Alan Hunter - Gently where the roads go

‘The Adjutant, sir. Flight-Lieutenant Withers.’

‘Where do I find him?’

In HQ, sir. Straight ahead and first right.’

The SP stood back a pace and saluted, elbow angled, hand vibrating. Gently grinned a little sombrely, eased in the clutch, let the Rover drift. The wheels bumbled on the concrete roadway, much cracked and much repaired. On either hand, Nissen buildings; ahead the bleached levels of the airfield. He made the right turn. HQ was also a Nissen building. On one side of its doors was bolted a noticeboard, on the other an out-of-bounds notice. He parked, went in through the doors. Ahead stretched a dim corridor laid with blue linoleum. The linoleum was very highly polished and the smell of the polish hung in the air. On the doors off the corridor were affixed signboards: Central Registry, Pay Accounts, Orderly Room; and at the end of the corridor, Adjutant’s Office: F/Lt. Withers (PLEASE KNOCK). Gently knocked and went in. There were two men in the room. One sat at a desk and had shoulder ribbon. One sat at a table. Both looked up.

‘Flight-Lieutenant Withers?’ Gently asked.

The man at the desk looked annoyed. ‘I’m Flight-Lieutenant Withers,’ he said. ‘And who exactly are you?’

‘Superintendent Gently, Central Office.’

‘Central Office?’ Withers still looked annoyed. ‘I didn’t know we’d applied to the Central Office,’ he said. ‘I was under the impression that the affair was domestic.’

‘I haven’t been applied for,’ Gently said. ‘Not applied for?’

‘Not by you. I’m here entirely under my own steam. To make some inquiries you might help me with.’

‘And you’re not interested in our little flap?’

‘Not’, Gently said, ‘as far as I know.’

‘Well, I’m blowed,’ Withers said, easing backwards. He repeated that: ‘Well, I’m blowed.’ He looked less annoyed. ‘You’ll have to excuse us,’ he said. ‘We tend to think in terms only of Huxford. Right at the moment we’ve got a flap going which is quite absorbing, in its small way.’

‘So I gathered,’ Gently said.

‘Quite absorbing,’ Withers said. ‘But I doubt whether you’d find it in your class, so we’d better stick to official business. What are these inquiries you’ve come about?’

‘They’re to do with sten guns,’ Gently said.

‘Sten guns. Ah.’ Withers looked intelligent. ‘Yes indeed. Now I see where we are. Jonesie,’ he said to the man at the table, ‘run along and rustle up some char, Jonesie.’

‘Jonesie can stay,’ Gently said.

‘Cancel order,’ Withers said. ‘In fact, we’d better have Jonesie with us. He probably knows more about it than I do. How long have you been at Huxford, Jonesie?’

The man at the table considered this. He was a short man with scanty hair and a solemn face and a turned up chin. He looked some years older than the service limit and had a long grill of red Vs on his tunic sleeve. In a Welsh accent he said:

‘About ’forty-two, sir. I came here along with the Admin advance party. Flaming winter it was, too, and not a blind bit of coke.’

‘Ah, but there was a war on, Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘You couldn’t expect luxuries in those days. What were they flying — Maurice Farmans?’

‘Cabbage Whites, sir. The Farmans were secret.’

‘You’re a Welsh liar,’ Withers said. ‘They were flying Montgolfiers in your day.’

‘No, they were grounded, sir,’ Jonesie said. ‘It was like I told you, we couldn’t get the coke.’

‘He always caps me,’ Withers said. ‘I don’t know why I put up with Jonesie. The trouble is he runs Huxford, I’d post him tomorrow but the place would collapse. So what do we know about Sten guns, Jonesie?’

Jonesie considered again, then shook his head. ‘They were withdrawn in June of forty-eight, sir. Don’t think we’ve held any Stens since then.’

‘Not even of any kind?’

‘No sir. Not official. There’d been a flap about them the year before. Some of the lads had been cutting down pheasants with them and the local gentry got a bit cheesed. So they were withdrawn, sir, by a special AMO, and now they go poaching with the Lee Enfields.’

‘And the gentry are happy with that?’ Withers asked.

‘Oh yes sir. I haven’t heard any complaints.’

‘Keep your ear to the ground, Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘I wouldn’t like to hear of them using Bofors.’ He turned to Gently. ‘The oracle has spoken. We’re not holding Sten guns, not even of any kind.’

‘Not officially,’ Gently said. ‘But mightn’t there be a few strays about?’

‘Over to Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘What’s the strays situation, Jonesie?’

‘I couldn’t be precise, sir,’ Jonesie said.

‘Jonesie,’ Withers said, ‘be imprecise.’

‘Well sir, you know the lads aren’t particular when it comes to Air Force property. There’s a little quiet flogging goes on, unbeknown to the authorities. And I daresay a Sten will fetch its price if it’s taken to the right people. And returns are only figures, you know, which is very abstract information.’

‘Yes,’ Withers said. ‘I’m receiving you, Jonesie.’

‘So there may be strays,’ Jonesie said. ‘And to tell you the blind horrible truth, sir, it would be a miracle if there weren’t any.’

‘And do you know of any?’ Withers asked. ‘We want the hard facts here, Jonesie.’

Jonesie looked down his nose. ‘I wouldn’t like to swear to it on oath, sir. Perhaps the armourers can tell you, they may have some knocking about there. And maybe there were some left in stores. Though you’ll be lucky to trace them there.’

‘Loud and clear,’ Withers said. ‘Strength niner, over and out.’ He, too, looked down his nose. ‘Absorbing,’ he said. ‘Quite absorbing.’ He rose from the desk, a tall, thin man. ‘We’d better adjourn to the armoury,’ he said.

‘Does this connect with your flap?’ Gently asked.

‘I think its going to collide with it,’ Withers said. ‘But first things first. We’ll try the armoury. Jonesie, you’d better come along too.’

He strode away from the administrative block with long, rangy, stooping steps, Jonesie trotting along by his side, Gently following behind them. Across on the airfield a Proctor aircraft stood with its engine nested in trestles, from a distant dispersal came the tormented bellow of a piston engine being test-run.

‘Looks just like life,’ Withers said over his shoulder. ‘But we were due to close six years ago. Now they’ve grounded the last Spitfire there’s damn all left for us to do.’

‘What is your job here?’ Gently asked.

‘Special maintenance,’ Withers said. ‘We keep the museum stuff in the air. You want a Wimpey? We’ve got one.’

He crossed the approach road and inclined left. Jonesie neatly inclined with him. Ahead was an alley of Nissen buildings in which were parked a Hillman van and a box-like truck. The doors of the buildings had identifications painted on them like the doors in HQ. The buildings housed Radio Mechs, Instrument Reps, Armourers and Electricians.

‘The ancillary trades,’ Withers said. ‘But never mention it in their hearing. The word means a female slave, you know, and there’d be a riot if someone told them.’

He pushed on into the armoury. It consisted of a long, concrete-floored workshop. On the far side, under the windows, ran a wide bench topped with zinc. On the bench lay a couple of Brownings, one of them with its mechanism dismantled; the floor-space was occupied partly by bicycles and partly by stacks of electrically operated bomb racks. An airman in overalls was mending a puncture at the bench. Two others sat smoking, one on the bench, one on a tool-box. The armoury smelt of thin oil. The smell had a peculiar edge to it.