Gentleman of War Read online

  He was quite happy to be inside, where he could find some final vestiges of normality, despite the preposterous situation unfolding in the bedroom, rather than outside, where it seemed that chaos was slowly taking over.

  "Get down!" Church ordered. He turned to the woman, still posed poignantly on the bed. "Get under the bed."

  "Oh no, oh no," she whimpered. The repetition of the simple phrase proffered that she knew what was forthcoming.

  With great effort, she slithered from her sweaty hiding hole, wrinkling the sheets, and dragged herself to the floor, before disappearing underneath as requested in a few less-than-graceful movements.

  "What's happening?" Neven asked, his face pressed against the rim of the window.

  "Shut up," Church said.

  Screams and gunshots were meeting the jungle noises in equal measure. Church allowed himself a peek above the makeshift parapet, but his head was down quicker than Neven could process. He looked at his comrade for a clue.

  "Oh it's bad," Church assured him of something he had never asked. "I'm not sure what I just seen, but it's bloody bad. We're under attack."

  Neven fought the urge to correct him grammatically, and instead listened to the sounds around him. He heard the distinctly recognisable voice Sergeant Whiskers saying only, "Oh God. Oh God." And then he stopped.

  "Should... we help?" He wasn't sure why he asked. It was against every fibre in his body, and just about the least appealing option he could think of.

  He turned around to the pile of rags and an errant foot sticking out from under the bed.

  "Miss," he insisted. "Please pick a suitable outfit and we will leave."

  She was hesitant, but trusted the authority that he managed to conjure up in his voice for a second time. A violent explosion rocked the relatively slow-moving scene and Neven winced hard.

  "Fucking hell Plumsworthy, do it for her," Church said, throwing his rifle onto the mattress. The squat man squatted further down and waddled across the room so as not to present himself in the window. He grabbed an open case, and began to pick her an outfit consisting of the 'things within arm’s reach' catalogue.

  "Miss," Neven said to the emerging head. "Wrap this around you for now." He pulled the sheet off the bed, his own rifle clattering to the floor. He realised later he was protecting her modesty at the expense of practical clothing.

  Church clicked the case closed, recovered his rifle. The floor was becoming a very crowded place. Then he put a large arm around her waist and pulled her out from under the bed. She shuddered when he touched her, and went limp for a bit, seemingly her natural reaction. She sat against the bed and began dressing herself with the white sheet.

  When she was done, Church announced. "Okay, let's go."

  "What about the Sergeant? And the others?"

  Church was unflapped. "We'll set her down somewhere safe, and then we'll come back." It was unconvincing, but it was all that Neven needed to hear to keep his conscience silent.

  They started out of the room, but by the time they were on the first floor landing a resounding crash echoed through the house and the whole building shook menacingly. The air grew frightfully hot.

  "Well that sounded like the windows in the..."

  "Downstairs rooms," Church finished the thought. They all hesitated on the stairs, unsure of what they would meet on street level.

  "In here! I have to check on Mr and Mrs Tober," the girl finally spoke up, but meandered in the shadows. She pointed at a door on the first floor; to a flat they had not yet entered that would have been above the main house kitchen.

  "We don't have time," Church insisted, but Neven had already clasped the handle and pushed through.

  Instantly the young officer was bent double, "Jesus..." he pronounced before stopping his utterance from coming any further. The other knew exactly why instantly. The stench of death was terrible. The most recent huge explosion had knocked through the back of the house and much of the next one, exposing the road behind Great Portland Street, but had also caved in the floor. The only thing intact in this room was the door and a little overhanging of walkway.

  Neven walked to the edge of the hole, and gagged. Haphazardly strewn about the rubble were four or five bodies. Whether they had been killed in the explosion, or long before, was unclear, given all the dust.

  "Oh God," the girl said, confirming her worst fears of her neighbours.

  "Come on," Church insisted, beginning to back out of the room.

