England Away

by John King

  Stan was the Jack-the-Lad of the family. Farrell smiled thinking of the story his mum told him, that she was at school sitting in her classroom when there was a loud bang on the door. The teacher went to see who was there, but only found a rotten potato on the ground. She turned and looked at Farrell’s mum and asked if her brother Stan was home. It was the first she knew of it, but it was him alright. He’d been away fighting in an African jungle and still threw potatoes at classroom doors.

  Stan was a bit of a rebel, even though he was a career soldier. He was a Royal Marine who wanted to travel and see the world. It was a way to discover things, signing up and broadening horizons. But Stan caught malaria and was forced out. The illness affected Stan and made him very unhappy. He wasn’t going to be defeated, though, because he wanted to cure himself of the malaria and get back in the Marines. He drank a bottle of quinine and spent two days in a coma. He swore he’d either die or make himself well again. When he came round, when he survived his do-or-die treatment, he was cured. Nobody could understand it. The doctors were amazed. Stan went back to the Marines and they agreed he was cured, but because he’d had malaria the regulations said he couldn’t return. And because he didn’t have malaria, he was no longer eligible for his disability pension.

  All Farrell’s three uncles were changed by the war, sitting in the mud with the rotting bodies of their mates, the rats chewing through dead skin, the blood, shit and mutilation of the trenches, or in Stan’s case the hardship of fighting in the jungle. Thousands were blinded by chemical weapons. Every man who served was mentally scarred, and Farrell knew deep down that the same applied to him. When he was a boy they knew the men who had suffered most, men like Bates. Their minds must have been racked by the horror of what they’d seen and done.

  Nolan was upset by the war and upset by the brothels. He believed in God and was a spiritualist, something Farrell’s friend Albert Moss had practised before his death. The sight of the English soldiers queueing for the whorehouses stuck in Nolan’s mind for the rest of his life. He thought of the women in the brothels on their backs with queues of laughing-drunk squaddies waiting their turn, reduced to production line, last-gasp sex before the German guns blew them to kingdom come, filling the girls with syphilis. He wouldn’t have used the prostitutes. Nolan was a quiet man who loved the country and suggested Farrell tried for the parks after the war.

  Nolan was accused of theft while in France and spent six months in the glasshouse. It would’ve been hard in a military prison and there weren’t the same rights in those days. This was a time when the officers were having soldiers shot for shell shock and barely-proven offences. Legalised murder it was, and even today they wouldn’t grant pardons. It was a disgrace and showed the contempt the establishment had for those doing its dirty work. Eventually someone else was found to be responsible. Nolan was released without any kind of apology. Six months in the glasshouse for something you didn’t do and you were treated like that. Stan and Nolan always felt they were badly treated by the armed forces.

  When their mum, Farrell’s gran, died, they took her coffin to the cemetery on a hand cart and lined the grave with wildflowers. They didn’t have money for a gravestone. Farrell wondered whether if someone dug the grave up they’d find the flowers. As a boy he’d tried to imagine the colours. Even now he wished he knew. It was in his head again, trying to picture the unmarked grave. A blanket of colour and the smell of wet earth. The vicar would’ve stood over the hole and said the right words, and there she’d stay unseen but remembered, till her children died and the generations went on, and one day she would be forgotten.

  Gill drew a picture in 1915, shortly before he went to war. Now it was on the wall of Farrell’s living room. The frame was cheap and coming apart, but the drawing stood out. The paper was yellow, yet the sharp pencil lines and foggy shaded areas made an impression. Gill had drawn a nun with her head bowed, a lantern in her hand. The head was covered by a hood and he’d drawn her from the side. It was a thoughtful, sad picture, and he signed his name and added the date. Farrell was sitting in his flat in the early hours suffering from insomnia, looking at the picture. He wondered whether it was drawn from memory or imagination. Maybe Gill saw his death and the figure was coming to lead him to the light, but it was more to do with survival. Gill didn’t fall in the Great War.

  Years later Gill did two paintings. They were watercolours and Farrell had them there next to the nun. Each painting was of a vase, and each of the vases was full of flowers. There were different shapes and colours, and the paintings were more childlike, more happy. Gill painted these in 1933, years after the war when peace had returned. Six years later, of course, there was another world war and his nephew was sent to fight the Germans again, the new enemy on the horizon coming from the same place. Farrell loved the nun and the flowers.

