England Away

by John King

  The Yanks often had big parts in the films because Hollywood was where the money was, and they said that if you went up Piccadilly during the war it was a knocking shop, with the GIs loaded and the English girls wanting a share. He found that hard to believe because there were higher standards in those days, but he didn’t think too much about it because he was watching a battle between two semi-human machines firing off lasers and kicking each other in the head. He wondered what the soldiers thought, but nobody asked those sorts of questions. The officers wrote their memoirs and the squaddies signed on.

  Harry was sitting there in the dark surrounded by strangers. Their fathers and grandfathers could’ve been the cunts in the pill boxes mowing down English tommies. It made you think, though you weren’t supposed to think like that, because bygones were bygones, and that was right in its way, but Harry didn’t feel guilty about the Empire and the slave traders because he wasn’t even born then. Everyone had to get on, but he’d still like to see one of those old war films shown on the ferry, just for a laugh.

  He’d like to sit back and watch The Longest Day and see what happened. He saw Battle of Britain at the pictures when it came out as a kid, and he’d loved the RAF dog-fights and the way Good had overcome superior odds and defeated Evil. What he remembered most was a bomber gunner getting his face shot up. The mask was splattered with blood and as a child it had hit Harry hard. It made him feel ill, the blood on the glass, and it had almost spoiled the film. The pomp and circumstance of the music soon took over and he was able to appreciate how a small number of brave men had saved the country. He thought of the burns many of them suffered and how one bloke’s wife asked an officer what it was like to have a husband without a face. It stuck in his mind. A man without a face. Or was it another film? The details merged with time. All Harry had to do was drive down the Western Avenue a few miles and he could see the RAF bases at Northolt, Harefield and Uxbridge, right there, near enough on his doorstep.

  It would be brilliant to sit in the cinema with all these Dutch and Germans and watch Dam Busters. He’d sit there with his popcorn and Coke and enjoy the show. The Dutch would cheer and the Germans would look embarrassed. The England boys in the bar would probably come along if Dam Busters was on. He loved the bit where they were using the bombs on the dams and they kept missing, then one of the fuckers got a bull’s-eye. Those pilots had steel bollocks cruising through enemy flak. It wasn’t going to happen in this particular cinema, so he made do with the bloodbath in front of him, except there wasn’t any blood. The killing was clean and efficient and the semi-humans fought without thinking. There were no entry and exit points, and no mess. Everything was clear cut. It was an action-adventure and easy entertainment for the masses. Harry wasn’t really taking it in, smiling as he imagined the trouble there’d be if they put on Das Boot and gave the passengers some U-boat action.

  The bar’s full and Bright Spark’s got his cassette player out. Thinks he’s on the World Service pumping out his own Radio Hooligan Roadshow as he places the machine on the table and starts fucking about with his tapes. He puts in this cassette of military music. The sort of songs the poor bastards played as they trooped off to the slaughter in the good old days. Red shirts so they couldn’t see the blood and busbies so they couldn’t feel their brains explode. The music’s strong and patriotic and it must’ve helped the boys along. Play some loud music and you can’t hear the guns up ahead and the pissed laughter of the generals miles behind. Beat the drum and stir the emotions. We have our own songs right here. Our own set of explanations. West Ham are on the other side of the bar drinking among themselves, looking over and smiling at the band. Music brings England together. There’s a truce and everything’s sweet. We do our thing and they do theirs. Same goes for the other clubs. We’re not exactly going to start swapping stories with West Ham, but there’s no need for aggravation, not here anyway.

  There’s a lot of England on board now that they’re in the bar and we can see who’s who. Strongbow and his mates are missing in action. Mugs are back in Harwich sobering up, the big man himself charged with something a bit more serious than drunk and disorderly. Looks likely seeing the way they were banging his head on the van door and the way he was trying to stop them. Something the old bill call resisting arrest. Stop us cracking your head open and we’ll do you for that as well. There’s other people in here, not just the England boys – middle-aged men and women in groups lining up the lager and shorts, a few made-up couples, solo travellers enjoying a bottle of lager and checking their passports. There’s also three tasty birds nearby. Well nice in fact. Carter says he fancies a shag and might go and have a word, but I don’t reckon he’s got much chance on the ferry. Suppose he’s got his reputation to consider.