  But something was coming up the stairs. The instant that they heard the floorboards flex ominously downstairs, Church had moved from the rearmost position to the vanguard of the trio, closing the door to the hallway behind him.

  "We shouldn't go out there."

  "Where, then?" Neven took him at his word.

  "Down the hole," he said, getting a first look of his own and struggling to hold his nerve. "It's not far and then, look, the blast means we can escape onto the road. It runs parallel, and we can get out of here."

  If the girl was upset about jumping onto her neighbours impromptu grave, she showed no immediate signs. As she hopped down, she threw the luggage until it bounced away and bashed against the cooker of the ground floor kitchen. When she herself dropped, she looked positively angelic, eyes closed against the elements, and white sheet billowing like flowers petals.

  Church and Neven followed suit. Neven bashed his leg on a broken table as he hit the floor, and ended up lying against the dead hand of some unfortunate. He shuddered, crawling ungracefully away. Church landed much better, recovered himself, the suitcase, and the other two.

  Before they knew it, they were out of the back of the destroyed house, ejected like some bad omen, and were sprinting down the road. Away from the noise. Away from the explosions and the fire-fight.

  Chapter 3

  From the diary of Cpl. N.E. Plumsworthy

  That was how I came to meet Phillipa. It was a strange meeting, to be honest. One that I'm not sure either of us recovered from; nor am I sure that it did not have a hand in our later dealings. Perhaps, though, it was the circumstances; drawn together through a lack of other socialising options. Beyond that event in my life, people were scarce, and good people even more few and far between.

  We escaped that day unharmed, and I was unaware what had befallen the rest of my company; nothing good, I assured myself in my weaker moments. I have wondered since then what my conscience was doing that day - perhaps just following orders. Evacuate the civilians only, I had been told. So I had. In the spirit of dark humour, perhaps it could be said I performed admirably, certainly better than the men in the company, many of whose names and faces grow dim in the ever-fading light of history.

  The company had never accepted me and I can hardly blame them. Three weeks was all I had under the command of Sergeant McDonald. The others, save for Cave, had been together for years. We were there to make up numbers. Every gun counts.

  It was an unseasonably cold night when three officers in full-dress had entered my barracks a few weeks before. I recognised them as my tutors, my instructors, dare I say it, my friends and mentors. But there was no love in their eyes as they came in. We all stood to attention, believing it to be nothing more than an unexpected inspection.

  "Gentlemen," the leading Drill Sergeant, Briggs I think his name was, had spoken first. "In light of the recent circumstances, hard decisions have to be made. This unit is being disbanded and you are all to be garrisoned at locations to be determined later. There you will continue training on the field under a senior officer also yet to be determined."

  Words to that effect, anyway. Straight to the point, no molly-coddling. We were property of his majesty's army now; a no frills ride that had us shitting our collective pants. Being used the high life, the easy life, many of us complained. Threats of fathers being involved, letters to members of Parliament were mentioned. The entitled officers-to-be that we were, we threw our weight around, but it was clear that the decision had been taken
by some of the most senior this country had to offer.

  I suppose in retrospect I was just afraid – joining the army had been a career, not a real and dangerous vocation.

  "As and when you return, training will continue," was all they said, chanting and chanting like it was their motto.

  "As and when".

  Sometimes I laugh about it. It definitely beat the hell out of all the crying I did in the first few weeks. I look back upon the optimism of people like Cave and it reminds of a time when we could be petty, when we could worry about things that are so minuscule now in scale.

  We passed by the mountains that we had made of our problems, and looked back along the road as they became dots. They were far surpassed by the mountains we now faced – ones which I'm sure will suffer the same fate.

  Church, Phillipa and I spend the whole of the day speeding as fast as we could out of London, unaware we were not always going in the right direction. We were surprised to find that the Forward Operating Base we had left not two days before was absent from where we remembered it. A further day was spent looking, but it was to no avail, our memories had failed us, or indeed our command had, and we were stranded.