  The next generation who went off to war were again fresh-faced youths such as Bill Farrell, again ready for adventure. They say nothing is learnt from history and he agreed, but the monster on the horizon really was a monster this time. The Second World War was different. When Farrell saw that concentration camp he knew it was different. His uncles sat in miles of trenches as the machine guns rattled and shells shattered human bodies. They would never forget and they’d never be able to share the feeling. Maybe that’s why they never really tried. Farrell knew it was the way things were. He could never share what he felt. He could never make Bob West understand. That’s why his wife had been special. One of the reasons anyway. She’d seen the horror and been through much worse than her husband. Both of them knew something. Even now, Farrell felt sorry for his uncles and the mates they’d lost. Maybe it was worse for them, because there was no real reason for the slaughter.

  Stan had told Farrell he’d either be rich or hang. He said Farrell was a lot like him and Farrell’s mum agreed. Farrell never got rich and he’d obviously never hung. He’d lived his life best he could. There were hard times, but mostly they were good.

  He remembered the food and drink of the spread they’d done for him when he came back from Europe. It was a good time and he had to struggle to see the landing craft. It came back, the way the guns pounded the shore and the knowledge that the Beach Master would be in there first with the commandos who’d pave the way. They admired those men because they were brave enough to take the initial flak and would suffer the first losses. But they were all in the thing together. The troops rolling in were ready to fight. There were a lot of blokes who’d been evacuated from Dunkirk and their pride was at stake. They were going to give the Germans a going over.

  Farrell didn’t want the details, but they were there in his head. The sea was rough and there was a smell of shit. Farrell wasn’t disgusted and it made him feel stronger because it wasn’t him. The man behind him was praying quietly and he heard a couple of deep sobs from further back. Some of the rougher men were shouting and swearing and telling everyone what they were going to do to the Germans when they got hold of them. There was one they called Mangler, a villain who hung around the racetracks and was well known to the police, a bad man to know but worth having on your side. He wanted to kill and maim Germans, he told the lads he was looking forward to it, and despite what they put in the films there were men like that around. The films painted the English as naïve virgins, but they were men like other men.

  There was sex and drink. There were fights and there were drugs. Mostly opium dens in the East End. It was in the background, and those interested kept their business to themselves. Around Piccadilly and into Soho there were prostitutes – painted dollies – and sex clubs. There were said to be sex parties with people twisted by the war. There were poofs, but they were looked down on and kept themselves to themselves. You just knew these things existed. There was no need to talk about it too much. It wasn’t the English way.

  Harry had forgotten the film and he’d only been out of the cinema for a few minutes. He wasn’t thinking of vintage war films because they’d be arriving in the
Hook soon enough and he was in the duty-free looking for a bargain. He caught sight of a couple of the Spice kids he’d showered with sick and moved behind a rack. They were washed and scrubbed and back to their giggling best, and didn’t see him. It was the roll of the dice and he checked the Toblerone and Yorkie prices. His mouth watered as he considered the options, a heavy hand on his shoulder the hand of an arresting officer telling him he was nicked. He turned round fast and faced the wide boys themselves, the toy-shop gangland bosses thieving gin and vodka, thinking big and acting small. High Street and Biggs were helping themselves. Both were pissed and getting their money’s worth.

  – The bar’s packed and there must be at least two hundred England in there, Biggs shouted. They’re on the piss and there’s going to be trouble before we get off this boat. I can see it boiling up.

  – If this is the warm-up, what’s the rest of the trip going to be like? Ken wanted to know. This ferry’s full of headcases.

  Before Harry had time to reply they were stumbling off round the aisles pushing each other back and forward, behaving like a couple of snotty-nosed juveniles. Harry decided to leave the chocolate till the return leg. He looked towards the woman on the till but she didn’t seem bothered, yawning as she served a man with a stack of fag cartons and a hacking cough. The way High Street and Biggs were acting they were going to get themselves nicked. There were cameras and there’d probably be a security guard. Harry was sober and going down the bar. He wanted to get off the ferry and didn’t fancy knocking about with a couple of shoplifters. He was bored as fuck. That film was shit. Why hadn’t they put on the The Cruel Sea or something? Jack Hawkins doing the business in the North Atlantic. This was the worst bit, getting across the Channel without being torpedoed by a fucking U-boat, or sunk because the doors weren’t shut properly.

