Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

Charles waited for the rebuff but instead, with a quick smile of quite unexpected charm, she took Anthony’s arm. ‘And what makes you think you’re the man to do it, Major?’

Anthony grinned, smoothed his moustache and patted her hand. ‘Wishful thinking, m’dear, at my age. I can’t corrupt anyone any more. No one takes me seriously.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

Anthony’s eyes twinkled. ‘Ah, but would you dare allow me the chance to prove myself wrong?’ Laughing, they walked past Charles into the yard and followed the happy gaggle of press into the Factory. Charles managed to catch Moira Conn’s eye for about half a second but there was not the faintest flicker of recognition. It seemed that she simply didn’t remember him.

Looking like a bizarre wedding party going into church the little group climbed the stairs leading up to the Army floors of the factory, watched by the envious soldiers in the yard. Van Horne was nowhere to be seen.

Charles was about to follow them into the building when he was summoned back by shouts from the sentry at the gate. There seemed to be some sort of trouble, almost a scuffle, going on outside. When he got there he found that one of the guards had pinioned Beazely against the wall, his forearm across Beazely’s throat. ‘Caught this one trying to get in. Says he knows you, sir.’

‘It’s all right. I do know him.’

Beazely was released. He adjusted his spectacles and collar with almost ritualistic movements, as though it were a way of introducing himself. He seemed to expect to be manhandled. ‘Great, Charlie. Heard about the search. Great stuff. Got a taxi straight down. Thought you might have rung me, though. Everyone else has been and gone, I understand. Apart from the ones having the social briefing.’

‘Well, that’s Anthony’s doing, not mine.’

‘All the same, fruit, you might have told me.’ Beazely stepped in through the gates with the air of one who had accepted a pressing invitation and was determined to make up for being late.

‘I thought you were going to kill yourself the other night,’ Charles remarked as they walked across the yard.

Beazely shook his head. ‘Didn’t feel up to it, old man. Bit down in the dumps that night, to be perfectly honest. Sought consolation in the bottle. You know how it is. Probably the effects of the explosion at your place. I felt personally involved. Delayed shock, I expect. I’m still frightened, though. Still have my fears. It’s different for you buggers in uniform, of course. It’s your job. Anyway, where’s all this hooch come from? Enough to drown us all twice over I hear.’

They were climbing the stairs and had nearly reached the ops room, from which came the unmistakable sounds of a party, when Beazely laid his hand on Charles’s arm and stopped him. ‘I say, old man.’

‘What?’

Beazely looked serious, as though about to divulge something very personal. ‘Hope you don’t mind me tagging along like this.’

Charles was so taken aback that he produced the stock reply without thinking. ‘Of course not. Very pleased to have you.’

‘Don’t want to get in your way, you see. Good of you to put up with me, I know. And you and Van Horne do a good job for me. Don’t want you to think I’m not grateful.’

Charles was no better than most of his countrymen at responding to serious and direct conversation. He mumbled a few ‘quite all rights’ and ‘think nothing of its’, concluding with an ‘all in the day’s work’.

‘Just thought I’d better say it now, you know, before we —’ he nodded towards the ops room.

‘Before we what?’

‘Go in. I mean — parties and all that — always trouble — just wanted to get things straight.’

That said, Beazely led the way into the party. The ops room was crammed with soldiers and journalists, all talking and drinking as though their lives depended on it. They drank indiscriminately from glasses, cups, mugs, bottles, water-bottles and cans. Cigarette smoke hung like battle smoke just above head level. The radio mush went on in the background, unnoticed. Seated at the radio was Moira Conn, with Anthony and the CSM on either side, apparently instructing her. She had a glass in one hand and held ear-phones to her head with the other. She was laughing at something the CSM was saying. A little to one side stood Van Horne, drinking from his mess-tin and not speaking. Charles turned to offer Beazely a drink but he had disappeared. A few moments later he glimpsed him over the other side of the room, a bottle of whisky in one hand and the inevitable cigarette in the other. He and Edward were talking rapidly at each other. Edward also held a bottle and his fear and anxiety seemed to disappear with the liquid. There was also a glimpse of Chatsworth moving with quiet purpose through the crowd, but then Charles found himself confronted by Henry Sandy who, like everyone else, had a drink in his hand and seemed to have had a fair bit already.

‘Who’s the bird?’ asked Henry. Charles told him. ‘She looks ready for anything. Seems to be going great guns with old Anthony, though. Never understand women. Never try though. That’s the important thing. Chatsworth claims to have had her already.’

‘He’s lying. He’s never met her before.’

‘Correction. He did say as good as, now I think of it. Says he’s fixed it for later. Don’t know what he’s doing now. Keeps buggering off. Why haven’t you got a drink?’

‘I don’t want one. I’d rather have a cup of tea. I don’t feel like drinking.’

‘I know what you mean. I didn’t really but sometimes there’s no choice. You can forget the tea. Last I saw of the kettle Sergeant Wheeler was pouring beer into it. There’s a plan to get Nigel Beale paralytic. Seems a waste of good drink to me. He’ll be no better drunk than sober. May as well bash him on the head with a bottle. It might come to that, of course. Apparently he tried to get Anthony to leave the booze where it was so that we could nab the owner if he ever comes back to get it. Anthony told him to go and feed the horses. Come on, have a drink. It’ll do you good. You should relax.’

Charles did not feel the need to relax so much as to sleep. He felt almost sick with tiredness. An overwhelming lassitude spread throughout him as he looked at the others. He eventually allowed Henry to put a cup of something in his hand. That at least would stop people from pestering him to drink. A feeling of impending disaster contributed to his tiredness. He left the ops room and walked along to the partition where he slept. Though the noise would hardly be any less there he felt that it wouldn’t matter so long as he could put up his feet and close his eyes.

To his annoyance, Chatsworth was there. Chatsworth was not sleeping. He stood stripped to the waist before the small cracked shaving mirror which hung on a nail, applying black boot polish to his hands, arms, neck and face. ‘Camouflage,’ he said curtly.

‘What for?’

‘Operational.’

‘What operation?’

‘Need to know.’ That phrase, so well used by the CO and Nigel Beale, now had the effect of stilling all curiosity in Charles. He got on to his hands and knees and crawled into his bunk. As he closed his eyes he saw Chatsworth pull out a Gurkha’s kukri from his kitbag and begin to blacken the blade. Very soon the noise of the party merged with dreams of kettles, explosions, kukris and Moira Conn. He did not know how long he had been asleep when Chatsworth’s eager blackened face broke rudely through his dreams, though it had little more of normality about it than they. Chatsworth was shaking him. ‘Where’s Van Horne?’

‘What?’

‘Where is he? Can I trust him? Come on, Thoroughgood, wake up. I need help.’ Chatsworth crouched on all fours beside the bunk and had squeezed his head in so that his black nose almost touched Charles’s. Beads of sweat had broken through the polish and he was panting slightly. He had on his camouflage jacket. ‘What about that journalist mate of yours, Beezey or whatever his name is? Is he any good? Can I trust him? I need two.’ Charles was not able to pull his thoughts together. He tried to sit up and struck his head on Chatsworth’s bunk. Chatsworth withdrew his own head just in time and carried on talking in an urgent whisper. ‘I must have two, one for the vehicle. Go and get them and tell them to meet me by the four-tonner farthest from the gate. We must get back before they all start moving again.’