Greece2

                                                                                                                       
                                                                     WHEN RAZOR LOST HIS EDGE                         
                                                                       

Salonika, 1947.

 Lance corporal “Razor” Wilkinson, head of vice in the provost company, jumped out of his black maria (which was green) head down, butting the rain as he dashed for the shelter of the unit’s hotel. He signalled a quick “Hi” to Les Hooper, who was just leaving, as he shot past.  Les, the Investigations NCO, turned up the collar of his raincoat and battled his way into the street in the downpour.
       
        Wilkinson came from Nottingham, where his father ran a butcher’s shop. This explained why Razor looked so well fed. Meat rationing, for a start, had not affected the family. He was plumpish, one of those men who seemed to carry that extra bit of weight that no amount of physical exercise and dieting would ever change. He’d been in charge of the Vice Squad for a several months. In fact, he was the Vice Squad.
        The captain believed it looked good on the company orders for Razor to be called the Vice Squad. Made a big impression at headquarters. He never mentioned, even on company orders, that the Vice Squad consisted of just one lance corporal, that lance corporal being the butcher’s son from Nottingham.
       Razor was young with an honest face. Another reason why the captain had appointed him in the first place, because, as the captain knew, behind every honest face resided an honest person.
       Oh, dear! The naivety of man!
       
     Although his hometown was notorious for beautiful girls, Razor seemed to endure exquisite difficulty in communicating successfully with the opposite sex. Whenever girls were the current topic of conversation, which was more frequent than dinners, he would clam up and never contribute to the discussions. No one had ever heard him mention girlfriends.
       He was, because of this strange personality quirk, probably the best man for the Vice Squad. Certainly, everyone thought he was, especially Captain Aloysius Crowley, who never ceased to let everyone within earshot know how good a judge of character he was. As the captain never made an error, it had to be the perfect slot for Razor’s abilities. Mind you, Razor, who went about his business with remarkable zeal, had yet to prove he possessed any abilities, unless pushing prostitutes around counted in that category.
       To be fair, Razor did turn out to be the perfect NCO for the job. His main task was to trace women who passed on diseases of lust. As the British army, like all other armies, was packed with lustful soldiers, this meant that Razor had a job destined never to reach a climax. He visited the pathological department at the British Military Hospital every day, except Sundays, when infections were forbidden, and recorded the name of each soldier who was under treatment with the still magical antibiotic, penicillin.
       
     His duty was then to interrogate the soldiers and obtain the names and working locations of the girls who infected them. Many times the soldiers would not know names of girls; it wasn’t their names that attracted them. Having got whatever details he could, Razor roamed around at night in his van and picked up suspected women and packed them off to hospital for checkups.
       He was certainly the ideal man. The captain believed that, to Razor, a woman was just a commodity within the compass of his work and treated them all alike. His success in his field was greater than Field Marshal Montgomery’s at Alamein. Phenomenal! He seldom failed to trace a contaminated source although no one ever heard him boasting of his enviable accomplishments. Statistics proved that the incidence of STDs had dropped like the arctic temperature since Razor appeared on the scene. The brass were delighted with the superb job he was doing in keeping the army in the peak of health.
       They were blithely unaware that Razor was doing nothing of the sort.
      
       Creepy was certainly proud of him, and his work gave the captain brownie points with the Deputy Provost Marshal. Even Sergeant Bumstead, the acting regimental sergeant major, made sure that Razor was kept clear of all other duties so he could concentrate solely on his successful vice record. Bumstead said that Razor boosted the Company’s prestige to such an extent that he would stay on vice until “time in memorial.”
       One person that Bumstead didn’t fool was Les. Les knew that Bumstead’s name had found its way into Razor’s AB466, the official police notebook, for catching pox, and that the sergeant went in fear, knowing that should he ever upset Razor, his dalliance with a bar girl would become a conversational masterpiece in the unit. The girl involved was Mad Molly from the Decca bar. She had large brown eyes like an owl and a body as thin as a rake. 
       
     One day Razor told Les that he was worried because Creepy had decided he would accompany him on his rounds one evening. He asked Les if he could offer him any advice on what to do. Les told him to behave quite normally and not try anything different. Even if he did anything wrong, Creepy wouldn’t know it.
       Razor and Les were very good companions, welded together by a common bond—novices in their respective jobs. Both were allocated tasks they initially knew nothing about and both bumbled along as best they could, learning as they struggled and having to learn fast.
       Also they shared a secret.
      