  We stumbled upon a tank company just outside of West Ham. They were lost too. It seemed that the British Armed Forces were diabolically organised for every aspect of our military. It was quite a sight, happening upon Privates Yates and Klone, sitting on the hull of their tank, scratching their heads and smoking like chimneys.

  I had never seen such a machine before. It was such an impressive war beast. Such angular peaks, jutting out in every direction! Such a strong chassis! The gun was nestled in the middle, poking out phallically, pointing the direction, leading the charge. The caterpillar tracks were enormous, and from a distance I hesitated, thinking them chains that bound this hell-creature to the road that it seemingly erupted from.

  The two engineers were bemused by our astonishment, but were more than happy to explain on their part. It was a prototype, they explained. The pride of British military future, today!

  It was also, Klone said, an ‘unworkable piece of rubbish'.

  Three of them had rolled down the road towards deployment further in the city, they explained, but this one had seized up. My heart sank. It looked like quite an impressive piece of equipment. They said they had not heard from the other tanks in two days. Perhaps, given the circumstances, it was fortuitous that theirs had stopped so soon. It was still a sight to see, a massive endeavour, such a proud thing, brought low. It made my soul disquieted.

  They had radioed for assistance, but I managed to convince them to direct us out of the upper echelons of London, though I was not able to get them to come with us. They said that they had come off at a railway station not three miles north, the only one that had a platform and portage point with the girth necessary to take such a monstrosity. Apparently the officer co-ordinating the tank mission had stayed in the signal room to make sure no civilians obstructed proceedings, and if we hurried he might still be there.

  We said our goodbyes, and promised to deliver a message to their commander regarding their whereabouts. Of their fate I am not sure, I rather liked them in the short time I had known them, and more company would have been good. But they were stoic, British to the last. I suppose that was part of the warmth I felt towards them.

  We found the railway station, but no sign of the officer or of any military presence. My companions were tired, so we stayed there for the night. In the morning, Church suggested that we work our way up the railway tracks, as they might provide some sense of direction over the winding streets of suburbia.

  Chapter 4

  Blight-y

  "Thank God," Church exclaimed. It was a strange moment of piety for the man, Neven noticed, not least because he had spent a majority of the days walk reminding everyone how terrible their fortune was with some of the most heathenish language. Neven often found himself meandering away on the path, lest a lightning bolt strike Church down and accidentally hit him as well.

  "Please, come in," Mary, the owner of the pub, said. There was room at the inn. Neven ducked low beneath the frankly medieval architecture of both door-frame and roof. He stopped to place his rifle down, and wipe his boots.

  "Who is it?" a man's voice boomed from the shadows of the pub.

  "Army boys, Tom, and they look hungry."

  "You're damn right," Church replied to no one in particular, almost lunging forward into the room. He slammed the door shut.

  "Here," a gruff and large man emerged, startling them all. He was polishing a dirty glass with an even dirtier rag. His face was a mess of sores and scraggy hair, long and thick despite his apparent age.

  He moved with ease for a man his size, pulled out three bar stools. He drew a cloth from some nest or another and dusted off the cushions.

  "Sit down, what'll you drink?"

  "Anything with alcohol," Church said, practically rubbing his hands with glee. He went to the bar - his altar, and prayed and perused the dry measures with aplomb.

  "Absolutely, here," Tom set down the glass finally, polished to a squeaky, horrid finish of smudges and grime. Church cared little for this and began suckling at the teat of whisky as soon as it had splashed into his receptacle.

  Tom eyed him happily. Had Jones not been in his mucky uniform, the whole scene could have served as some postcard of British-ness.

  "You too, dear, sit down," Mary beckoned Phillipa to a chair.

  The rescued damsel had been surprisingly quiet over the last few days. Neven suspected that she was beginning to understand she was not under the protection of a well-respected and intelligent officer of great nous, but rather another crewman in a ship of blind sailors. Neven went to sit at the end of the bar.

