Snakes and Ladders Read online

  They took a little while coming, but I was in no great hurry. First I was sent up to the Holding Battalion, or whatever it was called, in a deserted mill in Ramsbottom, Lancashire. It was a tedious time, spent mainly in a Lloyd loom chair in the Officers’ Mess, reading old copies of The Field and Everybody’s. No one seemed to know what to do with me. However, I was assigned to a batman, a sturdy fellow from Bolton who worked, before the war, in a brass-foundry, and it was he, more than anyone else, who told me what to do, where to go, and when I was on duty. I have always been deeply grateful to him, and never more so than the morning he came to call me with the news that I was posted to my first assignment. I was to join an Infantry Regiment as an L.O. the next morning.

  “What is an L.O., Ben?”

  “Liaison Officer, I think.”

  “What do they do?”

  “God knows.”

  “Where is the regiment? Hope to God it’s not near here.”

  Ben laid my gleaming Sam Browne carefully over a chair. “How the hell do I know, sonny? Go and read the Board, it’ll be in yer Mess.”

  With this sensible advice, and no more, I discovered that my assignment was in a place near Redruth, which was, someone said idly over his greasy breakfast, in Cornwall. It was a long way to go to be an L.O. but one very quickly got used to that, and anywhere was better than the gloom and misery of the mill at Ramsbottom.

  In an orchard, pleasantly set by a river, I was put into a tent, told we were all off to North Africa but that it was still hush-hush, and that being an L.O. meant that I should be used to send messages of a private and personal nature, rather like a pigeon, only that instead of using wings I would be required to ride a motor cycle.

  Which was the silliest thing I’d ever heard in all my two years service. After a few miserable days’ practice round the Cornish lanes, clutching a map and dressed as if I were about to be fired from a cannon, in breeches, boots and a too-tight crash helmet, it was deemed that I was ready for work and was given a small buff envelope marked Secret, a map reference which turned out to be a house in a large park which was a neighbouring Brigade Headquarters, and sent off with strict instructions that the Brigadier was to receive the envelope from my own gauntlet-gloved hands before luncheon. Or at the latest by thirteen-forty-five hours. Which was very confusing.

  I didn’t fall off once on my way to the HQ, but as I turned carefully into the rhododendrons lining the long drive up, thinking vaguely of “Rebecca” and North Africa at the same time, I stalled the machine, swerved into the bushes and fell off. Quite gracefully. Since I could already see the slate roof of the house and a large bay window, I decided that I would push the thing up the hill, and give it, and myself, a bit of a rest before the journey back. However, it appeared quite immovable. I pushed, tugged, dragged the bloody thing from the bushes and, helmet askew, sweat pouring down, strove to drag it up the hill. Someone came slowly down the drive, hands on hips, and stood for a moment watching my futile efforts.

  “Having trouble?”

  A pleasant voice, solicitous.

  “I can’t start this bloody thing.”

  “Apparently.”

  “I simply hate the buggers …”

  He came a little closer, hatless and smiling calmly.

  “I think you’ll find it’s in gear.”

  Shame flooded me, I cursed, slipped out of gear and started on up the hill puffing. He walked a little ahead, hands behind his back.

  “Typical of the bloody army. I can’t ride a motor bike and they make me an L.O. Have you ever heard of anything so idiotic …” We went on up, me pushing, sweat pouring, sunlight flicking through the trees, he scuffing along ahead with highly polished little boots. When we got to the front of the house, the land was flat, and I came to a halt in the gravel, thankfully. He turned at the steps to the house: “Have you a message or something?”

  “Yes …” I fumbled in my battledress and found the rather, by now, crumpled envelope. “But it’s for the Brigadier; I was told to deliver it personally.”

  “That’s what you’re doing,” he said. “I am he.”

  * * *

  I was told to stay to luncheon, since it was nearer thirteen-forty-five hours than it was mid-day, owing to my recalcitrant bike, and found the Mess a great deal more attractive than any of the others I had set foot in. This was a much jollier place; people laughed. Apparently my ill-delivered message, whatever it was, made everyone’s spirits rise, and I was even offered a pink gin before the meal and a second helping of jam roly-poly. The Brigadier, a neat, compact little man, with reddish hair, brilliant blue eyes and a tongue like a whip when he wished to use it as such, fired questions across the table at me like balls at a coconut shy, and then disconcertingly announced that we would play a word game.

