A Soldier's Tale by M. K. Joseph

heap in the corner. She had soaped herself at the tub, scrubbing fiercely at her body which shone pink and as if varnished with soapsuds. Now she stood there with her back to him and with her arms stretched straight up, holding one of the heavy buckets filled with water above her head. She seemed to be full of fury and sudden strength, so that the smooth womanly muscles of her arms and shoulders, back and buttocks, thighs and calves were braced tightly as she balanced the bucket and tipped it. The water,cold from the barrel on the flagstones, cascaded down over her head and body, and poured out down the drain-hole. She cried out, a small gasping scream, at the shock, and the emptied bucket crashed to the flagstones.
    In the following silence the door creaked and she looked back over her shoulder and saw him standing there. With a startled movement she grabbed for the crumpled dress and held it up to cover herself.
    Go away, she said, do not watch me.
    Sorry, he muttered, embarrassed and a little repelled, I didn’t mean—Then, taking in the bareness of the room, he said, Where’s your towel?
    It does not matter, she said crossly.
    Wait, he said, and went quickly round the side of the cottage to the front garden. He’d had a good new towel in his pack and had put it out to dry on the hedge, catching the afternoon sunlight. This he brought back for her. She was still standing there half covered with her crumpled dress, so he hung the towel over the half-door.
    There you are, he said, you’ll need that.
    And she thanked him, watching him with an embarrassed smile at the absurdity of it.
    He went back again round the outside of the house towards the front door. The rain had blown over,leaving the low sun warm in a clear late-afternoon sky, where a flight of Spitfires was making regular sweeps towards the German lines.
    He switched on the radio and went back to sit in the open doorway and smoke. There was a Forces Requests programme on; he found it dull and paid little attention, sitting there brooding and staring out at the landscape. Trees and hedges and low hills were beginning to take on a shadowy impenetrable look against the brightening western sky. He could not quite make out the figure of the watcher under the beech tree until the small flash of sunlight reflected on spectacles showed that it was the old man. He finished his cigarette, flipped the butt into the garden and began to dismantle his sten gun and clean its worn immaculate metalwork with an oily rag. He liked to have his gear in perfect working order, and besides, it might help to impress anyone who happened to be watching.
    (Of such small actions is war made. And this is the part that most war books get wrong. Trying hard to impress, they multiply the horror and glory, brutality and heroism, boredom and humour of war at the expense of its ordinariness. Most wars are just ordinary. Everyone, even in the worst of wars,must sleep about a third of each day, and eat two or three meals, and crap even if it’s only in a hole in the ground. Soldiers, like anyone else, catch colds and read the Daily Mirror and fall in love and trim their nails and play pontoon and listen to Frank Sinatra and change their socks. The sadness of wartime death and suffering is that they are embedded in these familiar things.)
    Presently she came in from the back of the house and began to move about in the kitchen. There was a scrape and rattle at the stove as she opened the grate and stirred the fire. He said nothing, but his hands were busily cleaning and refilling the spare magazines. When he had finished he put the magazines, with the cleaning gear, back in the pouch on his webbing belt and stood up, slinging it loose over his shoulder.
    He walked over softly and stopped behind her where she stood at the stove, stooping a little, stirring something in the enamel pot which began to have a savoury meaty smell.
    I’m sorry, Belle, he said. Truly, love. You were so