The Hill (18 page)

“I wasn’t referring to you.”

“And that goes for my Staff too.” Wilson walked out and banged the door behind him.

Markham poured himself a stiff drink and as he drank it he noticed that his hand was shaking.

*

Williams lay on his bed wearing only his underpants. As the door opened he got off the bed and stood up.

“Accidental death,” said the R.S.M.

Williams poured two large whiskies and handed a glass to the R.S.M. then picked up his own glass and raised it in the air. The R.S.M. tossed his drink back.

“But if there’s another accidental death and you’re in any way connected with it, Staff ... ” he deliberately turned his glass upside down and placed it on the table and looked at Williams and marched out.

Williams stared at the glass then with a blow of his clenched fist he knocked it off the table.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Roberts sat up and leaned against the wall and smoked a cigarette. ‘It’s uncanny,’ he thought. ‘You can almost hear the silence.’ The prisoners turned restlessly and grunted and groaned in their sleep and Bartlett, with his mouth wide open, lay on his back and snored like a hog.

But Roberts was completely unaware of them, he was listening to the still, unearthly, unnatural silence. He shivered slightly and remembered the occasions that he had taken a long walk into the desert to get away from everybody, and how he had sat down and been engulfed by the strange unearthly silence and even here, in this prison, the desert silence penetrated. ‘I had to get away sometimes. Get away so that I could think clearly. Get away from the moans and grumbles of the men. The monotonous, dull voices of men who had used up all their conversation years before and were only repeating outdated slang and the same old obscene jokes, and the stories they had told so often. ‘The sad thing is,’ thought Roberts, ‘when new men joined the regiment they were bitterly resented.’

New men from England, especially. The boys didn’t want to know them. All they felt was a deep resentment, that Bill or Colin or Robbie, who were all dead, had been replaced by a stranger. ‘The old sweats who, like me,’ thought Roberts, ‘had survived every campaign, they more than anyone, resented new faces. Fear? Of course. Living proof that they could easily be replaced. But there was another reason. The Regiment had lost track of time.’

The England they knew and remembered so vividly existed three years ago and they stubbornly refused to face the obvious fact that things had changed. They had been in limbo for three years and were afraid to admit that things had changed. Even the photographs they carried in their pockets and showed time and time again to their mates, were the ones they had when they first came overseas. Discoloured with sand and much handling, cracked and dog-eared, but set in a time and place that they knew and remembered and understood. “My missus and kids,” Jack would say and then remember with a stab of pain that she had deserted him. But he kept the photograph. He had to try and pretend that it hadn’t happened, or go crazy.

In their minds their wives had not aged and their children had not grown; their homes had not changed and their mates, lucky beggars, still took a walk Sunday mornings to the local pub. That’s the way they remembered it and that’s the way it had to be, and the biggest bloody tragedy of the lot,’ thought Roberts, ‘is that we’re all in for a terrible shock. My Alice will be changed. She will have lines on her face that I don’t know and I’ll have to get used again to the warmth of her as she lies beside me in bed, and I’ll have to learn how to make love to her again.’

With a sense of shock he realised that he had forgotten. ‘It won’t be the same, anyway,’ he thought. ‘Nothing will ever be the same again. She’ll be a stranger to me. That’s the only thing that I can be sure of, and will I still love her and will she still love me and will we, two strangers, be able to start a new life? God only knows. All I know is I’ll be scared when I walk through my own front door and see a stranger waiting to greet me. A plump woman instead of a slim girl.’

Roberts carried on him the latest photograph she had sent him. ‘I know how my two kids looked six months ago,’ he thought, ‘but what will they make of me? And what the hell will we find to talk about? I’ve been in limbo for three years and God only knows when I’ll get home again, or if I’ll get home, and I’m not looking forward to the happy family reunion, because I know damn well that it could be an awful disaster.’

Bokumbo groaned and sat up and McGrath and Bartlett turned and murmured in their sleep. Then Bartlett snored again.

“Any left, Joe?”

“A few.” Roberts passed a cigarette to Bokumbo.

“That Harris is big-hearted,” Bokumbo said.