  I try to work out where they’re from. Obviously not English. Not tarty enough. That’s the problem with English birds. They’re a load of old brasses compared to some of the Europeans. Mind you, the Europeans are boring, even the dirty ones in their expensive designer jeans and sweaters. That’s why the stuck-up birds at home like everything European, because they’re thick and boring in one. Don’t be fooled by the posh accent, because education doesn’t mean intelligent. Your average English bird down the pub though, she’s alright. Likes a laugh and doesn’t waste her time posing. Best of all are the blondes, and then it doesn’t matter where they come from. Everyone loves blondes. It’s the Aryan ideal. Blondes have more fun and you can understand why. Every generation has its blonde pin-up on the screen doing the business.

  There’s more English coming in all the time, with one or two in colours, everyone else without. Can never get my head round grown men wearing replica shirts. There’s a few flags and we get a couple of looks, but this is an easing-in period as everyone clocks everyone else, seeing if they recognise faces from previous trips. There’s probably sixty or so English in the bar now, and there’s another Chelsea crew who we know well enough. Doesn’t take long for them to start singing ONE BOMBER HARRIS. All the English join in straight off because this is what it’s all about. It winds up the Germans, and it upsets the trendy wankers and all that scum who are always trying to pick holes in everything to do with England and English pride. None of us is seriously laughing about Dresden, but why should Arthur take the blame? It was a fucking war and the Luftwaffe was flattening our cities, but there again the cunts slagging off Bomber Command are quick enough to laugh off the spirit of the Blitz. We sing deep in our throats. THERE’S ONLY ONE BOMBER HARRIS. It’s a nice little ice-breaker and Billy turns the volume on the cassette down, then turns it off. Nice one Billy, showing respect for tradition.

  I hate the musical accompaniment one or two clubs take along to football. Sheffield Wednesday have that brass band that plays some kind of lobotomy trance. It’s some nothing Dutch tune and it goes on for hours. Like we don’t have enough songs of our own. It kills the atmosphere. Don’t know how Tango puts up with that whining in his ear game after game. The yids had a fucking drum last season at White Hart Lane as well, though the atmosphere there’s fucked anyway. The drummer starts tapping out his rhythm and Chelsea fill in THE YIDS. It was like Euro 96 and all those years of football songs and humour were forgotten as the game was sold off to the corporations and you ended up with Fantasy Football supplying the soundtrack. That’s what the businessmen are doing to football. The architects have made the grounds sterile and the seats have killed the atmosphere. They say yuppies have taken over football, but that’s bollocks, because I never see them in the pubs where we drink, but they’ve mixed everyone in together and you’re not going to be singing your songs if you’re next to a granny or some bloke with his kids. It’s in the media and business side of things that the trendies have cashed in. Football’s expensive and most ordinary people spend the game recovering from the shagging they’ve just had at the turnstyle. But Billy’s songs are good. It’s the humour and the situation. ONE BOMBER HARRIS.

  I think of Dave Harris who’s already in Amsterdam. Harr
is has been getting worse over the last few years and I hope he never gets sent down because I wouldn’t want to share a cell with him. Nice enough bloke mind, but he’s gone a bit mental recently. There’s always respect for the big characters. You run through the main faces at Chelsea through the last thirty years and they’ve got massive respect. They’re the ones everyone secretly wishes they could be, but know they just aren’t that kind of material. It’s the character that does the trick. Leadership qualities. These people are the real culture.

  Everyone’s loosening up in the bar and I can see the Red Hand of Ulster badge on Gary Davison’s jacket as he raises his fist in the air and goes into No Surrender. Some of the younger element in their early twenties are catching on and beginning to see what’s what, while the more peaceful people in the bar smile to themselves and pour extra alcohol down their throats. England games are interesting because there’s always blokes who travel on their own. You get a lot of these characters. If you take the amount of men into football and then chop it down to those who go away with England, we’re a fairly small percentage. It means that not everyone’s going to have mates who want to go to the likes of Germany and Italy. These solo characters don’t care about the reception committee. Just pack their bags and go. After the first trip they find out how easy it is to fit in. If you’re sound then there’s no problem. Sometimes you get a wanker or two, but that’s life. The English can always sniff out a wanker. NO SURRENDER, NO SURRENDER, NO SURRENDER TO THE IRA.

