by John King
Eddie veered right at Fulham Broadway and headed for Shepherd’s Bush, planning to drop Ted off first. The corporal had worked out the best route back to Feltham, the boys bailing out on the way. Shepherd’s Bush, Hammersmith, Isleworth and home. He was in control and soon on North End Road with its market litter and wandering drunks, on through the tower block estates at the back of Earl’s Court. Two miles from the wine bars of Chelsea and the population could’ve been from a different planet. Farrell felt Eddie was taking an unnecessarily complicated route that invited the attentions of police patrols, but kept quiet. He knew his rank and Eddie wouldn’t stand for insubordination. He was a brawler and used to getting his way. It was his car and the punishment for mutiny was a long walk home.
At a set of traffic lights Eddie reached over and pulled out a small box of tapes. There always had to be music when the troops marched into battle. He inserted one and punched the button on the cassette player. Bill was expecting a Royal Tournament collection, Vera Lynn or some old paratrooper sing-along, but instead there was a blast of sentimental ballad. He didn’t have a clue who the singer was, but it wasn’t anyone he’d heard before. Bill looked at the corporal, who was glaring straight ahead.
– What’s all this shit then? Barry slurred from the back. Sounds like country-and-western to me.
– It’s the Rolling Stones, Eddie said. An early track.
– Didn’t take you for a Stones man, Barry remarked. I thought you’d prefer something off the parade ground.
– I saw the Stones years back, before they were famous, when they were starting off. I’ve always liked their music. Local lads as well. Ted knows my musical tastes.
Eddie pulled away from the lights and before long they were on a search-and-destroy mission through Shepherd’s Bush with the music picking up and Sympathy For The Devil coming through the speakers. Bill Farrell had never listened to the Rolling Stones much but found himself pulled in by the rhythm. The words were good as well, talking about the Devil and how evil cropped up through the centuries, all over the planet at important moments in history. It was part of the human condition and no-one escaped. It was depressing but at the same time he felt uplifted. It made him understand the Lucifer mythology and the need for some kind of belief. He was drunk. He was an atheist.
– Turn it up will you, Ted called from the back. Do the next right, Eddie. It’s quicker that way.
As they drove around W12, Farrell marvelled at how for years he’d avoided these drink-ups because he didn’t want to sit around listening to old soldiers rambling on about the war all night. For some reason he thought it was going to be an endless post-mortem, both of their own actions and the aftermath, but today had been nothing like that at all. He hadn’t laughed so much for ages. He knew these people from way back and it was easy company. It was a good laugh, like tapping into his youth. There was nothing to say about death and destruction, because they’d seen enough first hand. The thing they all appreciated was the comradeship they’d felt at the time. It was still there, and Farrell never thought he’d admit something like that. He supposed whatever side you fought on and whatever the battle it was the same. People needed to feel that unity. It was just a shame it took something like a war to make it happen.
The details of their army lives were buried below the surface and that’s why he’d avoided Mangler. The man had been a few feet away, but Farrell had kept quiet. All that mattered in the bar was the funny stories and piss-taking that made the bloodshed somehow ridiculous. Fine details were bound to be blurred. They’d all stood their ground and that’s what counted. How could any of them explain the war? They just wanted another pint and the chance to take the piss out of each other like they did when they were young. The drink made them forever young, not words on a headstone.
– Right here, Eddie, Ted said. Turn the music down will you, because the ravers across the road need their beauty sleep.
Ted jumped out and banged on the roof. Eddie pulled away with a screech of rubber, showing off, then slowed down when Bill reminded him that if they were stopped the corporal would face a ban.
– You sound like one of my sons, Eddie said, but he took notice. The old bill would have a fight trying to take me. You mark my words Bill, you too Barry if you’re alive back there, I can still fight like a young man. I might not use this dragon between my legs much these days, but I can take anyone, young or old. I’ll fight to the death and die in the carnage. Feel that muscle, Bill.
– What muscle?
– His prick, that’s what he wants, Barry laughed from the back.
