1939

Zeppelins over England-2

“Every man is born with a certain amount of luck – some more than others,” he began. “I was born with an incredible amount of luck – but every drop of my luck has been spilt on the battlefields of our Empire. One step outside the sanctuary of this house must now surely be my last.”

An old and moth-eaten lion"s head was mounted above the mantelpiece, and in the head lived a mouse. This greatly amused the sergeant major, who would every now and then put some peanut butter on the lion’s nose. “Mice don’t care much for cheese; it’s peanut butter for them.”

As the sergeant major refused to leave the house, and Rishaan’s mother refused to enter the house because of the mouse in the lion’s head, they had reached an impasse in the family relationship. Rishaan was more than willing to act as an envoy, passing greetings and good wishes and biscuits made by the cook’s help on a regular basis.

The sergeant major’s house was filled with souvenirs from his different campaigns throughout Africa, the Middle East and India. He had Zulu spears and shields, medals and photographs, guns and bayonets and even a bomb with “From Queen Vic” painted on it. There was an old canoe, African masks and headdresses, elephant tusks and a g*n rack with different types of rifles, from an old elephant g*n to a very dangerous looking grenade launcher.

He showed Rishaan the g*n. It had a bullet hole through the breech. Every g*n in the rack had been used in one campaign or another and showed the scars.

The things the sergeant major treasured the most were in the large front room; the rest of the house became more littered and untidy the farther away it was from the front. Mostly they were unused rooms, containing boxes full of stuff the sergeant major had collected. Rishaan was fascinated by the boxes but was also a little bit scared of looking inside. The sergeant major collected lizards and spiders, and he even claimed he had the left foot of a fallen comrade from a battle during the Great War.

“The Germans had dug a tunnel under our trenches, right under the spot where we were stationed,” he explained. “It had been quiet – maybe too quiet, so I went off to get some more ammunition and check on the outposts. There was a God almighty explosion – it ripped the clothes off my body – I stood there butt-n***d except for my moustache! My whole squad was wiped out. The only thing I found was Corporal Whittaker’s left foot, in a helmet. I knew it was his – he was wearing his mountain boots; his Army trench boots had long rotted away. I remember coming to France with Corporal Whittaker on the boat. As he watched the white cliffs of Dover fading into the distance, he said he had a funny feeling he would never set foot in England again. I told him that was nonsense, and I don’t like being wrong. I promised his left foot I would bury it in England, and if and when I find it again, I shall most certainly do so!”

He even had shrunken human heads, kept in a box, which Rishaan still dared not open, which he had traded from some cannibals in the Congo. Written on the box, in doubtful red ink, was “Heads – (shrunken).” Rishaan wondered if there was a box with heads that were not shrunken.

Rishaan’s father and grandfather also did not see eye to eye. Rishaan’s father was to the sergeant major a Yankee pacifist whose sort came too late into the Great War, and would do so again with the troubles with Hitler. Rishaan did not tell his grandfather that his father was actually for military action. He knew that this must be kept a secret.

Rishaan knew that his father was involved in clandestine operations that he was not allowed to talk about. President Roosevelt was concerned about keeping America neutral since the American people were wary of another foreign war. He ached to tell the sergeant major about his father’s work, but he knew to keep a secret meant to tell no one. Even his own father did not know that he knew.

“The British Empire was never the same after Queen Victoria died. But I blame the South African Boers, to tell you the truth. White men had not fought white men for more than fifty years, and we were convinced we were civilized. Well, that war proved us wrong, and the Great War proved us to be the barbarians we are,” he complained.

“If President Roosevelt would do a bit of saber rattling now, then Hitler would back down. It’s the same again and again; you should nip these things in the bud. Let it grow, and it’ll take ten times the work to set it right again.”

They drank tea, ate the biscuits that Rishaan’s mother had sent, and listened to the radio. There was a lot of news about Hitler, and the sergeant major snorted his disapproval every time his name was mentioned. Germany was making claims for part of Antarctica, which they called Neuschwabenland. They had claimed it from the Norwegians for whaling purposes, but they were accused by the radio reporter of trying to set up a military base to control the South Seas and the Indian Ocean.

“Crafty buggers, the Germans,” said the sergeant major. “They took a hot-air balloon and flew over the ice, and later they took a ship that could catapult airplanes and dropped flags on the ice, saying it was a claim to land, declaring it German! Nothing but penguins there anyway, winged birds that cannot fly, and now wingless buffoons that can. As if it isn’t cold enough here in Europe, anyway. Never could get used to the cold. Not after Africa, and India, not to mention the Saudi desert. Anyway, who would want to live in Neuschwabenland? Sounds like a bad case of the flu.”

