Butchers and Other Stories of Crime

Private Gorman’s Luck

As private Gorman saw it, he was dead unlucky.

He had just been picked up by the redcaps for the seventh time. He couldn’t stand the army. The snag was that he was no more of a success at deserting than he was at rifle drill. On four occasions he had got only a couple of miles from the barrack gates. Twice they had collected him from his home in Bermondsey. But the latest attempt was his most ambitious. He had managed three days on the run and all but got away. His assessment of the experience in the quiet of his cell in Hounslow Barracks was that only his stinking luck had let him down.

At first, fortune had favoured him. After two nights sleeping rough, his uniform had got too shabby to wear with confidence, so he had started to look for some civvies. He was passing a bomb site in Hounslow when he spotted a damaged house across the street. It was like looking into a doll’s house; the blast had ripped away the entire front. The wardens had cleared the floor downstairs, but the upper floor was unsafe, so everything was left: two bedrooms with beds, chests of drawers, wardrobes, dressing tables and — of surpassing interest to Gorman — a blue double-breasted suit on a hanger suspended from the top of one of the wardrobe doors.

That evening in the blackout (as he told it later to Private Plumridge, who was on fatigues in the guardroom), Gorman had gone back to the house and waited nearby for an air raid to create a distraction. This was the summer of 1944, when the flying bombs were at their worst, so there was a fair chance of the siren going some time. When it did, and Gorman heard the steady drone of a V1 coming over from London, he made his move. The buzzbombs held no fears for Gorman. He had a firm conviction that he was safe from those things, however close they came. His enemy wasn’t Hitler; it was the redcaps. He hopped over the rubble, through the path cleared by the wardens, into the dining room, out to the hall and up the stairs. As easy as ABC.

For the first time in his army career, he was glad of his metal-studded boots when he got up there and found the bedroom door locked by some security-minded bastard from the rescue service. Two good kicks and he was inside.

Then it was a matter of keeping close to the wall and edging around the room to the dark shape of the wardrobe. He stepped deftly over one of the fallen chairs, sidled past the dressing table and reached out his fingertips to feel for the suit. With his hand firmly over the padded shoulder, he lifted it from the wardrobe and held it against his chest. The sleeve length matched his arm to perfection. Elated, he started back around the edge of the room, blundered into the chair, went arse over tip, as he put it to Private Plumridge, and plunged alarmingly to the floor.

There was a short, uncomfortable hiatus, not unlike the seconds after a flying bomb cuts out, when Private Gorman waited for the crash. It started as a rending sound in the plaster, followed by a crack and a groan as the entire floor caved in. Gorman dropped yelling with a mass of wood, plaster and linoleum. His first thought was that the entire building would collapse on him.

After the fall, he heard himself spluttering, so he reckoned he was still alive. Most of his body had hit the mattress of the double bed. One of his legs hurt and he couldn’t breathe for plaster in the air, but he was able to get up. Still holding the precious suit, he stumbled through the debris and hobbled off in the blackout as quickly as his injured leg would let him.

He passed the night at the feet of an angel in a churchyard, with the suit laid out on a granite tomb nearby. At first light, he gave himself a fitting. For off-the-peg, it was as good as anything from the Fifty Shilling Tailors. Better. In the pockets there was four and threepence, a packet of Senior Service and a box of Swan Vestas. After he had dumped his uniform under a heap of discarded wreaths and flowers, Gorman climbed over the churchyard wall into someone’s garden and helped himself to a shirt from the washing line. Without clothing coupons, what else was he to do?

A smoke, a shave at a barber’s in Hounslow High Street and a cup of tea at the bus station gave him the confidence he needed to enter the town hall and see the National Registration people about an identity card. If you said you had lost your card, it cost a shilling to apply for a replacement, and they would give you a receipt that you could show to anyone who challenged you. A passport to civilian life.

Gorman understood identity numbers. When the woman clerk asked him, he rattled off a number similar to his own before he was called up, AB to say he lived in the London Borough of Bermondsey, and a slight variation in the digits after, to prevent her from tracking him to his real address. He gave a false name. He was getting smart at last.

When the clerk asked him for the shilling, Gorman casually took a two-shilling piece from his pocket and placed it on the counter. She wrote out the receipt, stamped it, handed it to Gorman and passed him his shilling change. And that was when his luck ran out.

In his elation, he dropped the shilling. It fell off the counter and rolled for a short distance across the floor. Gorman pursued it. He put out his foot to step on it just as someone stooped to pick it up. With his regulation army boots Gorman crushed the fingers of the police constable on duty.

No apology could save him. He was unable to explain how a civilian in a smart blue suit came to be wearing metal-studded army boots. Inside the hour, he was collected by the redcaps.

