Walcot

When you made an attempt to get to your feet, you groaned with the pain. In response, a figure appeared in the doorway, an unkempt figure in ragged khaki uniform.

‘Christ, I thought you’d never come fucking round,’ it said, in tones of relief.

You seemed to recognize the man but could not recall his name. He came and squatted by you.

‘I wouldn’t try to get up. You’ve got a nasty gash in your leg.’

You lay back, exhausted. You managed to gasp a question, asking how long you had been unconscious.

‘It’s been ten or more days, I reckon.’ He gave a laugh. ‘I started carving notches in a tree. If you’d have died, I’d have been stuck here alone. I’ve not a fucking clue where we are.’

When you apologized and said you had forgotten his name, he told you he was Pete Palfrey. ‘You’re Steve Fielding. We don’t have no ranks, you savvy. Not here in this bloody forest.’

You had no wish to dispute the matter with him.

Memory was returning. ‘A bomb hit our ghari! My God!’

‘Only it weren’t a bomb. It were a bloody French fighter plane, full of fuel. A Morane 445.’

You were astonished by his knowledge.

‘We done aircraft recognition at school. Moranes were never a match for the Messerschmitts.’

‘Moraine? A funny thing to call an aircraft. A moraine is a heap of debris left by a retreating glacier.’

He made nothing of that. ‘Well, it’s just a heap of debris now.’

Pete Palfrey was a little younger than you, with a lad’s slenderness. His unshaven whiskery state made him look older. He had attended a grammar school in Leeds.

‘How’s the ghari?’

‘The ghari, as you call it, were blown into little bits.’

‘And Private Furbank?’

‘Him likewise, poor sod! His name were Gary too.’ He paused meditatively. ‘I heard as he was a bit of a one for Navy Cake.’

He added that when you were able to walk, you two could go and inspect the remains of the crash. They were not far away.

You learnt to hobble about with an improvised crutch. Your surroundings narrowed your consciousness. You marvelled at the resourcefulness of Palfrey. He had reconnoitred the area and had discovered a nearby farmhouse. Careful observation confirmed that it had been deserted. The back door was unlocked, had, in fact, no lock on it. The occupants had left in a hurry, leaving utensils and clothes and various other belongings behind. Palfrey had carried a mattress out to the cattle shed for you to lie on.

Two cows had been left in a field. Palfrey had milked them.

Desperate for food, he had found some flour and had baked a kind of bun, flavoured with sultanas from a pottery jar. He had found an old wireless in a downstairs room, and listened in, but could not get an English-speaking station.

You stood in a small clearing. You asked him if there was a bicycle at the house; he could cycle into Fougères and get help. He had thought of that, he said dismissively. There was no bike. Nor did he intend to leave you.

As you were talking, a heavy bird fluttered overhead, battering its way through light twigs. You exclaimed in surprise.

‘What the hell is that?’

‘It’s a feral hen,’ Palfrey said. He dug into his pocket and produced some grains of corn which he scattered on the path. The hen landed and pecked at the grain. It was a gaunt bird, clucking to itself, darting swift, suspicious glances here and there as it ate.

When you raised your crutch to kill it, Palfrey stopped you.

‘Don’t be a daft bugger! These chickens lay eggs. We need eggs. I’m hoping to get them to settle here, to save me having to traipse up to the house where they roost all the time. Someone might spot us.’

It appeared that a number of hens had been left behind when the farm was evacuated. Left to run free, they had regrown their wings and rediscovered the art of flight. They were not your only source of food. Palfrey had made a catapult, which he used with deadly accuracy to stun and then kill squirrels and, on one occasion, a rabbit. These morsels you cooked on spits over small fires. Palfrey was expert at skinning the animals, and at building fires.

Your admiration for his resourcefulness grew. You thought of a play in which you had acted in the days of the Sixth Form, entitled The Admirable Crichton, written by a then popular playwright. The play concerned a wealthy family who had a butler named Crichton; the butler went with the family on a cruise, to serve them as usual. When the family were shipwrecked, the butler proved himself the superior man and saved the family from starvation. You had known the play well, for you had played the role of the admirable Crichton yourself. Sonia had come to see you acting. Now here was Private Palfrey, rejoicing in a similar role. While you had lain unconscious, this city lad had learnt the arts of survival in the wilds.

Slowly your leg healed, at least in part, for it continued to trouble you. You followed Palfrey along a faint woodland path and came to a place where the trees were blackened by fire. They surrounded the burnt-out remains of the crashed plane and your lorry. Both machines were skeletal. A dog was chewing something. It threw you a guilty glance over one shoulder and slunk away into the undergrowth.

The two of you stood there, silenced by the grim spectacle. Of Gary Furbank and the French pilot there was no sign. They had either been consumed in the fire or feral dogs had devoured their remains.

‘Seen enough?’ Palfrey asked, with a sneer.

But you rooted about to see what could be retrieved. Not everything had been consumed by the blaze. You found a box of ammunition, still sealed, miraculously intact, overturned in rough grass. You insisted that Palfrey and you dragged it back to your lair.

There was still, you considered, a war to be fought.

12

‘War or No War …’

There was some mercy in the restriction of your awareness to your immediate circumstances. You never thought of your home. I will tell you briefly of something going on there. Are you prepared?

Yes.

Mary Fielding was having the room she called her lounge redecorated. Two decorators in overalls were hanging the new wallpaper. She stood watching them. She had moved her goldfish into the kitchen for safety.

‘War or no war, we’ve got to have the place looking smart,’ she said. ‘People may call.’ The men agreed. They had voted for Martin Fielding in the previous by-election.

Mary was restless. She looked out into the garden. Unable to think of anything else to say, she retreated and went into the kitchen. Martin had left the house early for a meeting at work. Theirs was hardly a marriage, she told herself. Steve was gone. Of course, there was Sonia … but Sonia was away at acting school. The home was so dull without Sonia.

She retreated to Valerie, the ghost eternally at her side. Valerie would have stayed with her, would have found her interesting. Valerie. She would be quite a big girl by now. She wore little frilly dresses, with frilly petticoats beneath. She had ribbons in her hair. She was always smiling and happy – as good as gold.

Mary acknowledged to herself now that Valerie was dead, had never lived, was a fantasy; yet it was a fantasy that consoled her, as far as she could be consoled. Not just dead even, but had never had life, except in the shelter of her womb. Perhaps, after all, Valerie was better out of it, out of the world.

She went back to watch the men working. Valerie followed, meek, but faint.

Someone was ringing the front door bell.

As Mary left the room, the older decorator straightened up and eased his back. He worked with his son. This youth was a poor droopy thing with a bad case of acne. He was due to be called up; he had a verruca, which might save him from the infantry. When he was gone, the old man would be alone. But perhaps interior decorating would not be needed any more in wartime.

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