  The ferry was a mess of people and it smelt scabby. The flavours were all blending together now – sausages and bacon in the canteen, car fumes in the hold, drink from the bar, perfume from the duty-free, piss and sick from the bogs, plus the sweat of all these men and women packed in together. He clanked through the turnstyle and hurried towards the bar to find Carter and the others. It shouldn’t take them too long to get to Amsterdam and they had a hotel lined up not far from the red light. Harry was looking forward to a couple of days sitting back having a good smoke, a chilled lager or two, with a nice Dutch model on the end of his knob. Not tonight though. He wanted to dump his bag in the hotel, find a bar and have a drink or two, then a few zeds.

  WHO THE FUCK, WHO THE FUCK, WHO THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU . . . WHO THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU?

  Harry could hear the singing right down the hall and noticed that a lot of passengers were looking nervous and going in the opposite direction. He’d seen the faces before. The shocked, stunned, half-disgusted faces of honest Middle Europeans coming face to face with the flower of English manhood. They’d caught a glimpse of the Expeditionary Force and didn’t like what they saw. The invaders were drunk and noisy and turning nasty. The cropped hair, tattoos, jeans, jackets, broken glass, songs, Union Jacks and Crosses of St George made Franz Foreigner nervous. Harry had to laugh. Maybe it was just good humour, but the singing didn’t sound too friendly, and he wondered who was asking who the question.

  HELLO, HELLO, WE ARE THE PORTSMOUTH BOYS.

  Harry had his answer.

  HELLO, HELLO, WE ARE THE PORTSMOUTH BOYS.

  He nodded.

  AND IF YOU ARE A SOUTHAMPTON FAN, SURRENDER OR YOU’LL DIE, WE WILL FOLLOW THE PORTSMOUTH.

  Portsmouth always travelled with England. If there was a Millwall or Southampton mob on board there was a very good chance the crossing would end in tears. He wondered if it would be Millwall or Southampton, heard the bells chime.

  FUCK OFF POMPEY, POMPEY FUCK OFF.

  Harry arrived as Southampton and Portsmouth met on the small area that acted as a temporary dancefloor. It was roughly ten a side and those non-football people still in the bar were running past him, getting out of the firing line. Several lager bottles landed behind the counter, lobbed by other drunk English further back simply enjoying the film, and the bartenders were pulling the shutters down. Another bottle hit a row of spirit bottles, drink and glass exploding with a hollow popping sound. He saw Gary Davison and a couple of his mob taking advantage and unloading the cash register, moving in from the side. In and out like scousers. Harry clocked all this in a second because walking in on the scene sober was mental, a laugh and a half seeing the funny side of life, even if Southampton and Pompey were going at each other full of the kind of hate that’s personal and built on history and endless derby battles, bad blood frothing with the lager, spat out and kicked back twice as hard. He stood aside as one bloke went through a table and a couple of men started kicking him in the ribs and head, the man’s mates piling in, tables and chairs cracking as some of the other English started wrecking a corner of the bar, building a splintered bonfire for Guy Fawkes and the Pope.

  In the background Harry could see Billy Bright’s flag with its CHELSEA headline and the man himself fucking about with his cassette player, laughing his head off trying to add a soundtrack, but he couldn’t find what he wanted and gave up. When Harry looked left there were similar flags hanging over windows with SWINDON and ARSENAL and WEST BROM along the horizontal bar of the red crosses, a huge Union Jack with KENT LOYALISTS blaring out, Harry taking all this in fast as the battle spilled through the bar, the rest of the English drunk and backing off to let the South Coast rivals sort out their differences, harbour town clubs used to fighting at sea, more tables turned over and the sound of smashing glass mixing with the violence of the punches and kicks, a youth with short shiny hair and a stained leather jacket stumbling past with a wicked-looking cut along his cheek, blood all over the shop, standing there shocked as a couple of spectators gave him a hanky to stop the flood. Harry looked at the gash and shook his head.

  Southampton and Pompey were taking no prisoners and there were enough cuts and bruises on the two sides, neither running the other, a stand-off as they battered the fuck out of each other, having a breather shouting insults, and then it kicked off with stewards coming in between the two sides trying to calm things down. The rest of the English hung about waiting to see what would happen next, knowing it was personal and daft somehow, because if you couldn’t get it together for the battle in Europe you had no chance. They had to be united. Harry saw it clearly, that it was the stress and strain of crossing the water, and for a minute he wondered if the English would mob together and do the stewards, these men in white shirts, sinking the ferry for a laugh and swimming to shore. The moment passed and some kind of calm returned.

