Ride Out The Storm (17 page)

Beyond the wheat there was a main road, and he was just on the point of crossing it when another tank swung round the corner, blazing away with a machine-gun so that he had to dive back into the wheat. By the Grace of God he wasn’t hit and the tank commander ignored him and rattled on, clearly deciding he wasn’t worth rounding up.

Straggling alongside the road was a small village. It was full of abandoned French rifles, packs and helmets, but seemed empty of humans except for two old men standing by a bar.

‘Which way must we go?’ one of them asked in English.

‘Christ knows,’ Noble said. ‘I wish I did.’

Almost immediately, he heard the tanks again and the old men vanished in a flash. There was a grocery store nearby and Noble dived inside, but then he decided some rotten bastard like Lije Noble might decide to loot it for food, and he shot out again. Further down the street was a carpenter’s shop and he decided that there at least he ought to be safe. He plunged inside and slammed the door.

A few minutes later he heard the clatter of treads and crouched against the wall, panting. The tanks didn’t stop but when the noise died down he hadn’t the courage to return to the road and, moving on hands and knees, he found a window that looked out on to what appeared to be a farmyard. He forced it open and scrambled through to dive among the haystacks.

By this time he was so edgy he was quite ready to throw his hand in. He was bloody annoyed with the Germans and even more so with the British colonels, brigadiers and generals who’d left him naked and stranded while they mucked about in the immunity of the confusion. Gradually, however, his natural Cockney high spirits took over, and as his sharp slum-dweller’s eye roved round looking for the main chance, he found he was filled with an intense curiosity about what would happen next. Because he’d escaped several times already, he was beginning to think he might do so once more.

The light was going as he joined a battery of 25-pounders in a field backed by a clump of trees. The gunners were dragging the guns from their pits and hooking them to trailers, their eyes towards the south where a Scottish regiment was approaching, all battledress and bayonets, led by a piper.

They were grim-faced and staggering with weariness, and it was an unnerving experience to see them passing because, like the gunners, Noble knew that now there was nothing else in front.

‘The tanks are just behind us,’ the infantrymen said.

‘They can’t be
that
close,’ one of the gunners growled.

‘That’s what you think,’ Noble said with feeling, then three fields away he saw low humps appearing from behind a burning farmhouse and he began to run as the battery started to fire over open sights.

Two or three miles further on he stopped to get his breath. By this time he’d finished his last fag, he was hot and half-starved and, because he’d smoked several of the cigars from the haversack and helped himself to nips of cognac to keep his nerves steady, he also had a raging thirst.

More groups of Frenchmen appeared, also heading north, but Noble gave them a wide berth. Then, as the light began to fade, he passed through a deserted hamlet off the route of the retreat that had been bombed and set on fire. There didn’t seem to be a living soul left in it but there was a small farmhouse on the outskirts where he decided to look for food.

It was an old building, ugly, with bleached doors and window sashes, and a chicken scratching in the dirt fled noisily as he approached. There was no wind and the cobbled yard stank of manure. As he cautiously pushed open the door, it reminded him sickeningly of the Kent farms where his parents had taken him as a child when they’d gone hop-picking.

There might even be a bird, he thought, the farmer’s daughter, left behind and eager to oblige a man like Kiss of Death Noble, the original Hearts and Flowers Kid, in return for his protection. His jaw hung open with the first pleasurable thoughts he’d had for days as he saw her in his mind’s eye lifting soft white fingers to pull the last strap down and let the final garment fall to her ankles. She’d be slender as a wraith, with soft eyes like a gazelle’s and pink-tipped breasts, as innocent as a child and just waiting for Lije Noble to show her how to go about things. Despite his numerous amorous adventures, Noble had always been very correct with young girls and had pursued only older experienced women whom he couldn’t harm. Yet the idea of possessing an innocent but eager country virgin had always been one of his fantasies, and he was in a soporific daydream compounded of tiredness and a yearning to be safe when, from somewhere inside the house, he heard something metallic like an enamel bowl fall and start to spin.

