The Broken Chariot Page 9

  Her friend Frank was more often at the house now that the war was over. He worked at the tobacco factory as a machine supervisor, and Mrs Denman told Herbert he had ‘lost’ his wife from cancer ten years ago. She met him in a pub when he was trying to swamp his bereavement in too much poisonous booze, and when he took a fancy to her she got him to put a stop to it.

  Herbert wondered whether Frank was to be trusted, but knew he was because he didn’t ask personal questions. His talk had a serious side in that he could go on about books by H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, and John Galsworthy, to name a few. He was also a firm Labour Party man. ‘I know everybody’s having a hard time these days, though nobody’s as badly off as before the war. It’s going to be a long struggle but I know we’ll win through with Labour, don’t you worry. We’ll end up living in a country with more equality in it than there’s ever been. It’s marvellous to think we’ll both be able to see it, Bert.’

  Herbert agreed, and felt privileged to hear such views, though wasn’t sure about equality ever being possible, or even whether he wanted it, knowing he had always felt himself different from everybody around him, to which Frank said with a laugh that he hadn’t lived long enough yet to know that, basically, everybody was more or less the same in that they all had a right to happiness and a roof over their heads, something Herbert had no option but to agree with.

  As well as politicians Frank showed an intelligent interest in the war, maybe due to his having missed active service by being in a reserved occupation. This was more to Herbert’s taste, who could enthuse about the Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, D-Day, and the Battle of the Bulge. Mrs Denman was happy to see them huddled by the fire – ‘talking the hind leg off a donkey,’ she said, setting down cups of tea.

  They were still talking when Ralph came in, fagged out and shifty-eyed from seeing Mary. ‘Still getting yer oats?’ Bert said, when they were in their room.

  ‘It seems to upset you.’

  ‘Well. I always reckon it’s too good for some people.’

  There was a catch in Ralph’s voice. ‘I’m not getting anything, as a matter of fact. I can’t think why, all I know is she doesn’t let me do it in Nottingham. She says it’s too common to do it here, that it isn’t right.’

  Herbert knew that his laugh would be loud enough to wake Mrs Denman, or even the dead, so Bert had to manage with a snort. ‘You mean to say you’ve got to go all the way to the Lake District for a bang?’

  ‘Maybe. Seems so. But it’s more romantic up there. Well, that’s her daft idea, anyway.’

  ‘Your lady-love don’t seem very accommodating. What do you think it’s going to be like when you’re spliced? She’ll twist you round her little finger.’

  Ralph’s laugh was sinister. ‘No, she won’t. I’ll have her when I want her. I’ll get my own back. I’ll make her sit up. But in the meantime, I love her, and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Well, I can’t tell yer.’ Bert got his head down for sleep, after murmuring that if he was in that situation he would read the Riot Act, and no mistake.

  After a darts match one evening Archie supposed, when they got to their pints, that the factory would be needing less hands now that the war was over and done with. Young ‘uns like them wouldn’t find much work when they and everybody else came out of the army. ‘It’ll be like before the war, if we aren’t careful, back to the dole, no matter what government we’ve got in.’

  Herbert passed his cigarettes across. ‘Nah, we’ll be working flat out for years on reconstruction.’ Every time he called at the library he read The Times and the Daily Telegraph, a habit not lost from his interest when they were laid out in the reading room at school. ‘The Labour Government’ll keep everybody at work, don’t you worry. They’re pledged to it.’

  Grumbling went on all the time, and though Herbert listened, and sometimes took part because much of it was humorous, he couldn’t basically see what anyone had to belly-ache about, unless they did so because otherwise they would be silent, and that such talk was a device for helping them to breathe. It was one grouse after another, about work, rationing, the weather, the government, the gaffers at the factory, but the patina of liberty made everything palatable to Herbert.

  Work took the strain of what he saw as his previously unreal existence: the rations were enough, and the weather – foul though it mostly seemed to be – enclosed him with friendliness and protection. He was clad in an old army topcoat dyed navy blue to keep himself warm, and out of his earnings bought a utility-style suit for second best. He had a roof over his head, as well as a girlfriend who let him have it whenever there was an opportunity. What more could he want?