‘I was dead unlucky,’ he complained once more to Private Plumridge.

‘Deplorably unfortunate,’ agreed Plumridge, who was socially a cut above Gorman. Plumridge was regularly in trouble for insubordination when addressing NCOs, who were apt to mistake an elegant turn of phrase for sarcasm. It was a shame he had failed the intelligence test for officer selection, yet to his credit he had come to terms with the rigours of life in the ranks. He had no plans to desert. To be candid with you, Gorman, I’m at a loss to understand why you keep doing it.’

Gorman scowled. ‘I hate the army, don’t I?’

Plumridge leaned on the polisher he was supposed to be using on the floor outside Gorman’s cell. ‘If it comes to that, I’m not passionately devoted to wearing khaki and living in wooden huts myself.’

‘Why do you stick it, then?’ asked Gorman, expecting a short sermon about King and Country and Mr Churchill.

A smug smile spread across Plumridge’s face. ‘I have an incentive. A certain somebody who happens to believe I’m the finest soldier in the British Army.’

‘God Almighty, who’s that?’

Plumridge lifted one of the flaps of his fatigue dress and took out a photograph, which he pushed through the grille of the cell door. ‘Annabelle.’

Gorman studied the picture and passed it back. ‘Not bad. Not bad at all. Your girl?’

‘Wife, in point of fact,’ Plumridge remarked with an attempt to be casual.

‘You’re married?’ Gorman said in a shrill note. ‘Give us another look at that.’

Plumridge held the picture up. ‘She is rather fetching, I must admit. She agreed to marry me the day my call-up papers arrived. She adores the uniform, you see. Before that, I was merely one of a string of would-be suitors. Now Annabelle is keeping my home fire burning in Chiddingfold.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘In a rather select part of Surrey that you wouldn’t have heard of. Whenever I get a weekend pass, I’m off there. She’s terribly proud of me. Fully expects me to get a stripe before Christmas.’ He took the photograph away from the grille and gazed at it. ‘So you see, I’m utterly committed to the army.’

The conversation was cut short by the appearance of Corporal Harker, the Military Policeman on duty. Harker was the most conscientious redcap in the barracks. ‘What’s that in your grubby fist, Soldier?’

‘Only a photograph, Corporal,’ answered Plumridge, tucking it away.

Harker snapped his fingers and held out his hand.

Plumridge reluctantly handed over the picture of Annabelle. ‘My wife, actually.’

‘My wife, actually, Corporal.’

‘Sorry, Corporal.’ Plumridge hesitated. ‘May I have it back please? It’s rather precious.’

Harker snorted his displeasure. ‘You’ve got no business showing photographs of women to the prisoner. He’s under close arrest and you’re supposed to be polishing the floor. What else have you been handing over? Cigarettes? Chocolate? Turn out your pockets, at the double.’

Plumridge obeyed, producing a letter addressed to Annabelle, his pay book, a set of keys and his identity disc.

‘This should be round your neck, not in your pocket,’ Harker reprimanded him. ‘Co’s orders: identity discs will be worn by all personnel at all times so long as the air raids continue. That means round your fat neck, Plumridge, have you got that?’

‘Yes, Corporal.’

‘Put it on, then. Put this other rubbish back in your pockets and get polishing the floor. I’m going to search the prisoner now, and if I find so much as a peppermint on his person, you’re on a charge, do you understand?’

Plumridge nodded unhappily.

The search of Private Gorman was a simple matter because he was wearing only shorts and a singlet, having disposed of his uniform and had been deprived of the blue civilian suit. To his credit, he was still wearing his identity disc around his neck. Corporal Harker could find nothing irregular, so he had to content himself with some disparaging remarks about deserters, and, when he emerged from the cell, a blistering attack on the quality of Plumridge’s polishing. He ordered Plumridge to buff the entire floor again, and with that he went off duty.

‘That man’s an absolute sadist,’ Plumridge confided through the grille to Gorman.

‘Who’s on duty now?’

‘The tall ginger one with the moustache.’

‘That’s Corporal Davis. He’s all right. He’ll let you off in twenty minutes.’

This might have been the case, but inside three minutes, the air raid warning sounded and within seconds they could hear the ominous note of a flying bomb. The procedure in an air raid was to evacuate the guard room, which was a timber structure, and go into the underground shelter at the rear. Corporal Davis unlocked Gorman’s cell. He was holding a pair of handcuffs.

‘Let’s have your wrist.’

‘Sounds like a close one, Corp,’ commented Gorman, untroubled and glad of the distraction.

