Saturday 29 October

Administration. He thought that it had its own beauty and meaning. Making the system better and seeing it work predictably and efficiently was sufficient reward in itself for him, and, happily, the Service believed that all other benefits stemmed from [the art of effective administration].

But when, in the autumn of 1937, he’d found himself standing – amazed by the reality of actually being there – on the honey-coloured flagstones of the quay of that middle eastern port on the first morning of his first posting, he wasn’t thinking about administration.

He was thinking instead about the aeroplane flight that he’d made just the day before – his first time in an aeroplane. Passenger flight back then was a rarity, an experience reserved for the powerful and the famous, and yet he too had flown now. As the boat-bottomed seaplane had picked up speed, ploughing bumpily through the grey water and mist of the October Baltic, he had to remind himself that this was happening to him – Jan Martens – and not someone else whose life he was looking in on from outside. The success he’d had at university (starred first class degree), and at the Service Academy (top marks amongst his year’s intake), and the trappings of success (overseas posting, aeroplane travel) all felt strangely abstract to him, as if he wasn’t really experiencing them in a real, concrete way, but only getting fleeting, echoey impressions of them, which he couldn’t hang on to or recall as if they were real/as if he’d really been there. It all seems somehow fraudulent – as if he’s receiving benefits that he doesn’t deserve, and which will be taken away from him once someone in authority realises that a mistake has been made. Yesterday afternoon, when he and Mariette had lain in each others’ arms after making love in their hotel room overlooking the Baltic, he had felt tearful and frightened at the prospect of leaving her behind, and confused by his fear that she would see how upset and uncertain he was. So he had held her close to him, his chin on her shoulder so that she couldn’t see his face, and stroked her smooth skin with a desperate rhythmicness, as if he were petting a dog that needed placating. Later, after she had fallen asleep, he’d gently disentangled himself from her and laid her head gently down onto the pillow, smiling at the way her blonde hair and creamy skin contrasted with the garish rosy pink bedclothes. My god, she’s so delicate and beautiful. I am so lucky, so lucky. For a moment, he felt a tremor of panic – a sense that he couldn’t go, that he’d have to refuse the posting. He pulled the sheet over Mariette, climbed slowly off the bed so as not to disturb her, and scuffed his way across the pale grey linoleum to the room-height French windows, where he pulled aside the net [1930s??] curtains. The rain of the earlier afternoon had cleared and now, with dusk fast approaching, there was some whitish sky showing between the heavy grey clouds. The hotel was only separated from the sea by the two-lane highway and a narrow promenade edged with metal railings, beyond which the masts of small yachts were metronoming back and forth as the boats rocked in the swell. Further out, the water was cloud-shadowed deep grey, with metallic highlights where the hard light shone. On the far side of the channel, obscured by thin mist and early evening gloom, the lights of the towns and villages were starting to twinkle. There was something calming about the light and water, about the swish of the cars on the rain-wet road below the window, and about the distant lights across the water: with the world outside, established and solid and reliable, and Mariette sleeping behind him – his wife, whom he loved, and who had chosen to marry him – these things seemed to settle him, to help him see that everything was in the right place after all.

And now here he is, two days later, in the middle east, thinking about how he’d never seen such a blue sky, even though the sun was still low in the sky, and about how clear the air was, with the sunlight etching the shadows and contours of the warm brown hills far across the glittering water, all the shoulders, [ravines, run-offs] and stray boulders sharp-edged and distinct. The boatman’s boy was perched on the stern decking of the [punt-type boat], still dozy with recent sleep, and plainly bored. When the boat’s slight pitch and fall jerked him awake he looked up at the foreign travellers on the quay, near-silhouettes against the bright sky and the climbing sun behind them, and found nothing there of interest or novelty — just the reminder of the routine journey, and the routine days gone past and still to come; the dull interchangability of anonymous foreigners passing through. Jan sees the boy’s disdain, the way that he judges them and assigns them all the same category, and that irks him; he wants the boy to see that he, Jan, is different — someone who’s genuinely interested in the region and its inhabitants, and who is keen too absorb the culture and to engage with the native people in a profound way.

[some more stuff about his posting…burgeoning career, engagement with the ‘other’. And then the war comes, and he’s shipped back home…]

Which is how he ended up just behind the front line in the summer of ’41, attached to the 109th Police Battalion as a Logistics/Economic Administration Officer. [get him from the station to the unit HQ…]

“Economist…” says Colonel Mechelen, theatrically looking Jan’s papers up and down before laying them down on his leather-topped desk. “…have you been in battle?” (with another patronising peer at the papers, vainly seeking evidence of military service.)
“No. No. I’ve just been transferred – straight out of the Colonial Service to here. I haven’t even had any conversion training – which they said I would get. I haven’t even been home.” He stops, realising that he’s gabbling a bit, and that he’s probably sounding whiny and childish. These are soldiers. This is all different now.
“That’s fine,” says Mechelen, “we don’t expect you to have to do any fighting. In fact, the fighting is pretty much finished out here, probably as far as fity kilometres east of here. It’s all just mopping up here. That’s why we’re here – fucking moppers up.” He laughs a harsh, bitter laugh, and Jan wonders if he might be a little drunk, even though it’s not yet ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning.
“Anyway, fuck that,” says Mechelen, “come and meet the boys.”

(c. 1100 words)