I met the man Goldie had referred to as Driver Raffles for the first time in my room at Tempsford the day I returned from Crifton. When I walked in on him I thought I was being burgled. But he was sharp: he spoke first.
‘Mr Bassett, would it be, sir?’
That’s the first time I noticed his joint services uniform, tank jacket and the Sten gun on a piece of rope around his neck. By joint services uniform I mean that he had a Navy battledress blouse, Army trousers, a small black beret without a badge and the high lace-up boots with canvas tops that the Germans wore in the desert. I noticed the Sten first.
‘Yes. Who are you?’
‘Private Finnigan, sir: Major England’s man. I was taking the liberty of getting your things together, sir. We won’t have a lot of time.’
‘For what?’
‘Stowing your spare gear at the Major’s club, sir, getting you kitted out, and getting over to France.’
‘Funny you should say that, sir. I saw a comedian just last week who used that as his new catchphrase.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Can’t make my mind up, sir. He’s either effing useless, or an effing genius: sometimes it’s hard to tell.’
Private Finnigan was a small man, in the vertical – like me – but he had a prize fighter’s shoulders and arms. His face was a bit bashed up, and topped by an unruly thatch of curly light brown hair. I thought I could place his accent within a few miles. I said, ‘You’re from somewhere south of London, say Morden or Sutton.’
‘Not bad, sir; you’ve obviously an ear for it. I was brought up at Belmont, like in The Merchant of Venice. That’s near Banstead, in Surrey.’
I said, ‘I come from Surrey myself. You don’t sound like a Finnigan to me.’
‘And you, sir, if you forgive my saying so, ask too many bleeding questions.’
‘Sorry, Private.’
Finnigan nodded, and carried on packing my gear. Everything I owned fitted into an RAF kitbag, and an old leather suitcase I’d inherited from Pete. Then there were the two US kitbags I was stashing for Tommo, the Yank. I pulled them from under the bed. Finnigan hefted one of them. He asked, ‘What’s in here, sir, War and Peace?’
‘Would you believe me if I said I didn’t know? I’m minding them for an American pal who has just been shipped back to the States, and has promised to get back to Germany before it’s all over. He says that Germany is where all the action will be when the shooting stops.’
‘He’d be some kind of businessman, then? This friend of yours.’
‘What was that you said earlier about people asking too many bleeding questions, Private?’
‘Just testing, sir,’ he told me, and grinned.
‘How are we travelling to your Major’s club?’
‘In your car, sir. Understand you have a little corker.’
Who had been talking?
‘Mr Clifford is a bit of a bastard, isn’t he?’
‘Not many would disagree with that, sir.’
‘The Squadron Leader led me to believe that you were already in France.’
‘So we were, sir. Now we ain’t.’
As we filled the small back seats of the car the Private looked up at the cloud base, licked his right forefinger and held it up. Then he turned to me and said, ‘Shall us have the hood up, sir? It’ll rain before we reach London.’
The little sod was right, too.
‘Are you driving, or am I?’
‘You, sir, if you don’t mind. I’ll keep an eye on your driving, if I may? The Major said to look you over.’
‘Oh he did, did he?’
‘Yes, sir. Definitely.’
After half an hour he said, ‘OK, sir. That’s enough. If you’d care to pull over I’ll drive the rest.’
I’d managed thirty-five miles without grinding a gear: no problem.
‘OK, am I?’
‘Frankly, sir, you’re effing useless, but nothing a bit o’ practice can’t cure.’
There endeth the First Lesson, and commenceth the Second. I studied him all the way to the big house in Highgate we were bound for. I hadn’t realized the little Singer was a racing car. From time to time he whistled as he drove. Always the same tune. ‘Lili Marleen’. Note perfect.
It was a huge old red-brick Victorian terraced house on Highgate Road, a wide, gently undulating road looking out into Highgate Woods. Through the trees I could see a late cricket match was under way, and hear Australian voices. A neatly painted sign on the door said, Officers’ Club. There was a threehouse gap in the terrace about a hundred yards further on. Finnigan told me, ‘That’s where the first bomb fell on London. Poor bugger was lost. I wonder if he got a medal for it?’
