Declarations of War, page 8
When he arrived at the house, General Parkstone was asleep for the first time in forty hours. He was hunched across the back seat of his Humber with his cap tipped over his face and a book of poetry on the floor. His pale-blue eyes blinked awake as his driver opened the door. He recognized the cornices and the superb front-door. He’d seen this house before. He’d seen almost every Georgian house in Southern England. Prospect, this one was called, and Parkstone saw in that name the promise of a happy life as well as a fine vista. He felt a moment of envy for the man who’d designed and sited this mansion. He hurried inside where his batman had prepared a hot bath, clean clothes and a bowl of tinned soup.
This wasn’t Parkstone’s first war, as one glance at his greying hair and the ribbons on his chest confirmed. Before going to the Staff College in 1918 he’d won a D.S.O. and Bar and an M.C. Some said that the action at Polygon Wood, when Parkstone brought in four casualties under fire and got a mention, would have got a V.C. for a lower rank. Not that Parkstone’s past valour did him much good in his present job. Decorations from the First World War dated him. Beaten in France by a dynamic Panzer Army, the British had suddenly decided that youthful commanders were the secret of victory. ‘Suspect,’ a very senior officer had told Parkstone, tapping his medal ribbons, ‘suspect, General!’ Outraged by the injustice of such treatment, Parkstone had nodded. Even to remember it made him flush with shame.
For Major-General A. G. Parkstone was no blimp. A close friend of Swinton and Fuller, he’d been a tank man when such heresies were a great impediment to his career. Now that armoured warfare had become the epitome of fashion, Parkstone was accused of being the same sort of fogey that he’d spent his career opposing.
Lieutenant Fane came into the dining-room and checked the number of cups on the sideboard before opening a tin of biscuits that he had been jealously guarding for a week. He put them out on the plates, roughly calculating at three biscuits per officer. He was a tall elderly man with a bony nose and thin lips that he sometimes bit bloodless rather than lose his temper. Lieutenant Fane was Camp Commandant. He had spent most of his life as a senior N.C.O. In order to take charge of the domestic side of this Divisional H.Q. he’d got a commission, but he had no illusions about it. To the men around him he was still an N.C.O. despite the salutes that he now got from his clerks and waiters, and Fane was satisfied that it should be so.
He looked around the room approvingly; his clerks had done a good job. It was almost impossible to believe that it had only been inhabited for a couple of hours. He’d found the carpets in the attic, and they were bright and clean as ever they’d been. He had chivvied the Catering Sergeant into lighting one of the kitchen stoves, and they’d found a collection of odd teacups and saucers in a tea-chest in the pantry. There was an army blanket over the dining-room table to protect it from careless cigarettes or hot teapots.
‘A good effort, Camp,’ said Parkstone.
‘Sir!’ Fane went to the door and placed a notice there: COMMANDING OFFICERS’ CONFERENCE. NO ADMISSION. He nodded to the sentry. ‘No one else.’
‘Sir.’
The past inhabitants of the house would have rejoiced to see the dining-room that Tuesday afternoon in 1941. It had been as lively as this when young Victoria was crowned, and as sunny when Uncle Arthur celebrated his knighthood. There had been fireworks on the lawn at Mafeking, and an orchestra in the summerhouse for Emily’s twenty-first. But never had the dining-room vibrated with the sound of so many polished masculine voices as when the senior officers of Parkstone’s Division greeted their comrades, ragged their school chums and artfully probed the credentials of newcomers. They had all arrived by ten minutes to four, none of them wishing to face the cold greeting that Parkstone reserved for people who were merely punctual.
Major-General Parkstone, a slight, pale figure, circulated among his officers. Colonel Lee – who commanded one of the armoured regiments from inside his tank – was wearing clean, pressed overalls. Mitchell, Lee’s Brigadier, was in shirtsleeve order, his khaki shirt bleached almost white. Chaps back from the desert liked to advertise the fact, thought Parkstone. He’d never got along well with Brigadier Mitchell, a blond thirty-seven-year-old with a tanned skin and a nose full of broken capillaries. Mitchell and his protégé Lee had both got mentions the previous winter, when the 7th Armoured Division chased Berganzoli and his Italians across Cyrenaica. Those two had smelled the scent of victory, and breathed it proudly among colleagues who had tasted the sand of Dunkirk. Parkstone nodded to the two men and moved past them to where his G.S.O.I, Colonel Joyce, was standing near the sideboard, examining a bowl of wax fruit inside its dusty glass dome.
