The tram hummed and groaned off into the distance. Bill cursed his choice as he rubbed his back, sore from the bare wooden bench seat. He made his way down the street, past the Castle Club and its lavish exterior.
“Evening, Bill!” shouted Ronnie, the smartly dressed gatekeeper of the ornate shrine to the gods of pre-war art deco. The Roaring Twenties had never ended at the Castle Club. It was full of smartly dressed US Army officers, pretty barmaids, and even prettier female patrons. They all seemed to have the same sculpted hair, styled in voluptuous victory curls, with even more curvaceous figures. They all looked like Betty Grable, which was no bad thing at all, as far as Bill was concerned.
“Good evening, Ronnie. How’s business?” Bill moved out of the wind into the grand doorway.
Ronnie was a tall, muscular man with a boxer’s squat face and a prominent wonky nose. His neck had a sizeable scar ear-to-ear, apparently from a drunken argument with an Egyptian arm wrestler one night near Cairo. Of course, when you spend most evenings drinking near closing time with the staff, they tell you all sorts of stories.
“Good, my friend. You know the Yanks. They love to throw away their beer coupons like they are going out of fashion. Are you coming in tonight? I’ll make sure one of the girls looks after you, you know, priority service, that kind of thing.”
Ronnie was an ex-con-turned war hero, originally from South London. He had fought with the French Foreign Legion in North Africa and later, Italy. By the end of the war, the bright lights of a new adventure were calling him, and yet, somehow, Ronnie ended up in Berlin. He had intended to assist in setting up the new sectors but landed a job here instead. This diamond in the rough, the Castle Club, was among the trendiest in the south of the city and right on the doorstep of Tempelhof Airport.
“Thanks, Ronnie, but I have business down the road this evening. I hear Charlton’s having a decent run in the cup?”
Bill had little interest in sport, but it always paid to do your homework. Ronnie could be a handy ally sometimes, especially when a drunk American fly-boy gets belligerent over a spilt drink.
“That’s right. The only thing I miss about home is the football. So where are you off to, the Victory?”
“Indeed. I need to find someone and speak with him. While I’m here, though, do you know anything about the Jeep crash near here just over a week back?”
“I did hear about it. The girls told me there was a real fracas out here, but I sleep most afternoons and don’t get here until six p.m. Some Yank officer bought it, didn’t he?”
“That’s right, and another man, a sergeant.”
“Can’t help you with that one, pal. Perhaps I can ask around?”
“Let me know if you find out anything; gossip, rumours, anything. You know where to find me. I must dash.”
“Will do. The music’s better down there anyway.”
“It is that. Look, maybe I’ll stop by before I head home later. Get yourself a drink in case I don’t see you, though,” Bill said as he handed Ronnie a ten-dollar bill.
Ronnie smiled and looked at the crisp bill before stuffing it haphazardly into his front top pocket. It was below zero degrees outside, and this lunatic was only wearing a dinner suit.
Bill continued down the busy street. The wind had dropped to an icy breeze, and the snow had ceased to fall, leaving only its thin carpet here and there to remind of its visit. All around were couples walking arm-in-arm, wrapped up like Scott of the Antarctic. American voices, gentlemen in military greatcoats, and ladies in mink furs were all around. But for the street names, one might mistake the street for Broadway. The numerous bars spat their neon glow onto the reflective damp of the pavement.
A young woman wearing a small, fancy hat smiled at Bill, who politely smiled back. However, he got a distinct impression there was slightly more behind her sparkling eyes than just innocent politeness. Her male officer companion noticed this, too, and jolted her by the arm as he hurried her along.
Bill chuckled to himself as he turned off the main drag onto Dorfstrasse and walked the short way down to number 22, the address of the Victory Club. Bill had spent a lot of time around the Americans and had picked up much of their odd language, but even though he had been down here a few times before, it never ceased to surprise him. If the Castle Club was the classiest joint in Tempelhof, the Victory Club was surely the hippest. For good reason. It played all kinds of jive, fast blues and swing music.
The road was run down and dirty. This certainly wasn’t Broadway. It was more like Lewisham Broadway. He was barely a hundred yards from the main strip, yet this place was a world away from the bright lights and affluence of Berliner Strasse. Gone were the officers and their ladies, replaced with local men, dressed in worn grubby moleskin trousers and oversized boots, smoking spitty, little, roll-up cigarettes, thinner than a hermit’s address book.
