What I Did in the War

Sweat drops on the stubbly grey hairs of his forehead. Not from the warmth of the sheltered conservatory where the three of them unlaced their boots but from past memories.

            ‘Winter was just beginning when the Enemy helicopter landed,’ he told the newly weds. He licked cracked lips, coarse dried by the perpetual wind.  Living here, the islanders joke, you grow a new layer of skin to cope with the Antarctic gales.

            The woman struggled with jammed zips on her windproof leggings.  She and her husband had spent all day videoing the gentoo penguin colony on the far side of the island.  Twice they’d seen raised flippers of killer whales. They’d eaten sandwiches in a warm sandy hollow among seven foot high tussock grasses watched by crowlike caracaras, and cheeky little tussock birds had perched on their telescope. They’d tramped across miles of low diddledee shrubs in the eternal winds that harry the archipelago all year round. Then mist had started to gather and Jeff had mobiled them he’d collect them in his land rover.  He drove them home across the trackless hillsides, unfazed by the weather and relating stories of island life and the tourist wildlife watchers who migrated here every summer.  Now the woman pushed her long fair hair out of her eyes and prayed silently he’d hurry through his story.  Foolish old guy reliving the one moment of glory in his boring life. She wanted to shower before dinner.

Her husband said, ‘We saw the citation under the plaque.’ He enjoyed war stories.

            Jeff’s face brightened. ‘Awarded to everyone in the settlement.’ He wiped his damp forehead with thick fingers. ‘No SAS here, I told their captain. Only twenty three islanders.  He spoke excellent English. Trained in the UK, he told us with pride. How dare he?’  He swore profoundly. ‘Their country, he said.  We had no rights to be here, though my family is fifth generation.’  He pulled off his leather jacket, his arms brawny and brown haired under rolled up sleeves. ‘What could I do against ten of them, all armed?  They left one soldier in charge of the ’copter and started inspecting the settlement buildings, taking my teenage son as hostage.  I winked at Kate; she offered tea and cake to the hungry guard, inveigling him briefly into the kitchen.  Enough time to make a little alteration to the fuel pipe. When the soldiers returned their guard was back on duty, poor innocent. Then I was forced to ferry them round the island until they were satisfied there were no SAS in hiding.’

‘Were there any?’ the husband asked.

‘Those guys can vanish under one foot high fern or disappear into a diddledee bush.  Spend their nights in foxholes, living on hard tack.  The sheep dogs might scout them out, but we islanders wouldn’t find them. It wasn’t till after the war we learnt they never came to this island.’  He pushed his boots under the bench.

‘And then?’

 Jeff stood upright and next to his tall guest he looked as squat and wind battered as the bent cypresses protecting the settlement buildings. ‘Would you believe they took our teapot!  A large white round one with smiling face one side and frowning one on the other.’

Foolishly the woman laughed.  ‘Why on earth?’

‘Souvenir,’ he spat. ‘They’d be back.  This was their home, not ours.’  He was trembling now, his face dark red, the old anger thick in his throat.

Embarrassed at such an unseemly show of emotion the young wife fondled her new camera and unscrewed the heavy lens, inspecting it before she replace it carefully in its protective case. Surely one of her eight hundred photos would win her a place in the national wildlife competition back home.

Her husband said eagerly, ‘So they all drowned?’

‘Every last man of them,’ Jeff smiled.  A very unpleasant smile that deepened the creases in his face and made his heavy grey eyebrows threatening.  It was a quarter of a century ago, but even today you wouldn’t want to mess with this man.

‘Well done.’  The husband brayed with laughter like a jackass penguin.

The phone rang and Jeff disappeared into the kitchen. He returned swearing, pulled on his jacket and boots again. ‘Airport at Stanley. Island plane arriving in twenty minutes with some package. In this mist. Crazy.’

The young couple heard the land rover engine cough as he drove up the hill to the grass airstrip. They’d arrived here two days earlier by the little red islander plane, the only two passengers to disembark.  It had been sunny then, their trip across the myriad islands delightful with glimpses of sealions basking on lonely shores and mollymawks gliding on tireless wings above white choppy waves.

They showered, came down to the lounge for a pre dinner drink.

Kate greeted them.  She was a short grey haired woman with a cheerful face and clear blue eyes. ‘Meg and I’ll serve your dinner now,’ she said.  ‘Don’t know where Jeff’s got to. Must be a problem with the sheep.’

