, yes? Leave guns behind. Hands in air. Hanky for that aforespoken of white flag. We not cold, not miserable. Having party in here. Plenty rum, plenty whisky. Party in dark because we have girls, too.' Ian heard a little scream and giggle, which might have been one of the canteen staff. ‘You come see, give up before White nuts freeze off, OK?'

From somewhere out in the dark the umpire bellowed: ‘Look here, Green, that's all very well, but I don't think we can accept this sort of ruse. Not legitimate. Not at all in the proper spirit of things. It makes the exercise absurd. You must see that.'

‘All fair in love and war, yes? Old Blitish saying, I thlink. Must win. No good coming second. In war the ones who come second come nowhere at all. Sorry you White men can't attend party. Have something for you velly special.'