  Mrs Denman even turned her back when he led Eileen up to his room on Sunday afternoon, a safe enough time because Ralph made sure of being at Mary’s house while her parents were out visiting family. Herbert pictured him on bended knees in the parlour pleading with her to let him get it in while he – Bert – was having no trouble banging away, and telling Eileen not to cry out so loud every time she came.

  All in all his existence was as great an advance on former times as could be imagined. At the factory he was liked because he mucked in with everybody else, and grafted willingly at his machine. The chargehand would be sorry to lose him when he got called up, and said they’d be sure to keep a job for him when he came home again.

  Nobody expected to go on living in the same way forever, and that was a fact, and Bert knew his present status couldn’t last because neither had the first easy part of Herbert’s life in India. Soon after the New Year he took the morning off, put on his suit, and got on the bus for the recruiting centre, to breathe the full extent of his chest, piss cleanly into a jar, cough successfully, and see his foot shoot into the horizontal when tapped with a rubber hammer. ‘You’re Al,’ the MO said, so he signed on for the duration of the present emergency as an infantryman, and after a few more questions was told to go back to work and wait for his papers.

  ‘What did you do a daft thing like that for?’ Archie wanted to know. They stood, before switching on for the afternoon stint. ‘The army’s worse than Borstal. I’ll only go at the last minute. It’s fucking useless. In fact, they’ll have to drag me in.’

  Herbert had expected biting anger, and got it. ‘I want to join up of my own free will.’

  ‘Free will? What’s that? The only free will I know about is to fuck off somewhere where they can’t find me, and not go. War’s over, in’t it? Blokes like us don’t have any free will, anyway. We get fucked from pillar to post and the only thing we should do is punch ’em in their four-eyed phizogs when we get the chance. Smash their bleedin’ teggies in.’

  Herbert smiled. ‘Yeh, you’re right.’ His only exercise of free will had brought him here. Now he was on the threshold of another go, and wasn’t sure where it would land him. Archie said the war was over, and so it was, but the war would never be over, because wars never were. Conflict was a factor of human nature, so there’d always be a call for soldiers. Even if wars were finished on land and sea you had your own personal war battling on in yourself, which inner contest he felt had been wearing him away since birth. ‘The sooner I go in the army the sooner I get out,’ was his poor excuse. ‘Anyway, what’s a few months more or less?’

  Archie had to think about such a serious matter, though his mood was relaxed. ‘Look at it this way, Bert. Say it’s three months. Well, three months is ninety days’ boozin’, scoffin’ and fuckin’ time, in’t it? And grabbin’ at your machine as well – and doing what you like after clocking out at night. It’s a lot better than being a bag o’ shit in the army and getting barked at all day.’

  People complained eternally because they didn’t have the mental flexibility to see into the future. Such an ostrich-like attitude, Herbert thought, must have come from being at home all their lives. On the other hand, maybe Archie’s views were the only ones worth believing in. His basic sense was undeniable. Herbert, being two people, doubted everything at time
s, though he still wasn’t so fixed into the present that he could settle his mind about it. ‘You can do those things anywhere.’

  ‘Yer think so?’ Archie shook his head. ‘Yer know, Bert, sometimes I can’t mek yo’ out. You must have been brought up different to me.’

  ‘Maybe I was, but not all that much.’ Herbert looked at the big white face of the clock, the same dictator in everybody’s life, and pressed the button to start his machine. ‘There are times, though, when I can’t mek myself out, I’ll tell you that.’

  ‘Well, that ’appens to all of us,’ Archie laughed.

  Seven

  In weapons training at White Down Camp Herbert had the Bren gun stripped and together again quicker than anybody else. It would have been too boring not to.

  ‘Have you done this before?’

  There was a lot Herbert didn’t know, but this he did, and he was surprised at how much of the old cadet knowledge came back. ‘No, Sergeant.’

