Small Island by Andrea Levy
‘You should, Pop,’ he replied (that bit older, you see, hence the name). ‘You haven’t been out here long enough to tell us all different.’
He’d misunderstood (my point, finer).
‘You can teach a dog to attack anything to the death. Any dumb animal will keep coming at you with no thought for themselves. That’s not intelligence, that’s obedience. But that doesn’t win wars. Our superior wit will win through,’ I said.
‘I hope you’re not referring to your sense of humour, Pop?’
Deliberately misunderstood (again). ‘The Japs are just clockwork toys,’ I told him, ‘they’ll eventually run out of wind.’
The army CO turned out to be useless. His idea of pinpointing was to wave his arms about in the general direction of the hills. ‘Have you got a more precise bearing, sir?’ Maxi (diplomat) asked cautiously.
One indecisive finger flicked instead. ‘You’ll need a mule,’ he told us.
‘Have you got one we could use, sir?’
‘No.’
Maxi threw me a look I quickly caught. Sometimes it was hard to understand we were fighting a war together, side by side with these khaki chaps. He left us with a curt warning, ‘Watch out up there. Jap patrol was spotted earlier,’ before waving us off.
Looks like curly cabbage from afar, the forest on the hills. Harmless. Playful. Think you could fall and bounce on it. Soon change your mind. Slashing through dark, wet, stinking undergrowth. Painfully slowly. Ticks dropping bloody inside my shirt. Flies sipping on the moisture in my eyes. Mosquitoes massing thick as cloth. The relief at seeing the track the fallen plane had made had Maxi and me hugging like goal scorers. Not too far away, we both agreed. Still took us hours, though. Tunnelling through the undergrowth – each step as hard won as a miner with his coal. Would Queenie have recognised her husband now? Molten and brown as a warm bar of chocolate. Intrepid as Livingstone. Not that pallid bank clerk, fretting when the tube got too crowded.
It was dark by the time we reached the prang. No chance of struggling back without the light. ‘We’ll have to camp here,’ Maxi said. We were ready for a spot of McConachie’s stew, a cigarette, a dry place for backside and gun. Maxi, settling down, wrapped himself tight into a blanket. ‘You’ll need your blanket, Pop.’ Had noticed when we stopped that it was cold, had almost forgotten what it felt like. Couldn’t get the shivers at the base even under cold water. Hot day and night. I even slept under a towel just to mop the sweat. I had laughed when the chap at the stores pushed across this hairy thick blanket. Heavy, dusty, filthy thing. Just looking at it had excited my prickly heat. I left it behind and took extra biscuits and water instead.
‘You have got a blanket, haven’t you, Pop?’
‘Couldn’t see the need.’
‘Couldn’t see the need? I told you you’d need a blanket up here.’
‘Seemed a bit unnecessary . . .’
‘Jesus, Pop, that’s typical of you.’
Uncalled-for, I thought.
Maxi shook his head. Tittered at my expense. ‘You always think you know best, don’t you?’ he said. It was only a matter of time before he brought up the business with the thunderboxes.
‘Remember the thunderboxes?’
‘Not that again,’ I said. The chaps wouldn’t let me forget it.
I still insist it was a good idea. Timing was wrong, that was all. The latrines at the base were disgusting. Hundreds of men defecated into a trench of old thunderboxes with a roof on. The stink, the flies, the maggots. Who knows what diseases were incubating? Bowels in India open more than most. The wallahs do their bit. But every so often only fire can clean, to sterilise it until the next time. A gallon or two of petrol is poured in. Chap approaches with a long match made of a pole topped with a piece of burning four-by-two. Ignite, then run like hell while it burns. To me it was elementary. Pour in the petrol and run a line of it like a fuse. Then sit back to watch the fire trip along the ground before cleansing the trench. No running, just intelligence. Chaps shook their heads – won’t work, can’t be done (Maxi included). It was grist to my mill. There was quite an audience watching.