– The muscle in my arm, you cunt.
Private Farrell did as Corporal Wicks ordered.
– What do you think of that then? Eddie beamed.
– Police up ahead, Barry said.
Eddie concentrated on the driving. There was a patrol car coming the other way, moving slowly.
– Don’t panic, Barry whispered in Eddie’s ear, pretending to nibble the lobe.
– Fuck off will you, Eddie hissed. You’ll make me swerve and then we’ll have the SS after us.
The police car kept going and Eddie checked it in the mirror.
– That was lucky. You have to watch out for patrols when you’re on a mission behind enemy lines, trying to get that miserable cunt Barry back to England in one piece. That’s the most important thing. It doesn’t matter what you do overseas as long as we all get home in one piece. You’re next Bill, then Barry. Not far to go now.
– Put another tape on will you, Barry said, but Eddie just grinned.
It didn’t take long before Eddie was dropping Farrell off in front of his flat. He staggered out of the car after they’d said their goodbyes, with the promise of a trip to Rai’s on nettle detail and a drink. Farrell slammed the door hard and was soon indoors. He turned on the lights and put the kettle on. He was pissed, but didn’t feel sick. He hadn’t drunk this much for years. He kissed the picture of his wife and went to the bathroom for a piss, returning to the kitchen and making his cuppa. He stirred the brew and went into the living room, sitting in his favourite chair by the window. Farrell waited for the tea to cool, the stillness and silence calming him. He looked at the picture of the nun with the lantern, a council glow outside, the fuzz of a summer night taking over. He saw the nun calling him forward and the name of his Uncle Gill scribbled on yellow paper, a scared boy off to the trenches wondering if he’d ever see England again.
—I walk down the gangplank and look into an ocean of faces. There’s a band playing and my head feels woolly. I can hear the drums and brass but can’t name the tune. It could be God Save The King or a funeral march. I’m grateful I haven’t been killed during the last few days of fighting and listed as missing in action, presumed dead. It was only a question of time before the Germans surrendered. We had them beat. I can’t imagine how families feel when they discover their boy fell on the last day of war. To go through so much and die needlessly causes the sort of bitterness that gnaws at the mind for ever. A lot of people will never recover. The person who’d feel my death most is Mum. She’d never survive the shock. To carry a child and raise it, then see him shipped off and buried hundreds of miles from home would destroy any woman. To carry your child on the trains and have it ripped from your hands is beyond belief. Many men will never recover, but my mum brought me up after Dad died so I’m extra special to her. I’m a special boy and that’s what she told me when I was a nipper. I’m glad for myself but glad for her. She prays for me every night, begging God to watch over me and make sure I keep my head down. She says her prayers and will do whatever it takes to keep her boy alive. Nothing else matters when it comes to survival. Sailing back to England and walking down the gangplank is my biggest triumph. This is the real victory, coming back to English soil. If I drop dead now I’ll be buried at home. That’s important. I don’t mind dying here. Flags don’t matter in this new world. Coming home alive shows I’m a man and can look after myself. I’m happy and drunk, but I
’m drifting. Coffins draped in Union Jacks belong somewhere else. The faces blend together in a vague pattern. The music is slurred and there’s mist on the Channel. The sea is calm and I can hear it lapping against the dock, the voices of the other men fading into the background so I suddenly feel very alone. I know it’s not true. There’s thousands of faces out there waiting for the boys to come home. There’s so many people waiting I hope there’ll be someone for me. Nobody can live alone, shutting everything out. I can’t see anyone in the crowd and slump forward. The surface under my feet is uneven. When I steady myself and finally set foot on firm ground again I walk slowly, floating in the clouds with sunlight beating against the mist, the lights ahead bright in my eyes. Suddenly I see them, even though the faces are still merged. They’re small balls of white, but I can guess the rest. My mum is here. I see Stan and Gill and Nolan. For a minute I think I see my dad, but he’s dead. He died when I was a baby. I see others behind them and know everyone is here. These are the first ones and they’ll guide me home. I’m drifting and following the pattern. My uncles fought and sailed home more than a quarter of a century before me. They’re pleased to see Billy breathing fresh air. London’s at the end of the line. I have to remind myself where I am. My uncles are a surprise, but even now, so many years later as an old man myself, I can feel the pride I felt all those years before. I admired my uncles more than I knew. I wanted to be like them. I was the same blood. Pride swamps the relief, drowns the shock. I’m running through my life and the dates are lost. I’m going home. I see that clearly. I’m on my way and what’s done is done. There’s no turning back the clock. I dig my heels in and refuse to surrender. I’m a survivor and the survivors have more pride than the murderers and rapists. All my choices were right. I wouldn’t be here if I’d done wrong. The spirits see everything. I made the right decisions.