Joyce offered his commander a plate of biscuits. The plump little Irishman, dark skinned from a quarter-century of Indian sun, had still not got used to rooms and streets full of white faces. He also had known victory, in Africa, with his Punjabis. But defending the mountain stronghold of Keren, the Italians had fought like tigers. Joyce had watched his Indians die on every crag. He had no illusions about blitzkriegs.
‘Those oatmeal ones are grand.’ Even after all the time away, there were still traces of Kerry. The voice was known to everyone in the room. Like every chief-of-staff, he was able to manage on little or no sleep and spent almost all his waking hours giving wireless orders. He’d had only brief moments out of his command vehicle since the battle had started.
Parkstone smiled and took a biscuit. Joyce was an old friend. He, more than anyone, knew the difficulties he faced. Armoured Divisions were the newest toys of the General Staff. They only awarded them to their brightest boys, that’s why everyone wanted one. Some said it was more difficult to get than a Corps.
‘I’ll take two, Joycey, while I’ve got the chance.’ They both smiled.
Lieutenant Fane appeared at the Irishman’s elbow with a glass of ice-cold beer. ‘You’re a darling man, Camp,’ said Joyce in a stage-Irish accent.
The old boy was a great organizer, thought Parkstone, the best Camp Commandant he’d known. He did most of the Quartermaster’s work, too. Parks nodded to Fane to tell him that they should soon be moving into the drawing-room. He wondered who the portraits could be: the girl in the pink dress, the two young country squires on horseback and the old man so proud of his knighthood that he’d had a scroll painted around his head like the halo on a martyr.
There was a noise that rattled the cut-glass chandelier as a formation of fighters came over the house at one thousand feet. Some of the officers moved to the French windows to catch sight of them before they disappeared over the tree tops.
‘Spitfires,’ said Mitchell.
‘Off to the real war.’ Colonel Lee brushed a biscuit crumb off his immaculate tankman’s overalls.
‘It won’t be long now.’ Mitchell smiled at his protégé. Unlike the others, they knew all about the real war. ‘The two Hussars’, the others called them derisively but they liked this label; they relished its connotations of vigour and élan.
In the kitchen garden the young man also looked up at the Spitfires before glancing back at the senior officers moving past the hall window as they filed into the drawing-room. He’d tried to get around the terrace to glimpse the map on the wall, but there was an armed sentry on duty each side of the shrubbery, and even from here he could see that the drawing-room curtains were closed. He cursed his own stupidity in not hiding those curtains before the soldiers had arrived.
Major-General Parkstone lit a cigarette himself to avoid giving formal permission to smoke. It was dark in the curtained drawing-room, apart from the battery of lights that had been arranged to shine upon the blackboard and the map that were mounted on the platform.
‘Two squadrons of armoured cars will be ahead as far as Maidstone. The infantry attached to the armoured brigade – that is to say, Sammy’s battalion – will maintain contact with Brigadier Mitchell by means of the command tank. It is imperative that tank crews realize that the speed of advance will be dictated by the pace of the infantry. Infantry are the eyes of the advance; without them, closed-down tanks will get into trouble. I’ll deal personally with any breach of this order.’ Parkstone could see that the commander of one of the armoured regiments was fidgeting. ‘Colonel Lee, you have a question?’
‘Affirmative,’ said Lee. He spoke in strange staccato bursts, like economical machine-gun fire. ‘Maidstone: south of the river. Could give us a chance to break out. The recce squadrons give me the green light. I’d punch one of my sabre squadrons southwards and keep going.’