Poured in the petrol. Ran the line carefully along a prepared grooved track. Sat in a chair to light it casually with a match. Fizzled off as predicted. But it fell just short. One, maybe two feet. Much laughing and merriment. ‘Now what, Pop? Any ideas left?’The problem was I’d spent too long explaining why the fuse had not reached its target. Petrol had evaporated too quickly on the hot ground. ‘Go on, get the pole,’ the chaps taunted. Of course, by the time I’d reached the latrine with the burning pole that two gallons of petrol had also evaporated into the air. There was one almighty explosion. Roof flew off to Kohima. Threw me into the air as well. I landed with a shower of thunderbox contents raining down on me.
‘It could still work,’ I told Maxi.
‘Oh, give it a rest, Pop.’
‘Granted, I didn’t take enough account of evaporation. But next time . . .’
‘Next time! You think anyone’s going to let you do that again? We’re still finding shit in places it shouldn’t be. You just have to know best, don’t you?’
‘Well, maybe.’
‘Well maybe,’ he taunted.
‘But I know a snake when I see one, Maxi,’ I told him.
‘Don’t change the subject. That could happen to anyone. I was asleep!’
Hardly fair to remind him but he’d started it.
Maxi had woken us all in the basha in the middle of the night. ‘Snake, snake,’ he’s yelling. Struggling about on his charpoy. ‘Big bugger,’ he’s telling us, thrashing this way and that. We’re all up, knives, guns at the ready. Snake. Big snake. Maxi going at it like Tarzan to get it out of his bed. The legs of his charpoy collapse. Everything falls on the floor, including Maxi. He screams he’s been bitten and runs off to the MO clutching his leg. Leaves us all turning over this, prodding at that. Scared as hell, we all admit, hunting this big snake in the basha. Turns out Maxi fell asleep on his arm. Woke up, grabbed it, felt nothing. Concluded it was a snake. Cut himself on a piece of sharp bamboo in the struggle to throw his own arm out of bed.
‘Look,’ Maxi said, ‘we’re not discussing that now. What I want to know is what you’re going to do up here all night without a blanket.’
‘Cold air can rid you of prickly heat.’
‘For once you’re right, Pop. What’s the word you always use? Elementary. It gets so cold up here prickly heat is not a problem because exposure rids you of your life.’
‘Come on, it can’t be that bad.’ I was pretty chilled but no point admitting it. I lit a cigarette. Queenie never liked it hot. She would undo the top two buttons of her blouse, soak a handkerchief in cold water and put it on the back of her neck. Water would trickle down her front, the droplets disappearing into the pleat of her breasts. ‘It’s like living in an oven,’ she’d complain, lying back in a chair fanning herself with the newspaper. I’d tell her I liked it hot. The endless summer days when I was a boy. Sleepy afternoons of birdsong. Sitting out on the steps in the sun. The warmth on my bare legs waiting for Pa to come home. His smile as he sauntered up the road in his shirtsleeves. ‘Phew! It’s a scorcher today, Bernie.’ Cricket in the backyard and Ma’s lemon drink with four sugars. But a few months in India’s eternal heat had me dreaming of snow. Wintry mornings when lacy ice crazed the inside of windows. Misty breath condensing in the cold. The shocking dash from bed into clothes. Stamping up and down, nose numb and running. Blowing hot breath on to freezing fingers. Cracking ice with the heel of my shoe. Shivering. I missed shivering. But be careful what you wish for out in this godforsaken place. I was shivering now, cupping my hands round the cigarette tip. Clenching my jaw so my teeth couldn’t chatter.
That’s when we heard it. Coming out of the black night. Clear and piercing.
‘Johnny, come and help me, Johnny.’
‘Hear that?’ I said.
‘It’s Japs,’ Maxi whispered. Both of us were cro
‘Don’t fire,’ Maxi said.
‘Johnny, my leg is broken. I’m over here, come and help me.’ Perfect English. ‘Johnny, Johnny.’
‘Sure it’s not the pilot?’ I asked.
‘It’s Japs. They’re just jittering us.’
‘They know where we are.’
‘No. If they knew where we were we’d be dead.’
‘Johnny, help me. Please help me.’
I pointed my gun. I was sure I could tell which direction it was coming from. Maxi put his hand on it, bringing down the barrel. ‘Don’t fire,’ he whispered, urgent. ‘They’ll know where we are if you fire.’