Bill looked back behind him to see if anyone had followed him, then ducked through the doorway of a very generic looking building. Above the door was a wooden sign, with hand-painted black lettering, reading: Colored Troops. He didn’t know what to hate more, the disgusting segregation, even within their forces, or the awful spelling.
The former beer hall had been converted into what the regulars called a juke joint. The owners were apparently Berliners but had been more than accommodating of their new clientele, and the place had slowly become what it was now, a drinking and dancing bar that looked to be plucked straight out of the Mississippi Delta.
Bill couldn’t place the music, but it sounded good. The place was already busy, despite the early hour. They served no food at the Victory, but people were drinking, chatting, and smiling all around. The black troops were no different to the other American soldiers when it came to spending. There were stacks of green bills being exchanged on the various tables where card games were taking place. Some of the men had evidently picked up local girlfriends, as Bill had to squeeze by a couple who were busy eating each other’s faces, totally oblivious to their surroundings.
Bill spotted a familiar face across the room. Chester was a short, skinny man with white, curly hair and a face as creased as Tutankhamen’s comfort blanket. Everyone knew Chester, and he knew almost everybody. If you were a spy with a new face in Tempelhof, you came to the Victory Club and befriended Chester. It didn’t take much. The old man wanted for nothing. He had a decent townhouse just down the street, and the boys from the nearby base would deliver groceries or whatever he needed. What he usually needed was wine. Bill had never seen anyone put away wine as Chester could.
“Hey! Billy-boy! How you doin’, my buddy?” he said as he paused the game he was playing against a young soldier at the bar.
“I’m doing fine, thanks, Chester. How are you getting on in the cold weather?”
“Boy, my old bones sure don’t like it one bit. Ain’t seen you in here for a couple of weeks. So pull up a stool and prepare to lose some money!”
Chester gestured to the stack of bills in front of him, his winnings from the evening spent stitching up the young servicemen who were keen to try to pull off the impossible and outwit Chester at a few rounds of dominoes.
“I may be stupid, but I’m not silly! So, I think I’ll stick to watching you milk the youngsters dry.”
The young kid at the bar stared in despair at Bill, only now realising his foolishness. Bill laughed and shrugged at him.
“Well, they gotta learn sooner or later not to stick their heads in a gator’s mouth,” he said as he turned back to the game and placed down tile-after-tile with no reply from the teenager, except to pick up another. “Marie, get Billy here what he wants and put it on my slate.”
“I’ll take a bourbon, thanks.” Bill knew it was an exercise in futility to ask for Scotch anywhere in Tempelhof. He pulled out his tobacco pouch and pulled out a couple of the small flakes, placing them on top of Chester’s money stack. He looked around and smiled at Bill, nodding in appreciation, then laid another tile, much to the young man’s despair as he collected up yet another as a forfeit.
Bill collected up his drink and leaned back on the bar, placing down his hat upon it. Chester was a marvel. Bill would never understand how anyone could cheat quite this well at dominoes. The regulars all knew he kept a couple of tiles tucked under his elbow. The older and more experienced guys all knew that playing him was a trap and found it all the more entertaining when he had managed to snare another recruit into one of his games.
The bar had the smell of smoke and exuberant youth. Half the men in here were under twenty-five. They had arrived in Germany too late to see action and had ended up part of the so-called Army of Occupation. There were a few long-timers around tonight, all wearing ribbons and stripes on their arms. Most were drivers, cooks and camp guards. The US didn’t want too many of their Afro-American boys earning a good reputation for themselves, so few were given a chance.
“Damn it,” the young soldier at the bar said as the old man won yet another round.
Chester collected the green Lincoln from the bar and placed it on his stack, but not before removing the tobacco flakes and balling them into his leathery fist.
A sergeant rose from his chair at a nearby table, laughing heartedly, and clapped the young man on the back, offering him up a full glass of beer and a seat. The veteran soldier winked at Bill and then sat back down, still chuckling at the young man’s orchestrated misfortune. It was all part of the hazing of recruits in the Victory. The patrons would often treat a white face like Bill’s in here with a general distrust, even animosity at times. Bill had seen it more than once, including when he’d first ventured in. Now he was a semi-regular here and was left well enough alone.
The women, of course, were a different matter entirely. Many locals were curious about these new soldiers from faraway lands. Most chose the up-market bars on the strip, but some of the more adventurous would come in here to find solace in the arms of one of these even more exotic strangers. An absolute taboo under the Nazis was now a blissful throwaway escape from reality. The language barrier was no real obstacle to either party, as they both only had one thing they wanted anyway and always seemed to have no problem achieving it.
“Another bites the dust, eh, Chester?”