In accordance with standing orders, Corporal Davis manacled Gorman to himself and shouted to Plumridge to go with them. The entrance to the shelter was about thirty yards away, across a stretch of grass. Before they were through the back door of the guard room. Gorman heard the engine of the VI cut out. He looked up.

It was diving straight towards them out of a brilliant blue sky, its black and green camouflage clearly visible on the upper fuselage, its stubby, squared-off wings and tail giving it the look of an aircraft crudely manufactured for destruction, its propulsion unit spurting orange flames.

Corporal Davis yelled, ‘Come on!’ to Plumridge, who was last out of the door. Gorman, his injured leg forgotten, was already halfway across the grass towards the shelter, jerking Davis with him.

The flying bomb didn’t actually hit the guard room. It crashed into the tarmac just in front of the main gates. The blast ripped the guard room and the armoury apart. Slats of wood hailed down.

Gorman was temporarily deafened, but unhurt. He had made it to the sandbags heaped outside the shelter and leapt over into the dug-out front as the explosion happened. His arm was still draped over the sandbags, attached to Corporal Davis. He tugged on it and felt no response. He hauled himself up and over the sandbags.

Corporal Davis had been hit by some piece of flying debris. He was either stunned or dead. Gorman didn’t wait to check. Someone else’s misfortune was his opportunity. He felt for the chain attached to Davis’s belt, found the key of the handcuffs and released himself. He was about to desert for the eighth time.

He looked around him. Black smoke was blotting out the sky. The wreckage of the guard room had caught fire and the long grass at the rear was smouldering. It would probably be safe to go out by the main gate. The blokes on sentry duty must have been blasted to Kingdom Come.

As he stepped forward, he almost tripped over a body in fatigue dress. Private Plumridge was dead, dead beyond argument, with half his head blown off. Gorman’s first impulse was to hare away and he had already gone a couple of paces when the thought occurred to him that Plumridge’s fatigue dress might be of use. He knew from experience that nights in the open could be cold, even in August, and he didn’t relish sleeping rough, dressed as he was.

He braced himself for another look at the body. The jacket was soiled with blood and ripped in a couple of places, but worth taking if there was time, and the trousers were perfectly usable. When it came to deserting, Gorman wasn’t squeamish about robbing the living or the dead. So he unbuttoned the clothes and peeled them off, leaving Plumridge in singlet and shorts, just as he was himself.

Then he had his brainwave.

It was sparked by the sight of Plumridge’s identity disc. The opportunity was there to free himself totally from the army. If he removed Plumridge’s disc and replaced it with his own, everyone would assume that 505918 Gorman, Private E. was dead. They wouldn’t be able to identify the body by looking at the face, because most of it was missing. And in a few minutes, the grass where Plumridge was lying would be alight, charring him all over.

While he was switching the discs, Gorman thought of an extra refinement. He ran back to Corporal Davis’s body, dragged it the few yards across the turf and positioned it alongside Plumridge. Then he clipped the spare handcuff over Plumridge’s wrist. The clincher, he told himself, grinning. That done, he grabbed the fatigue dress and dashed across the smouldering grass to freedom.

Soon after, the army tackled the job of putting out the fires and recovering the bodies. There were four dead and they were identified as Privates Harris and Parks, the two men on guard at the main gate, Corporal Davis of the Military Police and the prisoner, Private Gorman. Next of kin were informed.

After some hours, there was concern about the welfare of Private Plumridge, who was known to have been detailed to perform fatigues in the guard room and who appeared to be missing. A thorough examination of the debris failed to reveal a fifth body. Searches of the surrounding area were organised and a trail of footsteps was discovered leading from the charred area where two of the bodies had been found towards the main gate. It was assumed that Plumridge had wandered off, possibly in a state of concussion, and the civilian police were informed. Two days later, his identity disc was found by a man walking his dog on Hounslow Heath.

Plumridge’s wife Annabelle was contacted, but she informed Corporal Harker, the Military Policeman who called on her in Chiddingfold, that she had heard nothing from him. She seemed mystified, but not unduly distressed by her husband’s disappearance.

A week passed, and there was no further news of Plumridge. The funerals of the four men killed by the flying bomb were all attended by senior officers. Ten days after the tragedy, a service of remembrance was conducted by the padre.

After the service, the CO called at the temporary, prefabricated guard room and spoke to Corporal Harker. He expressed concern about the lack of information concerning Private Plumridge. He detested the very idea, but he felt obliged to consider the possibility that Plumridge had taken advantage of the bombing to go absent without leave. After questioning Harker closely about the reaction of Annabelle Plumridge to her husband’s disappearance, he authorised Harker to make a second visit to Chiddingfold and see whether the lady could throw any more light on the mystery.

