Oscar, the Second-Hand Man.

"That's a proper medal, that is!" Billy Ryan insisted, stabbing at
the crumpled ribbon with a grubby finger.

"I know what it is, mister." Oscar nodded quietly, ignoring the younger
man's frustrated rage. "I don't deal in those." Oscar's heavily
accented words weren't what Billy had wanted to hear.

"Look!" Billy shouted, waving the thick brown cardboard box under
Oscar's nose. "They're me uncle's, see? He won 'em, now he ain't
bothered about 'em no more. Wants some cash, see? You gonna give 'im
some?"

"No," Oscar said, shaking his grizzled head. "Campaign medals, no good.
Even that one.. not worth much these days. Worth nothing."

"Not worth much, you twistin' jewboy?" Billy spat. "God, my uncle
spends six years in a submarine.. you only got let out that camp
because of blokes like him, now you say these are worth nothin'? Makes
me ruddy sick." Oscar restrained himself with some difficulty.

"These your uncle's navy medals?" he asked acidly.

"Yeah!" Billy shouted as his younger cousin Ray looked on, shaking
silently. Ray knew exactly where Billy had got those medals from, but
he was far too frightened of his wayward companion to let on.

"Clever man, eh?" Oscar said wearily. "This uncle, he rear-gunner in a
submarine, eh? That's a DFC."

"A what?" Billy asked suspiciously.

"A DFC. Dis..tin.." "Distinguished!" Billy shouted. "Get it
right!"

"Distin.. guished Flying Cross."

"Okay, how would you know?" Billy asked accusingly.

"Seen one before," Oscar muttered.

"Get away. You're tryin' to do me!"

"Me doing you, mister? You bugger off right now, or I send for
policeman."

"I'm goin', don't you worry," Billy shouted, his voice hoarse with
suppressed fury. "But I'll be back!"

"I look forward to it, mister." Oscar's English was accurate if slow,
and often sounded as if he'd learnt it parrot-fashion from the
pictures. The shop door crashed shut, dislodging a visible shower of
dust from the moth-eaten moose head and fading watercolours that
adorned the peeling walls.

Ray trailed disconsolately after his cousin: he was fully aware of the
burglary that had netted little more than ten shillings from a tea
caddy and a box of someone's precious medals, though he'd taken no part
in it personally. Billy, a former ted who'd never held the same job
down for more than a few months, saw little wrong in such petty
theft.

"We'll do the old jewboy over tonight," Billy shouted back over his
shoulder, quite unconcerned at the prospect of being overheard. "If you
ain't washin' yer hair, eh?"

"No," Ray flushed, wincing at yet another casual slight on his budding
manhood. "I'm on."

The pair slouched off, over the canal bridge. As they crossed, Billy
swore and tossed the box of medals as far as he could - down towards
the rotting narrow boat that half-blocked the silted waterway. The box
plopped into the stagnant, oil-streaked liquid and slowly sank out of
sight.

Everyone knew Oscar, the second-hand man, or of him. He'd arrived in
the close-knit community just after the war, some fifteen years before;
buying up Thompson's High Class Grocery. Oscar, of course, was no
grocer - he'd simply driven a hard bargain with a tired, desperate
seller and ripped Thompson's well-used old shop fittings out to set
himself up in the gutted shell as a second-hand dealer.

The fascia above the grimy window still proclaimed the business of its
former owner after all these years, though much of the thick brown
paint had peeled away to reveal the bare wood underneath. Around
Oscar's shabby emporium, modern glass shop fronts had sprouted as the
country recovered from the privations of rationing, but Oscar's never
changed: he didn't see any sense in spending good money on mere
appearances.

And, it had to be admitted, Oscar performed a valuable service as a
valuer of jewellery and ad hoc pawnbroker. Whatever anyone had to sell,
whatever odd object they might be searching for, Oscar's was the
natural place to go first. Beneath the towering piles of unsaleable
junk, the remnants of a hundred house clearances, lay countless items
of value - but only Oscar himself knew for certain which were dross and
which were gold. Battered musical instruments, clockwork toys, shiny
Bakelite wireless sets that would never squeak and whistle again: the
detritus of an ever-changing, increasingly affluent and wasteful
society.

Oscar seemed to have no family, beyond his wife - a careworn woman who
invariably dressed in drab colours, seldom spoke, and who fled from the
shop like a frightened bird when a customer entered. Like her husband,
she probably wasn't as old as she looked, though no-one knew for sure.
Everyone assumed that the couple had drifted to Britain in the confused
aftermath of the war, lacking anywhere more suitable to go. When asked
about his origins, Oscar simply shrugged.

Billy, unfortunately, hadn't been joking. He called round for Ray after
tea, giving his cousin no chance to sneak out and escape his
rashly-given commitment. The pair drifted off round the local coffee
bars until dark, before queueing in the steamy heat of Pierce's chippy
for three penn'orth of fatty chips and batter bits. Munching busily,
they wandered along the High Street towards their target.

