The Night Watch

'Woolly! Woolly, you owe me half a dollar, you git!'

'Mick! Hey, Mick! What are you doing?'

There wasn't an officer to make them be silent. The officers went straight down into their shelter as soon as a raid started up.

'You owe me-!'

'Mick! Hey, Mick!'

The men had to shout themselves almost hoarse, in order to be heard; someone might call from a window at one end of the hall, and be answered by a man fifty cells away. Lying in bed and hearing them yell was like going through the wireless, finding stations in the dark. Duncan almost liked it; he found, at least, that he could filter the voices out when they began to get on his nerves. Fraser, on the other hand, was driven mad by them, every time. Now, for example, he was moving restlessly about, grumbling and cursing. He raised himself up, and punched out the lumps of horsehair in his mattress. He plucked at the bits of uniform he'd laid on his blanket for extra warmth. Duncan couldn't see him, because the cell was too dark; but he could feel the movement of him through the frame of the bunks. When he lay heavily back down, the bunks rocked from side to side, and creaked and squealed slightly, like bunks in a ship. We might be sailors, Duncan thought.

'You owe me half a dollar, you cunt!'

'God!' said Fraser, raising himself again and punching the mattress more violently. 'Why can't they be quiet? Shut up!' he shouted, slapping the wall.

'It's no good,' said Duncan, yawning. 'They won't be able to hear you… Now they're after Stella, listen.'

For someone had begun calling out: 'Ste-lla! Ste-lla!' Duncan thought it was a boy named Pacey, down on the Twos. 'Ste-lla! I've got something to tell you… I saw your twat, in the bath-house! I saw your twat! It was black as my hat!'

Another man whistled and laughed. 'You're a fucking poet, Pacey!'

'It looked like a fucking black rat with its throat cut! It looked like your old man's beard, with your old girl's fat fucking lips in the middle! Ste-lla! Why don't you answer?'

'She can't answer,' came another voice. 'She's got her gob on Mr Chase!'

'She's got her gob round Chase,' said someone else, 'and Browning is slipping her a length from the back. She's got her fucking hands full, boys!'

'Shut up, you naughty things!' cried a new voice. It was Monica, on the Threes.

Pacey started on her, then. 'Moni-ca! Moni-ca!'

'Shut up, you beasts! Can't a girl get her beauty sleep?'

This was followed by the crump! of a distant explosion and, 'Jerry!' Giggs called again. 'Fritz! Adolf! This way!'

Fraser groaned and turned his pillow. Then, 'Hell!' he said. 'That's all we need!'

For on top of everything else, somebody had started singing.

'Little girl in blue, I've been dreaming of you… Little girl in blue…'

It was a man called Miller. He was in for running some sort of racket from a nightclub. He sang all the time, with horrible sincerity-as if crooning into a microphone at the front of a band. At the sound of his voice now, men up and down the hall began to complain.

'Turn it off!'

'Miller, you bastard!'

Duncan 's neighbour, Quigley, began to beat with something-his salt-pot, probably-on the floor of his cell. 'Shut up,' he roared, as he did it, 'you fucking slags! Miller, you cunt!'

'I've been dreaming of you…'

Miller sang on, through all the complaints, through all the distant roar of the raid; and the worst of it was, the song was tuneful. One by one, the men fell silent, as if they were listening. Even Quigley, after a while, threw down his salt-pot and stopped roaring.

I hear your voice, I reach to hold you,
Your lips touch mine, my arms enfold you.
But then you're gone: I wake and find
That I've been drea-ming…

Fraser, too, had grown still. He'd lifted his head, the better to hear. 'Hell, Pearce,' he said now. 'I think I danced to this tune once. I'm sure I did.' He lay back down. 'I probably laughed at the bloody thing, then. Now- Now it seems stinkingly apt, doesn't it? Christ! Trust Miller and a popular song to be so honest about longing.'

Duncan said nothing. The song went on.

Though we're apart, I can't forget you.

I bless the hour that I first met you-

Abruptly, another voice broke across it. This one was deep, tuneless, lusty.

Give me a girl with eyes of blue,

Who likes it if you don't but prefers it if you do!

Someone cheered. Fraser said, in a tone of disbelief, 'Who the hell is that, now?'

Duncan tilted his head, to listen. 'I don't know. Maybe Atkin?'

Atkin, like Giggs, was a deserter. The song sounded like something a serviceman would sing.

Give me a girl with eyes of black,

Who likes it on her belly but prefers it on her back!

'Cause I'll be seeing you again, when you-

Miller was still going. For almost a minute the two songs ran bizarrely together; then Miller gave in. His voice trailed away. 'You wanker!' he yelled. There were more cheers. Atkin's voice-or whoever's it was-grew louder, lustier. He must have been cupping his hands around his mouth and bellowing like a bull.

Give me a girl with hair of brown,
Who likes it going up but prefers it coming down!
Give me a girl with hair of red,
Who likes it in the hand but prefers it in the bed!
Give me a –

But then the 'Raiders Past' siren started up. Atkin turned his song into a whoop. Men on every landing joined in, drumming with their fists on their walls, their window-frames, their beds. Only Giggs was disappointed.

'Come back, you gobshites!' he called, hoarsely. 'Come back, you German cunts! You forgot D Hall! You forgot D Hall!'

'Get down out of those fucking windows!' roared someone out in the yard, and there was the rapid crunch, crunch of boots on cinders, as the officers emerged from their shelter and started heading towards the prison. From all along the hall, then, there came the thump and scrape of tables: the men were leaping down from their windows, hurling themselves back into their bunks… In another minute, the electric lights were switched on. Mr Browning and Mr Chase came pounding up the stairs and started racing down the landings, hammering on doors, flinging open spy-holes: 'Pacey! Wright! Malone, you little shit- If I catch any of you fuckers out of your beds, the whole lot of you'll be banged up from now till Christmas, do you hear?'

Fraser turned his face into his pillow, groaning and cursing against the light. Duncan drew up his blanket over his eyes. Their door was thumped, but the racing footsteps went past. They faded for a moment; stopped; grew loud, then faded again. Duncan had a sense of Mr Browning and Mr Chase turning snarling about, thwarted and furious, like dogs on chains… 'You shit-cakes!' one of them cried, for show. 'I'm warning you-!'