  Tommy Johnson and the rest of the boys came over and Tom was laughing, telling them they’d better move down the boat otherwise they’d be there for hours in the Hook while the old bill tugged the sailors and anyone stupid enough to hang around watching. No fucking idea, he was saying to Harry, no fucking idea, and they started filtering down the ferry. Harry looked back and the bar was wrecked, the flags down and packed away. Tom was pulling a pissed Facelift back because he was eyeballing the West Ham boys and one of them was a Romford mirror of the Hayes man, pulled back by an Essex version of Tom.

  Harry followed the rest of the lads. They were pulling into the Hook and the Dutch old bill would be waiting. They didn’t need the grief. Holland might be a laid-back country, but not when it came to the old bill. They had enough hooligans of their own not to treat it like a circus, and they no longer thought of the English as good-natured eccentrics. You had to get across the Channel in one piece, but Harry understood. It was part of being an island race. The English Channel was built into everyone. It was a natural barrier that set Britain apart. If Hitler could’ve taken out the RAF he’d have crossed the Channel. The Luftwaffe couldn’t do it and that bit of water kept England free. Harry had seen the films. There were no borders other than those with Scotland and Wales. No wonder the Europeans invented fascism, b
ecause they had to fight to preserve their identity the whole time inside man-made boundaries.

  It was hard for the England boys going across the Channel, and naturally they needed a drink to ease things along, and naturally people could get out of hand, and naturally the continental lagers were that bit stronger and fucked your head up, but it didn’t matter. Old rivalries came into the open and discipline was bound to go out the window. They were crossing the line and it was an emotional time, hanging on to the last link with home before they entered a strange, dangerous land, full of people who hated the English. Harry saw it differently, but then he liked Europe more than the others. He understood what the boys were going through and hoped they would relax in Amsterdam. Foreign travel helped broaden the mind and Harry couldn’t wait.