“Maybe he doesn’t like being a screw.”

“That’s in his favour.” Bokumbo inhaled deeply and blew out a cloud of smoke.

“But screws don’t have to go up the front, Jacko.”

“Yeah. They’re condemned to a nice safe base job. But, man, I wouldn’t do that job.”

“You’d never make it.”

“O.K. I’m the wrong colour but don’t you start.”

“And don’t you kid yourself, Jacko. A man can be a bastard no matter what colour he is. No one’s born to the trade but some like it and pick it up easy.”

“You trying to tell me Williams was born?” Bokumbo chuckled. “I thought he was manufactured, man. In Germany.”

“And you don’t have to be a Nazi, though it helps.”

Roberts took the cigarette from Bokumbo and dragged on it. “You can find them anywhere. You can pick ’em out in any school playground, but they don’t come to full flower until some blinding idiot finds them an unimportant job that gives them power over people. Then just watch the bastards blossom.”

“O.K. Joe. Here, give me a drag. But I’m still sticking for Williams was manufactured in Germany and somebody got him past the customs.”

“And we’re paying duty on him,” said Roberts with a dry chuckle.

“Man, it’s hot.”

“And it’s going to get hotter.”

“Somebody’s got to be damn smart, and soon Joe.”

“Have they?”

“Waiting to see what Williams will pull next is like waiting to go into action. Know the feeling?”

“Yes,” said Roberts and thought, ‘I’ll soon be thirty. I don’t think I’ve learned much but I’ve learned how to stay alive. No, I haven’t,’ he corrected himself. ‘I’ve been lucky. In a war if you stay alive you’re lucky. It isn’t even a matter of not taking chances. You get pretty philosophical about it finally. If my number’s on it. Do you, hell! A lot of the time you’re convinced that the next time you go out you won’t come back, and when you do then you marvel at your luck, but then again sometimes you’re convinced that nothing can harm you. But I’ve not had that lovely old feeling for a long time now. Well, anyway, I’m safe here for a spell.’

Bokumbo interrupted his thoughts. “Joe, you didn’t quit, did you?”

“Run out of the line, you mean?”

“Yeah. You didn’t do that.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Hell, you wouldn’t do that.”

“Don’t be daft.”

“Who’s daft?”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to run, Jacko?”

“Well ... once or twice it seemed like a damn good idea.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“Hell, I don’t know.”

“You were more scared of people thinking you were a bloody coward than you were of a bullet.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t run out.”

“Well I did.”

“You, Joe?”

“I pulled out.”

“There must have been a good reason, Joe.”

Roberts grinned at Bokumbo. “Don’t eat that cigarette. There was a good reason. I wanted to stay alive.”

“Well. I guess that’s a good reason.” Bokumbo grinned and passed the cigarette to Roberts. “What happened?”

“My officer ordered us in so I brained him.”

“You beat up your officer because he ordered your boys in, Joe?”

“He ordered me in.”

“He wasn’t going in himself you mean?”

“He was going in.”

“Man. I don’t get it.” Bokumbo shook his head.

“Well. That’s what happened.”

“You mean it was murder, Joe?”

“Of course it was murder — what else is war?”

“So you did right stopping the boys going in?”

“I disobeyed an order.”

“Would you do it again, Joe?”

Roberts smiled. “I don’t know.”

“What was the set-up that day?”

“The day started normally enough,” Roberts said. “Orders came through to move so we took up our position. Then we moved in. Only one snag, we ran into a mine-field.” Roberts pulled hard on his cigarette and saw again first one tank jerking and coming to a halt and then another and another, and then the German guns opening up. The boys baling out of their stricken tanks, being hit, falling. Bob Croft on fire, his head a blazing torch, running screaming straight at the German guns until an anti-tank shell hit him and he disappeared into thin air. The pounding of the guns, the screams of the wounded. Tanks on fire.

“I reversed the hell out of it,” said Roberts, “and only one other tank besides mine got out.”

‘Ten years in the army,’ he thought. ‘Ten years obeying any order chucked at me. But that day I did some thinking.’ Roberts passed the cigarette back to Bokumbo. “I told the old man when I got back to H.Q. Filled him in with all the details.”

