Not Flag or Fail (11 page)

“Blimey.” said Fishy when the Major was out of earshot

“Jolly good show what?” drawled Ronny.

The quartermaster Sergeant was a regular and had fought in the last war so he was on our side. He made sure that the blokes the other side of the counter gave us good kit that fitted and shoved in a few little extras too. Things like extra razor blades and towels, nothing major but a nice gesture all the same.

Not so the Sergeant, in the paymaster’s office, in a fairly new uniform he looked decidedly un-military and I guessed that he had been given the rank because it was a necessary part of the job and that not too long ago he had been a clerk in some civvy street office or bank.

He had us filling in forms for the best part of half an hour but eventually we did all leave with a weeks’ wages in our pockets.

Back in the hut we changed into new fatigues, laid our new kit out properly and having removed anything we thought might be of use, took a visit to the bins to dispose of our old kit. At lunch time we went together to visit the Mess and sat down to a pile of mashed potatoes, green stuff that I think had probably once been cabbage and corned beef pie, still it filled a hole as they say and if you added plenty of salt it even had some taste.

We did as we were told and had a good look around the camp, finding out where everything was. We found a rugby-come soccer pitch and perhaps most importantly next to it, a new shower block had been built. We went inside and investigated and found that it was all working and the showers were hot. “We’ll have a go at these before we go out tonight.” said Harry.

“No we won’t, think about it. Everyone will be knocking off about 16.00 hours. I bet you that by 17.00 there’s no hot water left. I reckon we should have our showers at 15.45 before the workers have finished for the day, then its back to the hut for a leisurely brew, into the new kit and off out on the town, what do you think?” I said, no one argued.

We arrived at the gatehouse about ten minutes before six o’clock, looking as smart as we were able to in our new uniforms, it would take time before we had done all those little tricks that made them so that you could begin to please the Sergeants’. This Sergeant however, we knew we would never please. I knocked on the door, after a delay it was eventually opened by Sergeant Foxwell he must have known it was us as he had not bothered to put his cap on. “Yes?” he said.

“We’ve come to collect our passes.” I said.

He looked at me and smiled “Too early, they are made out for 18.00 hours.”

“So are theirs” I replied pointing across the road to where the rest of the scruffs from the parade ground, now like us smartly dressed, were waiting by the bus stop for the bus to take them into town.

“Yes I see what you mean, just wait there I’ll just go and get them for you.” He went back inside the office and we waited.

Across the road the bus pulled up and with much good natured jostling the blokes pushed their way on, all but a Bombardier who I didn’t know, who stood in front of the bus and shouted across to ask if we were coming? I put my hands up in a gesture of helplessness and he waved resignedly and got back onto the bus, which then set off, coughing and spluttering down the road.

No sooner was it underway than Foxwell was back out of the office with our passes. “Oh dear the bus has gone, what a shame, if I’d only been a little quicker. Oh well. Now then let me see, Bombardier Hilbert and Gunners, Hampton, Henshaw, Regis and Thomas.” He handed us the passes. “Have a good time lads and don’t be late back, I’d hate to have to put you on a charge.”

“What a truly horrible little man.” said Ronny as we set off walking down the road.

“Yeh? … Just watch how flippin ‘orrible he gets if I see him on a dark night. “Fishy. Said

As it turned out, Sergeant Foxwells scheme for spoiling our night backfired, because a few minutes later some RAOC blokes stopped in a three tonner, “Going into town lads?” Said the Lance-corporal who was driving, we told him we were and he told us to get in the back and then set off again. Later we passed the bus after it had stopped to let off passengers just outside of the town.

We waved goodbye to the Lance-corporal as he drove away Jack and I smiled as I imagined Foxwells face if he found out his actions had saved us the bus fare and so made us all tuppence better off.

What a night we had in town and no we didn’t just get drunk as might have been expected. Instead we went to the pictures, visited the towns pubs where we met some of the other blokes just back from France, we swapped stories of our escapes or evacuations and ended the night with a fish and chip supper eaten from the paper by the bus stop as we waited for the last bus to take us back to the camp.