‘We staying here?’
‘Yes, sir. Don’t bother to unpack much. We’ll be moving on in the morning. There’s a big garage round the back: I’ll put your car up on blocks for when you come back, and stick the keys in the tail pipe, just in case you don’t.’
‘You’re very thorough.’
‘Smashing little car, sir. It would be a pity to waste it. It reminds me of a Clyno I had before the war. My missus sold it to some RAF bloke when she was short.’
I couldn’t stay angry at him for long. Not when I agreed with him. It was a smashing little car.
The airy front room of the house was a bar. There was only one person in it: a tall, round-shouldered soldier with blackrimmed spectacles, a thin dark moustache and a bit of a stoop. He was wedged into a utility armchair, and looked about 190 years old. He was probably one of the 1900 vintage. A uniform jacket with an Intelligence Corps shoulder flash was gracing the back of an upright chair. He was wearing a Fair Isle sleeveless cardie over his uniform shirt. I decided that I liked that. He looked up from a small notebook he was studying, and said, ‘Oh. Hello. You met Raffles then?’
Raffles? Private Finnigan said, ‘The Major doesn’t like Finnigan. He calls me Private Raffles, instead. Lots of other things as well.’
The big chap stood up, and held his hand out to me. He had to drop it a couple of feet before we could shake hands. He said, ‘You’re Bassett, and I’m England.’
I was quite glad that he’d got that right. I’d always heard you had to be quite sharp to get into I Corps. He’d caught my glance at his jacket and added, ‘Don’t let the badge fool you. I’m an agronomist: farming and nutrition. College lecturer before the war, and doing more or less the same now.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you about that when we get along.’
‘My last squadron were always telling me that.’
‘Maybe they wanted to get to know you first,’ Finnigan told me. Or was it Raffles?
He showed me where I could kip for the night, and where the kitchen was. We made a stack of sandwiches from tombstone-sized cuts of bread, and cut slices from the largest piece of cheese I had ever seen. Butter didn’t seem to be the usual problem, either. I had the weekly cheese ration for a family of four between two wads. The Private caught my look and said, ‘It’s a shitty war.’
‘Yeah, but the only one we got. I’ve heard that before. Do I call you Private Finnigan, or Private Raffles?’
‘Private anything.’ He shrugged. ‘Raffles: the Major rarely calls me the other.’
‘Why does he call you that?’
‘You’ll have to ask the Major that yourself, sir.’
There weren’t any other people in the place. We joined the Major back in the bar. The Private opened a couple of bottles of beer – drinking his own from the bottle, but pouring mine into a glass. The Major was on scotch and sodas: eventually he sighed and tucked his little notebook into a jacket pocket and buttoned it in. The conversation was a serious war conversation. Who was in what show at which theatre, and whether the Troc was worth what they were charging for it. Raffles excused himself after the one beer, and headed for his room. The Major held up his glass and asked, ‘Would you oblige? Get yourself one if you’d rather.’
Behind the small bar were a dozen bottles of the precious commodity, and a couple of lead-wrapped soda siphons, part full. I didn’t take a second asking.
‘Is anyone else living here, sir?’
He slurped the scotch and soda I gave him before replying.
‘No. It says Officers’ Club outside, but there are only two supply-side officers in the Corps in the European Theatre at present, and Willy – my opposite number – is away. Bandit country, I should think. So it’s our place really. We both have driver-batmen, and they lodge here with us: downstairs, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘And now there’s you. Another officer. At least we outnumber the bastards now.’
‘Why do you call your bastard Raffles, instead of his real name?’
‘Who, Les? Because I want to, I suppose. You don’t care for that?’
So: Raffles. Raffles or Les.
‘Not very much.’
‘Commie? Cliff did hint that you might be a bit of a freethinker.’
‘No, sir. I’m not a Commie yet.’
‘Forget the sir when Les is not here. I’m James.’
‘OK, James. Who am I?’
‘If you don’t know that by now, Charlie Bassett, I’m not going to tell you. Cheers. ’nother?’ This time he moved for the bar himself.