      Early one evening Les called on Razor in his room to scrounge a cigarette. As he opened the door, Razor looked up, startled, from where  he was sitting on his bed entering something in his notebook. He hurriedly closed his notebook, looking guilty, and slid a book he was copying from under his pillow.      
        ‘Hi. Razor,’ Les greeted him. ‘What’re you doing?’ He grinned. ‘You’re up to something, aren’t you? He crossed the room and sat alongside Razor. ‘Come on, you can tell your old mate. I’m practicing extracting confessions, so I might as well have yours.’
       Razor wore a very worried expression. ‘What do you want?’ he retaliated.
       Les said, ‘I came in for a fag and catch you making secret notes.’
       Razor adopted an offended look. ‘They’re not secret. I’m just making entries of tonight’s patrol round the bar area and the prossies I want to pick up.’
       ‘Oh, yeh!’ Les said, and swiftly reached under the pillow to whip out a soft-covered book. He looked at it and his brow furrowed. Then his face cleared and he read aloud, grinning, ‘The Bumper Book Of Greek Names.’
       ‘Give me that,’ Razor demanded. He hesitated and stuttered, ‘I’m learning Greek, that’s all.’
       Les sniggered. ‘Learning Greek!’ He waved the book in the air. ‘Come off it, Razor. How’re you going to learn Greek from a book of names?’
       ‘Got to start somewhere,’ Razor said meekly.
      
       Les held the book and stared at it for a long minute. Slowly his face lit up with understanding. It was like curtains opening on a stage to disclose a play’s scenery.
       ‘You cunning bastard!’ he spat. ‘I know what this is all about.’
       Razor broke in quickly. ‘You don’t. I told you, I’m learning Greek.’
       ‘No,’ Les told him, a broad grin splitting his face. ‘You’re entering girls’ names in your notebook and I can guess why.’
       ‘Go on then, if you’re so damned clever,’ Razor invited. He still looked worried.
       Les explained, ‘All this success you’ve been achieving by tracing poxed up women is a load of cobblers, isn’t it?’ He paused for his words to sink in before continuing, ‘You’re inventing names and pretending they’re your targets. No one can argue with you because no one ever checks out the names.’ He sniggered again. ‘So you get away with it.’
       ‘I do catch some real ones,’ Razor said resignedly, a sadness enveloping his features when he accepted he’d been snared with no chance of escape.
       Les nodded. ‘I’m sure you do. Christ Almighty! No wonder you’re the most successful Vice NCO known to mankind. With such a sure-fire system you’re like the Canadian Mounties—you never fail to get your man. Or woman in your case.’
       Razor gazed at Les with apprehension nibbling at the edges of his countenance. ‘What are you going to do?’
      
       Les sniffed. ‘Do? Me do? Why, nothing, of course. In the first place you’re my mate and, secondly, your ingenuity amazes me. ‘ He stopped and his eyes narrowed. ‘One thing puzzles me. If you’re inventing the girls, how do you get around arresting them?’
       ‘That’s simple,’ Razor said, gaining confidence by the second. ‘I pick up any bar girl I choose. They don’t know whether they’ve been fingered or not. I put them in my wagon and drive them around town for half-an-hour and then release them. Anyone watching thinks I’ve got my nose to the grindstone.’
       Les repeated, ‘And no one compares their names with those in your notebook, or on the proformas.’
       ‘No.’
       Les remained silent, thinking deeply. Even the statistics were invented. The authorities never thought of comparing Razor’s figures with hospital lists.
       ‘Have you spotted a hole in my system?’ Razor asked.
       Les grinned. ‘Not really. I was just thinking that I could do with some scam like this for my job. Unfortunately my reports go everywhere and I can’t invent names of villains to put in them. But I’ll concentrate my mind to it and see if I can discover some sort of wangle to increase my arrest figures.’
       ‘Don’t catch a migraine,’ Razor said, attempting humour to settle his nervous stomach.
       
    The insistence of Crowley to accompany Razor made things a bit awkward. The two friends discussed it and came up with a solution. On the evening concerned, Razor’s list of girls’ names was considerably shorter than usual. Most evenings he would have half-a-dozen or so, of which one or two might be genuine. When Crowley joined him he only had three names and they were all above board. And he got lucky and managed to pick up all three girls. So he sustained his hundred per cent success record right under the nose of his unsuspecting captain.
       
       At nine o’clock the next morning Crowley nearly wet himself with excitement as he drove across the city to the DPM’s office to inform Colonel Fitzjohn of how he had written off his social evening by foraging with Wilkinson and identifying wanted prostitutes. Those weren’t his exact comments but he made certain the colonel didn’t miss the gist of his exemplary dedication to duty and the important part he’d played.
       He went on to confirm again that his natural instinct for assessing character had been spot on in the appointment of Wilkinson, which undoubtedly had been a stroke of genius, for his success rate far exceeded any of the statistics in the files produced by previous tenants of the Vice Squad.
       Colonel Fitzjohn, secretly shuddering, duly acknowledged Crowley’s report as excellent and congratulated him.
       He said without a trace of sarcasm, ‘Captain Crowley you deserve a medal for devotion to duty.’
       Crowley had an immediate desire to leap up and give the DPM a big hug of gratitude. But there was something indefinable about the DPM’s placid comment that held him back.
       