  “Call it ‘Derivations’; invented in this Mess. We’ll do a dummy-run, you’ll soon pick it up. Anyone care to start?” He peered round the table under sandy brows.

  A scraping of knives and forks in the sudden hush; then the I.O. cleared his throat. “The Camberwell Beauty,” he said.

  The Brigadier looked thoughtful. “Camberwell. Not Gertie Millar, is it?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Well, some kind of Cabaret gel, a toe-dancer, eh?”

  The I.O. shook his head.

  A junior officer with a stammer took a risk.

  “Some k-k-k-ind of r-r-r-r-ailway engine? Like ‘The Flying Scot’?”

  “No. Not mechanical. Animal.”

  “Ah ha!” cried the M.O. happily. “A horse, what? Derby winner, Fred Archer up?”

  “Not a horse … six legs, I venture.”

  “Got it! An insect?”

  “Hot! I say, damned good! Jolly hot!”

  “A butterfly?”

  “Scalding, old man!”

  “Derivation!” snapped the Brigadier impatiently.

  “No offers?”

  “Not the foggiest,” said the M.O. and helped himself to Malvern Water.

  “Found there,” the I.O. was beaming. “Cool Arbour Lane, Camberwell, 1740 something.”

  The Brigadier fixed me with blue lasers. “Got the hang of it? Stops the brain from getting soggy … on your toes, what? Have a think … but don’t butt-in if someone else is playing; damned infuriating.”

  Since I was quite resigned, owing to my lamentable behaviour at our meeting, to being R.T.U. or court martialled for impertinence and ignorance, I ate well and joined in the absurd game with the greatest alacrity and good humour. The condemned man having his meal with the warders. I discovered, to my astonishment, that I was as full of irrelevant knowledge and jokes as a box of crackers; it might well have been the pink gin, but I really think it was hopelessness before the drop. They were amused with my derivation of the word posh (Portside Out, Starboard Home) and seemed intrigued when I explained that the nursery song, “Ring A Ring O’Roses” was in fact a jingle about the plague. The Brigadier’s blue eyes went into slits.

  “Don’t follow that at all … why?”

  “Well, er … the ring of roses was the red blotches the disease made on their faces, Sir.” I was nearly-overcareful about the Sir bit from now on.

  “I see. What about the posies then?”

  “Posies of cloves and flowers to keep the smell away, Sir.”

  “Smell, was there?”

  “Yes, Sir, awful.”

  “And the rest? All the Atishoo Atishoo, that stuff?”

  “The first symptoms of the plague, Sir.”

  “And All Fall Down?”

  “Well … dead, Sir … you know …”

  “Really. Well. I see. Would somebody ring for the coffee?”

  I enjoyed my lunch immensely. Six days later, in some bewilderment I must confess, I strapped up my bed-roll, folded my collapsible canvas shaving-stand, packed my books and camp bed and moved into a very small attic in the roof of Brigade Headquarters to become the unofficial A.D.C. to the Brigadier. Unofficial since there was no such post; but as
I didn’t know that then, and as no one told me otherwise, or cared to, and since I had enormously disliked my sagging tent in the orchard by the river, I asked no questions and simply prayed to God that I would last out this extraordinary promotion. I felt almost fondly disposed towards the khaki motor bike which had delivered me at such an opportune moment. The old thing of “if I hadn’t been there at the right moment …” For me, trundling up the drive that morning, pushing a stalled bike and catching, all unawares, the Brigadier on his way back from a quick pee in the bushes, was as decisive a change in my life as if the bike had heaved me over its handlebars in front of a tank.