  "Water, if you would please," He requested.

  He slipped off his helmet, slapped it down by the bar. Mary was upon it like a shot. She scooped it up like an infant in one hand and placed it upon a hat stand. If it looked incongruous against the various haberdasheries – top hats, flat caps, a bowler, already on display, but nobody said anything.

  "Wine, if you have it," Phillipa said.

  Neven looked at her. "There's colour back in your cheeks," he noted, attempting conversation. The strangeness of their first meeting had yet to wear itself down and erode away.

  "Thank you, Plumsworthy," she replied.

  "You're the only soldiers who've stopped in for a drink," Tom assuaged everyone.

  "In fact, you're the only ones we've seen in a few days," Mary corrected.

  "There were others? How many? When? Where? What were they doing?" Neven couldn't control himself. He gripped the edges of his glass, half-trembling; to return back to the bosom of some sort of regiment would be so welcome to him.

  "Oh, I thought you were with them."

  "No, no Mary, can't you see, they ain't local to here."

  "Well neither was that bloody sergeant-major and his lot. Telling us all sorts of trouble was on its way – couldn't understand him for toffee! Glaswegian I think. I says to him..."

  "No Mary, I mean they're lost, which means they ain't been here before."

  "Hasn't stopped us so far," Church spoke derisively from damn near the bottom of the bottle.

  "What did the Sergeant-Major say?" Neven asked, trying to direct the flow of conversation back again.

  Mary clucked her tongue, and looked up to the ceiling to recall her story. Out of habit, Neven followed her gaze, only to be met with Tudor crossbeams - a stark black against the white of the paint.

  "Well," she began. "Not two days ago we had some well-to-do turn up with a truckload of men backin’ him right up the arse. He says 'you ave to leave' and we says ‘we ain't going’. He whoops and hollars, oh you've never seen such a racket, but says he'll be back for us. Ain't seen him since."

  "Ain't seen him since," Tom echoed, nodding grimly.

  "Where did they go?"

  "Further in I think; awful lot of noise comi
ng from more central parts. Must be the fighting, and the bombs"

  "My goodness," Neven wheezed. "We must have walked straight past it."

  "Walked straight past it?" Church asked, spinning in his chair. "I'd say it was following us out of London!"

  "So where did everyone else go?"

  "Out of the city, I think."

  "My goodness," Neven repeated, his mind churning almost as much as his stomach now. He sipped some more water, and it hit his dry throat like a dam bursting into a ravine. It was good, and refreshing. "Why didn't you go?"

  “Because they know better than to follow the orders of our beloved army,” Church said bleakly.

  There was a palpable pause. The thread of conversation had been snipped by razor-sharp inquisition. Mary and Tom exchanged glances.

  "Show them, Maz," Tom insisted. He was quieter now though, and the authority in his voice carried a little less than it should have done.

  Nevertheless, Mary whisked herself away from the room. Church, Phillipa and Neven looked around, before slowly following. They were brought to a door, around the side of the bar. Tom followed from behind the counter, seemingly curious himself.

  Mary grasped the door handle, twisted it, and swung the door open.

  Inside, were people.

  Not just some people.

  A lot of people.

  Tucked into a back room darts hall, two dozen faces stared out at the newcomers. A bookcase lay mostly empty. Tables and chairs of assorted origins, but all fine wood, were arranged into various groups. Some people stood by the windows, curtains closed of course, another one lounged on a sofa. A snooker table was dormant, lacking both balls and cues, so served as a makeshift surface upon which many drinks and foodstuffs were placed. It was a fortress of Londoner fortitude.

  They looked up from books. They peered out from amidst card games. They paused in mid-conversation. They turned and faced and with one collective feeling one man voiced his opinion:

  "Oh, not more fucking army men."

  To Neven, it all seemed so comfortingly normal, bar some differences of course. But to have retained such equanimity, such a 'business as usual' attitude was important. If it warmed him, Church clearly felt the opposite.