A captain's work - The Cooler King
Inspired by two of my favourite visual works, The Great Escape and The Duchess and The Devil, I give you an old piece which the graverobbers have dug up and dusted off:
The cooler king.
That’s what they called Archie Kennedy the first time he walked out of the place, head still held high and a cocky grin on his face. They still called him it when he staggered out, after his fourth visit, less cocky now and bloody near wire happy.
Why did he keep trying to escape? It wasn’t as if he’d been that successful, the railway station being the furthest he’d managed. His answer to the rest of the men in the hut was always the same. “I want to get home so that I can fight Germans, not line up to be counted by them”. He knew that was a lie every time he spoke it. I want to get home to tell Horatio I’m still alive.
Even if Archie had an address to write to, which he didn’t, the goons inspected all the post, so how could he have said what he really meant? I love you, Horatio. I couldn’t tell you then, at the air field, how could I with us all living in each others’ pockets? How could I have coped if you’d said you were sorry, you couldn’t return anything but friendship? I wouldn’t waste such an opportunity now, whatever the answer was.
And so he just had to dig, make a convincing disguise, find a way to get over the wire, anything to get onto a train, into a boat and across the Channel. Only he wouldn’t be doing any of those for a while, not after the last stint in the cooler. All he could do was lie in the little sick bay, be fussed over by the rather matronly doctor and be cross at Horatio. Something had happened, this last spell in solitary, and not just to his body. He wasn’t sure he loved Horatio any more, wasn’t sure he even wanted to see him again. Hornblower, the man who’d gone from puking up on the lawn outside the officers’ mess at Tangmere, car sick after the drive from London, to being the most accomplished squadron leader on the south coast. Horatio bloody perfect Hornblower who’d be Chief of Staff, Air Group, next month if he went on the way he was going. The man invaded all his thoughts now, not pleasantly, longingly, as had been once, but bitterly. There was resentment now, where there’d been only affection and friendship.
~“Not you.” Archie thought he was dreaming, opening stinging eyes to see an apparition by his bed. Horatio, here, seeing him broken and bruised-when he should have seen him triumphant and brave, having crossed half of Europe to get home.
“They said you were here. I couldn’t believe it. I thought…” Horatio’s eyes were welling up, “I thought you were dead.”
“I might as well have been. I might as well be. Leave me alone, won’t you, Horatio? There’s no escape from here so we’ll just have to sit this bloody war out.” Archie turned his face to the wooden-slatted wall. The cooler would be better than this, the torture of solitude and dreams of Horatio which wouldn’t come true. Now he was here, dark rimmed eyes making him more beautiful than ever, mellifluous voice too seductive for the setting.
“I never thought you’d give up, not my Archie.”
Archie could hear the choke in Horatio’s voice which spoke of tears. He couldn’t look - the man crying would break any fragments of his heart which remained in any way intact. He focussed on the single word which really mattered. My. Flight Lieutenant Kennedy, not Old Archie Kennedy. My Archie.
“I’ll come back later. When you’re…less tired.”
Archie bit back the sarcastic reply which came to his lips, instead remembered my. “Yes, if you wish.”
~ Archie sat in the weak sunshine, watching a makeshift game of rugby which had broken out and was probably covering up either the noise of digging or the distribution of dirt from a tunnel. He wasn’t sure he cared either way. “Hello Horatio. Come for your lesson?”
Horatio carried a copy of Cervantes, a German translation which Archie who spoke the language tolerably well, was using to instruct the man. It provided a more intellectual challenge than the sort of argot Archie had picked up for childhood holidays in Alsace. He didn’t know if Horatio was taking the lessons for the intellectual pleasure of them or was planning some great escape attempt; it was something he tried not to think about. Horatio had mentioned it, of course, and he’d shut his ears, changed the subject, made it clear that he wasn’t ready for another attempt.
Why? Horatio had wheedled, cajoled, wanted to know what the problem was.
Too tired, Horatio. Disheartened. Couldn’t face the bloody cooler again. Might not be the cooler, could be a sodding firing squad. Tried too often. Failed too often. Archie wasn’t sure if Horatio had believed him; certainly he’d been a good companion, surprisingly understanding and supportive, trying to persuade him that this time it would be different. It would be successful.