Farrell shook off the ghosts and sat up straight. He’d never been the same since he left England and never been abroad since. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was scared to leave. England was safe while the rest of the world represented danger. He’d seen enough. There was pain even now. Maybe his time had come and this was the heart attack that would kill him once and for all, but no, he was okay. It had been a fantastic feeling returning after the war. At first he was tired, but the nearer the ship got to England the stronger he became. He was excited and contrasted it to the fear of the invasion, but once they landed he forgot everything as his mum pushed through the crowd with a swagger and pulled him close. Everything went in a circle and he’d been right round.
He had a biscuit and sipped his tea. He felt good about his day out. He couldn’t believe he’d drunk so much. He understood now why old soldiers kept in touch. It made sense. He felt at ease with Eddie, Barry, Ted and Rai. It would do him good to see them again. He’d renew these friendships and have some fun. He let himself go back.
He supposed Germany did well in the post-war years. It was rebuilt and the Western half of the country got democracy. The US became a true world power. Other countries regained their freedom. In some ways England had missed out. It was near enough in ruins and had to start again. Of course, the same old problems returned with the rich coming along to claim victory for themselves. Nobody took much notice and that was a problem, because it gave them a clear run. The ordinary man and woman in the street had something much more important. For that period following Germany’s invasion of France, when Stalin still had his pact with Hitler and the Americans didn’t want to get involved, Britain was the only one standing up to the Nazis. Farrell passionately believed this was something to be proud of, even if the view was often dismissed. Even now it made him proud and meant nothing could touch him, no matter what the Government did to his pension, heating allowance and health care. Farrell had the moral victory to go with the medals he never wore.
At first it had been pure relief to be back in England. They’d taken the train to London and the family had laid out a spread. Farrell got quite drunk and his uncles treated him differently. They were sensible men and Farrell had talked about the concentration camps. He told them what he’d seen but they found it hard to comprehend. The boy was a grown man and had seen something they could never know or understand. It was the same hearing about the First World War. They spoke of their experiences more now, though never fully opened up. They were English. They couldn’t understand torture and experiments. Farrell remembered Gill saying that if he’d been a German standing in a queue and someone said they were making soap out of Jews, he’d think they were mad.
Farrell’s uncles drank more than he’d ever seen them drink and everyone was happy. He’d wondered how Billy Walsh’s wife and boy were feeling. Mrs Walsh would never see her husband again. She’d never see his body and would have to make do with a war grave. A part of France forever English. Her son would grow with a memory for a dad. The old man would be a hero figure, shaping his life from the grave. The boy would be bitter and pass the feeling on. There were millions of people in the same situation. Farrell had felt lucky at the time and he still did today. There were millions worse off. He’d prayed in the landing craft but couldn’t say God had helped. How could he know?
He felt he was fortunate to have a roof over his head and be able to dunk biscuits in a cup of tea. It was a luxury he tried to make sure he always appreciated. The bitter, whisky and brandy was making him tired and emotional. Drink made him sentimental and he had to struggle to push his wife’s face into the photos, holding back the nun coming with her lantern. For decades he had held out but now the past was right in front of his eyes. There were clips of stories fitted together and Farrell had to keep them in order. They said that when you died your whole life flashed in front of your eyes. They said you ran through every experience without any idea of time. He’d always heard it happened fast. Suddenly you were sitting on the bus and then you slumped sideways, and in the time it took to hit the window your life had raced past.
