‘Love you all . . . Harry!’
Then he whispered his last words:
‘In manus tuas Domine. Into thy hands, O Lord,’ and he was gone.
The three of them were devastated. Hard as he tried, Tommy couldn’t prevent the tears from rolling down his face. Quite aside from his own distress he now had the appalling task of telling Milo and Noola what had happened.
Afterwards, the Chief Medical Officer at the hospital spoke to them.
‘I’m so sorry. We did our very best to save him, but he didn’t really have a chance. The bullets tore up his liver and part of his intestines. He must have been in the most frightful pain. How he lasted any length after being injured like that is extraordinary, never mind surviving until you got him here.’
‘Thank you all for what you tried to do,’ replied Tommy. ‘I suspect sheer will power kept him going. He would have felt strongly about being with the family and having the last rites if at all possible.’
Chapter 30
Harry had been restless all day on Sunday. He couldn’t settle to anything and, having spent quite a lot of the morning with little Johnny, eventually suggested to his father that they should go for an afternoon row in the double skulls. Milo never turned down an opportunity to maintain and hone his rowing skills and was delighted to join Harry. They had a good workout and then Harry had gone to spend some time with Sarah, in the ongoing efforts of all the family to keep her spirits up and help her recovery. He still had the fidgets and Sarah noticed.
‘Something wrong, Harry?’
‘No. I just can’t seem to relax today – don’t know why.’
Like the rest of the family she was aware of the uncanny closeness of the twins and just wondered.
Everybody had heard about the Turkish invasion of the north of Cyprus the previous day, just as they had heard about the New EOKA coup that had taken place five days previously. Knowing that Tommy and family with Bill were safely lodged in the RAF base they had no concerns about family members. However, feeling so restless, Harry now began to wonder if there was something bothering Bill. It was the only way he could account for his mood. On the other hand he was sure Bill would phone him and tell him if something was wrong with anybody. Maybe it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with Bill, he argued to himself.
He didn’t sleep too well and next morning felt quite rough. Obviously I’m going down with some sort of summer flu, he thought. From the time he arrived in the office he felt tense, then, quite suddenly, he got a severe pain in his side. His worry about Bill returned. As soon as Milo was free he went into his office.
‘So sorry, Dad. I feel very rough. I thought I was coming down with something yesterday and I honestly can’t keep going. I’ve got a bad pain in my side. There’s no way I can see clients.’
‘It’s most unlike you to be ill but I must say you do look rough. Don’t worry. I’ll make arrangements to share you clients between the rest of us. Perhaps Paddy would take a look at you. Are you all right to drive home?’
‘Yes. I’m sure I’ll manage.’
Even though he knew how often it happened, totally absorbed in his work, it didn’t strike Milo that Harry might be registering something wrong with Bill. Harry got home within the half hour to find that Noola was out, which disappointed him since he would have been grateful to share his worries with her. The pain suddenly started to ease until it was a dull ache and then stopped, but he still felt dreadful. Anxiety about Bill grew until he had no doubt whatsoever that something was very wrong with his twin. He spoke to him aloud:
‘What is it, Billy? What’s happening to you?’
He decided to call Tommy’s direct line in Akrotiri but could get no answer. This worried him even more, although he realised they must all be very taken up with the crisis. He now felt desperately tired and wandering into the sitting room sank into a comfortable armchair facing across the lawn and down towards the river, his and Bill’s favourite view from the house. He drifted off into a light doze and then woke with a start. Someone had called him. He felt as if his heart was being torn in two. Something inside him seemed to die and he knew. He leapt to his feet and cried out loud again:
‘Oh, Billy, Billy, what’s happened? You haven’t left us, Billy, please, please no.’
He ran to the phone. He tried to contact Tommy again but no luck so he called Milo on his restricted private line and spoke to him, trying hard to hold down his feeling of panic.
‘Dad, I’m not going crazy, but do you remember when I was ten, Sarah and I went climbing and I fell out of the old chestnut tree and broke my arm?’
‘Yes – but…?’
‘And do you remember that, although he was out in a canoe with Tommy, Billy knew I’d broken it, even which arm I’d broken and felt so much pain he had to stop paddling?’
‘Yes, I do, Harry. What are you trying to tell me?’
‘I know that something dreadful has happened to him. I’ve tried to call Tommy, but I can’t get any answer and I don’t know what to do.’
Milo didn’t doubt him for a second.
‘I’ll be home as soon as possible. Keep trying to get Tommy. See if you can get a general number for RAF Akrotiri and turn on the radio and television to see if there’s any news that might help.’
Milo suddenly remembered he had a number for Chuck Wilson, now back in the UK, and he called him. No answer there either, so he headed for home as fast as he could. Harry was waiting for him with a face that would have made a ghost look animated.
‘Oh, Dad. I can’t get through to anybody. I just know something awful has happened.’
‘I believe you, Harry. We’ll keep trying until we get through to somebody. And I do understand how you’re feeling.’ He put his arm around Harry’s shoulders. ‘He’s your twin brother but he’s also my son.’