He froze, the picture vanishing, his heart pounding in his throat. ‘Who’s there?’ It was an English voice and he almost fainted with relief.

The movement came again and he saw a tall figure against the light from a window. It carried a Bren gun and the pouches on its breast contained magazines of ammunition. But the figure moved slowly and awkwardly, and as it passed the window Noble saw its face was covered with blood.

‘What happened, mate?’ he asked. ‘Get you in the head?’

The other man nodded. He was a Guardsman, he saw now, a tall, gingerish-haired man with a bone-white face masked with stubble and sweat-caked dust. His hair was matted with blood that had run across his eyes and dried into hard brown crusts, and as he moved he stumbled badly, his hand in front of him pawing the air.

Noble’s mouth hung open in horror and pity. ‘You blind, mate?’ he whispered.

‘I dunno,’ the Guardsman said briskly. ‘I cannae open ma een.’

Noble came to life with a jerk. There was a pump by the sink and he sloshed water into a tin basin and carried it back to the Guardsman who still clutched the Bren to his chest.

‘For God’s sake, mate,’ Noble said. ‘Put your gun down. I can’t get at you.

The Guardsman stiffened. ‘I carried this bluidy gun all the way from Belgium,’ he said. ‘It fell in the water. I had to get it oot.’

Noble stared at the gun. ‘That’s never been in no water,’ he said.

‘Aye. I cleaned it. I was taught tae strip and clean one of these things blindfold.’

Noble swallowed again. Having been tempted several times during the day to throw even his rifle away, he was impressed by a devotion that could carry a 23lb Bren and full magazines as far as this one had been carried. ‘Don’t make no difference,’ he said. ‘I can’t clean you up with it sticking up me nostrils.’

The Guardsman laid down the Bren at last, not very willingly, and handed Noble a grubby handkerchief. ‘Here,’ he said.

After a few minutes scrubbing and with the loss of most of the lashes, they got the eye open and Noble found himself staring into a cold pale-blue eye. The Guardsman gave a relieved sigh. ‘How aboot the other?’ he said.

After a while that eye opened, too, and the Guardsman’s hand went to the top of his head. ‘It’s all right now,’ he said.

It didn’t seem to Noble that anything was all right. He was still a long way from his friends and he’d already seen too many men die. ‘What are you goin’ to do?’ he asked.

‘Rejoin ma unit.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Coldstream. Senior regiment of the British army. What’s yours?’

Noble’s reply was received in silence. ‘The Royal Welsh I’ve haird of,’ the Guardsman said after a while. ‘The Black Watch I know exists. But what the hell is yon bluidy outfit?’

Noble told him and he pondered, a silent six-foot-three, so lean, Noble thought, a folded pound note would have shown in his pocket. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Noble. Lije Noble.’

The Guardsman ran his fingers over his chin. ‘Mine’s Gow. John Gow. Ma mates call me Jock. You can.’

He made the offer as though bestowing an accolade and Noble was flattered. Gow’s white granite face seemed to suggest that having friends might be considered effeminate in his circle, and Noble felt he was in the presence of glory and that a little bit of it was reflected on him.

‘What are you going to do when you get back to your pals?’ he asked.

‘Fight, mon. What do you think?’

‘With a bonce like that? Even the bloody Brigade of Guards aren’t that clever?’

‘I always thought they were. And I’ll thank you not to swear when you refer to the fucken Brigade of Guards.’ The Guardsman seemed to have recovered his aplomb completely, in a way that left Noble slightly awed. ‘You got any kit, mon?’ he asked. ‘Razor? Brush and polish?’

Noble’s jaw hung open. ‘What for?’

Gow’s voice rose. ‘To polish ma boots, o’ course,’ he said.

Noble came to life. ‘Listen,
mon fils
,’ he said, ‘I’ve lost me kit so often I have to go into bloody battle these days with a retriever.’

