Small Island (17 page)

‘What shall I do with the coloured driver, sir?’

‘I don’t know. My problem is what to tell this Limey asshole. Truck too small or what? Probably the only truck they’ve got. No, some paperwork missing? That oughta do it. Tell him to wait or get him something to eat. They always want something to eat.’

‘Send him to the mess, sir?’

‘No, not the mess, for God’s sake – he’s coloured!’

Reflex makes you do strange things when you have been bred to be polite, respectful and courteous. I leaped across the room, feigning curiosity out of an almost opaque window so this sergeant might not suppose I had heard their exchange. Chest out, arms by my side, was I to salute a US Army NCO?

‘At ease, Soldier,’ the sergeant said.

Coloured, black, nigger. All these words had been used to characterise me in the last few minutes. Insults every one. But funny thing is, not one of those aspersions caused me so much outrage as the word ‘soldier’! I am not a soldier, I am an airman. ‘Airman Joseph,’ I said, which made the sergeant reply, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’ I stood easy as he carried on. ‘Listen, ah . . . Soldier, no . . . umm . . . Airman, we’re not quite . . . umm . . . umm.’

As he struggled there was my Mother-bred instinct again. Could I in some way help this man out of this unfathomable plight? He looked a shy man. In peacetime, let me see, he would be serving in a ladies’ hosiery shop, turning berry-red when big-bosomed women wanted something that would fit.

‘You’re gonna have to wait a while,’ the sergeant finally told me. ‘You want something to eat?’

‘At the mess, sir?’

‘No . . . no . . . not at the mess . . . umm . . . umm. I’ll get someone to bring you something out.’

The officer from the other room called out for this sergeant. When the useless door had been closed behind them he said, ‘Finch, send the coloured back. I swear that CO Limey bastard was laughing. He was laughing! “Is there a problem?” he says. Ten minutes in Alabama and he’d have a fucking problem. He knew I couldn’t use a fucking coloured here. He just sent him to piss me off. He thinks he’s fucking won this fight. He was laughing. Thinks he’s pulled one over on us. Yeah, sure, asshole. Get the nigger outta here.’

‘He was just getting something to eat, sir.’

‘Feed him, feed him. Do what you want. But not in the mess, unless you want trouble. Just get him outta here, then get some private to check the parts and truck ’em over. Believe me, this is the first and last time those fucking Limeys get past me.’

When the sergeant returned to me, he smiled. ‘They’re bringing you something out but you can go back to your base after that, Airman.’

I had not, as far as I could tell, either identified, signed for or transported any crates containing shock absorbers suitable for Spitfires. And yet this man was telling me my job was done. ‘My orders, sir, were to pick up some parts.’

‘Yeah, that won’t be necessary.’

‘Sir, I am sorry but I do not understand.’

‘Listen, Soldier, it’s all taken care of. Just go back. It’s okay.’

‘What reason will I give for returning without the parts?’

It was at this point that the sergeant’s face began to burn its berry-red. But the officer from the other room called out, ‘Sergeant, bring him in here.’

The officer’s feet were on the desk. Younger than his voice suggested, he smiled steadily on me. His big white teeth standing to attention – each one pressed into the service of putting me at my ease. He swung his legs to the ground, stumped out a cigarette and leaned earnestly forward. Then, relaxing back on his chair, he opened out his arms and said, ‘What can I say? I just explained it to your CO. You see we had a coupla trucks up your way so we stuck the parts on. Save you the bother of picking them up. We checked them ourselves in the end. Who cares whose fault it is? I told your CO. We’re allies. The parts in the right place is all that matters. It’s all square. Parts should be there . . . today. If not today tomorrow. Wasted journey. There’s nothing left to pick up. But the sergeant here tells me he’s taking care of you. Yankee hospitality, eh?’ Several more teeth were put to work before he said, ‘Dismissed, Soldier.’