  —The English way of getting through something is to close our eyes and jump in at the deep end. When the front of the landing craft went down everything moved very fast. Our thoughts were confused as we approached the shore so I did my best to keep my mind on my uncles. For the first time in my life I was really trying to imagine how they felt. It was an impossible task, but it kept me calm. I breathed deep and it worked. I imagined I was the weak one, but I suppose most of the boys felt the same way. Being brave is being scared but conquering the fear. Even now, I find it hard to admit I was a scared young man. We did what had to be done. The noise was terrible and I tried to block it out. There was a man screaming, but he wasn’t in our landing craft. I blocked this out as well, glancing at the pale white faces packed shoulder to shoulder. I didn’t want to think about what had happened to him. I was trying to dig a hole in my head and bury myself. I wanted to be brave and I was going to be brave, bracing myself for the moment, because the front of the landing craft crashed down and there was a thud that snapped us into action. At that moment I was the most pointed I’d ever been in my life. The metal shield fell forward and we were faced with the reality, a beach crisscrossed with wire and barricades, explosions churning up great holes and the sea chopping about. We knew we had to get out of the landing craft fast and now I discovered that I actually wanted to get to the sand and feel my boots sink in. We were sitting ducks in the landing craft. We were exposed and the realisation was a massive electrical current through our bodies. One shell would wipe us out. The sergeant knew this better than anyone. We were angry now and wanted to kill. We wanted to wipe these Nazis off the face of the earth. Suddenly I wasn’t scared because as we moved forward all our energy was centred on getting to the sand and from there fighting our way to the enemy. We wanted to kill these men and get the job done. I shouted and my hate made me hard. I was trained to channel this anger and my boxing helped. We surged forward and the feeling was incredible. It was the adrenalin that comes to save you when your life is threatened. There was an injection of the drug as a shell exploded in the water and rocked the craft. We stumbled and fought to stay standing. It’s a chemical in the body that fights for your survival because surviving is everything, the survival of the individual and survival of the tribe. The sergeant didn’t need his machine gun because we moved quickly as a unit, tramping through the water, and the next thing we knew we were knee deep in the sea. It must have felt good to touch the bottom, though I don’t remember clearly. I was looking to my left and right briefly and the beach ahead was sandy and covered in obstacles, but the sea was packed with assault craft and the shapes of men battling against the water and the rattling of German guns, exploding mortars and shells creating havoc with the sea and sand. A shell whistled to my right and blew a man’s head clean off his neck, blood pumping into the air and staining the Channel, and I could feel the bile in my mouth but somehow I swallowed it again, and for a couple of seconds I slowed up to look and try to understand what had happened. I was pushed forward by the man behind, my eyes locked to the body of the decapitated soldier which moved forward one or two steps before falling to the water and floating front down with the back hunched like a rock. I felt myself falling with the dead soldier. I stumbled towards the sea and my hands went out and under the water, a wave backing up from the shore and filling my mouth with salt, water flushing through my nose with the snot and covering my head. For a moment I thought the salt was the taste of blood and that I’d been hit by a bullet or shell. I was still and then pushed my head above the sea. I was choking on the water and the image of the soldier was confused in my head. I saw myself blown to bits before I’d even had a chance to fight the enemy and this made me angrier, thinking of my mum and family, the bombed out London streets and stories of Dunkirk, the suffering of my uncles fighting these Germans who were always stirring up trouble, Johnny Bates’s old man alone in a dark room whimpering like a dog. I wasn’t going to be one of the countless war dead filed on a church monument and forgotten. There was no way I was going to die in the Channel, sucked into the depths and left to rot. I had a life at home and I wanted to get back in one piece. I hauled myself up and someone gave me a hand. I was moving forward. The front of my uniform was soaked but I didn’t feel the wetness, it was just the water made me heavier. I was determined and hurried to the beach. Getting to firm land reassured me. I was one of thousands of other men and just a name on a churchyard monument, but I was all I had right now and I wanted to see my mum again because she’d made me promise I’d come back. She didn’t want to lose me to a stupid war. Why did this keep happening to her, because she’d spent years worrying about her brothers and I had to come back just as they’d done. Everything was precious on that beach, my memories kept me sharp. I was walking into a nightmare, but I had good mates with me. We were united together against a common enemy. All these boys would help me out. I wasn’t really thinking this at the time, I just knew it was true, because if there is a hell on earth then this was near enough. The Germans were killing the English and it wasn’t clean, bloodless bullet wounds. There were no rules. There was little mercy. It was bloody fighting and killing. Men were blown in half, their arms and legs torn in every direction. Teenagers took wounds in their guts and one boy saw his intestines spill into the sand, a mass of bloated worms. The blood was red and black. I was down on the sand and there was a man’s arm under my chest. I moved forward quickly and we started working our way up the beach firing at the enemy. I couldn’t see them but I could see what they were doing. Planes were screaming over as the RAF attacked the German fortifications, the boom of the big guns off-shore already established in our heads. The air force and the navy gave us hope because for the first time we really believed we were going to sort these bastards out. We were moving towards the enemy when Billy Walsh next to me took a round in his groin. It was in his balls, and he was leaning into me screaming blue murder. I could see the front of his uniform had turned black and the material was ripped. The Germans had blown his balls and dick off. There was nothing left. There was just gristle and I needed help. I called out but nobody came. There were wounded everywhere and I was cradling his head, because Billy was in shock and I didn’t know if he was bleeding to death. I tried to stop the blood with my hands, but then someone with a cross took over. I held Billy’s hand for a moment and I wondered what his life was going to be like, forced to live without his manhood. I wondered if he was better off dead and what I would do in his position. Maybe I should’ve smothered him there and then, put a bullet in his head, but there was no time to think with the sergeant yelling at us to go forward. I squeezed Billy’s hand and let go. We shared the same name, but I was the lucky one, rubbing my bloody hands in the sand, bits sticking. He was screaming above the sound of the guns. We moved forward slowly and stopped. There was a long line of soldiers firing and I stayed for a while. I don’t know how long, but I know my ears were numb from the sound. I might’ve pissed myself. I’m not sure. It could’ve been the sea. I hope I didn’t piss myself. I’d never admit as much. Stopping wasn’t good for you because it gave you time to think and look around at the mutilated bodies, the body parts cold and shapeless. There was a lot of blood where I was. I’ll alw
ays remember that. The smell of blood is with me today. Sickly, rich, sweet and dead. I looked back and knew this was me gone now. I would never be the boy in the pub who liked a drink and a laugh. I wasn’t made for this. None of us were made for this, but we were men and we conquered our fear and controlled ourselves, and then we were charging the enemy and working our way through defences opened up by professional, specialist commando units, the mob charging through shouting and swearing, a rabble of men tight and controlled somehow, pumping blood and ready for murder. I ripped my arm on the wire but felt nothing, kept moving with the rest of the boys.