ELEVEN

 After the aborted pigeon-shooting expedition, Nick Mostert limped into the Grosvenor Hotel bar.

    The place was unusually quiet for a Saturday afternoon. Apart from the barman, Mostert could make out two other bodies, one on either side of a booth in the far corner. Pondo Harrington and Alf Apple seemed to be having their post-liquid-lunch nap.

    The barman was called Baldy, although he had a substantial mop of hair. He was happy to be known by an abbreviation of his surname which was Baldwin. That was not surprising, considering his first name was Alistair.

    ‘Where’s everyone?’ Mostert asked him.

    ‘Everyone who?’ said Baldy.

    ‘Well, Gerald Wilson and George Trebble.’

    ‘Gerald had to go to Mount Frere,’ said Baldy, ‘to deliver some cattle dip. And George doesn’t come in until a bit later. He’s on duty most of the day, Saturdays, across at the club. But they’ll both be along soon.’

   Nick Mostert turned and was about to leave when Pondo Harrington called out, ‘Hey, Mr Mostert! Come and give us a bit of talk here.’

    Harrington’s dark hair fell to the collar of the omnipresent school blazer. But the stubble on his chin was less pronounced than the last time Mostert had seen it.

    Mostert had yet to meet either of the odd couple. He walked around to their corner of the bar.

    ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ said Harrington. ‘Or vice versa.’

    He ordered a double brandy, and while Mostert was rummaging for the change to pay for that and his own beer, Pondo added, ‘Tell us about your prang. That’s what you air force chaps call it? A prang?’

    The feet of Alf Apple, as he lay on the bench, were pointed directly at Mostert’s beer glass. Harrington kicked at one sole, which was as gnarled as the bark on an ancient tree.

    ‘Hey, Alf!’ he shouted. ‘We’re just about to hear some real stories about the war!’

    Mostert shook his head. ‘I’d rather not talk about the war,’ he said.

    ‘Come on,’ said Pondo. ‘ We’ve been told you’re a hero. You were brave under enemy fire and all that. No need to be modest. We don’t get too many first-hand reports in this one-horse town about what’s going on out there.’

    ‘There’s not much to tell,’ said Mostert. ‘Just something that happened. I wasn’t the only one. It happened to other pilots too.’ He took a sip of his beer. His brow creased and he lifted his eyes strangely, as though trying to read something inside of his head.

    ‘What do you mean?’ said Pondo Harrington.

    ‘Well, Twelve Squadron is stuck with these Boston bombers. We call them “Flying Incendiaries”. The fuel, and so a lot of the weight, is carried in the wings. If a wing gets hit, the plane goes into a spin and the wings get torn off. We’ve lost maybe a dozen Bostons already that way.’

    Mostert gave a wry smile and added, ‘I was lucky. The ack-ack blast hit the fuselage, behind the cockpit, and took out my two mates. But I managed to get control before the plane started spinning and got it back to base. I just broke my leg landing, that was all.’

    ‘Did you actually get to see any Germans?’ Alf asked.

    ‘More to the point, did you kill any Krauts?’ The second question came from Ginger Southwood, who had just walked in.

    Mostert turned to face the mechanic and lifted a hand in greeting. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you have to fly high to avoid the ack-ack, then drop your load and get the hell out of there. So you don’t really see what happens on the ground.

    ‘But just before I left, the intelligence chaps said we were giving Rommel blazes.’

    Ginger Southwood asked him, ‘Did you come in to see the Quiz Master? Old Gerry Wilson?’

    ‘Not really.’

    ‘I saw him giving you his routine when you walked in the other day,’ said Southwood. ‘Don’t feel special. He does that to all the strangers who come in here, when he gets pickled.’

    ‘In fact,’ Mostert said, ‘I was hoping someone could tell me how to find the Town Clerk. What’s his name? Perry?’

    ‘Harry Perry,’ said Pondo. ‘My old school chum. Grew up together. We used to share a fag behind the drill hall at break. Now he doesn’t greet me. Go up the main stairs in the town hall and turn right.’

    ‘Left,’ said Ginger Southwood.

    ‘Okay, left then. I don’t have cause to go up there these days. And Harry wouldn’t come in here in a month of Sundays. We’ve gone our different ways, him up and me mostly down. Harry’s office probably classes me as a person of no fixed abode.’

   ‘Then I’d have to be your next door neighbour,’ said Alf Apple and laughed uproariously.

   ‘What do you want Harry Perry for?’ Southwood asked Mostert. ‘You planning to put down some roots? What about the war?’

    ‘There’s a piece of property I’m interested in,’ Mostert said. ‘Along the river towards the police camp.’

   ‘That would be the old Jacobs place. They had chickens but they couldn’t make a go of it. Lazy, just like all coolies,’ said Southwood. ‘Didn’t like getting up early in the morning.’

    ‘Actually,’ Pondo Harrington said, suddenly vehement, ‘their place was flooded, a couple of summers ago, and most of the fowls drowned. Flooding’s a problem along that river area, so the rental may be way down now.’

    He thought for a moment. ‘If you got the place, would you consider a couple of lodgers?’

    ‘You mean a couple of dodgers. Freeloaders,’ said Southwood roughly. ‘Why? Has Mike Strachan finally thrown you out of his disused chicken run?’

    ‘Let’s just say we’re between accommodations,’ Harrington said.

    ‘No,’ said Mostert. ‘No lodgers. Sorry, but I prefer to be on my own.’

    He excused himself and went to the men’s room.When he got back to the bar, Gerald Wilson and George Trebble were in their usual places.

    ‘So, you’re thinking of putting in a bid for the old Jacobs dump,’ Wilson said.

    ‘Maybe,’ said Mostert. ‘It’s just one of my options.’