Gow frowned. ‘That’s bad,’ he intoned severely. ‘Dirty flesh’s a serious offence. You can tell a Guardsman anywhere. Not only do we fight better. We look better, too. We’re the Coalies. The Lilywhites. The Coldstream. They been working on us for hundreds of years. At Inkerman we picked up rocks when our guns was empty and beat the Russians’ heads flat wi’ ’em. At Fontenoy we held our volley until one man in three had gone down. And why? Because we’re clean, mon. Because we’re clean.’

To Noble it didn’t seem to follow, but clearly Gow thought it did. He had an unmistakable Guardsman’s walk, stiff as a ramrod arrogant with confidence, and he looked the sort of man who, if, he put his mind to it, could destroy a battleship with a jack-knife.

‘Och, well,’ he said. ‘Ah’ll have tae save it.’ He took a small notebook from his blouse pocket and began to write with a stub of pencil which he held in his big white fist as though it were a sledge-hammer. Noble watched him curiously, wondering what was so important that it had to be entered so precisely and at such a moment. Then Gow put his pencil away and buttoned the blouse pocket carefully. ‘Mebbe we’d better find somethin’ tae eat,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll try to round up a few of yon bluidy Frogs and see if we cannae make ’em into soldiers.’

Noble stared. His own impression of the Frenchmen he’d seen was that they wouldn’t stop for anyone, and he had no wish to be left at the side of the road like the colonel he’d passed, with a bullet through his back.

‘Those sods wouldn’t stop for anybody,’ he said.

‘They might. For me.’ Gow didn’t seem to consider the problem a difficult one but, as he headed for the road, his step was not quite firm. Noble guessed he was still dizzy, and could see his eyes were squinting as though he had a splitting headache. When he swayed on his feet Noble decided it was time he protested.

‘Listen, when was it you copped it?’

Gow frowned. ‘This morning. Fairst light.’

Noble gestured. ‘Eighteen hours ago, mate. Things are changing all the time. You pals are miles away now.’

‘Is that a fact?’

‘Yes, it is. With that bonce of yours you’re in no state to put up a solo rear-guard action.’

‘Discipline’s the thing, mon.’

‘Discipline me arse,’ Noble said and Gow stiffened.

‘Hae ye no haird how the Scots Guards were on parade when a One-one-oh came down at low level wi’ its guns going? Not a heid turned tae see what was goin’ on.’

Noble stared at Gow as though he were a prehistoric animal. He held up one finger. ‘How many?’ he asked.

‘Two. No, be Christ, one! Ma een must be a bit bolo still.’

‘See what I mean?’ Noble grasped Gow’s arm, feeling for the first time that he was in command of the situation. ‘Could you do with a swallow of brandy,
mon fils
?’

Gow’s bony white face turned. ‘You got some?’

Noble fished into his side-pack and produced what was left of the bottle.

‘Try a swig of that,’ he said.

Watching all the drab, dusty, shabby figures filing past, Private Angelet was overwhelmed by an incredible sadness. This was France he was watching pass in front of him. Not the France he’d been brought up to believe in – the France of Louis XIV and Napoleon, not the France of Verdun and the Marne. This was the France of 1870, effete, decadent, its soul eaten by corruption and treachery, defeated, shamed, no longer with the pride to hold up its head.

The men stumbling past were the ruin of an army. Their commanders had thrown in their hands and only occasional units tramped past with their weapons in their hands, their heads up, unshaven like the rest because the French army had never set much store by smartness, but with something in their eyes that showed they were undefeated. Angelet’s shy soul reached out to these men as he wished he belonged among them.

‘What will happen to France, Chouteau?’ he asked.

Sitting alongside him on the bank, cutting slices from a huge sausage he’d found in the last village they’d passed through, Chouteau considered. His hands were working under his greatcoat because if any of the hungry men shuffling past had seen the sausage they’d have demanded a share and in Chouteau’s mind the time had come when survival was more important than charity.

He shrugged and slipped a slice to Angelet with a piece of stale bread.

‘She will surrender,’ he said. ‘And they will dig out some useless old fool who’s not been involved and get him to ask for terms.’

‘And then?’