Harry told him the full story of his dreadful day and ten minutes later the call came through.
‘It’s Tommy. Is that Milo?’
‘Yes, Tommy, and we know that something pretty dreadful has happened. It’s Bill, isn’t it?’
‘I’m so very sorry, Milo, to be the one to tell you this.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘But how could you have heard already? It only happened within the last hour. I called you as soon as I could.’
‘Harry knew. I think he felt it exactly at the moment it happened.’
Exerting every possible element of self-control he could muster, he listened to the details. Before Harry’s eyes the life seemed to drain out of his father and he knew he would watch the same thing happen to his mother, with similar effects on the rest of the family.
Chapter 31
Tommy brought him home but Isabel and the children were not able to travel with him. According to the MO her advanced pregnancy made it most inadvisable. Tommy never told how he managed the extremely complex arrangements and wouldn’t be drawn on the subject, but Milo and Noola realised that, given the conditions and circumstances, it couldn’t have been easy.
Grieved as he was Tommy knew that his feelings couldn’t approach those of Bill’s parents. However, as he had predicted, and in spite of Bill’s insistence that he should not feel so, his sense of guilt was devastating. Understandably, after he arrived at Riverside, as soon as the three of them could snatch some time together, Milo and Noola had wanted to know the full details about the whole tragedy. On the phone he had glossed over Bill’s reason for being in the area of conflict, saying that, following the Turkish invasion, Bill had gone to rescue a Cypriot family he had become friendly with when on UN duties there. Now he held nothing back, confident that, given what had happened, Bill would forgive or indeed support the betrayal of his confidence. When he had finished the story he was silent for a moment, then, his voice cracking with weariness and emotion, he continued.
‘You can’t imagine my sense of guilt. I’ll never forgive myself that I wasn’t able to dissuade him from going on this mad venture. But I couldn’t convince him that
it was so dangerous.’
‘Stop beating yourself up, Tommy. He loved this girl, Androulla, and that was the beginning, middle and end of it. He gave his life to save the woman he loved. She must be quite a girl to have affected our Billy that way. Someday I hope we’ll meet her.’
‘Milo’s right, Tommy. Bill wouldn’t want you to feel this way. From what you’ve told us he made it clear nothing you said would stop him and, like the rest of the Butlers, he was a very strong-minded man.’
Tommy looked at these two people he loved so much and who, in spite of their shock and grief, were trying to make him feel better. Although he had expected them to look pretty rough, when he saw them on arrival at the house he was very shaken. They had always carried their years so well but both had aged a decade since hearing the news.
‘Here you are trying to ease my guilt when you’re so devastated. Bill was such a supremely unselfish man and it’s so obvious where he got it from. Thank you both.’
His parents insisted that Bill should be buried in the family plot in the old churchyard, but did agree that the funeral service should be in the Catholic chapel that he had attended growing up. There was a full military funeral with an Irish Army guard of honour. Father Callaghan was in attendance and had especially requested that he would be allowed to give the eulogy, which was readily agreed to by the family, since they knew how much this would have meant to Bill.
Milo read the lesson, one of his own choice. Knowing it to be a special favourite of Bill’s he read from St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians all about love, but then added a piece at the end from the Old Testament, explaining it was the passage from King David’s lament on hearing of the death of his son, Absalom, and that this expressed so well how he and Noola felt.
‘And… thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!’
* * * * *
Tommy stayed for just a couple of days after the funeral, torn between supporting the family at Riverside and getting back to Isabel, whose condition concerned him. The family assured him that they understood he must return to his wife as soon as possible and in the circumstances wouldn’t expect otherwise. He had, however, come to a decision and before he left for Cyprus told Milo about it.
‘I’ve given this a lot of thought, Lo, and I’ve decided it’s time I came home. I’m going to resign my commission and, if you’ll have me, join the family firm. I do have experience: those holidays learning the job and making pocket money weren’t lost. I’ll need to have a refresher period but I don’t think it would take long to get back up to speed.’
‘Now just a minute, Tommy. This has been brought on by your feelings of guilt. You’re blaming yourself for this tragedy and trying to compensate. I would be delighted to have you working alongside me but I’d much rather you didn’t make this decision now.’
‘Oh, but…!’
‘No, Tommy, hear me out. Go back and wait at least another couple of years. That will give you time to come to terms with what has happened and will make certain you’re not making a life-changing decision for emotional rather than rational reasons. You’re still only thirty-six and, from the time you were old enough to think about a career, you’ve wanted to fly planes. There’s plenty of time. You could join me a bit later, just about the time I’ll be looking to wind down a bit, when it’ll be a real godsend to have you there.’
There was silence while Tommy digested this and Milo didn’t hurry him for a response.
‘You’re right. I would be making an emotional decision. I’ll put it on hold for the moment, but I think I’ll be coming home sooner rather than later.’ He smiled. ‘Not only do I miss the family, I really miss Riverside and the old Liffey too with all it means to people like us.’