Rishaan told the sergeant major of his plan to walk on the frozen Thames, but the sergeant major disapproved.

“I have some snowshoes upstairs somewhere – traded them for some scalps from a French man. He called them raquette à neige, snow rackets. Never had any use for them.”

Rishaan did not like the idea of going upstairs, but it was also intriguing to think what might be up there. The house was dark, even though outside it was a bright and clear winter’s day, the snow reflecting light everywhere. The windows of the house were always shuttered and the curtains were kept drawn. According to the sergeant major it kept the enemy outside, and they could not see inside. What light did penetrate the drawn curtains gave a cold blue tint to gray walls. The stairs creaked as if not used to carrying any weight for a long time.

The sergeant major had said that the snowshoes would be just laying around somewhere, not in a box, so that was good. Rishaan did not want to start looking in boxes. The rooms looked pale, with no carpets and wallpaper. Parts of the ceiling were starting to crumble and fall down, leaving cracks that looked ominously like spy holes. In one of the rooms was an old lamp with “Whermacht” written on it. He lit the wick and a dull orange flame slowly glowed up, adding little light and plenty of flickering shadows. He checked the three bedrooms, among the spears and shields and German gas masks, but could find nothing. In one room, the African masks had been hung on the wall, and they all stared down disapprovingly on Rishaan as he searched for the snowshoes. There was that musty smell throughout the whole house, mixed with the occasional smell of some exotic herb, aromatic wood or some organic material decaying into dust that got more intense the deeper Rishaan went into the house.

There were several helmets – two French Adrian helmet’s, three British Brodie helmets, worn by British and American troops, and a German Stahlhelm. Rishaan liked the Stahlhelm, and put it on, first checking to see if there was anybody’s left foot still inside. He was not sure if all of the sergeant major’s stories were true, but it was not for lack of any evidence. The house was an unruly military history museum of the British empire of the last fifty years.

One box caught his eye. It had dark red stains on the outside that looked like b****y fingerprints. The box was too small to hold the snowshoes, but the intense curiosity that Rishaan felt compelled him to look in the box. He walked over slowly. The lid was half open and he could see something inside – it looked dark colored and there seemed to be several of them. There were some dark strands like hair, but he could not see if that was something else or was part of the other objects. He wanted to leave, to run, not to look, but his legs kept walking over to the box. He put his hand on the lid and he slowly started to open.

Suddenly, Rishaan was startled by the sound of a ringing telephone.

It was a faraway sound, but not downstairs, where the sergeant major was. The sergeant major did not have a telephone as far as he knew; not many people did in those days. It was upstairs – in the attic. It was a muffled sound, but it kept ringing. Rishaan went over and looked at the small rickety ladder that led to the trap door in the ceiling. The ringing was definitely coming from up there. He called down to the sergeant major but the sergeant major could not hear him – he had been partially deaf since a grenade attack during the Somme offensive. The attic was a strange place to have a telephone. He climbed the ladder. He had never been in the attic before--that was something he definitely would never have dared--but again, his powerful curiosity compelled him. The trap door above his head was heavy, and it took all his strength to push it open just a little. It had not been opened in a long time. There was dirt in the cracks, and a cloud of dust fell onto him as he tried to push it open. He could just see inside. The attic was completely empty – strange considering the chaos in the rest of the house. However, in the middle of the attic, there was a small table, and on the table was a large black Bakelite telephone. It kept ringing. The bell sounded rusty and unused, but it was definitely ringing.

And then it stopped.

Rishaan was disappointed; he would have liked to know who was on the other side. Why was someone phoning the sergeant major? Did the sergeant major even know he had a telephone? Maybe somebody had been calling the sergeant major ever since he had moved here, but being deaf, he had never heard it. It was a pity. Now he would never know.

All of a sudden, the phone started to ring again. This time it seemed twice as loud. It gave Rishaan such a shock he nearly fell off the ladder. However, this time he was determined not to miss the call, and he pushed with all his might to try and open the trap door. It finally slammed open and he rushed over to the telephone.

“Hello,” he said, his heart beating in his chest with excitement.

“Lionheart?” said a woman’s voice on the other side. The line was very bad.

“Yes, this is the...” said Rishaan, but before he could explain who he was, the caller continued.