  The bullshit was no bother, either, not difficult to be smart beyond the demands of reason. Part of himself that relished freedom slipped awhile into abeyance. The men belly-ached in the first week or two but Herbert supposed it was because they had never slept from home. Having nothing to envy them for, he could only feel contempt, and keep as much as possible to himself.

  Nor was the usual larking around any bother to stay clear of. Smart bastards just one notch down from sadistic made apple-pie beds, tied bootlaces together, soaped a patch of billet floor so as to watch others go arse over tit as they came in from tea, nicked kit one day and put it back in place the next – or didn’t.

  Barraclough from Merseyside was a past master, and Herbert wondered where he had picked up the facility. Maybe it came to him instinctively, as with someone born evil, until he heard him let on in a boastful voice that his brother was a regular and had put him wise to what went on in recruit training – or perhaps what ought to.

  All in all, Herbert thought it just like early days at school but, seeing Barraclough about to half-inch his toothbrush, spun him around and pulled him close, to face the sort of black look Archie would have put on, but which came readily enough. ‘That’s mine, snot chops,’ Bert said.

  ‘Can’t you take a joke, then?’

  All the venom in Herbert’s expression was brought out for use – and with interest – after the merciless torments rained on him at the age of seven. ‘When I want to, shag, I’ll let you know.’

  Ashley Pemberton, a fearful and diffident youth, came from somewhere in Hampshire, and should never have found himself among such a rough lot. In spite of his grammar school background he hadn’t been considered as officer material, and Herbert could see he wasn’t fit to be a private soldier either. Probably his parents were glad to get rid of him, hoping the army would settle his ever-shifting expression and turn out a new man for them. He was knowledgeable and somewhere intelligent, but slow because he had to question the reason for everything. Herbert halfway pitied him, while smiling at his predicament.

  Ashley was tormented more than anyone else because, unable to see the reason for it, he was helpless against bullying. Tall, though thin, he could have been a match for anyone, but didn’t have the spirit to resist or fight back. In the army it was the survival of the fittest, Herbert saw, sink or swim, no fucking nonsense, as he watched the lads punching Ashley against the billet wall because the imperfect layout of his kit for inspection had got them all a bollocking from the sergeant-major.

  A belly blow sent him across the bed, and Barraclough jumped on him. ‘Let’s have his bags off, and blanco his knackers.’

  A timid uncomprehending scream came from Ashley as the operation began. ‘Leave the poor bugger alone,’ Fraser called from up the billet, but went on reading his comic.

  ‘Let’s have the blanco, somebody,’ Barraclough shouted out of the scrum. Herbert paused in polishing his boots, to pick up the tin of Cherry Blossom from his locker and make a way slowly through the onlookers. They parted willingly enough, thinking he only wanted to see the fun, or do the plastering himself.

  Using the whole force of his arm he pulled Barraclough upright in one swing. ‘You can’t do a thing like that.’

  ‘What?’ Barraclough saw the opened tin of black polish and laughed. ‘You mean you want to do it with that? I didn’t think of polish. That’ll make him look a right arse-hole.’

  ‘No, I’m asking you to stop all this.’

  ‘Oh, are you?’

  ‘He’s a soldier. You can’t do it to him.’

  ‘Can’t we? Well, you just fuck off, and mind your own business.’ He turned to the others, and made to get on with it. ‘We’ll do what we like, won’t we, lads?’

  Barraclough was a tough bastard, but there was always a weak place in a bully. Thankful of his time in the factory, Herbert yanked him up again, unable to bear Ashley’s pleas to be left alone, which seemed to humiliate Herbert even more.

  He pressed the full tin of black polish hard over Barraclough’s spud-like nose, ashamed at the enjoyment it gave him. Ashley gathered energy at last, and sprang from the crowd only interested in the fight that was bound to follow such a rash action. He fastened his trousers and walked calmly out of the door.