  I see the three birds a couple of tables away looking around and talking among themselves. As the drink eases in I start eyeing up the one with the shoulder length hair. Brown and pulled back from her face. She’s wearing faded jeans and a thin top. Fucking beautiful. I’m trying to work out whether she’s German, Dutch or something else. It’s a game all the boys play. Her skin’s too light to be an Italian or anything like that, and anyway, if she lived in Rome she’d be on a plane. No dirty ferry travel for the spaghetti princess. I’m putting my money on Dutch. Don’t know why. Instinct probably. It’s like working out where a firm comes from. You can usually suss them out by the clothes or faces. Same with the birds when you go overseas. I see her jump when Carter arrives, failing with the smooth approach. Sex machine leaning over the back of the seat. You have to laugh because the bloke’s got more front than most people I could mention.

  He’s there for a while and the girls seem interested enough. Least they haven’t blanked him. Three into one shouldn’t really go, but you never know with Carter. He’s going to have to share the catch with the rest of the boys. I’m watching him in action when I recognise an ugly mug from the past. A big geezer from Shropshire. Been watching England for donkey’s years. Started in Spain in 1982 and has seen all the World Cups since. One of the original Man United boys who kept the club going before the Stretford End was sold off to the living dead. Have to feel sorry for them because the Stretford End was a major end and the Red Army a massive away support. Funny thing is, they still get huge crowds but the place is a morgue. They’ve still got a proper crew, but tucked out of sight. Old Trafford’s almost as bad as the Highbury Library. It’s a load of bollocks what they’ve done to the game back in England and that’s why getting over to Europe is a tonic. It’s like clicking back to when you could do whatever the fuck you wanted.

  – Alright bud? Kev asks, shaking hands, followed by a couple of other blokes I don’t know who he introduces by name and says he met on the train down to London. Crewe and Bolton fans.

  – Alright Munich?

  Shouldn’t really use the Munich tag, but he’s okay long as I don’t do it more than once. I know him well enough. Wouldn’t want to try and take liberties. He still carries a scar down his face from when he steamed into a carriage-load of Brighton single-handed at Finchley Road, on his way to Wembley.

  – Careful, he smiles. Or I’ll have to do the helicopter.

  Don’t like that. Have to admit it gets right up my nose. When we played Forest some of them were doing chopper impressions, winding us up about Matthew Harding. Man U were doing it as well up at Old Trafford. Only a few of them, but I suppose we used to sing WHO’S THAT BURNING ON THE RUNWAY enough times. Chelsea sorted Forest out after the game. Can still see Facelift stamping on some cunt’s face. Shouldn’t take the piss though. Specially about something like that. Right out of order. Makes you wonder what’s going on in the Midlands. Leicester is a grudge game, some kind of Baby Squad revival. Doesn’t matter now. We’re all England.

  I start thinking about Matthew Harding, the respect the man had from everyone in football. Couldn’t believe it when he died. Why did it have to be someone like that? It’s always the good ones who die. If it wasn’t for Harding then we’d still be scratching around in the dirt. Thing is, he was Chelsea right through, and even though he was a multi-millionaire he was still down The Imperial having a pint with your everyday fan. Real diamond. The sort who only comes along once a lifetime. That’s why you get us singing MATTHEW HARDING’S BLUE AND WHITE ARMY. Matthew should’ve been there to see Wise go up to lift the FA Cup after all he’d done.