‘Thank you. How do we pay for these? Is there a slate?’
‘Doesn’t work like that in the Corps. Need to know and all that. You don’t need to know where the stuff comes from, nor who pays for it, as long as we don’t. OK?’
‘Fine. What happens to the place when you’re away?’
‘If Willy’s not here then one of Les’s brothers keeps an eye on it – he’s dozens of them: there’s always one back on leave from somewhere, and they all look hideously alike. One’s even a Brylcreem boy, like you.’
‘Cliff told me that they were lending me to you as your driver. It was also a way of getting me over to Europe to do . . . something else.’
‘A little private enterprise I hazard?’
‘Something between that and public duty. It’s not my private enterprise, anyway.’
‘Anyway, young Charlie . . .’
‘Do you know that no one calls you young Charlie if you’re six feet tall?’
‘Point taken. Anyway, Charlie. Change of plan. You’re not really a good enough driver to get me out of the trouble I sometimes get myself into, are you?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Take my word for it.’
‘OK. What next?’
‘So become my passenger. Fellow traveller. Help Raffles out when and where you can, and toddle off about your own nefarious bit of business when you have to. Sound OK?’
‘Yes, James. Yes it does. It beats bombing the hell out of the poor buggers. Do you want another?’
‘No. Lights out. I want to be on the road by 0530.’
‘That won’t be a problem.’
‘Nothing I tell you to do ever will be, old boy. You mustn’t worry.’
I didn’t like the word tell. No one ever does.
*
We were driven that morning by a WAAF driver with a big RAF Austin staff car: each of us had a half-empty kitbag in its boot. The pick-up was at Croydon airfield. Nobody told me, but I recognized it from a visit I had paid with my father before the war. We had watched the old silver Imperial Airways biplane airliners flying the England–France route. My mother had told me that she and the old man knew that the war was definitely on a month before they announced it, because from the top deck of a passing bus one Sunday they had spotted a dozen little brown and green aircraft partially under tarps near one of the boundary fences: it was the first time they’d seen a Spitfire. We passed a big corner pub named The Propeller on the way to the main gate – the last time I had seen it I was too young to drink there.
I sat in the front with the WAAF, and fell in love with her, watching the way her calf muscles tensed and relaxed each time she changed gear. It took more than an hour to get across London, and she was smiling by the time we got to our destination. Just before we slowed for the main gate and the guardhouse, I sensed Raffles and the Major settle down in their seats, and pull their collars up to obscure their faces. I copied them instinctively.
‘No telling who’s watching these days, Charlie,’ the Major told me, and, ‘No point Jerry knowing I’m coming over if he doesn’t need to.’
The girl drove us to a smallish blister hangar a long way from the main buildings. She seemed to know the form: I was glad somebody did. When we stepped out of the car and stretched, I walked around the car to the driver’s side, and bent down so that my head was level with hers. I said my thanks, and then asked, ‘Can I see you after I get back?’
She smiled, and after the significant pause, said, ‘I don’t see why not. My name’s Wayne. That’s Dolly Wayne. Section Officer. I’m at the Central Car Pool at Whitehall.’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘And you are?’
‘Sorry.’ I offered her my hand to shake through the opened car window. ‘Charlie Bassett. Pilot Officer, but I used to be a Sergeant.’
She gave my fingers a little squeeze before she let them go.
‘So did I. Happy landings, Charlie Bassett.’
After she drove away Raffles stretched again, and said, ‘You don’t waste much time, do you, sir?’
‘I don’t have much time to waste, Private. What about you?’
‘Married man, sir. Three nippers – the last was born at Christmas.’
‘What are they?’
‘All human beings, as far as I know, sir.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yeah, sorry. Sometimes I can’t resist it.’
‘I know what you mean: once I couldn’t stand officers either.’
‘What did you do, sir, if you don’t mind my asking, that was so bad that they punished you by making you be an officer?’
‘I lived. I survived. I made it. This is the RAF’s revenge.’
‘Ah. There you go, sir. They wouldn’t like that, would they?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘And my kids are all boys. Three elevenths of my own football team. Thank you for asking.’