It was the success Archie couldn’t face. The glorious Horatio Hornblower, star of the squadron, now star of the Stalag, he’d be leading half the bloody camp out under the noses of the goons and everyone singing his praises. And Archie Kennedy the failure following in his footsteps as usual like some little lamb, besotted.
~“We can’t make it without you.”
The end of a long conversation, at the end of a long night. The latest of many such chats out on the exercise yard or here, as now, in the room they shared with four other airmen.
“That’s nonsense. You don’t need me.” Archie lay back on his bunk, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He’d been persuaded to make an effort to contribute, of course he had - how could anyone resist Horatio’s persistence forever? Especially someone so smitten with Horatio as he was, stirring a passion which their close confinement was doing nothing to minimise.
Archie didn’t tunnel - too many hours spent in the cooler to feel happy in a cramped space - but he was teaching his fellow prisoners enough German to get by. Hopefully. And he was active in the forgery factory, checking the language, looking for errors, making his contribution to an escape plan he still wanted no active part in.
“No-one speaks German as well as you do. You’d be invaluable the other side of the wire.”
Archie wouldn’t look at Horatio’s eyes; their doleful appearance would wear down his resistance. “I haven’t been in the past, have I? I’d say I was a positive encumbrance on the procedure.” He rolled over towards the wooden wall. “I’ve said my piece. It’s not as if I don’t want you to succeed, God knows I do, but I won’t be watching your wing this time.”
In the silence which followed, the deep, dark silence of men breathing and dogs somewhere far off baying at the moon, Archie thought he heard - or was it just wishful thinking - his friend say I can’t make it without you. He tried to sleep, but the words echoed in his ears worse than his guns’ staccato welcome for a skyful of Messerschmitts. Or perhaps he was kept awake waiting for Horatio to repeat what he’d said, or call his name in the night.
~ “They’ve found the tunnel.”
The news spread like wildfire, like a hail of bullets ripping through the camp from end to end faster than anyone could imagine. Archie, who’d been working on a map, quickly hid it in an old magazine which had made its way to the Stalag via the ministrations of the Red Cross.
“They’ve found the tunnel.” Matthews said it again, motioning for everyone to come outside, witness the funeral of their hopes.
Archie vaulted off his bunk, ran outside with the rest of them, a million versions of grief going through his head. Despair, disbelief, anger - yet hidden among them a small nugget of satisfaction that now Horatio couldn’t be the hero. That Horatio couldn’t leave him.
The goons were swarming around the hut, some of them motioning with guns towards a line of men, pale anxious men hands on heads, and hearts in mouths. But it was the wrong hut, the wrong tunnel, not Horatio’s after all; his started under the third hut in. This melee was centred on the last hut, probably concerning the half cocked effort that Hunter had been said to be getting his little gang working on. The one the escape committee had wanted to ban but had allowed to carry on as it kept Hunter’s feckless layabouts away from the real attempt to get out.
Everyone was being assembled for the usual head count and the inevitable tongue lashing. Hunter, covered in earth and freshly inflicted bruises, and probably dragged kicking and screaming from the workface; his cronies looking like little boys caught smoking in the school toilets. It all seemed so stupid. The goons appeared trigger happy, even the decent ones, probably fearing their own tongue lashings - or worse - to come.
“Who is responsible?” The commandant’s voice brought any residual mumbling to a halt.
“Tell him, Horatio” Archie’s whisper would have been loud enough for his friend to hear but it brought no response.
“I will know.” The commandant slapped his gloved hand with a riding crop.
“I led the attempt.” The sound of Horatio’s voice made Archie feel sick. What the hell was the man playing at, taking the blame for something he’d had no part of? Even as head of the escape committee there was no reason for him to be falling on his sword - this was Hunter’s mess.
“Bring that man forward.”
Archie knew what was to follow, knew that Horatio would march to the cooler head raised, proud and formal as ever, noble in his sacrifice. Hunter wouldn’t appreciate it - he’d either despise the man or feel guilty at not having denied Horatio’s involvement. Archie didn’t appreciate it either. It would serve the idiot right.
But he started his own tally of days, counting them off until his friend was allowed out again.