They told her.

Disbelieving, she shook her head.  ‘They never fly in this weather.  Not here.  Our airstrip’s a bit short and the slope can be dangerous when the grass is wet. Skidding. Over the cliff.’  Seeing their startled faces she said reassuringly, ‘Never happened yet, but you can’t be too careful.’

She hurried back into the kitchen and they heard her ring up. Then she returned even more worried.  ‘Stanley airport said I must be joking.  The planes are grounded.  No record of anyone ringing us.’  She called to her grand daughter, ‘You can serve up now, Meg,’ then said to the couple, ‘Sit you down and dinner’ll be with you in a moment. I’ll just pop up to the airstrip.’

They noticed her hands shaking as she pulled on boots and jacket. She said, ‘He imagines things sometimes.’

‘There was a phone call.’

‘He can’t sleep nights. All those young men.’

‘The Enemy? We thought he was proud of doing such a good job.’

‘Sons. Sweethearts. Brothers. Some could be grandparents too by now.’ She twisted her woolly hat in nervous fingers. 

‘Invaders. Fully justified.’

‘The ’copter wakes him crashing into the sea.  They call for help.  And he can’t reach them.’

The land rover bounced over the uneven ground, the sheepdog bitch grunting in protest from the back seat. Though Jeff knew all the half hidden boulders and peat hags, in this fog he concentrated fully on his route.  Visibility was patchy altering from almost clear to a few dozen yards. He muttered angrily. What were they doing calling him out in this weather?  OK, so it was still fine in Stanley, but why hadn’t they checked out this island before sending the plane?  And why did they refuse to listen when he warned them?  He hadn’t recognised the operator’s voice either. Yet there had been something familiar about that clipped English accent. He couldn’t place it and it worried him.  The pilot would know. Jeff wondered whether it’d be his cousin’s husband or that new Chilean expat who thought he could fly anything from a Harrier to a wheelchair. He’d learn, Jeff thought grimly.

             Ahead of him was a corrugated shed with peeling white paint. He reversed up to the door, removed the open padlock thrust through the hasp and reversed back to a trailer holding a large water barrel with attached hoses and a couple of fireman’s helmets. This was the fire safety equipment essential at every landing.

            He drove onto the correct position on the hillside just above the mown strip.  To one side the windsock belled a little as the mist cleared a smidgeon. He stared intently through the cracked windscreen for any misguided sheep on the runway. Behind him the bitch stared too, licking her lips, ears pricked in anticipation, but only a few kelp gulls wandered across the grass. Last year his cattle had taken a liking to the fodder in this area and he’d had to repair fallen fences to keep them away. 

His mind wandered as he waited for radio signals from the incoming plane.  At the end of the runway the cliffs dropped two hundred feet onto jagged rocks. In the sea pools there’d be crested duck and teal.  Perhaps wigeon.  Dark oystercatchers poking among the stones.  Where were the elephant seals? The two young uns hadn’t mentioned seeing them.  Nice enough couple, hoping to get into wildlife film making.  Fat chance.

The radio crackled. He glanced at the windsock yet again, gave windspeed, landing conditions.

‘Five minutes,’ said the pilot in stilted English. The new Chilean pilot.

And then the mist filled in.

He could see damn all.

He got out of the vehicle, shutting the protesting dog inside.

            He heard the noise of the engines pulsating unevenly through the heavy fog.            It wasn’t the right sort of noise. More like a ’copter.

            Terrible noise, pounding through his head. Fog gyrating. Sinister shadow of darkness. Landing on top of him. He crouched down, pointlessly covering head with hands.

            But it was just fog deception. The ’copter landed safely on the runway.

            The mist trembled and he saw its war colours and a young soldier leaning out to throw something white and round that slid down the slope of wet grass.  A cheerful wave and ‘We’ll be back’ in Spanish.

            He rushed forwards.  Screamed, ‘No, no.  Don’t. . .Wait…’

            The helicopter rose into the air, vanished into fog. The silence startled him. 

He rushed to retrieve the rolling parcel.

The searchers let the frantic bitch out of the land rover.  Jeff had dislodged a shrunken gorse bush at the cliff’s edge and here she unearthed an old round teapot, undiscovered for a quarter of a century.  Through the green algae that covered it the smiling face leered heavenward, cracked through from top to bottom. 

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