During the next few days the camp started to fill up as more and more men arrived, lots of them looking in the same sorry state as we had on our arrival.

We all drifted back into the routine of camp life, with its kit inspections and guard duties. It turned out that Jock Scott and his crew were billeted in with us and the other two remaining beds were allocated to two other blokes from our company who were all that was left of their original gun crew. We all got on well, Jock was careful enough to impose enough discipline to ensure we were never on the wrong side of the officers.

After a few days we were all to find ourselves being retrained in various facets of warfare although not necessarily altogether, for example, Harry and myself had been selected to improve our small Arms techniques on the camp rifle range, whereas Fishy had been sent off to Banbury for a three day course on transmitting and receiving coded radio messages.

Ronny and Jack were still within the camp confines and were, for whatever reason, learning to ride a motorcycle.

So, because it had been a while since we had done anything together, it caused some speculation amongst us, when towards the end of our first week we were told to report to the administration block to a Lieutenant Baker.

“Probably going to teach us to be flipping typists now I reckon.” Said Fishy, as we walked across to the block, but no one really listened to him. When we arrived I came to attention and saluted the Duty Sergeant at the reception desk and told him our names. He told us to remove our caps and go down the corridor to room 3 A, which he informed me was the third door on the left. I knocked on the door and a voice inside shouted for us to come in.

Inside the room several tables had been put together to form a bigger one and around it were spaced eight chairs.

At one of the tables sat Lieutenant Baker, I guessed he was in his mid-thirties, but with a sort of baby face. He had a rosy, rather than ruddy complexion and did not appear to shave. In front of him on the table were a large writing pad and a fountain pen. A large jug of water and several glasses were also to be seen. More glasses presumably for us were spread around the other tables. He looked up at us, none of us were wearing caps so we didn’t salute but we all stood to attention, he stood up and spoke to us.

“Sit down chaps please, my name as you probably know is Lieutenant Baker, now you should know that I’m an Intelligence officer but not with your regiment you understand. I’m actually from the Intelligence Corps.” We all looked from one to the other. He went on to tell us that there was no need for us to be alarmed he was merely interested in our exit from France. He said that he was in the picture about the situation up until we were ordered to evacuate our position at Carvin but wanted to know what we did afterwards. He told us to take it in turns, starting with myself, and then going around the table in turn. He told us that we should take our time because he wanted to make notes and also because he didn’t want us to miss anything out. “Help yourselves to water if you need it.” He said, sitting back down again.

I started us off, telling the story until we got to the train line, then Harry, who was sitting next to me took over the tale, chronicling the tale as far as the old stable.

Fishy then took over, talking about from when we got to the tomb to when we left, omitting any reference to the Captain that we had met. The Lieutenant stopped us while he caught up with his notes and then Jack resumed, telling how we got to Dunkirk, Ronny finished the story detailing how we stole the boat and how Fishy got us back over the channel.

“Well, well done you chaps! Very commendable, you did very well you know. Now then, I’m going to need to fill in a few gaps here and there, so what say we break for a spot of lunch and then we’ll resume this afternoon, shall we say one thirty?”.

We walked over to the cookhouse listening to Fishy complimenting himself all the way over, on how well he had steered the tale away from, the ‘us meeting the Captain’ in the churchyard and how the Lieutenant was too wet behind the ears to catch on.

By 13.30 hours we were already back in the room when Lieutenant Baker returned from his lunch. There were tobacco tin lids on the tables which served as ash trays; we were all having a smoke when he came back into the room. We made to put them out but he stopped us and told us to carry on, he even apologised saying he had meant to tell us we could smoke during the morning session.

“Right Oh then, I think what we need to do now is go back to the part about the churchyard,” speaking directly to Fishy, “Now then, you Gunner Thomas, Ted isn’t it? You told me about meeting the priest who helped you to escape. Now I want you to think back, did you meet anyone else about that time?”