We were standing on the tarmac with our kitbags at our feet. England was staring out across the airfield at England, if you see what I mean; distracted. I don’t think he was even aware of us.
‘What next?’ I asked Raffles.
‘You stay here, and take care of the Major for me, sir. Make sure no harm comes to him while we’re waiting for our aeroplane. I’ll pop inside, and rustle you up some decent clobber.’
‘Say that again?’
‘I’m not driving you over any border in those clothes. It may not have occurred to you, sir, but men in RAF blues aren’t exactly greeted with open arms by a citizenry you’ve been bombing shit out of for the last five years.’ Clobber: brown-job speak for walking-out dress, apparently.
It suddenly dawned on me that if there was only one person running this operation, then maybe it was neither me nor the brave Major. Inside my memory my dead friend Black Francie smiled at me. About ten minutes later Raffles called to me from a small office stuck on the side of the blister hangar, and waved me over. Inside it was like a second-hand clothes shop. He picked me out a couple of smallish pairs of battledress trousers, one khaki and one navy, and an oversized khaki bum-freezer jacket. I was joining the Army.
‘Put these on, sir, and stick yours in your bag: they still might come in useful, despite what I said earlier. Keep your boots, it’ll save you wearing gaiters, and wear your old flying jacket over the lot. A lot of us have got them; filched of course, but bloody good against the cold.’ When I paused, he added for effect, ‘If you could get a move on, sir? The plane’s due any min.’ Then he glanced out of the open door and said, ‘Sod it! Where’s the Major got to?’
I followed his gaze. Our kitbags sat on the tarmac like three small sheep, grazing. Where was the fucking shepherd? A comedian could have said that England was everywhere, but nowhere within sight. Raffles said, ‘Jildi – get a move on!’ to me as he trotted out, and, ‘You understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I told him, and began to move. Force of habit, I suppose.
When I walked out in my new kit, Raffles was standing by our sad bags of luggage, hands on hips, radiating impatience. There was a small gold cross in each lapel of my new battledress jacket. My new regimental shoulder flash said Seaforth Highlanders. It had been thoroughly spruced up, and the two holes I noted in its back panel, and one above the breast pocket, had been neatly mended. Not only a brown job, but a dead brown job, a fucking Jock, and a fucking parson to boot. Then I remembered that a Chaplain had a Captain’s rank in the Army: I’d been promoted again. I told him, ‘I’ll need a Bible and a prayer book if we’re going to carry this off.’
He swung on me, and Private to Captain or not, I would have got the rough edge of his tongue if James England hadn’t ambled around the other side of the small humped building buttoning up, and said, ‘Sorry about that. Got took short. Weren’t worried, were you? Would that be our transport just bounding down the airfield now?’
Bloody Tempsford. They always had to get in on the act. It was a 158 Squadron Hudson, and it turned out David Clifford was driving the bloody thing. Flying would have been a more appropriate description of what he was doing with it: I wondered if he had flown the type before. He was still laughing as he climbed down from the small fuselage door.
‘Did you see that, Charlie?’ he asked me. ‘Bounced like a fucking kangaroo! I hope I haven’t upset it, or stuffed the oleo legs.’
I said, ‘Hello, Cliff. Yes, I saw that. It really gives me bags of confidence.’
‘Don’t be such a dismal little sod. I’m much better with the heavies. How’s your head?’
‘Less burned, thank you. But I still have a trace of the hangover I brought from Crifton.’
‘Great people, aren’t they?’
‘No, Cliff; they’re turds. They’re exceptionally rich turds, and they might get me killed.’
‘Said it before. Dismal little sod.’
‘This is Major James England, and Private Finnigan or Raffles.’
‘I know. I knew them before you did. What ho Beginagin.’
‘Hello, sir,’ said Raffles, and gave him a salute that was like touching his forelock.
‘Hello, Cliff,’ said England. ‘Shall we get going then?’
There were eight forward-facing seats in pairs in the accommodation of the Hudson. Raffles stretched himself across two and went to sleep. England strapped in three rows back, and began to study rows of figures in his small notebook. Cliff pushed me into the seat alongside his own.