  We were standing outside the old Beer Engine after the Cup Final and there was a line of knobs coming though in their cars. The kind of stuck-up cunts who’ve overrun the area around Stamford Bridge. The old bill had sent them down the wrong street. The younger element were jumping on the bonnets, roofs, right over the top, while further down the road everyone was enjoying themselves having a drink outside The Adelaide and Imperial. Don’t know about The Palmerston. It was all good natured. Then the old bill come down the road with their riot horses and vans and a fucking helicopter with a spotlight. Ruining the fun. Saying four pubs had already been turned over. Wrecked and looted as Chelsea celebrated the Cup win in style. Everyone in a good mood because we’ve won the FA Cup at last.

  Now it’s England and we’re still Chelsea but putting everything in its right place. It’s all a game really. It’s the same for soldiers, though they’d never admit as much, because they like to feel more important than they really are. They sign their name and do as they’re told. There’s none of that bollocks here, because we’re a volunteer army with a set of rules that are basic common sense. It’s a good laugh, based in the English way of life. We’re here because we’re here. Because we want to be.

  Bill Farrell couldn’t sleep. He got out of bed and went to the kitchen, where he made another cup of tea. There were two biscuits left so he polished those off. He had this decision to make and it was gnawing away, demanding an answer. He was an old man now and had his routine. The only time he’d been out of the country was in a uniform. He’d gone across the Channel, fought, killed and come back. Since then he’d never been outside England. Now his nephew wanted him to travel across the world for a holiday in Australia. It was a long way and he felt he was too old, but didn’t want to let the boy down, especially when he’d supplied the ticket and Farrell’s daughter had arranged the visa. The family told him to go, but he didn’t want to leave. London was his life. What if he died over there? He didn’t want to end up with his ashes floating around in a bloody billabong.

  He’d always been close to his nephew. He didn’t know why really. Farrell’s dad had died when he was one, from TB. He’d never known him. He’d looked to his uncles instead. Everyone needed a role model. Maybe that’s why him and Vince were so close, the boy bypassing a generation. Boys needed men to set an example. They pointed you in the direction you’d follow the rest of your life. He thought of his uncles and looked at the picture on the wall, a drawing of a nun with a lamp. He hadn’t thought of his uncles for a long time. He sipped the tea and wished he had some more biscuits. He was glad he’d thought of them now.

  He’d had three uncles on his mum’s side and all had served in the Great War. They were in his mind as he approached Normandy and he’d told himself that nothing that was to come could possibly be as bad as what they had experienced. He remembered those thoughts clearly. But he’d had no i
dea what was ahead of him. It was the First World War but they called it Great because of the number of people killed and maimed. Men, women and children. Animals too, thousands of dead, rotting horses with maggots eating into their guts. It wasn’t so great for those who signed up for this War To End All Wars. There were the words and the music of the recruiting sergeant and his band, urging the boys to take the King’s shilling and kiss the book.

  There must’ve been a lot of excitement when the army started recruiting, the Kaiser an evil monster on the horizon threatening the English way of life, a traditional Prussian enemy far off in the East. The sergeant would have smiled and slapped the English boys on the back, pushing the comradeship and unity in fighting a common enemy. He would’ve drawn on English history and exploited youth’s love of adventure, the atmosphere of the time created by the men in control and a compliant media. Farrell guessed it sounded good, and his uncles had admitted as much. They were simple boys and knew nothing of the world.

  Farrell’s uncles were Stan, Gill and Nolan. They lived in Hounslow, but their mum, Farrell’s gran, ran a pub in Great Bedwyn, a village in Wiltshire. When he was a boy he’d looked up to his uncles because they were grown men and he wanted to be like them. They were kind to him and even now he smiled when he thought about them, how they talked and acted. When he was older he got to know about the Great War. He found out Gill and Nolan had fought on the Somme, and Stan in German East Africa, though they never went into details about their experiences. They never talked about things much, and Farrell had to piece their histories together later. He was told stories by his aunts, and after he’d been away himself and come home, they answered some of his questions. He supposed he became like them, that they shared something. Much of it he never learnt, but at least some information was passed down. He never knew what they thought or really felt, just that the Somme had been hell on earth. Farrell knew some of the facts, the bones of their stories, but could never feel what they felt. He wished he could now, all these years later, and he had tried in the landing craft. At least it kept him quiet as they headed for Europe.