‘Help me. I’m over here. Come quick, Johnny.’
‘We’ll just sit quiet. Put out that cigarette.’
A moonless forest. Dark. Alien. Crowded with the unfamiliar. Phantom shapes. Peculiar sounds. Strange creaking, twittering, fluttering, squawking. Funny that the strangest and, I admit, most terrifying sound was the most familiar. A human calling for help. An eerie, resonant voice coming as clearly as if it was piped. The cold obliged me to shiver. Insisted my teeth chatter. But that voice – ‘Johnny, come here, Johnny’ – that voice trembled my hands.
Maxi sidled up to me. Shifting along our makeshift camp on his bottom. Quiet. Eyes alert as prey. Lifted out his arm to wrap his blanket round me, then back round him. Two vigilant heads swivelling. Our bodies wrapped as one, sticking together where bare flesh pressed.
‘Johnny, help me.’
Our guns were quickly erect, poking through the gap in the cloth, pointing different ways. ‘It’s all right, Pop. They don’t know where we are. They won’t bother coming.’
‘Can you be sure?’
Maxi tittered. His warm breath on my cheek, smelling of tobacco. ‘Sure as you can be with a Jap.’Wafts of body odour were puffing from the blanket. Rough fibres scratching our cheeks. Our body heat gradually warming the air in the cocoon.
‘Johnny. Johnny.’
The muscles of Maxi’s arm pumped against me (tense again). His knee nervously rubbing mine.
‘Johnny, come quick. Can you hear me, Johnny?’
Maxi’s chest rising with a held breath unexpectedly sighed relief. ‘It’s all right. They’re not getting any closer,’ he said.
The calling stopped coming so often. But neither of us felt like sleep. In all honesty we needed each other upright so the blanket would fit round. Maxi rested his gun on his knees.
‘I wish you’d brought a bloody blanket,’ he told me, close in my ear.
‘Sorry.’
‘I told you you’d need one.’
‘My fault I know. Sorry.’
Sitting in the desolate dark, we couldn’t even light a cigarette in case the glowing tip gave us away. Maxi began telling me about his plans for after the war. Couldn’t imagine going back to being a clerk on the railways. ‘I’ve got this idea. See what you think.’ He wanted to breed rabbits. Got it all worked out. A rabbit farm. Reckoned it would only take two to start. Not much initial outlay. Male, female, then sit back and watch. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘you know what they breed like?’
‘No.’
‘Like rabbits.’
‘I see.’
‘That was a joke, Pop.’
‘A joke, yes, I see.’
By the time the light came up we’d got it all worked out. I was even a partner. Doing the ledgers, profit and loss (taking care of the business side). Set up in Kent (just outside Ashford’s nice). Main line: rabbit for food (with ancillary products – pies, stews). Sideline: lucky rabbits’ claws. We decided against the rabbit stoles (like fox furs). Maxi didn’t think English housewives would like a dead fluffy bunny round their neck even if the floppy ears would make a lovely bow.
Sunrise – the most delightful sight. Ghostly mists hanging in the far hills gradually burned away. Those warming rays were as welcome as a first breath. Back to the job in hand. Rabbit farming folded up with the blanket. Still cautious, though. Whispering out of instinct. Shoulders stooped. Guns at the ready in case the Japs could see us better now.
The wreckage was hardly recognisable as a plane. Pranged into the hill and cartwheeled down taking the vegetation with it. A wing gone. Fuselage half the size it should be. Engine ripped out and fallen further down the hill. Propeller vanished. No bullet-holes that we could see. Fuel tank empty – evaporated, maybe. ‘Someone’s got to this before us,’ Maxi said. There were signs of a fire in a burnt clearing nearby.
‘Perspex, wheels, they’ve all gone.’
‘Another RSU?’
‘No.’
‘Japs?’
Maxi shrugged. ‘Locals probably. Get a good price for them.’