‘The Guderian approach,’ nodded Parkstone. It was strange that he had spent most of his life advocating breakthrough armour tactics without response. Then came Dunkirk, and now it had become necessary to curb everyone’s desire to stage a blitzkrieg. ‘This is not Sedan,’ said Parkstone, ‘we are not fighting the French…’ he paused before adding, ‘and you are not Guderian.’ He gave the room a moment or two to absorb the reprimand he’d given Lee. ‘If we put an armoured column down the Ashford road the enemy will tear open the flank of the whole Corps. Look.’ Patiently Parkstone ran his hands across the map to explain the strategy of the battle from Portsmouth to Margate. Parkstone’s Division was protecting London. Now that the Corps was advancing, Parkstone’s task was to maintain contact with his flanks. Only that morning the Corps Commander had pointed out that Parkstone’s front would be stretched by advancing. Strategically, the less he advanced the safer London would remain.
Outside, by the flowerbeds that skirted the croquet lawn, the man in civilian clothes made a decision. He had gathered a large bunch of mixed flowers and walked slowly towards the servants’ entrance. Outhouses surrounded a cobbled yard on the east side of the house, and on a clothesline stretched across the yard hung khaki shirts and underclothes. Three batmen were sitting in the derelict dairy. They had got a fire going in an old stove near by and were drinking tea and chatting. The last of the row of outhouses had once been the head gardener’s house, and an old sofa and some chairs were still there. The Military Police Sergeant had claimed it as his office. The man in civilian clothes pushed open the double gates to enter the courtyard and found himself half strangled by the Police Sergeant before he knew what was happening.
‘And where are you off to, my pretty maid?’
‘Flowers for the Officers’ Mess dining-room,’ grunted the man. The Police Sergeant did not relax his hold. ‘Just drop them on the floor, chummy.’ The flowers dropped to the cobbles and, still holding the man, the Sergeant kicked them gently with his toe to be sure there was nothing concealed there. He released the man, who rubbed his neck and said, ‘A nice mess you’ve made of the flowers now.’
‘And a nice mess my General would have made of me if you’d gone waltzing into the house,’ said the Police Sergeant. ‘Who are you, anyway?’
‘Pepper. I’m the gardener for Mr Matthews who owns Prospect. I’m the one that will get into trouble for all the damage your lot are doing.’ He finished picking up the flowers. ‘Am I allowed to take them inside now, or will you do it?’
The Police Sergeant patted Pepper’s pockets and under his arms. Before the war he had been a prison warder, and he searched him with a swift professional flourish. ‘O.K. Mr Pepper. Just as far as the kitchen door. Hand them to one of the cooks. I’ll be watching you.’ He glanced towards the house. The drawing-room was over the kitchen, but the curtains were still tightly closed.
‘Just as you like,’ said the man. When he got to the kitchen door he didn’t knock, but took from his pocket four tin-tacks and a piece of red paper and fixed a notice to the door. The Police Sergeant ran to him, but the man in civilian clothes just stood and grinned. On the piece of paper was crudely printed the word ‘Bomb’. In the bottom right-hand corner it was signed by a Captain Ridley on behalf of Lieutenant-General Post, the senior referee of the whole Southern Command Exercise.
‘But good God Almighty,’ said Parkstone, ‘you can’t kill a man with a sheet of paper.’ He had the red paper in his hand and he kept examining it as though some new information might appear there.
‘It’s ridiculous,’ agreed Colonel Joyce. ‘I’ve been on to Command, but it seems our move this morning has rather outstripped the referees.’
‘He was searched?’ Parkstone asked for the fifth time.
‘He was, sir, very thoroughly, by Sergeant Albany.’
‘If he’d really had a bomb he would have found it.’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘After all,’ said Parkstone, forcing a smile, ‘I could have sent the whole Staff a postcard with “bullet” written on it. What then?’
Joyce nodded.
‘You can’t kill a roomful of chaps with a sheet of paper, Joycey, or the War Office would have obliterated the Jerries in the first week of war, eh?’
Joyce smiled.
‘It’s buggered the briefing.’
‘Yes, sir, and I think you had them ready to go.’
‘I think I did, Joycey.’
The General looked at his watch again. How long would this bloody referee be? Inevitably, his senior officers would be talking about this business. He wondered what they would be saying about it.
‘Everyone thinks it’s quite idiotic, sir.’
‘Do you think we could find them all a real drink, Joycey?’
‘If we used up your personal bar, sir. Then we could squeeze them out a small one.’
‘Do that.’