The rational world Farrell had created was fraying. He thought of Mangler, but told himself he was mistaken. He thought of his wife, but the memory was too sad. He thought of the bodies, and the boy returned. The last person he killed kept coming back into his head. The order was crumbling and new pictures appeared. He knew he must be dying, but the flashbacks were slow and cruel. He was being tortured slowly now, forced to fight harder to justify his actions. Farrell could see the lights through his window. The memories were too strong and he saw the faces. They’d say he was sleeping because it sounded better than death. He was in the ruins but fighting back, the earth black from a plague that had risen from the soil and destroyed civilisation. The buildings had been bombed and torched. Smoke hung over the earth. The English were fighting house to house, young men moving through towns and villages, flushing out the last remaining resistance. The ruins had no name. It was a German village crushed and burnt. Farrell had sworn he’d find out the name of the village one day, but he never did. The memory was pushed back, festered, rose up, and was pushed back again. There was the smell of burnt bodies and the reek of gasoline, flame-throwers turning men into screaming fireballs.
Farrell was tired and his head throbbed. He was dirty and hungry, but the strongest he’d ever been, charging through what was left of people’s homes, possessions scattered and ruined by rain and mud and fire. The stink of death was in his nostrils and his skin coated in scum. He was moving automatically. German snipers were popping off shots and the soldier next to him was hit in the head. Farrell felt the tears as he looked at the man and saw a black hollow where his left eye should have been. Half a century later it was coming back, a dirty rush of horror. The smell was strong. The fear and hatred worked its way under his skin and pulsed through the lining. The only direction was forward, more slowly now, with every ounce of concentration focused on survival. The war had sent Farrell back to the wild as the English fought for their lives, knowing a mistake meant death. He didn’t want to die overseas. He didn’t want to end up in a foreign grave, buried po
or like his gran, buried in a place where there were no wildflowers and no family.
Leaning forward in his chair Farrell thought of his mum. With the shock of bullets splintering bone he saw the woman crying when they came to break the news that her boy was dead. She’d heard enough stories from the first war to know that death was ugly and without honour. Despite this she would ask for a quick death, a painless death for a brave boy, a special boy, a small boy forever young in the photographs, a young man crawling on his belly seeing a nun with a lantern. It was better that way. She didn’t need to know the details.
BLITZKRIEG
THERE’S THIS OLD dear sitting next to me bending my ear, really going into one. It’s late morning in West Berlin and the English are starting to gather along the main street around the corner from the hotel where we’re staying. Must be sixty or so here at the moment. We’re drinking outside a small row of bars, in among white metal tables set out on a wide pavement. The sun is shining through a clear blue sky and we’re settling in nicely. The journey’s over and we’re enjoying the scenery. Doing our own special sightseeing. The woman’s got a good head of strong blonde hair, but reminds me of a witch. Don’t know why, but there’s something about her. The eyes are clear and blue, and she seems sane enough, but then she goes and mentions guardian angels. Maybe she’s religious with some serious contacts. Better treat her right. She says that she’s a decent German and knew nothing about the concentration camps. Says she was a child during the war but will never forget the horror that followed the German army’s retreat from the Eastern Front.
Childhood shapes the rest of your life. Her life has been miserable, yet she was one of the lucky ones. Can I understand that? There were many Germans of her age who did not survive the war. Do I understand what she is saying? The point she is trying to make? That she was helped and looked after and cherished because she was young and innocent and destined to live. I nod and look towards the rest of the lads. They aren’t taking much notice. They’re enjoying their drink and keeping away from the loony. Avoiding the mad old girl sitting with Tom giving him a headache. I’ve done it myself enough times. Let some other cunt deal with the nutter wandering round tapping people for attention. They all want someone to talk to. Someone to listen and understand. They just want to have their say.