Such an inhospitable place. Hard to imagine anyone living nearby just ready for a Sunday stroll. No sign of the pilot. ‘Could have bailed,’ I said. Maxi looked doubtful – showed me why. Sleeve of a bush jacket was hanging in a tree. Jagged, bloody like some beast had just bitten it off. Although the three stripes on it were still clean and intact. I noticed my hands were sticky where I was touching the tree. Turned them over to find them covered in congealed blood. The side of the tree was dripping with it. Nothing said, but my job to look for remains. Only found the blackened edge of an identity card. Name, number burned away. Then another patch of blood. Maxi, inspecting the fuselage, shook his head. Tutted. Removed a few instruments, which he secreted about him.
No point hanging around, Maxi decided. Nothing more to find. I bowed my head to say a prayer before we left just in case this was a graveyard. Maxi was annoyed at first, itching to get away, but he soon joined me.
‘Shall we sing a hymn?’ I asked.
‘Yes, why not, Pop? How about “Over here, Japs. Sorry you missed us last night.”’
Point taken.
We were walking for a few hours, neither of us wanting to say the word lost. ‘That looks familiar. Yes, this is the way,’ more in order. Just about to breast the hill when we heard voices. Foreign. Close. Very close. Both of us were soon on to our bellies. Low in the grass (but there for anyone to see). Maxi signalled to be quiet, hand to his lip. My finger was on the Sten’s trigger – trembling again. I wondered if I looked as scared as Maxi. He was as bloodless as a corpse. I could feel the urine warming my pants before seeping into the ground. Powerless to stop it. I was a coward, I knew, but I didn’t want to die. Shot flinching on the ground, quivering like a girl. Could Queenie be proud of that? At least Maxi had sons who would gild their father’s story into something worthwhile. Maxi started mumbling to himself (prayer, perhaps). Voices, again talking gibberish. A cackling laugh. Maxi and I dared a quick glance at one another. Our last, perhaps.
I caught sight of the top of a head first. Suddenly Maxi came back to life. ‘Nagas,’ he shouted, and jumped up like a jack-in-the-box. Those three brown skinny natives were not surprised at seeing us. They knew we were there. Wily lot. Euphoria had Maxi negotiating (sign language). The blanket, four packs of limp cigarettes, a few rupees, and these toothless old men were happy to lead us back to the army camp.
The army CO looked surprisingly relieved when we got there. ‘Thought I’d have to send someone out to find you. You RAF chaps aren’t cut out for combat,’ he wanted us to know. Maxi was quietly furious – jaw tight as a cage. Until the CO handed us a beer each. We could hardly believe it. Christmas in May? ‘Good news,’ he told us. ‘The war with the Germans is over. Hitler’s dead.’ Poured himself a whisky from an almost-full bottle. ‘They’ll be sending us everything they’ve got now.’ Lifted up his generous glassful and told Maxi and me, ‘Didn’t fancy your chances against that Jap patrol. But thank God. Maybe you fellows aren’t such clots after all. Cheers.’
Thirty-seven
Bernard
It was a relief for everyone to know loved ones back home were now safe. Free from those unimaginable things we heard the Nazis were throwing at them – doodlebugs, rocket
So the Japs’ sudden surrender was a startling shock to all. I had a dose of dysentery. I’d been ordered by the MO that day to hold on to an enema. Seven hours he said I was to keep it warm. Only had it in two when Maxi’s face appeared at the basha door.
‘Have you heard the news, Pop?’
I told him to go away. The chaps tried those tricks all the time. I expected some airman to come in and slowly pour his tiffin tea into a mug in a deliberate, long trickle – an old ruse. Auto-suggestion that saw the fainthearts biting their lips and crossing their legs. Only those with an iron will and the stamina of a bull could stay the distance with this particular medicine. I was determined to be one of them.
‘The Japs have surrendered,’ Maxi informed me.
‘Pull the other one,’ I told him. Everyone knows Japs don’t surrender.
But his face lit like he’d won the pools. ‘Honest, it’s God’s truth,’ he said.
Shock had me running straight for a thunderbox, which gave Maxi a laugh.
News of the new-fangled bomb had everyone curious. They all wanted to know what I knew – that bit older, you see. But there was little I could tell them. Even the officers were left scratching their heads. Arguing over what an atom bomb could be. They were clueless. But the Japs surrendering spoke louder than any top-brass explanation. All agreed, it was God’s own weapon if it could make the yellow peril turn tail and run.