The same ten days had been a testing time for Private Gorman. To his credit, it was the longest period he had spent on the run. Yet without civilian clothes or even a passable uniform, he had been compelled to spend the days in hiding and the nights scavenging. He was living mainly on raw eggs and vegetables stolen from suburban gardens. It was much too soon after his supposed demise to think of going home. At the sight of him, his mother would scream and his father would tell the whole of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe that a miracle had happened.

He sat hunched in his latest hide-out, a delapidated boat shed at Twickenham, ironically trying to lift his spirits with what the army called planning. What he needed urgently was a set of clothes and some money. It was no use trusting to luck. He couldn’t expect to come across another bomb site with a suit on a hanger waiting for him to collect. As for money, Plumridge hadn’t left so much as a halfpenny in the pockets of the fatigue dress. Just the pay book, and what use was that to a deserter? Gorman had torn it into small pieces and thrown it out days ago, with the letter to Annabelle. Apart from the clothes, the only things of Plumridge’s still in his possession were two keys on a ring, one that probably fitted the padlock of his locker, the other a Yale which had come in useful for scraping the dirt off carrots and parsnips. He had since picked up a knife, so the keys could be chucked out as well now. There was small chance of finding a lock they would open.

Or was there?

As he dangled the key ring on his finger, Gorman had another of his brainwaves. Wasn’t it reasonable to suppose that the Yale was the key to Plumridge’s house in Surrey, and wouldn’t it be worth finding the place and seeing if it fitted? There were sure to be clothes there, and food and probably money. This was the luck he needed, and all this time he had been carrying it around with him!

Where was it that Plumridge had said he lived? The address had been on that blasted letter. Victoria House — it had struck Gorman as comical, Plums at Victoria House — but what the hell was the name of the village? Chittyfield? Chiddingfield? Not quite.

Chiddingfold! Victoria House, Chiddingfold.

It wasn’t easy to find the place. Surrey was a large county, and signposts had been removed to frustrate troop movements in the event of an invasion. He headed south, away from London, reasoning that it must be out of the surburban reaches. Going through Hampton Court on the first night, he broke into three cars parked outside a pub before he found what he needed: a county map.

Chiddingfold was near Haslemere on the Sussex border, too far to reach in a night, so he walked the twenty miles to Guildford, and laid up in some outbuildings at a farm just south of the town. He found apples stored there in boxes, and ate enough to satisfy hunger and thirst in one.

The following night was a Saturday and a full moon, so he was glad he had not left too many miles to cover, because people would be out later than usual. It was after eleven when he started, and half-past two in the morning when he finally located Victoria House. Happily, it was a detached building in its own grounds. No telephone wires were visible. He had no wish to disturb Annabelle Plumridge’s sleep if he could avoid it, but it was a relief to know that she couldn’t call the police.

The first thing was to see whether the key fitted. He started up the drive towards the house.

In bed, Annabelle heard the crunch of gravel outside. ‘Listen!’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Just listen, Simon. There’s someone outside!’

‘A fox, I expect.’

‘No, it’s too heavy for that. He’s by the front door! Oh, God, what if it’s my husband!’

Corporal Harker swung his legs to the floor and pulled on a pair of shorts. He went to the chair over which he had draped his uniform and drew his baton from its sheath. Then he glided out of the door and downstairs.

Annabelle shrank back in bed, pulling the sheet tight around her neck. She heard the sound of a key turning in the door, a shout of surprise and then a crack that made her gasp with terror, followed by two more, then silence.

The suspense was petrifying before the landing light came on, and Corporal Harker stood in the doorway holding his baton. ‘I’m afraid I had to hit him,’ he said, breathing heavily.

‘Charlie? My husband?’ whispered Annabelle.

He hesitated. ‘Private Plumridge, yes. You don’t have to come downstairs. I can deal with it.’

‘Is he...?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Oh, my poor Charlie!’ Annabelle started to sob.

‘Come off it,’ Corporal Harker said in the sharp voice of authority he used in the guard room. ‘You told me you couldn’t bear to live with a deserter. You said you fancied me in my red cap and white gaiters.’

‘I know, but...’

‘He must have had a thin skull. Some people do. It’s better this way. Your reputation, my career.’

‘But what shall we do with him?’

‘Easy. You don’t have to do a thing. Better if you stay up here. I’ll put him in the van and take him with me. I know a couple of bomb sites on the way back to barracks. I’ll hide him under some rubble, and even if they find him, no one will ever guess who he was, or how it happened.’

‘I suppose it was just bad luck,’ Annabelle said to appease her feelings of shock.

‘That’s right,’ Corporal Harker confirmed. ‘He was unlucky. Dead unlucky.’