~ “Horatio.” Archie said it under his breath, afraid that if he spoke too loud all his feelings would pour out unabated and the great secret would be made plain.
Horatio was also trying to hide something. The ramrod stiff walk, head held high again, was costing him all his effort, but he wasn’t going to let the goons see how tired and strained he was. Archie resisted all attempts to go and hug him, not even risking a cuff on his shoulder, just a handshake in a sea of handshakes as Horatio passed down the line of his comrades and into the hut.
He barely made it into their room before collapsing in an ungainly heap.
“Steady on, old man.” Archie knelt beside him, propping Horatio’s head on his arm, supremely grateful for the opportunity of being so close, so legitimately close and in a way that no-one could decry. “Takes some getting used to. Coming out.” He tipped his head towards the yard. “It was a bit overwhelming, out there.”
“Aye.” Horatio managed a wan smile. “If I can just rest a bit I’ll be fine.”
“Take all the time you want - I’ll keep the gawkers at bay.”
“Thank you. Wouldn’t want to be seen like this.”
It was the first time Archie could recall Horatio being so candid, making any reference to the fact that he might be merely mortal. He rubbed Horatio’s shoulder, make consolatory noises, resisted getting too sentimental, too optimistic. The guy had come out of a fortnight in the cooler, for goodness sake, there was nothing to be read into his wanting to be held by a friend.
“You were in there four times.” Horatio’s voice was full of awe, a newfound respect for his old flight lieutenant - reliable, solid yet unspectacular Archie - sounding in it. “I could never have survived that. How on earth did you manage?”
“Because that’s what you do, Horatio. You survive. Or else the bastards have won.” Archie wouldn’t say anything about the nightmares, or even the sweet dreams of returning home from which he’d wake to the cold reality of confinement, screaming and sobbing. If he was to have a moment’s glory in his friend’s eyes, then he’d savour it.
“Then you’re a better man than I am, Archie. I’ve always suspected it and now I know.” Horatio laid his head against his friend’s arm, breathing slowly and deeply, as content as a child in its mothers arms. As if in coming back to Archie he’d found security again.
It was a long time before Archie trusted himself to speak and then it was only to make the offer of a cup of tea from out of their dwindling Red Cross supplies. It tasted like champagne.
The cooler king.
That’s what they called Archie Kennedy the first time he walked out of the place, head still held high and a cocky grin on his face. They still called him it when he staggered out, after his fourth visit, less cocky now and bloody near wire happy.
Why did he keep trying to escape? It wasn’t as if he’d been that successful, the railway station being the furthest he’d managed. His answer to the rest of the men in the hut was always the same. “I want to get home so that I can fight Germans, not line up to be counted by them”. He knew that was a lie every time he spoke it. I want to get home to tell Horatio I’m still alive.
Even if Archie had an address to write to, which he didn’t, the goons inspected all the post, so how could he have said what he really meant? I love you, Horatio. I couldn’t tell you then, at the air field, how could I with us all living in each others’ pockets? How could I have coped if you’d said you were sorry, you couldn’t return anything but friendship? I wouldn’t waste such an opportunity now, whatever the answer was.
And so he just had to dig, make a convincing disguise, find a way to get over the wire, anything to get onto a train, into a boat and across the Channel. Only he wouldn’t be doing any of those for a while, not after the last stint in the cooler. All he could do was lie in the little sick bay, be fussed over by the rather matronly doctor and be cross at Horatio. Something had happened, this last spell in solitary, and not just to his body. He wasn’t sure he loved Horatio any more, wasn’t sure he even wanted to see him again. Hornblower, the man who’d gone from puking up on the lawn outside the officers’ mess at Tangmere, car sick after the drive from London, to being the most accomplished squadron leader on the south coast. Horatio bloody perfect Hornblower who’d be Chief of Staff, Air Group, next month if he went on the way he was going. The man invaded all his thoughts now, not pleasantly, longingly, as had been once, but bitterly. There was resentment now, where there’d been only affection and friendship.
~“Not you.” Archie thought he was dreaming, opening stinging eyes to see an apparition by his bed. Horatio, here, seeing him broken and bruised-when he should have seen him triumphant and brave, having crossed half of Europe to get home.