‘Don’t touch anything unless you know how to fly.’
‘I know a bit.’
‘What bit do you know – getting up into the sky, or getting back down on the ground?’
‘Neither. The bit in between.’
‘In that case don’t even think about it.’
‘You’re the boss.’
‘No, I’m not, but you don’t need to know who is.’
I think that the problem was that the Hudson was so much lighter and more sensitive than the Stirling he had shown me he was good at. All of his actions seemed heavy-handed. I think we were flying sideways as we actually unstuck. He told me, ‘That was fucking horrible.’
‘I wasn’t going to mention it.’
‘Good.’
‘Grace’s dad said I’d get a briefing before I went over.’
‘This is it, and there’s damn-all to tell. Just a couple of hints. After that you’re on your own. Well, not quite on your own. You’ve got ITMA back there, for backup.’
‘I got the impression that it was the other way round. Don’t they expect me to help them out? Look out!’ Cliff had turned to me as he spoke, trying to gauge the impact his words made. That meant that he wasn’t looking at the Waddon Gas Works chimney coming towards us at about 180 knots. He hauled us round it with a girlish giggle which didn’t suit him. The Major called forward, ‘Everything OK up there?’
‘Grand, Major. I’m just teaching old Charlie the rudiments of flying.’
‘Do it from a bit further up, old chap.’
Cliff laughed, and pulled us into a steep circling climb. He didn’t speak again until there was eight thou on the clock.
‘What do you really know about Grace?’ I asked him.
‘I know she’s jumped ship. You knew that she was a civvy pilot for the Air Transport Auxiliary: a ferry pilot?’
‘Yes, of course I knew that. I’m her intimate. That’s how I got into this mess.’
‘Somehow the ATA Command found out that she was pregnant, and grounded her until after the happy event.’
‘She wouldn’t have liked that. I wonder who told them.’ I looked away: it had been me.
‘Understatement. She threw a bleeding Dodo: tried to skewer her boss with his own walking stick. OK: grab the wheel now – both hands – and be gentle with her . . .’
‘Like you are . . .?’
‘Feet on the pedals, please; no sarcasm. OK: you’ve got her.’ He held his hands up to show me that I was flying. ‘Watch your artificial horizon – that job, there.’ He rapped one of the dials. ‘Keep the floating white line horizontal, and along the line on the face of it. Then you’ll be flying level.’
‘What did she do afterwards?’
‘Took some old war-weary Spit without permission, and thrashed it down to Great Gransden, beating up three RAF airfields in the process, abandoned it there, and went home to Mummy and Daddy in a huff, leaving the ATA and the RAF to argue what the charges should be.’
‘Good for her. Interesting though: I never her saw her lose control.’
‘Look, fly the bloody thing straight can’t you? It can’t be all that difficult.’
‘Sorry. Good for Grace, though.’
‘That’s what I thought, until Sir Peter called his markers in.’
‘When did it all start to go wrong?’
‘Lady Baker says that Grace seemed to settle back home quite quickly. She thought that she’d decided to have the baby. Actually I think that Mummy and Daddy were quite chuffed at the idea. Then Grace went to London, and you’ve been told about that, and something happened because she pissed off with some American cavalrymen, and the near Continent got its first bona fide English tourist since the start of the war.’
‘Any idea why?’
‘Obviously something to do with that bombed school, wasn’t it? Any other ideas?’
‘You know that Grace flew half a dozen trips to Germany with us, as rear gunner?’
Cliff said, ‘Christ!’ and grabbed the aircraft back from me. We immediately lost about fifty feet in a great lurch. Raffles shouted, ‘Oi!’ from the back, and Cliff shouted back, ‘Sorry!’
Then he asked me, ‘Does her old man know?’
‘Maybe. He won’t make a fuss about it as long as I’m around.’
‘How come?’
‘He was rogering her before the rest of us got there. I know, and now you know too. He won’t want to take a chance on that getting out. For all we know her baby could even be his.’
‘When was she due?’
‘About now. Maybe. I lost track of time a bit after the accident.’
