James Benn: Rag and Bone

I felt Kaz’s hand on my back, patting it like you’d do with a crying baby. He helped me up as soon as I was sure I had nothing left to give, and steadied me as we walked, slowly now, around the pond, past the statue of Peter Pan that seemed oddly out of place and still timeless, in the midst of London at war.

“Do you feel better, Billy?” Kaz asked.

I didn’t, and I wanted to come clean with him, but a small voice whispered inside my head, telling me he was a suspect. I argued with the small voice, and finally we agreed he was a potential suspect, which was something different, but it still meant I should play my cards facedown.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Keep me away from vodka for a while, OK?”

“OK, Billy.”

We walked through the clearing mist, a cold breeze blowing at our backs. The sky revealed itself, sullen and gray, heavy with the promise of rain. I liked being with Kaz in these early hours, even with a hangover, even with my doubts. He was a friend, someone I could count on to back me up, no questions asked. I silently vowed to do the same for him, until whatever was between us became too powerful for anything I did to matter.

A POT OF coffee, a bath, and a couple of hours later I was at Norfolk House, trying not to think about vodka and half-mad Poles. I needed a jeep and a map to get me to High Wycombe, where the Eighth Air Force was headquartered. Someone there should know what Soviet Air Force officers were doing in London. I asked at the duty officer’s desk where the chief of staff’s office was.

“I’d stay away from there if I was you, Lieutenant,” the sergeant at the desk said after giving me directions. “That new guy, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, he got here yesterday, and no one’s come out of there with a smile on his face.”

“That’s Beetle for you,” I said. General Walter Bedell Smith, known as Beetle, was Uncle Ike’s man through and through. No-nonsense, a face like a bulldog, and a personality to match. He didn’t have much patience for those who didn’t pull their weight and then some. Actually, he didn’t have a drop of patience in his body, which is why I tried to steer clear of him at all times.

I made my way up the stairs and down a long hallway, while the sounds of typewriters and teletypes echoed against the black-and-white tiles. Clerks, secretaries, and junior officers scurried about, eyes cast down, mouths hanging open in fatigue, or dread. Beetle had already made his mark. Fortunately, before I needed to stand at attention under his scrutiny, I heard a couple of familiar voices.

“How the hell am I supposed to know where they are? Sir?”

“You packed them, Big Mike, and you brought them to the plane.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t fly the goddamn plane here, and I didn’t unload the goddamn plane, now did I? Sir?”

I stood in a doorway, watching Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Harding pawing through boxes of files while Big Mike stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head sadly.

“Colonel, I’m telling you I looked everywhere. They ain’t here.”

“Then goddamn it, Big Mike, find them.” Harding tossed piles of folders on a table, looking for some paperwork that was probably destined to sit gathering dust in a file folder until the next war came along. I thought about backing up and getting the hell out, but Big Mike saw me.

“Billy! I mean, Lieutenant. Good to see you. Come in, we’re getting set up here. Nice place, huh?”

Big Mike was big. So big, I was surprised he could find a uniform to fit into. Six feet plus, and about as broad in the shoulders. Big, beefy arms. He was a brother officer in civilian life. Somewhere, there was a piece of paper that designated me as part of General Eisenhower’s Office of Special Investigations. Me, Kaz before the Poles called him back, Diana when she was detached from the SOE, and Big Mike. Colonel Harding kept an eye on us. We didn’t have a plaque on the door, and you wouldn’t find us on any Army Table of Organization, and Uncle Ike thought it was best that way. When he needed us, it was to get things done quietly. Like with the dead Russian. When he didn’t, Harding always had a job waiting. He was in Intelligence, specializing in relations with our Allies. It made for interesting work.

“Yeah, Big Mike. Reminds me of city hall. Colonel,” I said, nodding my head toward Harding. You were supposed to stand to attention and salute when reporting for duty, but I thought Harding might be steamed enough at losing his precious files that he wouldn’t care. I hated saluting.