“Sure was fun. That’s my bills paid for the week.”
Chester pulled out his old, charred pipe. A genuine curiosity to Bill, who had only ever seen a corncob pipe in the Popeye cartoons. He watched as he shoved the rubbed tobacco carelessly into the bowl and packed it down with a rough finger.
“Here. I’ve brought you a present,” Bill said as he placed down Malone’s steel Zippo lighter on the bar.
“Nice. I’ve never had my own one of these.”
“I remember, you told me before. So, I thought you’d appreciate one. It’s no good to me. I like matches too much.”
Bill pulled one out from his vesta case and lit his own, then Chester’s pipe. He looked briefly at the knocked-about little silver box his father had given him, smiled, then placed it back in his pocket. Chester nodded to the pale white barmaid, who poured him out another full half-litre glass of red wine. Bill looked again and wondered if it was just that she was here that she appeared quite so white.
“I need to speak to someone, a Sergeant James Pheonix. He works on the base.”
“Yeah, I know Pheonix. He’s right over there,” Chester replied as he pointed to the far side of the club. “Tall fella, big nose, smoking a cigar.”
“That’s a real help, Chester. Thanks.” Bill rose to leave him.
“Wait up, Billy. You got any of that fine tobacco going spare?”
Bill sighed and fished out his pouch. He pulled out a bunch of flakes and placed them into Chester’s dry, cracked, awaiting palm.
“Always the hustler, old man.”
“Play to your strengths, Billy boy. Play to your strengths.”
Bill ordered four Budweisers, gathered them up and made his way to Sergeant Pheonix’s table. He was mid-flow telling a story about an old Chevy truck he and his father worked on back home. Bill quietly placed a beer bottle down before him and his two friends, both corporals. He ignored Bill and finished his story. The two corporals eyed him warily.
As he ended and silence fell around the group, Bill finally interrupted. “Sergeant Pheonix, isn’t it? I’m Bill, a friend of Albie and Chester. I’d like to have a quiet word with you, if I may?”
The sergeant peered at Chester, who replied with a slight nod. “Oh, you must be the Brit reporter from the BBC. I’ve seen you in here from time to time. Let’s take a quiet seat over there and talk, and you can call me James.”
The sergeant bade farewell to his companions and followed Bill over to a table in what they referred to as the saloon, a quieter area to do serious drinking or have clandestine chats like these. Black market transactions often occurred back here too. Pheonix relit the cigar that was clenched in his teeth, drew on it rhythmically, puffing out little streams of smoke like a steam train chugging up a hill.
“I guess you want to know what I told Albie, right? All I know is that this guy is German, and it ain’t the first time. There have been at least three others. They show up at the airport from elsewhere by military transport, then catch a flight out to Wiesbaden. The weird thing is, they are always in an American uniform, like some kind of cover. So they think we don’t notice, but they end up talking to some of the Germans we got working at the airfield.”
“What did he look like?”
“Shit. You white mother fuckers all look the same! I guess about five foot ten, blond.”
“And why are you so keen to tell the press about this?”
“Look, I ain’t had the best time since the war. It sure beats going back to the States, but they still treat us like dirt here. I fought right up through Italy. I took a hit in the right shoulder and another through my ass. I got awarded a Bronze Star, Combat Infantryman Badge, campaign medals, the works. Then one day, there’s no one left to fight, and we’re right back to where we started. Getting fucked-on by the man. Guarding a damned airfield in a half-destroyed city, a thousand miles from home, that no one gives a shit about. Berlin is just the same as back home. We are soldiers. I lost a lot of friends, and now it’s all over. I’m just another Negro in the white man’s army. I don’t owe them shit. I ain’t keeping their secrets for them. They are recruiting Nazis from somewhere and flying them out of this dump, off to some fancy hotel somewhere, while me and the guys get a lousy bunk in a barrack block.”
“I can see why you aren’t so keen to keep a lid on it. Can’t you call it a day and head home?”
“And go back to what? No job and no respect. I send half my money home to my ma, the rest I spend here to help forget. Well, almost everything. At least in Berlin, I can go nearly anywhere, and not be made to go through the back door like some animal, or stand on a bus for some white dude who’s never been closer to combat than when his mama whooped his ass for stealing candy when he was ten.”
“I’m sorry they have treated you this way, James. For what it’s worth, I don’t much like Americans, either. The hypocrisy makes me sick to the stomach. Thanks for your service. I appreciate the information. I’ll try to make sure it does some good. Let me buy you another drink. I have a few more questions.”