Sykes glanced at his watch. Tanner was taking his time, he thought. He put his cards face down on his knee and rolled himself a cigarette, while keeping half an eye on the other two players. Hepworth was fingering his cards, knowing he was beaten but evidently hoping that by shuffling them repeatedly, the winning combination would miraculously reveal itself. McAllister, on the other hand, clearly believed he had the hand of his life.
Sykes smiled to himself. 'You know, Mac,' he said, 'you could be quite a good player, but you're so bleedin' easy to read. The point of poker is not to give anything away.'
McAllister jigged his knee up and down. 'I don't care. No one can beat my hand.' He chortled. 'Come on, Hep. Get a move on. You're dead and buried, mate, so why prolong the agony?'
'It's your bloody crowing,' said Hepworth. 'It's driving me mad.'
There was now seven shillings and fourpence on the empty bed that was doubling as a card table - a tidy sum and more than any of them, even Corporal Sykes, was paid for a day's soldiering. Sykes wondered what hand McAllister had - a straight flush, perhaps? Had to be something like that. He licked the cigarette paper, ran a finger down the seam, then put it to his mouth.
Eventually Hepworth sighed and laid his cards face up on the bed. Three of a kind. 'Go on, then, Mac, let's see what you've got.'
McAllister grinned, then slapped down his cards. Seven, eight, nine, ten and jack of clubs. As Sykes had suspected, a straight flush.
'Very good, Mac, very good,' said Sykes. He held his cigarette between his thumb and index finger and stroked his chin.
'Swallow your pride, Stan,' said McAllister. 'Just accept that this time a miracle's happened and you've lost.' He looked round at the others. 'He knows he's beat. Ha - look at all that lovely lolly! That'll keep me in fags and booze for weeks.'
Sykes remained impassive. He was not a tall man, with a wiry frame, a narrow face and always immaculately brilliantined hair. But he had long, slender fingers and a sleight of hand that could fool most people, and certainly the young Yorkshire lads in his section.
'All right, Mac,' Sykes began, and McAllister leaned forward to scoop up the coins in front of him. 'Here's my hand.' He fanned his cards on the bed, a smirk stretching across his face as he did so.
Hepworth laughed. 'It's a royal flush! Ha! Unlucky, Mac!'
'What?' exclaimed Mac. 'How the hell did you manage that?'
Sykes grinned. 'Like I said, Mac, you're too bleedin' obvious.' He picked up a coin and flicked it to McAllister. 'Here,' he said, 'have half a crown. Runner- up's prize.'
A moment later, Tanner returned with Lieutenant Peploe.
'Don't get up,' said Peploe, from the doorway. 'As you are.' He eyed them all and, seeing McAllister putting away the cards, smiled. 'Who won?'
'Corporal Sykes, sir,' said Hepworth. 'McAllister here thought he'd nailed us all, but it weren't to be.'
Sykes shrugged.
'You want to watch the corporal, sir,' said Tanner, standing beside the lieutenant. 'He can do very clever things with those hands of his.'
'What are you suggesting, Sarge?' said Sykes, feigning indignation.
Peploe cleared his throat. 'An introduction,' he said. 'I'm Second Lieutenant John Peploe and I'm your new platoon commander. I know you had quite a time of it in Norway and I'm sorry you've not had more leave. However, your experience is much needed here - we're primarily still a training company - and I'm extremely glad to have you in my platoon. There's every chance we'll soon be joining the First Battalion in France, but in the meantime we need to help the recruits so that if and when we do get to join the BEF we might be of some use.' He glanced around the men. 'You'll meet the rest of the platoon on the parade-ground at four o'clock - or, rather, I should say, sixteen hundred hours - and then we'll be heading off to Kingsgate for some coastal guard duty. Right - now I need to know who you are.' He stepped from the doorway into the hut and approached each man in turn, shaking hands and reiterating how glad he was to have them serving under him. Then he spoke briefly with Tanner, straightened his cap, and left them to it once more.
Sykes came over to Tanner, who had made a beeline for his pack. 'He seems all right. So did the CSM for that matter.'
'Mr Peploe's fine,' agreed Tanner. 'It's early days but I'd say he was a good bloke.'
Sykes thought a moment, conscious that the sergeant had made no mention of CSM Blackstone. He hadn't known Tanner long - a few weeks only - but he believed a friendship had been forged in Norway, founded on mutual trust and respect, and developed during a difficult trek through the snow and the mountains. The enemy had dogged their every move yet they had made it to safety, rejoining the rest of the British forces as the final evacuation was taking place. In many ways they were very different, both physically and in character, but although neither had ever spoken of it, Sykes had recognized early that they shared one thing in common. Both were outsiders among these Yorkshiremen, and there was a tacit understanding of this between them: while most of the Yorkshire Rangers were drawn from the northern cities of Leeds and Bradford, Tanner was a countryman from the south-west and Sykes a working-class boy from
Deptford in south London. And these differences revealed themselves every time they spoke - Tanner with his soft south-western burr, Sykes with a Cockney lilt.
'And the CSM?' he asked.
Tanner said nothing.
'Sarge?' Sykes persisted.
Tanner stopped fiddling with his pack and turned to him. 'Let's just say there's some history between us.'
'Before the war?'
'Yes - in India. He may seem a right charmer, but take a piece of advice. Watch how you tread with him around, Stan.'
'All right, Sarge. I'll bear that in mind.' For a moment, he thought about asking what that history was exactly, then dismissed the idea. He already knew Tanner well enough to sense he would get no more out of him now. Eventually, though, he would get to the bottom of it. He promised himself that.
It was around one a.m. on the morning of Friday, 10 May, when Stanislaw Torwinski woke to find a hand pressed hard across his mouth, a hand that smelled of old tobacco and oil. No sooner had he opened his eyes to the almost pitch dark of the hut than two more hands grabbed his shoulders and dragged him out of his bed. He tried to speak, but the hand across his mouth merely pressed harder.
There were only three of them in the hut, the overflow from more than a hundred of their compatriots who were housed in identical huts alongside. More Poles were on their way to join them, they had been told, but in the two weeks since they had first arrived at Manston, it had remained just the three of them.
Torwinski was conscious of Ormicki and Kasprowicz struggling too. As his eyes adjusted, he was aware of a faint hint of light from the open door, then a voice said, 'Get dressed,' and a torch was briefly turned on, shining at the clothes laid out on the empty bed next to his own. The hand released his mouth.
'Tell the other two, but otherwise don't say a word, understand?' The unmistakable muzzle of a pistol was thrust into his side.