I had heard every word the officer had said to his sergeant, but it was not until that bashful man brought out my food to me like I was a dignitary come to visit that I began to appreciate the situation. Was it the square-bashing at Filey, the trade-training in Blackpool, the posting to the airbase in Lincolnshire that made me forget? Perhaps it was my crew – white men every one – Charlie, Bill, Raymond, Arnold. Or the white women in the town – Enid, Rose, that other one with the roving eye. Was it the comely Annie from the Swan? Or was I now so used to England that it just escaped my mind? Of course! If a coloured man finds himself on an American army base surrounded entirely by white people, then, man!, he is in the wrong place. How could I forget? ‘I am loyal to my flag but you would never catch no self-respecting white man going into battle with a nigger.’ No, not master-race theory – Jim Crow!

A coloured man in their stores. Let me set the scene. Astonished mouths gape like children at their first picture show. Wide surprised eyes flashing from one to another. Pens, paper, tools, anything their hands held tight, would clatter to the floor. Huffing-puffing chests would have arms resolutely folded across them. ‘What are you doing in here, nigger? This ain’t your place.’

‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I have been sent by the RAF to find our plane parts.’

Man, I would be lucky if I could finish that sentence before I was chased from the place. How could a nigger work with American white boys? See them running to their CO demanding justice. No fear of rank would stop them. They will not, they tell him, they will not work with a nigger, British or otherwise. No Chesterfield cigarettes for me. The tale I would take back? The day a mild-mannered Jamaican man caused the US Army to riot.

An hour later and I would not have seen them. The vague silhouettes of these two coloured GIs would have vanished into the blackout. Company was what I saw. Alone and feeling a little nauseous – my stomach revolted by the quantity of rich food I had gorged at the American base. Roast beef and fried potatoes. Bread so plentiful the five thousand could have invited family and all would have been fed. Real butter and peanut butter and so much coffee it slopped inside me like water lapping on a shore. Was it gluttony or politeness that stopped even one mouthful being wasted? Perhaps it was the distress on the sergeant’s face as he continued to check my progress. ‘When you’re finished, Soldier, you can go,’ he told me, two times. On both occasions I was unable to respond owing to the bread and peanut butter having sealed my mouth as effectively as wattle and daub.

But a long journey in blackout is not something to savour, it is something to share. Whose surprise was greatest? Mine, at seeing coloured men once more – the first since hearty backslapping farewells in Blackpool, prior to the postings that peppered us West Indians around the country? Or theirs – for the astonishing good fortune that had them chancing upon a coloured man with an empty truck going their way? They jumped up into the cab and both men examined me as if witnessing a vision of the Virgin Mary.

‘You British?’ one of them finally asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I hope I don’t cause offence if I tell you that to my eye you don’t look British. You must be rare as a sunbeam in a cave.’

‘I am from Jamaica.’

‘Jamaica, England?’

Had no one outside the Caribbean ever heard of Jamaica? I did not yell or cry out in pain, although I should have. ‘No, Jamaica is in the Caribbean,’ I told them. But this made no impression on their look of puzzlement. ‘The West Indies?’ I tried.

‘Well, you could have landed from a twinkling star, I’m still pleased to know you. Name’s Isaac Hunt but no one calls me that unless they’re mad and yelling. To a smiling face I’m called Levi. Don’t ask me why unless you’re ready for a long story. And this here is Jon – christened Jon, called Jon, been Jon all his life. Both of us born and bred in Florida, USA. But Florida is the reason we know each other not
how
we know each other if you get my meaning. And who have I had the pleasure of addressing, Soldier?’

‘First,’ I told him, ‘let me make it clear that I am not a soldier. I am a volunteer with the British Royal Air Force. The RAF.’

‘A flying man.’

‘Perhaps. My name is Airman Gilbert Joseph.’

‘Pleased to know you, Airman Gilbert Joseph. May I ask which name people who call you a friend usually use?’ I said Gilbert but he said, ‘Then, Joseph, I hope you won’t mind if I call you by that name.’

Throughout this whole discourse the man called Jon sat like an idle puppet staring straight ahead. Nudged into life by Levi, the two held their hands up for me to shake. Impolite as it was to make them wait, I was at the time concentrating on driving the truck. In twilight you can trust nothing your eyes see because your mind believes this half-light to be a dream. And this on a small country road in blackout where manufactured light had no permission to guide me. Is that a tall man in a black cloak or a tumbling wall? See that phantom, could that be a tree? Did a rabbit run or did I blink my eye? All was quiet, waiting for this handshaking civility to be executed before conversation could carry on. Once on a familiar straight road I relaxed enough to take their patient hovering hands in turn. As soon as this was achieved Levi began to talk again, which left me to wonder whether company was indeed a good idea.