  For a week or ten days I sat proudly up front in the staff Humber, map reading us all over Cornwall and a good deal of Devon. I didn’t get us lost often, and on a number of occasions got us there too early even, by taking side roads, at a frightening risk. I opened doors, stood to attention, carried the bumph without which no Staff Officer seemed complete, arranged thermos flasks of coffee with neat flasks of brandy alongside, had sandwiches ready for longer trips; I knew when to talk, and when to shut up, and how to arrange the seating at a dinner table if a visiting dignitary arrived with his A.D.C. from a neighbouring Brigade or Division. Added to which I memorised every single name that I felt would be needed in the job and a great many which only might be; a useful precaution. The training I had had as an actor, of all things, was coming in very handy, as Lally used to say. And I wasn’t about to let any thing slip from my joyful fingers. At last, at last, I was not a square peg. I was as round as a dowel-rod, and it seemed, I prayed deeply, that I fitted my equally round hole.

  At the end of my trial session—for that’s what it was naturally; no one was a complete fool; and just because I could read a map, and knew the derivation of a nursery rhyme, no one was going to risk me with anything more serious than a summer ride through the dog leg lanes of Cornwall—at the end of my trial a light remark at dinner that we were to go to London to the War Office, by road, for three days and would I please make all the arrangements, gave me hope that I had passed my test. I said, “Yes, Sir” with a quiet confidence which I did not in the least feel, and the Adjutant, who was sitting beside me vaguely stirring his coffee, thoughtfully picked his nose.

  * * *

  In the last days of July, I was made up to Full Lieutenant. My kite had caught the breeze. My Brigadier took me in hand and started my training in earnest. I really do not know why: possibly he had ideas that one day he would become a General and would have need of an A.D.C., or just possibly he wanted a dog’s-body to run and fetch and carry for him. I have no idea. I only knew at the time that he had given me his implicit trust and that I must, indeed wished to, honour it to the very best of my abilities. After all, I had made a pretty poor showing in the Army for the last two years. Here was something that I could at least deal with. It was, when all was said and done, an actor’s job. But there was a great deal to learn. I really had had no idea how to sit a table correctly: it was he himself who, at the very beginning, scribbled vague little sketches of his table and guests and told me who should sit beside whom and why. I soon caught on and, with the help of an old copy of Mrs Beeton which the Mess Cook slipped into my hands one afternoon on Kitchen Inspection, I was off. The tables got arranged, pretty well … with few mistakes; and Cabinet Pudding and Macaroni Bully Beef gave way to Chocolate Mousse and Truite aux Amandes. At first there were mild complaints but the Brigadier said everyone was getting too fat and that a little variation was essential. The Cook and I and Mrs Beeton did what we could to vary the monotony of the rations. It wasn’t much, and sometimes was a disaster, but at least we were trying.

  My absurdly boyish face was a very useful disguise. And a dangerous trap for many a Colonel or even, on a couple of occasions, a General or two. If the Brigadier wanted to find out a little bit of gossip which had so far not come his way, it was I who was set out to discover it. And after a meeting, wherever it might be, during a picnic on an exercise, a formal dinner in the Mess, or even a drink at the bar, it was my job to try and find out, in as casual a manner as possible, just what he wanted to know. I found other A.D.C.’s extremely useful for information. Usually given to bragging a little, and condescending, for they knew that my status as an A.D.C. was false, and that I had been an actor, they unwittingly fell into my traps without ever knowing they had. I didn’t at all mind the patronage I often received at that time, for I knew full well what my job was, and that later in the evening I would be able to report to my Old Man and shake out a modest little packet of scraps—which only he could possibly manage to put together. It was a very successful relationship as far as that went, and I don’t think that I was ever found out in my devious business. Added to which I thoroughly enjoyed it.