“You look like hell, Boyle. Have you been on a bender for the last couple of days?”

“No sir, Colonel. I’ve been on the case. I had to keep up with some Polish officers making toasts last night. All in the line of duty.”

“Polish wodka?” Big Mike asked, a grin spreading across his face. “With Kaz?”

“Yes,” I said, my stomach turning at the memory. Big Mike was angling for an invite to a repeat performance. He and Kaz were quite a combination. A big American Polack working stiff and a small, thin, aristocratic Polish baron, who, for some reason, had hit it off. But I wasn’t in the mood for another bout with the bottle.

“You have anything to report, Boyle? Anything other than your level of alcohol consumption?” As usual, Harding was short-tempered. I was beginning to think I should have saluted.

“I’ve met with the Scotland Yard detectives on the case. I need to get up to High Wycombe, Eighth Air Force HQ, and find out what the Russian Air Force officers are up to. Can I get a jeep, and maybe Big Mike to drive me up there?”

“You’d do me a favor to get him out of here. Then maybe I can find half the stuff we shipped from Algiers. Go.”

Big Mike didn’t waste any time grabbing his jacket and cap.

There were no road maps to be had, but there was a wall map of greater London posted in a back room where drivers and staff could get a hot cup of coffee. Uxbridge, Denham, Beaconsfield, High Wycombe. About thirty miles west of London. I guessed there would still be no road signs, but you could pretty much follow the main roads from one village to the next.

A staff car would have been nice, but all a lieutenant could hope for was a jeep with a canvas top. We took Kensington Road to Uxbridge Road, which naturally enough got us to Uxbridge. On the western outskirts of London, the bomb damage was not as extensive, but it hadn’t been cleaned up as well. We passed a row of damaged houses, some collapsed and others with open rooms, their bathtubs, chairs, dressers, and tables on display like a giant’s dollhouse. Some pictures still hung perfectly level, and I saw one easy chair at the edge of the floor, where the front of the building had been torn away, the lamp next to it a sentinel of normalcy in a catastrophically altered world. Past Uxbridge the city turned to country, and military traffic dominated the road. No civilian vehicles, only British and American trucks, jeeps, staff cars, all snarled in traffic jams at every village center, then thinning out on the narrow country roads.

The sky had cleared, leaving only scattered clouds to drift over the landscape. A faint, distant drone turned into a steadily growing, ground-shaking thrum of high-powered engines. We pulled over and got out, gawkers on a country lane as Flying Fortresses climbed and circled, forming up into a mass of bombers, hundreds of them, the highest trailing white contrails as they headed for their target. The deafening roar turned again to a dull, faraway noise, finally leaving us in silence, except for the scurry of tires on pavement.

“Jesus Christ, I ain’t never seen so many airplanes,” Big Mike said. “Not all at once, anyway.”

“Me either,” I said, but I didn’t feel much like talking. The procession of B-17s had left me feeling odd. Out of step. Hundreds of men and machines were off on a mission, and what was I doing? Talking to people, asking questions about other people who were already dead. It seemed a waste of time, when so many others were going to be killed in a few hours. I used to think that every death mattered, especially those who could’ve made it through the war alive. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Captain Gennady Egorov was dead and gone, and nothing I could do would bring him back. Those boys in the B-17s, they were alive now, but plenty weren’t going to make it home, never mind whoever was at the receiving end of their bomb loads. Feeling the vibration of the passing bombers, hearing the thunder of engines, seeing their gleaming white contrails, I felt the enormity of this war. The willingness to accept loss of life and limb, to witness planes burst into flame and fall to the earth. In the wake of such mass, intentional killing, it seemed disconcerting to place so much emphasis on a single bullet that had pierced a single skull. Here I stood by the side of the road, on my way to ask questions about one dead Russian. There they went, off to deal death and maybe draw a dead man’s hand themselves.