“So. What did he say?”

“Ordered me back in. We had a job to do. We had to advance and knock the Jerry guns out. I agreed with him. I said I knew we had a job to do, but it wasn’t to commit suicide. On paper it looked easy but we couldn’t get past the mines. Maybe we were on a suicide mission. Maybe all we were expected to do was make a path through the mine fields but I didn’t think about that at the time.”

“Make any difference?” grinned Bokumbo.

“Doubt it,” Roberts laughed. “Anyway, the old man kept yelling that he had his orders. We had to put the guns out of action. And I yelled back that we’d lose every tank we had if we tried it, then I hit him and once I started on him I couldn’t stop. I kept punching him daft until I was dragged off him.”

“So then what happened?”

“The old man went in and lost the rest of the tanks.”

“And the boys?”

“Most of the boys.”

“And the old man?”

“He got back.”

“The crazy bastard. Somebody ought to cancel out some of them wrong orders.”

“And a right old muck up there’d be then,” said Roberts. “Who are we to cancel out orders?”

“But when they give the wrong orders, Joe?”

“Well,” Roberts smiled. “Judging by the wooden crosses, it looks like somebody’s given a lot of wrong orders.”

“How long did they give you?”

“Ten years.”

“Ten? For Chrisake — ”

“Then they reviewed my case and cut it down to twelve months.”

“So they knew you were in the right?”

“If I am then what the hell am I doing inside here?”

“Yeah,” said Bokumbo. “You ought to be doing ten years or you ought to be free.”

“That’s right,” said Roberts. “It’s a pity people can’t make up their minds.”

McGrath grunted then sat up and picked up his boot and, still half asleep, he banged it round his bed space. “Bloody cockroaches, as if we haven’t enough to suffer and you two yapping. Can’t you let a man sleep.”

“You didn’t get much sleep, Joe,” said Bokumbo.

“No.”

“Another stinking hot day.” McGrath yawned. “You can practically hear it boiling already.”

“Look at Monty flat out.” Roberts reached for one of his boots.

“Soon as he hit his blanket he was off on a cruise with Betty Grable,” McGrath grinned.

“Wake him up.” Roberts picked up his boot.

“Och. Leave him.”

Roberts threw the boot and Bartlett let out a yell. “Who done that?”

“I did.”

“You want ter watch it, Roberts. You want ter watch it. Can’t a bloke even get a kip in?”

“He’d sleep,” said McGrath, “even if the Jerries were raping his mother.”

“They’d have a job. She died, didn’t she?”

“Sorry I spoke. Got a girl back home, Monty?”

“Never knew my mum, did I.” Bartlett banged around his bed space with his boot. “Nearly eat you alive, don’t they?”

“Somebody ought to write to his MP. about this dump,” said McGrath.

“What about you writing, Bartlett?” Roberts grinned.

“Och, him. I bet he canna even write.”

“What’s so clever in being able to write then, Mack?”

“You mean you can’t? God help us and I’ve wasted breath on the ignoramus.”

“What do you send your girl, Monty?” Roberts asked. “A line of crosses?”

“Learn to count me pay, didn’t I?” said Bartlett.

“Who brought you up, Monty?” McGrath wanted to know.

“Orphans ’Ome.”

“They might have taught you how to write.”

“That shower. All they knew about was ’ow to put a stick across yer arse. Anyway I’ve made a living, ain’t I?”

“Aye, thieving,” said McGrath.

“The secret in this old world, mate, is ter use yer loaf. Maybe I can’t read but when it comes to knocking off stuff, I’m out there in front on me own.”

“I bet you are,” said Bokumbo.

“And you’re a fair example of the no talent class,” Bartlett jeered. “Three bottles of bleeding whisky. Blimey.”

“I didn’t pinch them, man,” Bokumbo chuckled. “I drank them.”

“And got nicked. Like I said, no talent. Bet you can’t write neither.”

“Because I’m black, Monty, do I have to be damn ignorant too?”

“You darkies ain’t got the brains of us whites.”