“They said you were here. I couldn’t believe it. I thought…” Horatio’s eyes were welling up, “I thought you were dead.”
“I might as well have been. I might as well be. Leave me alone, won’t you, Horatio? There’s no escape from here so we’ll just have to sit this bloody war out.” Archie turned his face to the wooden-slatted wall. The cooler would be better than this, the torture of solitude and dreams of Horatio which wouldn’t come true. Now he was here, dark rimmed eyes making him more beautiful than ever, mellifluous voice too seductive for the setting.
“I never thought you’d give up, not my Archie.”
Archie could hear the choke in Horatio’s voice which spoke of tears. He couldn’t look - the man crying would break any fragments of his heart which remained in any way intact. He focussed on the single word which really mattered. My. Flight Lieutenant Kennedy, not Old Archie Kennedy. My Archie.
“I’ll come back later. When you’re…less tired.”
Archie bit back the sarcastic reply which came to his lips, instead remembered my. “Yes, if you wish.”
~ Archie sat in the weak sunshine, watching a makeshift game of rugby which had broken out and was probably covering up either the noise of digging or the distribution of dirt from a tunnel. He wasn’t sure he cared either way. “Hello Horatio. Come for your lesson?”
Horatio carried a copy of Cervantes, a German translation which Archie who spoke the language tolerably well, was using to instruct the man. It provided a more intellectual challenge than the sort of argot Archie had picked up for childhood holidays in Alsace. He didn’t know if Horatio was taking the lessons for the intellectual pleasure of them or was planning some great escape attempt; it was something he tried not to think about. Horatio had mentioned it, of course, and he’d shut his ears, changed the subject, made it clear that he wasn’t ready for another attempt.
Why? Horatio had wheedled, cajoled, wanted to know what the problem was.
Too tired, Horatio. Disheartened. Couldn’t face the bloody cooler again. Might not be the cooler, could be a sodding firing squad. Tried too often. Failed too often. Archie wasn’t sure if Horatio had believed him; certainly he’d been a good companion, surprisingly understanding and supportive, trying to persuade him that this time it would be different. It would be successful.
It was the success Archie couldn’t face. The glorious Horatio Hornblower, star of the squadron, now star of the Stalag, he’d be leading half the bloody camp out under the noses of the goons and everyone singing his praises. And Archie Kennedy the failure following in his footsteps as usual like some little lamb, besotted.
~“We can’t make it without you.”
The end of a long conversation, at the end of a long night. The latest of many such chats out on the exercise yard or here, as now, in the room they shared with four other airmen.
“That’s nonsense. You don’t need me.” Archie lay back on his bunk, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He’d been persuaded to make an effort to contribute, of course he had - how could anyone resist Horatio’s persistence forever? Especially someone so smitten with Horatio as he was, stirring a passion which their close confinement was doing nothing to minimise.
Archie didn’t tunnel - too many hours spent in the cooler to feel happy in a cramped space - but he was teaching his fellow prisoners enough German to get by. Hopefully. And he was active in the forgery factory, checking the language, looking for errors, making his contribution to an escape plan he still wanted no active part in.
“No-one speaks German as well as you do. You’d be invaluable the other side of the wire.”
Archie wouldn’t look at Horatio’s eyes; their doleful appearance would wear down his resistance. “I haven’t been in the past, have I? I’d say I was a positive encumbrance on the procedure.” He rolled over towards the wooden wall. “I’ve said my piece. It’s not as if I don’t want you to succeed, God knows I do, but I won’t be watching your wing this time.”
In the silence which followed, the deep, dark silence of men breathing and dogs somewhere far off baying at the moon, Archie thought he heard - or was it just wishful thinking - his friend say I can’t make it without you. He tried to sleep, but the words echoed in his ears worse than his guns’ staccato welcome for a skyful of Messerschmitts. Or perhaps he was kept awake waiting for Horatio to repeat what he’d said, or call his name in the night.
~ “They’ve found the tunnel.”
The news spread like wildfire, like a hail of bullets ripping through the camp from end to end faster than anyone could imagine. Archie, who’d been working on a map, quickly hid it in an old magazine which had made its way to the Stalag via the ministrations of the Red Cross.
“They’ve found the tunnel.” Matthews said it again, motioning for everyone to come outside, witness the funeral of their hopes.
