James Benn: A Blind Goddess

“White MPs?” Kaz asked. We were crossing the arched brickwork span, water flowing languidly beneath us. Tree waved to an older couple walking along the road, and got a cheery greeting. A marker on the bridge said this was the Kennet and Avon Canal. A pathway graced one bank, and it looked like a pleasant spot for a summer stroll. But this was March in England: bleak, wet, and cold in spite of the clear sky.

“MPs are MPs,” Tree said. “Negro MPs are as glad to crack your skull as the white ones. More so, maybe, since they can only go after other colored troops. White MPs can spread their batons around, know what I mean?”

The jeep rumbled over train tracks and through a more bustling part of town. We passed the town hall with its tall clock tower, and once again Tree waved a greeting to a small knot of men gathered beneath it. He got nods and smiles back.

“Are you running for mayor?” I asked. He turned left after the Three Swans Inn, a two-story white stucco building close to the road. The door was painted a glossy black, and an old gent on a bench out front lifted his pipe in recognition of Tree.

“It’s something you can’t understand, Billy,” Tree said. “After going through camps in Louisiana and Georgia, Hungerford was like finding the Promised Land. Folks here never learned to hate Negroes. The first time I walked into a shop here and got a friendly greeting, I nearly cried, and that’s the truth. No one telling me to go ’round back, or to get the hell out. Instead, they say, ‘Good morning, Sergeant.’ You got any idea what that means, especially after what we went through down South?”

I wanted to say it would be like my Irish great-grandfather being asked to tea by an Ulsterman, but I’m not so thick that I didn’t know it wasn’t time for comparing ancestral agonies. “Probably not. It must have been tough.”

“Tough was on a good day,” Tree said as we passed more houses made of brick with roofs of thick, grey thatch, like a postcard of a typical English village. “I’m happy here, can you believe that? I like the people, I like walking down the street and chatting with the old fellows. And now the army wants to take this town away from us to spare white GIs the sight of us walking out with English girls.”

Tree sped up, the anger in his voice playing out in his driving. His hands flexed on the steering wheel as houses thinned out to reveal fields and pastures. It was cold in the open jeep, and we pulled up our collars and tucked our heads down as the wind whipped around us. I’d thought about Tree a lot over the past years, wondering what had become of him, and why he hadn’t shown up for his father’s funeral. I’d heard he’d been in town for a few days after, but never ran into him. Not that I tried. Now I knew why he wasn’t there, and why he liked it so much here in England, a place where calling a conductor “buddy” wouldn’t get you thrown off a train at gunpoint.

We drove along a dirt road lined with trees. Ahead, on a slight rise, were lines of canvas, rows and rows of six-man pyramidal tents. Sentries stood outside a hut by the road and waved Tree through as he slowed down. They looked sharp and gave us a quick once-over, but it was obvious they knew Tree. There was no fence, no real security.

“It appears you are well known here as well,” Kaz said from the backseat.

“We’re only four companies, plus battalion headquarters,” Tree said. “Not hard for guys to know every non-com in the outfit.” That was true enough, especially in an independent battalion like this one. But it was also true that Tree was the kind of guy who kept his ear to the ground, and made sure he had pals everywhere. Like any kid from the hard back streets of Boston.

“Here we are,” he said, parking the jeep at the end of a row of tents. “This is our platoon area. Each crew has a tent, plus a couple for supplies.” Stovepipes stuck out from the tent tops and wood planks had been laid between them, creating a rough walkway inches above the ground.

“Can we look at his gear?” I asked.

“Sure, come on in,” Tree said, holding the tent flap open for us. “The boys are working on the engine, so no one’s home. This is maintenance day, so they’ll be busy for a while.”

Inside were five bunks, five footlockers, and several empty crates used for tables. There was a wood plank floor, which at least kept everything from sinking into the damp earth. Tree pointed out Angry’s spot, and I went through his meager belongings. Everything was army-issue except for a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a straight-edge razor, and a packet of letters tied with string.

“Nice that you’re holding his whiskey for him,” I said. “Is the straight-edge for protection?”

“Yeah, almost everyone carries something. I got a switchblade in my back pocket. Man has to have an advantage if he gets himself surrounded.”

“Angry didn’t have it on him when he was arrested?”

“No, he was on duty here. No need.”

“Have you looked through the letters?” I asked.

“No, that’s his personal stuff. Have some respect, Billy.”

“Nothing’s personal when it comes to murder. One man is dead and another falsely charged, right? That trumps privacy, and the army doesn’t care about privacy anyway. I’ll get them back to you after I’ve looked through them.”

“How long have you been here?” Kaz said, distracting Tree while I pocketed the letters.

“Me? Six months. I was a last-minute replacement in the States. They were short a radio operator, and I’d finished communications school, top of my class. I came here a corporal, made sergeant, and got my own TD last month. Tank Destroyer,” he added, for our benefit.

“Seven years and you only made corporal?” I said.

“Got my buck sergeant stripes after two years. Lost them when I tried to stop some MPs from cracking my buddy’s skull down at Fort Huachuca. Didn’t care much about getting them back for a while. Then the war came along and that changed things.”

“How?” I asked as we left the tent and walked back to the jeep.

“The draft brought in a lot of new guys and at first we had some lousy redneck officers. I figured the men deserved non-coms who believed in them. So I kept my mouth shut and played by the rules. Now I got my stripes and my own crew. And we need Angry back.” We followed Tree out of the tent, and I was aware of men watching us. Strange white officers wandering around a Negro unit might mean trouble. I could sense things relaxing when it became evident we weren’t taking Tree away in cuffs.

“Were you in tanks from the beginning?” Kaz asked.

“We don’t call them tanks,” Tree said. “We destroy tanks. They’re TDs.” He started up the jeep and we headed out of the camp. “I was in a service company at first, which meant I loaded and unloaded trucks all day. Then I got a transfer to an anti-aircraft unit, then radio school, then here. I asked for a transfer to a combat outfit right after Pearl Harbor, and it finally came through. Angry Smith is the best damn gunner in the company, so when we head over to France, I want him back in my crew.”

“Can’t blame you,” I said, glancing at my watch. “What time did you say you last saw Angry the night of the murder?”

“Around twenty-one hundred hours. I had a pass to go into town and saw him as I was driving out with two other guys from my crew.”

“He didn’t have a pass?”

“No. He had guard duty until twenty-two hundred hours, patrolling the vehicle park.”

Tree drove us through Hungerford again, over the canal and out past the pub where we’d met. In ten minutes we crossed a small bridge, this one spanning a marshy river, and found ourselves in the one-lane village of Chilton Foliat. Gently rolling hills of farmland and pasture rose up from the roadway and the river. The houses were made of the same brick as in Hungerford, as well as the dark, thick thatch for roofs. We passed a few shops and The Wheatsheaf, a small pub that seemed to be the center of things in this tiny village. Tree pulled over in front of a church, one of those typical English types, all grey stone and short steeple. He nodded in the direction of the graveyard.