     Meanwhile Razor glided along as smoothly as an oiled ball bearing. Life was sweet and uncomplicated. His scheme was foolproof and on the surface he led a chaste and pristine existence. His virginal lifestyle became the talk of the company and, instead of the expected ridicule such character would normally attract, most of his contemporaries went out on a limb and openly admired him.
       He was hailed as the incorruptible uncrowned king of the brothels.
       Then one unforgettable night, whilst engaged in the job he loved, his world crashed around his ears and the serene existence he’d worked so diligently to achieve went haywire. The circumstances shattered his shield of innocence.
       What happened?
       
     He was suddenly whisked into the surgical ward at the military hospital one night for an immediate and delicate operation before he bled to death. No one else knew why he was in hospital, although many guessed—wrongly as it happened.
       When he was discharged eight days later he crept back to the company like a dog with its tail between its legs. He refused to answer questions or say why he had been in dock. Usually when a man kept taciturn about sickness, it was for one reason only—he’d caught a packet. All those who had guessed his ailment wore broad smiles of smugness, even though they remained mistaken in their ignorance.
       
     From then on no one believed any longer that Razor was a paragon of clean-living manhood, a saint amongst sinners, who eschewed dubious women like thrusting aside a worn pair of boots. The ideal man, whose snowy life had never been sullied by anything sordid like sex, had come a cropper. Those who had worshipped him now changed their tune to say that they had known all along he was too good to be true.
       The cruelty was softened by a consensus that Razor had become more human.
       
     Les soon squeezed the truth from his friend. It seems that Razor applied more than one kind of pressure while on the job and helped himself to a free service from the girls he dealt with, managing to keep his dabbling in murky waters strictly to himself. On the night he was abruptly crocked he had been with a particular favourite of his, a bottle blonde from the Rialto Bar named Adonia.
       She was a buxom girl, full of wicked enthusiasm for her profession and as juicy as a Jaffa. She was known on the circuit as Nympho Ado. Being high in the bar girls pecking order she had use of a front room overlooking the seafront on the top floor of the building. The room was untastily furnished with heavy faded tassled curtains and a ostentatious worn carpet showing a dragon design, which Razor said was the spitting image of Kyria Popandoulous, the bar owner. The place reeked of a cocktail of perfume and garlic. Her exuberance had broken the wooden four-poster she used to have and Razor had smuggled her an army iron bedstead, which, though uncomfortable for more than one occupant, well suited abandoned morals.
       
     It was Razor’s bad luck that she became exceptionally keen that night and began throwing herself around the narrow bed like a crazy gymnast. In the course of the excitement of cementing their close friendship for the third time that session, a breathless Razor, trying to keep up with his crazy partner, ripped his G-string.
       Nympho Ado’s frenzy quickly lost its fire and, awash with blood, she called Razor a fool for being a careless chicken and the hospital for a swift meat wagon.
       Les promised with his life that he wouldn’t breathe a word of his misfortune to anyone else. Matelot, his roommate, nearly bust a gut when Les told him. His sympathy knew no bounds.
       ‘Serves him right,’ he chortled.
       ‘Why?’
       Matelot flung out his arms. ‘Been getting baksheesh crumpet all this time and keeping it for himself.’      
       Both men fell about laughing.
       
     Razor preferred the others to believe the worst rather than confess to circumcision, which sounded more like a religion than a calamity. He carried his sadness around for a while before rising from the ashes of disenchantment.
       No one really knew whether his regrets were for his shattered infallibility or the break up with Nympho. Her ardour had decidedly cooled, despite Razor impressing upon her that a man, like a virgin, could only snap once.
       Still upset, he later confided to Les that he could suffer the pain of the surgeon's knife, the jeering of those who thought he'd been dealt a full-house, and even bear Nympho chucking him out on his ear. He went on, 'But what really cuts me to the quick. . . .' He hesitated as a tear rolled down his cheek.
       'Go on,' Les urged, fighting to keep a straight face.
       '. . . .she won't give me my bed back.'
                                                                                         END              

The office of Provost Marshal is the oldest in the British Army. William of Cassingham, who was appointed as a military Sergeant of the Peace by King Henry III on 28 May 1241, is the first named military policeman. He and his under provosts were ancestors of the Royal Military Police.