Archie vaulted off his bunk, ran outside with the rest of them, a million versions of grief going through his head. Despair, disbelief, anger - yet hidden among them a small nugget of satisfaction that now Horatio couldn’t be the hero. That Horatio couldn’t leave him.
The goons were swarming around the hut, some of them motioning with guns towards a line of men, pale anxious men hands on heads, and hearts in mouths. But it was the wrong hut, the wrong tunnel, not Horatio’s after all; his started under the third hut in. This melee was centred on the last hut, probably concerning the half cocked effort that Hunter had been said to be getting his little gang working on. The one the escape committee had wanted to ban but had allowed to carry on as it kept Hunter’s feckless layabouts away from the real attempt to get out.
Everyone was being assembled for the usual head count and the inevitable tongue lashing. Hunter, covered in earth and freshly inflicted bruises, and probably dragged kicking and screaming from the workface; his cronies looking like little boys caught smoking in the school toilets. It all seemed so stupid. The goons appeared trigger happy, even the decent ones, probably fearing their own tongue lashings - or worse - to come.
“Who is responsible?” The commandant’s voice brought any residual mumbling to a halt.
“Tell him, Horatio” Archie’s whisper would have been loud enough for his friend to hear but it brought no response.
“I will know.” The commandant slapped his gloved hand with a riding crop.
“I led the attempt.” The sound of Horatio’s voice made Archie feel sick. What the hell was the man playing at, taking the blame for something he’d had no part of? Even as head of the escape committee there was no reason for him to be falling on his sword - this was Hunter’s mess.
“Bring that man forward.”
Archie knew what was to follow, knew that Horatio would march to the cooler head raised, proud and formal as ever, noble in his sacrifice. Hunter wouldn’t appreciate it - he’d either despise the man or feel guilty at not having denied Horatio’s involvement. Archie didn’t appreciate it either. It would serve the idiot right.
But he started his own tally of days, counting them off until his friend was allowed out again.
~ “Horatio.” Archie said it under his breath, afraid that if he spoke too loud all his feelings would pour out unabated and the great secret would be made plain.
Horatio was also trying to hide something. The ramrod stiff walk, head held high again, was costing him all his effort, but he wasn’t going to let the goons see how tired and strained he was. Archie resisted all attempts to go and hug him, not even risking a cuff on his shoulder, just a handshake in a sea of handshakes as Horatio passed down the line of his comrades and into the hut.
He barely made it into their room before collapsing in an ungainly heap.
“Steady on, old man.” Archie knelt beside him, propping Horatio’s head on his arm, supremely grateful for the opportunity of being so close, so legitimately close and in a way that no-one could decry. “Takes some getting used to. Coming out.” He tipped his head towards the yard. “It was a bit overwhelming, out there.”
“Aye.” Horatio managed a wan smile. “If I can just rest a bit I’ll be fine.”
“Take all the time you want - I’ll keep the gawkers at bay.”
“Thank you. Wouldn’t want to be seen like this.”
It was the first time Archie could recall Horatio being so candid, making any reference to the fact that he might be merely mortal. He rubbed Horatio’s shoulder, make consolatory noises, resisted getting too sentimental, too optimistic. The guy had come out of a fortnight in the cooler, for goodness sake, there was nothing to be read into his wanting to be held by a friend.
“You were in there four times.” Horatio’s voice was full of awe, a newfound respect for his old flight lieutenant - reliable, solid yet unspectacular Archie - sounding in it. “I could never have survived that. How on earth did you manage?”
“Because that’s what you do, Horatio. You survive. Or else the bastards have won.” Archie wouldn’t say anything about the nightmares, or even the sweet dreams of returning home from which he’d wake to the cold reality of confinement, screaming and sobbing. If he was to have a moment’s glory in his friend’s eyes, then he’d savour it.
“Then you’re a better man than I am, Archie. I’ve always suspected it and now I know.” Horatio laid his head against his friend’s arm, breathing slowly and deeply, as content as a child in its mothers arms. As if in coming back to Archie he’d found security again.
It was a long time before Archie trusted himself to speak and then it was only to make the offer of a cup of tea from out of their dwindling Red Cross supplies. It tasted like champagne.