The General sat down on his desk and sorted through his piles of paperwork: fire support, boundaries, water, fuel, daily objectives. But he couldn’t take his mind off the paper bomb.
When the referee arrived it was Brigadier Frederick. Until Dunkirk, ‘Bunny’ Frederick had been noted for his immaculate appearance: Sam Browne, riding-boots starched collars, the finest of gold-wire badges and a riding-crop in his formally gloved hands. Now, Parkstone noted sardonically, it was the age of the private soldier. Frederick was wearing an old battledress with a webbing belt and gaiters and a steel helmet with netting. His cloth badges had been carefully dirtied – to avoid snipers – and he’d exchanged his gold spectacles for a steel pattern frame that the army issued to recruits. He saluted.
‘Hello, Bunny,’ said General Parkstone.
‘A fine how-do-you-do this is, Parks, old boy.’
‘How do you want to do this, Bunny? Set up an office here and see this so-called spy and my Police Sergeant?’
‘No need, Parks. I know all the details, there’s nothing to settle. The fellow has blown up your whole Div. H.Q. There’s not one senior commander between Green Force and London. If they exploit the gap they’ll be in London by tonight. Sorry, old fellow.’ The Brigadier spoke rapidly and tonelessly, like a child reciting a poem that it didn’t understand.
‘But Bunny, for Lord’s sake listen. This chap was searched. All he had was a piece of paper—’
‘Piece of paper to you, bomb to me.’ He smiled. ‘We’re up against a tough opponent, Parks. The Hun is going to use every damned trick in the book and a few not in the book. Look at Holland: parachute troops dressed as nuns.’ He slapped his thigh with an imaginary riding-crop.
‘Must have been damned draughty up their skirts,’ said Parks. ‘I’ve never believed that stuff about paratroop nuns, a bit too much like some of those atrocity stories that came out of Belgium in the first lot.’
‘Yes, well, you remember the first lot, of course. But this is a different sort of war we’re fighting, Parks. You don’t believe in nuns and you don’t believe in spies—’
‘I didn’t say I don’t believe in spies,’ said General Parkstone. ‘I don’t believe in things that are not evidenced. I don’t believe in paper bombs.’
‘You underrate the enemy, sir,’ said Bunny Frederick, ‘if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘I don’t think I agree,’ said Parkstone.
‘Well, luckily it wasn’t up to me. I went over to Army before coming here. That’s what made me a bit late. The fact is, Parks, that the exercise will stop at 18.00 hours. It was agreed that there is no point in continuing with so many senior officers pulled out of the battle.’ Frederick tugged at the brassard that had a large R on it. ‘Five referees gave evidence and that was the decision. Sorry, Parks.’
‘Did they say anything about me?’
Frederick shuffled, and pulled the strap of his respirator case so that it fitted more comfortably on his shoulder. ‘The chief was in a black mood, Parks. They all were except Simms – you know, the G2 Major – it was his idea, the bomb. He was almost jubilant – expounding his theories about infiltration, you know.’
‘I know.’ Parks nodded. ‘Think I’ll lose the Division, Bunny?’
‘Of course not, Parks.’
‘You’d better tell me, Bunny. I’d sooner know from you.’
‘It’s only talk.’
‘Say on.’
‘It might go to Mitchell. The Chief wants young commanders. You can’t blame him, Parks…the press, the P.M., the politicians, all keep talking about Britain’s new young army…recruiting jaw-jaw, don’t you know.’
‘A triumph for the Hussars.’ He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.
‘Yes, Mitchell’s lad Lee will probably get Mitchell’s Brigade.’
Frederick walked across the room to look out of the window. He didn’t want to look at Parkstone. He asked himself if he’d handled it terribly badly. He wished desperately that he had the deft touch of a diplomat, so that he could have lessened the blow. But Bunny Frederick wasn’t a diplomat, or even a very good soldier. At Sandhurst where Under-Officer Parkstone was still something of a legend, Gentleman Cadet Bunny Frederick had been a dud, swotting like mad and sometimes cheating, just to end up with a pass into the army. His sympathy could be no comfort to a man like Parks. It would make him feel even worse; but at least Bunny Frederick knew this. ‘Must have been a magnificent place once,’ he said. ‘You’ve always liked these Georgian country-houses.’