Fishy stroked his chin and appeared to think about it for quite a while before looking the Lieutenant straight in the eye and saying “Not as I recall Sir. We just met the priest and later on the Captain of the barge.”

“Hmm…. and none of the rest of you met anyone then?” asked the Lieutenant. It was obvious he knew a lot more than he was saying.

I realised there was no point in trying to hold out any longer. “Well there was the Captain, Sir.” I said trying my best to make it sound as though the thought had just occurred to me.

“Oh yes of course, the Captain.” said Ronny eager to back me up.

“Fancy us….” Harry got no further, with the Lieutenant cutting him short.

“Gentlemen please… Spare me the theatricals; let’s just say it slipped your mind eh?”

Lieutenant Baker lifted his briefcase onto the table and took out a photograph which he held, facing us.

“Is this your Captain?”

We all agreed that it was “So would one of you like to tell me what happened to him and please don’t forget anything this time, I really do need to get back to London soon.”

I could see no point in trying to hide anything, so I did my best to recount the story, telling how we first saw him. Highlighting the times he came close to getting us into trouble, even including the fact that he’d put me on a charge for insubordination. I said that we did genuinely get separated from him in the dark, admitting that we didn’t try too hard to find him again.

“Did he tell you his name?” Asked the Lieutenant, I told him that he hadn’t.

“His name is Captain Forbes-Hamilton, His Christian name is Alasdair, he is the fourth Baronet of Fairhampton his father’s a brigadier general and I tell you this in confidence gentlemen, he is accusing you of cowardice and says you jeopardised his safety. However, in your favour, most of your story would seem to check out, it’s just a pity that you didn’t mention meeting Forbes-Hamilton right away, it could look, to a Court Martial, that you were trying to hide something.

“Court Martial?” I said.

“Oh don’t worry about that just now, it may never happen.”

He looked across to us all and smiled, “thanks for your time men, you’re free to go.”

We were all a bit frightened by the fact that Lieutenant Baker had mentioned a Court Martial, however when we discussed it we thought that we hadn’t done that much wrong, despite what Forbes-Hamilton had said.

Our officer in charge since we had been on the camp was a first Lieutenant, named Barrington, he was a bit longer in the tooth and was a bit more experienced than some of the second Lieutenants’ who were floating about the place and so with this in mind, I asked Jock to fix it for me to see him.

After parade on Saturday morning Jock told me to go straight over to Barrington’s office where he would see me.

The interview was not a success. Barrington told me that he was obviously aware of Lieutenant Baker’s interview with us although he had been told not to get involved. In short, it was out of his hands, as I was leaving, he deliberately let it slip that it was not over and that someone from the Intelligence Corps would definitely be back to see us again in the not too distant future.

The not too distant future was much sooner than we expected. We had the day off on Saturday and in the evening went into town for pictures and a pint.

We were back in the camp well before our passes ran out, at least four of us were. Harry had met a married woman, who’s husband was away on Atlantic convoys, she was at least fifteen years older than him but neither seemed to mind and I think they both knew that it would only last until our next posting.

On Sunday morning we were all clear headed when, after breakfast, Jock told us to again report to the dreaded room 3A.

We trooped over; once again I knocked at the door. Again the voice called for us to come in and sit down, Lieutenant Baker lost no time in telling us that we were free to smoke. We all sat down and the Lieutenant introduced us to two other people who were in the room, sitting at each side of him.

“Right chaps! Let me introduce you to my two colleagues who are accompanying me today. They are; turning to a man in his mid fifties who was out of uniform and was dressed very much the country squire in a tweed jacket, woollen roll neck jumper, corduroy trousers, and very shiny, spit-polished reddish brown, brogue shoes.

The man concerned was leaning back in his chair, puffing on a straight brier pipe. “This is my boss Major Peter Jackson, gentlemen, like me, he is with the Intelligence Corps.”

The Major looked across to us and nodded.