‘What about Isabel? Will she be happy to settle here permanently? She might want to be nearer to her parents.’
‘Isabel loves Riverside and has always made it clear that she would be happy here. You know we’re a bit like you and Noola. So long as we’re together that’s what matters and this is where I would have a job earning our crust! There’s the children’s education too. Do we upheave them every few years or send them home to boarding school? I’m not that keen on either idea.’
‘No, well I take your point.’
‘And think about it, Lo! Chuck and Liz will have even more excuse to visit us and imagine the great times we’ll have together. I hear Joe’s coming back too and will be living in his family home across the river. It’ll be like old times.’
‘Yes, and it’ll also be like old times for Joe and Paddy and me. Paddy’s highly delighted too that Joe’s coming home.’
‘There’s something else.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’d love our children to grow up here close to the rest of the family. I suppose I’m being a bit clannish!’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’
Chapter 32
Tommy had hardly returned to Cyprus when Isabel went into labour and on 5 August another little boy was born. They agreed that he should be called Thomas after his father and both grandfathers. He was to be known as Tom to save any confusion, so once more there were Butler brothers called Tom and Milo, but this time they were not twins and not really much alike in looks.
Just nine days later, as negotiations were in progress in Geneva to come to an agreement about the situation in Cyprus, the Turkish Army suddenly and completely unexpectedly renewed its offensive and swept southwards to occupy an enormously expanded sector of the island. When they arrived at Famagusta they found it totally deserted, so instead of stopping at the edge of the existing Turkish enclave, as they had in Nicosia, they took possession of the whole town. The Greek Cypriots, too frightened to stay, had fled, including all the town’s officials. Most went to the British base territory in and around Dhekelia for safety. They little realised that they would be refugees for the foreseeable future and indeed too long for some of them, who would not live to realise their dream of someday returning home.
Stories filtered through to Akrotiri about how people had to flee with only what they stood up in and eventually first-hand experiences were told which confirmed this. As the days and then weeks went by and it became obvious that there would be no return any way soon, people started to move westwards, finding accommodation in towns such as Larnaca and Limassol. The RAF offered transport back to the UK for students who were in the middle of university or other higher education courses and this was when Tommy, who was helping with these arrangements, unexpectedly came into contact again with Maria. She was accepting the offer to get her back to Oxford to complete her course of studies. Her family’s story was fairly typical of what had happened to the majority of the refugees and she told Tommy that whole story.
‘We had no real warning. Some people heard a booming noise and didn’t realise it was heavy gunfire. Whole families drove out to the high ground south of Famagusta to see if they could get a view of what was going on. In the meantime, the Turkish tanks swept in and cut off the town and those families never got back. It was hot so they were dressed in very light clothes. That’s all they had.’
‘But what about you, Maria? Is that what happened to you and your family?’
‘Not quite. We didn’t go out to see what was happening but something said to me by a friend I met in the street bothered me. So I packed up a few of our valuables and hid them “just in case”. We did manage to snatch a few other basic items but then we had to go too – in a hurry!’
‘So you got to the British area at Dhekelia?’
‘Yes and we lived there under the olive trees at the village of Ormidhia within the safety of the base boundaries for a week.’
‘But where’s the family now?’
‘We had relations in Limassol and they contacted us through the broadcasts from the British Forces radio, urging us to join them. My grandmother and my brother’s small baby were not well so we were glad to be able to go ther
e.’
‘Are the banking restrictions a problem for you?’
‘No! Luckily my father had a fair amount of cash he had taken from his shop. Like others, since the coup he had not left any money in the shop overnight. I’ve got money in my bank account in Oxford, so for the moment we’re all right. We’re luckier than some!’
‘I’ll try to get to see Nick and Tassoula. I’m very glad we’re at least able to give you a lift back to Oxford. Is there anything else we can do to help?’
‘No thanks. I’m all right for the moment. I left some things in Oxford so I’ll get by. But how’s Isabel? Did the baby arrive safely?’
‘Yes. Imagine you remembering in spite of all your many problems! She had a baby boy just before the Turks started their second offensive. A blond-haired, blue-eyed boy like his parents.’
‘Congratulations. I’m so happy for you both. Please give her my love.’
Chapter 33
June 1975
The whole family grieved deeply for Bill, but support from within and from the wider family helped them to come to terms with what had happened. Added to the shock of discovering he had a child, whose mother was dead, the effect on Harry of losing his twin was quite devastating. He withdrew from the social scene completely and seemed to have given up all liaisons with the opposite sex, although there was some speculation as to how long that would last. He spent quite a lot of his free time with Sarah, especially when Dai was unable to be there for any reason, such as being away on field trips. Sarah was having to cope with the double grief of losing a brother, to whom she was devoted, hard upon the heels of her accident and loss of her baby. She and Harry now grew very close.
The House by the Liffey Page 23