‘It makes some sense to me now,’ Cliff told me. ‘One of the people she stayed with in London said that after that rocket nearly killed her she talked about putting it all right again, and told them she had pals in the American Red Cross in Paris who could do with a hand. They were the hints I mentioned earlier. Seven months pregnant, having recently helped you bomb Germany, she wanders into a bombed primary school in pieces, full of children also in pieces. Poor cow.’
‘You’re being glib, Cliff. She’s more complicated than that.’
‘Makes sense to me, too.’ That was James England. He could move stealthily when he chose: he had moved up to stand behind the seats we were in. ‘I can get you into Paris, Charlie, never fear.’
‘How long now?’ England asked us.
I could see the South Coast swimming towards us ten thou beneath. Cliff said, ‘We’ll be on the ground in an hour.’
‘Good; I’ll take a snooze then. Fly smoothly.’
‘Jawohl Herr Major,’ I told him. If he noticed he didn’t show it. He said, ‘Jolly good. Carry on then.’
I thought that I ought to bottom it out with Cliff while I still had the chance.
‘So I’ll start at the Red Cross offices in Paris. That’s your idea?’
‘Can’t think of anything better, can you?’
‘How do I report back?’
‘Don’t. Find Grace; get her to come back with you.’
‘Why is that important?’
‘Winston says so.’
‘I don’t like Winston.’
‘That’s not important.’
‘Explain please.’
‘Charlie. Elections cost money to fight and the first one after this war’s not that far away. Winston has no money at all, and few friends. You produce Grace, and a grateful Baker Small Arms Company bankrolls his next election campaign. It’s the only chance he has of beating Clem Attlee for the top job.’
‘So I’m over here to get the next Conservative government elected?’
‘That’s the ticket. You’re quite sharp when you try.’
‘But I can’t stand the bastards.’
‘So what old chap? Take this; whilst no one’s looking.’
He pulled a bulky envelope from inside his beat-up flying jacket, and pushed it into my hands. I made sure it was stowed down in a pocket.
‘What’s that?’
‘Spending money. Some dollars and pounds: they’ll get you anywhere. There are loads of invasion francs and deutschmarks, but don’t depend on them, they’re forgeries. About three and a half grand in all. That should get you through.’
‘How do I get back?’
‘Initiative. Hallmark of the officer class.’
I probably sulked. Then I asked him about Major England, and Raffles.
‘Darby and Joan. He’s not really an Intelligence Officer; he’s some sort of food and drink wallah. Les looks after everything else.’
‘He told me about being a food expert. I didn’t quite see what he meant.’
‘His job is to be just behind the point of the Army’s advance all the time, make an assessment of what food and rations it needs. It sounds safe, and it is unless Jerry decides to come back at us with a counter-attack, as he has a few times already. Then he can find he’s the wrong side of the lines, or in the middle of the shooting war. He’s been wounded twice, and Raffles three times. They’re bloody inseparable.’
‘I suppose that to do their job safely he’d have to be an ace navigator.’
‘What? Sure. An ace. Why?’
I don’t think that he realized why that worried me. I’d seen the Major studying a map before we set out. He had been holding it upside down. I heard Raffles stir in his sleep, and snort.
Cliff asked me just one more thing before we started the let-down over Abbeville. ‘That thing you just said – about Grace flying some trips with you. How come?’
‘The rear gunner – the one you were interested in – you remember I told you how he killed those policemen? Then he went over the hill. Pissed off. Grace had become attached to us earlier. She was billeting with us between delivery flights: they were sending us a lot of new Lancasters down from Ringway. She just stepped in, and took his place. No one noticed the difference. You have no idea how stupidly easy it was.’
‘The ATA must have realized that she was missing?’
‘No, Cliff. That’s the irony of it, now. She’d been grounded by them for beating up Bawne airfield in a bloody Spitfire. They thought she had the twitch.’
‘So that business with the two phoney coppers: Grace was there all the time?’
‘You could say that. Out there on the edge. She helped us cover Pete’s disappearance.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘Indubitably.’ I hadn’t used that word since I’d left the squadron.
‘Good gunner, was she?’