LITMIR.BIZ

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lucky in that, despite a large number of electricity substations being damaged, with temporary repairs, the power company was still able to supply everyone with electricity.

      ‘Jerry can’t come back much more,’ the other man told Luke, handing his cup over to the waiting WVS volunteer. ‘There ain’t much left to bomb.’

      Not much left to bomb and a hell of a lot of clearing up to do, Luke thought grimly, as he turned back to his own men.

      They had been detailed to work alongside the men from the city’s Debris Clearance and Road Repair Service, shifting the rubble of bombed and collapsed buildings out of the way so that the damage to the roads underneath could be repaired and the roads made passable.

      Unlike the previous Sunday when they had been working in the city centre, today they were working closer to Bootle, where the majority of the bombs had been dropped during the night.

      Whilst one work party cleared the debris into a large mass, another transported the rubble by requisitioned lorries to temporary tips on Netherfield Road and Byrom and Pitt Streets, and a third was responsible for shifting this debris into the lorries.

      It was backbreaking work – unless of course you were detailed to drive one of the lorries.

      They’d been working for another half an hour when there was noisy commotion in the street behind them. Luke turned and watched grimly as a huge piece of machinery was driven down the road towards them.

      He’d already heard all about the fun and games caused by the overenthusiastic help of the newly arrived detachment of American engineers and their heavy excavating and earth-moving equipment, sent to England under the new Lend Lease Act, along with the engineers who were to show the British how to use these monster machines.

      In order to speed up clearing the rubble from the bombed buildings, the City Fathers had asked the Americans if they could help. Liverpool’s streets, though, were not designed for wide American machinery, and it had turned out that the instructors sent over with them had not actually driven the machines before themselves. There had been one or two unfortunate incidents, including one in which a machine had become stuck down a narrow street. The sight of such a thing lumbering towards them now had Luke’s men exchanging knowing looks.

      ‘I guess you guys could use some help,’ the gum-chewing sergeant, who had clambered down from the cab of the vehicle along with four GIs told Luke laconically.

      One of the tall, broad-shouldered black GIs grinned and commented, ‘Hey, Sarge, look at that. They’re using shovels. Ain’t that something?’

      His tone was affable enough but Luke could see that his men were bristling slightly, and he could understand why. He wasn’t too keen on the big American’s manner himself, although he suspected that rather than being deliberately patronising, the GI simply wasn’t aware of the effect his words were likely to have on men who had had little sleep during five continuous nights of heavy bombing, and who had just spent the last four hours trying to deal with some of the aftereffects of those bombs.

      ‘Hey, buddy, we’ll have that truck filled for you in ten minutes flat,’ the sergeant told Luke.

      ‘Ten minutes. Hey, Sarge, I reckon we could do it in five. In fact I’m ready to bet on it. Ten dollars says we fill the truck in five.’

      Luke frowned. He had no ideas of the rules governing the US Army but in the British Army gambling was forbidden. Some of the men might run illegal card schools but they would never have challenged a sergeant to a bet – especially not in public. The Americans were slouching against the cab of their vehicle, laughing and smoking even though they hadn’t been given permission to stand easy, and talking to their sergeant as though they were all equals and they had no respect for his rank at all. Luke’s frown deepened. He might only be a corporal but he knew how to make sure his men were a credit to their regiment and he would certainly never have tolerated such sloppy, unsoldierly behaviour.

      The sergeant, though, far from castigating the soldier, was unbuttoning the flap on his pocket and removing a wad of notes, peeling some off and slapping them down against the shiny metal of the machinery.

      ‘Ten says you can’t and another twenty says you can’t do it in four minutes.’

      ‘Hey, boys, come and see the sarge lose his money,’ the private called out.

      Laughing and whooping, the men crowded round, all of them peeling off notes.

      ‘You’d better have big pockets to match that big mouth of yours, Clancy,’ the sergeant derided the GI, ‘’cos you sure as hell are going to have to dig deep into them.’

      The Americans were behaving more as though they were on a bank holiday outing than involved in the serious business of dealing with war-damaged buildings, but then of course this wasn’t their home country or their war, Luke thought bitterly, remembering that the American were still neutral and staying out of the war. Given the choice, his pride would have inclined him to turn his back on them and simply pretend that they did not exist. But of course he knew that he couldn’t.

      ‘OK, you guys, let’s get to work,’ the sergeant announced, stepping away from the machine so that the soldier he’d addressed as Clancy could climb up into the cab and set the thing moving.

      The sound of it alone, rumbling down the road, was enough to bring down any unstable buildings, Luke thought sourly as he walked alongside it.

      Luke took his role as corporal very seriously. His men, their safety and the proper execution of whatever work they were given to do were his responsibility.

      Clancy brought the machine to a halt and then activated the large ‘shovel’ to grab some of the rubble, swinging it over to the waiting truck.

      The American soldiers cheered as the claws opened and deposited the rubble into the lorry.

      ‘Hey, buddy, here’s twenty bucks says you can’t clear the lot in ten minutes,’ the sergeant yelled, as a second load was added to the first, and then a third.

      ‘He can’t do that,’ Luke protested. ‘There’s a weight limit on those trucks. The axles won’t stand up to them being overloaded.’

      Strictly speaking the British driver of the truck wasn’t under Luke’s command and was in any case a civilian. Luke, though, wasn’t about to stand to one side whilst the truck driver was placed in danger, and he could see that that was going to happen.

      ‘Hey, buddy,’ the sergeant slapped Luke on the shoulder, ‘This is the US Army you’re dealing with now, and we say there ain’t no such thing as can’t.’

      The American soldier in the cab of the earth-moving vehicle was grinning as he yelled back, ‘You’re on, Sarge. Watch this.’

      Angry now, Luke warned the sergeant, ‘Look, you’ve got to stop this. There’s at least two full loads and maybe three there. It’s impossible to get it all into one truck.’

      Ignoring Luke’s warning, the sergeant called up to the driver, ‘Go to it, Clancy. Let’s show these Brits what being American is all about.’

      Luke was in danger of losing his temper. ‘Any fool can see that there’s too much there to go in one truck, and that it’s asking for trouble to try,’ he insisted.

      ‘Hey, buddy, you’re the one who’ll be asking for trouble. See these stripes?’ the sergeant told Luke. ‘They say sergeant in any man’s language. Now go watch how we clear the roads in America – and that’s an order, soldier.’

      Luke could feel his face burning with humiliation and fury. They both knew that the American had no authority over him, but the damage had been done and he had humiliated Luke in front of Luke’s own men as well as his own.

      Walking away from him Luke went over to where Andy was leaning on his shovel, watching grimly as the lorry was heaped with load after load of rubble.

      ‘Go and find whoever’s in charge of the nearest ARP unit for me,’ Luke told him. ‘Perhaps

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