"Right, you keep watch. And don't bugger off without shoutin' if
somebody comes, right?" Billy produced a well-worn screwdriver from his
pocket and busied himself with the task of forcing the front door while
Ray, trembling with fear, kept a look-out.

"Easy!" Billy laughed, pushing the door open. "Come on."

Ray gulped and reluctantly followed his bolder cousin into the darkened
shop. Billy closed the door, and began to flick through the unstable
piles of junk-cum-treasure. Ray, too nervous to assist, almost fainted
as the shop light was unexpectedly switched on. Filling the doorway to
the hall was an all too familiar figure.

"You stop right there, mister!" Oscar shouted, moving surprisingly
rapidly to block the exit. "I know you, eh? You here earlier with
medals. You trouble right enough."

"Yeah," Billy sneered boldly. "Thought I'd look around. Didn't feel
like waitin' till mornin'.

He chuckled at his own wit, but Ray had turned as white as a sheet.
When his dad found out about this.. God, it didn't bear thinking
about.

"You not touch my things. No-one do that to me any more." Oscar was
dressed in the same familiar grease-streaked coat that he always wore,
as if he habitually slept in it.

"Don't you tell me what to do, jewboy," Billy hissed.

"I'm no jew, but I wouldn't be ashamed if I was. Better than scum like
you any day of week, mister."

"Oh," Ray chipped in, desperate to bring some sort of normality to the
situation. "Where are you from, then?"

"From Warsaw."

"Warsaw? That's near Birmingham, ain't it?"

"Shut up!" Ray shouted fiercely, and Billy meekly obeyed his cousin for
the first time in his life.

"You think I come here, to this place, if I not have to?" Oscar asked,
his voice suddenly drained of anger. As he spoke, his wife shuffled in
behind him and clasped his arm. "I was teacher, important man, back in
Warsaw. Should still be there now. Not this place."

Billy, for once, resisted the temptation to cheek the older man and an
uneasy silence descended.

"Out of my way," Billy suddenly demanded, making for the door.

"Try it, mister." Oscar thrust a hand deep into the capacious pocket of
his coat and half-withdrew what looked very much like the butt of a
service revolver. Billy saw it and stopped dead.

"God.." Ray whispered. Possession of a firearm was a very serious
offence, everyone knew that, but who knew what Oscar might have traded
in the course of a busy day?

"Don't do anything stupid, please! Anyone.."

"Okay.. " Oscar nodded and Billy mirrored his action.

"What's that?" Ray asked, pointing to that part of Oscar's neck which
was normally swathed in a heavy woollen scarf, even in summer. Oscar's
wife slowly pulled the collar of her husband's coat away to reveal part
of a scar that extended around the side of his face and into his scalp.
Only then did Ray notice that much of Oscar's left ear was
missing.

"Look, I'm sorry!" Ray spluttered. "Please don't call the police, I'll
pay for the damage, I swear. We both will.. please?"

For a full minute, no-one spoke.

"Go on, I don't want no trouble. No more, eh?" Oscar whispered wearily,
stepping aside to let the two blushing burglars out.

"The door.." Ray asked. "How much?"

"Maybe two pounds, mister."

"I'll give it you, ten bob a week. Promise," Ray said, "And thank
you.."

"For what?" Oscar asked as the two walked rapidly away.

Ray went in with a ten-shilling note from his meagre wages every week
for the next four weeks, handing it over without a word. There was
never any evidence of it being spent on the splintered door, however,
and it looked much the same when Oscar sold the shop and promptly
disappeared some ten years later.

Billy, by some undeserved stroke of luck, never got caught in his
burgling forays. And, in a classic case of poacher turned gamekeeper,
he joined the local police force. He's now a well-respected sergeant
who wouldn't want reminding of his teenage exploits.

Ray became a draughtsman, married and forgot about Oscar's grubby
emporium: until, that is, he opened the newspaper one evening and
glanced idly down the obituary column. "Well-known local shopkeeper
dies in nursing home," it read. "Hero who never talked about his
exploits."

Ray sat bolt upright, examining the article in minute detail.

Though known only as Oscar to his many customers, it read, the subject
had fled via Rumania and France to join the RAF in England after the
fall of his native country. He'd been a college teacher and reserve
pilot before the war, but hadn't been allowed to return after it
because of the communist takeover.

He'd fought through the worst of the Battle of Britain as a flight
commander with 303 (Polish) Squadron, accounting for at least five
enemy sircraft. On September 10th, 1940, his Hurricane's guns had
jammed over the Thames Estuary while he was pursuing a damaged Dornier
bomber. Undaunted, he'd deliberately rammed the larger aircraft, coolly
destroying his own in the process.

There had been some problem with his canopy, and he'd only escaped at
the last minute with horrific burns, to spend several agonising months
in East Grinstead burns unit.

Alongside the text was a photograph of a handsome, unrecognisable pilot
in RAF uniform with distinctive "Poland" flashes and an odd cap-badge,
leaning nonchalently against a patched Hurricane: Captain "Oscar"
Paderewski, DFC.