  Herbert stood, on the other bank of the Rubicon, in the clear space of the billet, refusing to consider the fact that he was no doubt a soft head for having interfered. Barraclough came at too much of a rush to do himself much good, and Herbert’s experience at boxing helped to send him down with little damage to either. A horseshoe of spectators limited his advantage of manoeuvre, and a fist that was difficult to avoid drove at his stomach, such a deliberate foul that he got a blow in at Barraclough’s face, blood streaming through the black smear. After a while of dodging and ducking, Barraclough’s retreat ended, and he came back to aim a paralysing kick.

  Herbert’s instinct, honed for unarmed combat, twisted the leg with all his strength and, ignoring the scream of pain and surprise, sent his opponent sliding along the polished floor, breaking through the group of onlookers as if they were a posse of skittles. When Barraclough tried to move he kicked him in the ribs. ‘I never fought like that in the ring, but if you come at me ever again, or do anything to Pemberton, I’ll break your back.’

  Some shouted that grub was up and it was time for tea, and at the loss of interest in anything but that, Barraclough pulled himself up, and hobbled after them. Herbert felt more alive than he had since leaving the factory, and wanted to say something conciliatory, but because Barraclough might take it as a weakness, he turned instead to Ashley, who had come back in to thank him. ‘You’d better stick with me, though I don’t think they’ll bother you again.’

  He didn’t mind that he was disliked, couldn’t or wouldn’t play such tricks, or even laugh when they were done to others. Stand-offish and unpredictable, too keen at his training, an untouchable know-all, even the NCOs looked at him warily. They couldn’t place him, unable to find enough fault to get him on jankers. He knew exactly what expression to assume on being sneered or shouted at. The only person to beware of was his platoon commander, Second Lieutenant Snell, who at nineteen had been in the army a year longer than the rest. Because the officer plainly came out of a public school Herbert had to play the roughneck factory worker in case he should be sniffed out as being in any way similar. Luckily Snell couldn’t care less about being in the army, and was forever shooting off towards the delights of some popsy in London, happy at the wheel of his little Morgan. The men sensed his incompetence from the start, and with few exceptions referred to him as a bag of shit, with which judgment Herbert silently agreed.

  When he applied for a day’s pass halfway through training the orderly sergeant flicked a mote off his row of medal ribbons; he had dandruff. ‘Your name, I knew a Thurgarton-Strang, in Burma. Any relation?’

  Herbert regretted asking Isaac to rejig his Identity Card. ‘None, Sergeant.’

  ‘A real bastard, he was. But fair, very fair.’

 
A bus over the Downs took him to the bookshops of the south coast. At four and sixpence a day he could afford to be served with egg on toast or a cake on a plate in the tea shops of Chichester. On the way back he got off the bus and walked a mile or two along the footpath, to sit among the silent sheep and watch ships passing like ghosts in the misty Channel.

  Far to the west beyond the green folds lay his first school, though he supposed the buildings were used for a different purpose now. Or they had fallen to pieces through ivy and neglect. With a notepad on his knee he wrote to his parents, telling them about his life since leaving school, knowing it was too late for his father to prise him from the drab khaki of a private soldier.

  Eight weeks of summer training turned him into as good a soldier as he had been a machine-operator. When the sergeant-instructor went for a piss one day he came back to see Herbert showing slow coach Ashley Pemberton how to put the Bren together. He must have watched from behind a bush, Herbert surmised, who had not only named the parts but explained their function as he slotted them into place.

  ‘You know the lingo, as well,’ the sergeant said, as Ashley now assembled the gun with no trouble.

  In a few weeks his lance-jack’s stripe came through, and he didn’t care that it distanced him even further from anyone who might have been friendly. Accustomed to being two people in the factory, he had turned more solitary now that he was one again, and he liked the feeling that relinquishing his guard separated him even more from those roundabout.

  The others were surprised however when he joined a darts game in the NAAFI. The click of steel tips hitting grid wires was a sound hard to resist. Pint in hand, he watched for a while till a private said: ‘Fancy a throw, Corporal?’