  So intent was the Brigadier on bettering his unofficial A.D.C. that he sent me off on various courses all over the country, street fighting in Blackburn, a mortar course in Bury, a gas course at Frimley, most of which I managed to survive, if perhaps not excel in, except, unhappily as it turned out for him, one War Intelligence Course in Matlock Spa to which I reported in the October of’ 43 and left in the December as a fully fledged Brigade Intelligence Officer. He was pleased, I was staggered; but not very long after his pleasure gave way to white rage at breakfast when he chucked a signal across the table which said that I was to join 2nd Army Headquarters in London, directly, as an Air Photographic Interpreter. Although none of us knew it then, planning for the 2nd Front was beginning. There wasn’t much he could do about it, since the order came from Montgomery himself, but he was unforgiving and when I asked permission to see him to say goodbye, and also to thank him, he refused. I left for my new, glorious job in misery. I didn’t see him again until one misty October day just after the débâcle at Arnhem. There was no one I knew in the Mess in the shell-pocked red-brick château which his Brigade occupied. They were polite, if evasive, all looked rather young and new. Eventually he came into the room—we were having tea—glanced at me, sat down, crossed his shining little booted feet, milked his tea and asked me if I had enjoyed, what he called, “your cushy job”. There was no forgiveness. He had lost too many since the Normandy landings, and made it clear. “Won’t find anyone you used to know here now; all gone. We lost more than half the Brigade. Bloody lucky for you that you got out when you did.”

  There was nothing to say. Useless to try and explain that he had been my catalyst, and that even though I was still alive and in his Mess, there had been times … useless. I left very shortly afterwards; he was reading and didn’t look up.

  * * *

  But there wasn’t really very much point in remembering all this sort of trivia rattling through the back streets of Clapham and Wandsworth, seeing, very clearly, the present and the future through the dirty carriage window. Gooley, Catterick, the first train journey up there to that starting point. Wrotham and Shrivenham, the Brigadier and the motor bikes, assault courses, promotions, D Day and Arnhem, Berlin and the stink of dead, the hysteria of Peace on the Heath at Luneberg, Himmler lying sprawled in the bay window of a villa, a blanket over his skinny body, British Army Issue boots sticking out at five-to-nine at the end of bony ankled legs; pith helmets bobbing on the water outside Bombay, like jelly fish, a trooper sailing majestically out past us, the singing voices thin across the sea in the fading tropic light, but strong with relief for all that, the voices, a swelling chorus to jeer us in …

  “for we’re saying goodbye to them all,

  the long and the short and the tall,

  you’ll get no promotion

  this side of the ocean …”

  and five nights on another train across the stranger-continent to Calcutta. Monkeys as well as parrots in the banyan trees, Tagore’s palace and the sudden monsoon, the rain falling like steel rods, iced lime juice in the sticky heat of Green’s Hotel, the gentleness of the Indian, the startling, shameful, arrogance of the Memsahibs, mid-wives at the abortion of an Empire; Truman’s gesture to mankind and the p
ulverisation of two Japanese cities, branding forever man as the descendant of the killer ape. And in the vacuum which followed, the slow trip across tropical seas in an L.S.T. to an island bent on its own self-mutilation in the name of Freedom. “Merdeka!” the word to ring with fear through one’s head for months to come. A world turned upside down, the values back to front, the oppressed rising against the oppressor, all over again, and with what results? New oppressors, new oppressed.

  But now it was all over for me at any rate, the brave new world lay all about me outside the windows, the world to which I now must belong. The past was the past and all I had to worry about was now. Childhood had been easy, beautiful, a glory … unforgettable. Adolescence had only just started to offer the most tentative of budding shoots when the burgeoning plant was culled, bound, and trundled off in a 15-cwt truck from Richmond station into what were now quite obviously, the best years of your life. No good carrying any of this stuff about with me like a bundle of crinkled love letters. Chuck it. The hardest part was yet to come, the growing up; I was going to find it harder than anything I had ever been called upon to do.

  How do you, at twenty-six, green as a frog, join the team with all the years since nineteen missing? Who would care, or have the time? Where would I go, and what would I do now? A sort of panic mounted, Windlesham, if I was lucky. Little boys in grey flannels running up and down a cricket pitch. Or I could work in a pub … wait at table … perhaps get a job in a prison even? Something with men, something with the same sort of background which I was now being forced to leave … could I get a job with the War Graves Commission even? Hopelessness rose in me like a fever, I wasn’t ready … don’t get into Waterloo … don’t start my new life too quickly … I’m not ready, I don’t know how to do it.