‘First leave off the base in months,’ he said.

Of course, I must explain that at the time I did not realise Levi had only just begun.

‘Three months, I believe. Although Jon here may say different on account of he keeps a little book where I figure I can remember but then I do forget. But, Joe, all I know for sure is that I’ve been desiring to see a pretty-dressed English woman for a long time.’

‘No, you have my name wrong there – Joseph is my—’

‘Joe, don’t pay no mind to Jon here – he don’t go in for no drawn-out tales but his mind’s busy thinking. When he does speak it’s usually worth the wait but I don’t know that he can promise you conversation.’ He giggled as Jon continued to stare straight ahead – smiling maybe, it was hard to tell in the half-light. ‘Get off the base, that’s what I said to Jon. Military as changeable as a summer breeze. One minute you got a pass, next all leave is cancelled. Well, if a mule can’t hear it ain’t disobeying. Truth of the matter is, Joe, we got a pass and two pretty women waiting for us. Lincoln girls. That’s going your way, I believe. I have to say, Joe, you’re a sight made me rub my eyes. A coloured man in a British uniform. You’re British, you say?’

‘British. Yes,’ I answered.

‘But not English?’

‘No, I am from Jamaica but England is my Mother Country.’

Was it the half-light or were their baffled faces really contorting into the shape of two question marks?

‘Joe, I don’t altogether understand what you’re saying. Jamaica is in England and who is your mother?’ Levi asked.

‘No, Jamaica is not in England but it is part of the British Empire.’

‘The British Empire, you say. And where would that be, Joe?’

‘There are plenty countries belong to the British Empire.’

‘And you say your mother lives in one of them?’

‘No, Britain is Jamaica’s Mother Country. But we are all part of the Empire.’

‘Oh.’ Both nodded, both had not one clue what I was talking about. ‘The Empire, you say. That wouldn’t be the place in London where there was a picture show?’

I tried explaining: ‘The British own the island of Jamaica, it is in the Caribbean Sea and we, the people of Jamaica, are all British because we are her subjects.’

Nothing.

‘Jamaica is a colony. Britain is our Mother Country. We are British but we live in Jamaica.’

‘Well, Joe, I think I get it now. This island, Jamaica, is in the Caribbean Sea.’ Jon nodded, pensively turning to his friend. They understood. ‘So,’ Levi carried on, ‘the British have all their black folks living on an island. You a long way from home just like us.’

‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘So you’re not from America?’

‘No, I’m British.’

‘Yes, sir, British, and so is your mother?’ he mumbled, in a hesitant way that made me wonder whether anything I was saying was going into his head or merely circling around it searching for somewhere solid to land.

‘So, what you doing here?’ Levi asked.

‘I am a volunteer for the war effort. Here to help the Mother Country.’ Oh, I sounded so pompous, I know I did. As I said the words I wanted to breathe them back in but I had heard and answered that question too often. What? Did people think I was lost on my way from the canefield?

‘Now, Joe, I think you’re misunderstanding my meaning. My question is more what were you doing at that US Army base you’ve just come from?’

‘I was sent to retrieve something that had been lost in transit.’

‘From that base? Someone sent you to that base?’

‘Yes.’

Levi paused for a moment. Then, frowning like a clever man who sees for the first time that the person he has been talking with is a fool, he said, ‘Now, Joe, I know you are a British man. And I understand that the British do things different. But – and I am picking my words as careful as a thief before a judge – but, Joe, I am presuming you do know you are a negro. And a negro on that base ’bout as welcome as a snake in a crib.’

Look on my empty truck, I wanted to say. You see any parts there, man?

‘You want to come round to us. We’re out near a place called ImmingHam.’

‘But the parts were on that particular base,’ I squeezed in.

‘Now, Joe, I don’t know if what I am telling you is something you already know but seems to me someone is playing around with you. See, the American army is very strict about keeping black folks apart.’