England Away

by John King

  It’s one of those no-win situations and there’s enough clever English around to lead the way down another side street, mirroring the Germans who are looking to do the same thing, and when I think about this it’s fucking mental, because it’s not ending, usually it would fizzle out or the old bill would end things or someone would get done right off, but I suppose the Germans are like us because they’re going to keep coming back for more and aren’t prepared to give up, specially at home, while the old bill have to deal with all these nutters from across the Channel who don’t care about their German laws and aren’t too scared about getting nicked. They can’t fucking win and we’ve put ourselves in a situation where sticking together and fighting back means we survive.

  No drug does it the same as we run towards the Germans again down another street and the two sides are smaller, people getting lost along the way, filtering off. That’s the way they do you, picking off small mobs not paying attention, or people who get unlucky left on their own, and it flares up again with the more dedicated on both sides going for it and there’s a couple of English getting done and then it goes back and forward, and with Mark and the rest of the Chelsea boys and another big mix of clubs we run another load of Germans down another fucking street, slowing down not knowing where the fuck we are now, maybe two hundred of us waiting for the rest of the English to catch up, walking now causing havoc, moving through the building blocks, my brain speeding.

  Harry was feeling the effects. This was no ordinary war. No ordinary Saturday night punch-up outside The Hide. No midnight runner from the Taj Mahal. No rowing with the bouncers at Blues. No nutting Sunderland coppers. No, this was special. Personal. Because Harry was riding with the soul of Big Bob West, a war hero from The Unity who’d fought in the Gulf and seen so much on his video screen that when he got home his life was fucked, just like the old boys who sat in the corner early evening with their bitter, grey hair and weary limbs, the old soldiers who ran onto the beaches and through the German guns, fighting for England and the English way of life, fighting the Nazis and ready to steam into the Soviets. Old soldiers with fuck all in their pension and a series of governments who stitched them up every step of the way. Businessmen who hid at home telling the squaddies to forget the horror and move on, bow down, do what you’re told. There was no gratitude and they were forced to hobble through mean streets to sit in front of prim-and-proper young men and women who hated age and the spirit of former days. Harry had seen the films of Spitfire pilots and commando missions but had also drunk with Bob West, a regular who didn’t like the dream.

  Harry felt the power in his fingertips, hovering over the buttons. There was a chemical rush through his spine. Tips of his toes to the top of his head. This was the crunch, fighting for the cause from the safety of a seat in the amusement arcade. Jurgen the German giving out change. The boom of engines as Harry soared above the city, high above Berlin, because he was part of the great game now, one more soldier ant fighting for the NEO, a benevolent money-motivated Euro-dictatorship where decisions were made behind closed doors by unelected bureaucrats.

  Big Bob burnt women and kids so the Brits and Yanks could march into Iraq, and though these colours don’t run it was the politicians who told them to stop before they got carried away and took Baghdad. West said the politicians wouldn’t let them finish the job and get rid of Saddam, because he was just a mate who’d gone a bit over the top; and that was all in the past because now the English were in Berlin and the rest of the lads would be near the ground and it would be going off all over the shop, and in among the exhaust fumes of Harry’s head he could see the irony, how they were allowed to march straight in and turn the place over while the soldiers obeyed orders and were told to sit tight over the horizon.

  Harry was absorbed by the graphics and colour, sucked into a world of heroism where you didn’t bruise your knuckles. He was moving into the future at a thousand miles per hour because, like his old mate Mango said, you had to go with the flow, accepting his place in the new super-state and doing his part in securing the borders, House of Commons politicians sneering at the right- and left-wing sceptics, Harry pushing the image of Ted Heath aside because it was changing shape and he saw Balti in the street with his fucking head blown off, all that blood and gore that made him feel sick, refusing to stay with the memory. It was real life and he didn’t want real life, because real life was shit.

  Smart Bomb Parade was harmless fun and Harry was accepting things for what they were, going forward rather than back, looking down on a futuristic Berlin with its American skyscrapers and American burger chains, the biggest amusement park in Europe built on the site of the Führer’s bunker, the laughter of cartoon characters replacing the screams of men and women strapped down to dissection tables and gang-raped by nonces, Harry shaking with rage as he thought of Nicky running for safety, feeling his lungs contract as he gasped for fresh air, wishing those German slags would put out the fag. Harry came through the rocks with a supersonic boom and a biblical city of sodomy and drug addiction was right there, white blocks of stone decorated with marble minarets and tiny ants running for cover going this way and that, circling in on themselves as Harry prepared to teach them a lesson they would never forget.

  —I suppose we never learn. It’s all in our genes and the images flashed at us through the screen. It seems like another life now and I suppose it was. The Second World War will be forgotten soon and I’ll be another rack of bones in a cemetery overflowing with dead, but empty of mourners. My time has passed, but I lived. I was a tearaway when I was young, and maybe I’d have hanged if it hadn’t been for the war. Who knows what would have happened in different circumstances. They were hard times to live through but there could never be anything to compare. The war was terrible, but there was a comradeship that has never existed in England since. The working class was given respect by the authorities while there was a war to win and then we went back to normal. I hate war and violence, but the worst thing is that it was exciting. I killed and at times maybe I enjoyed the chaos. Some men like killing and hurting people. A lot of men enjoy destroying buildings and property. The battles were spectacles. The colours and noise of the bombardments were incredible. Hand-to-hand it was hard, seeing the faces of the men you killed but not really taking them in. I’ve come back from The Unity and everyone’s sad because last night they found Bob West hanging in his flat. He committed suicide and didn’t bother to leave a note. There were no last words. Denise was crying and says she doesn’t understand. He had nothing to say. He never saw the people he killed, just the beauty of the flames and the sunsets. He saw the spectacle and missed the horror. Later he realised what his role had been, but there was no answer and nobody to help. Maybe he killed a hundred people, perhaps a thousand. I saw the charred corpses of men, women and children killed by bombers and I saw the insanity of a concentration camp. I found my wife there, right at the bottom, raped and starved almost to death. She was a brilliant woman. We were happy and I was a figure in the park digging the soil and planting flowers, enjoying the air and work. Nobody knew what I’d seen and it didn’t matter. It made me stronger than all of them. You accept your place in the world and the rich take what they want. It’s always been this way. The best you can do is stay honest. There was a short time after my wife passed away that I went mad, but I’m okay now and since then I have been content to plod along. You get by. Counting the cost of the heating and going cold at my age isn’t right, but there’s nothing that can be done. I killed for England. I did it in a uniform and they gave me medals. But I sit with my cup of tea and watch the news and a story of rioting in Berlin. The man on the screen is talking from a London studio. He is very excited. I’ve heard it before, in a hundred different situations. When he gets tired there are other stories of death and destruction. They can’t leave it be. Do the young men I pass in the street learn anything? Or the politicians and media? But old men get bitter and that’s not for me. I’ll see Eddie and the boys in a fe
w months. I’m going to see the world and go to Australia. That’s my decision and I’m sticking to it, because that’s all you can really do. I’ve made my choices and won’t complain. Maybe it’s better to die with your mates overseas than at home all alone. But there’s no point dying young. No point at all.

  The youth’s taking a hammering from a couple of Englishmen. He’s wriggling on the concrete and covering himself. His hair is short and his shirt specked with blood. It’s bright red, not black. The thuds are muffled and his fingers cracked from the kicks. The two men take their time and pick their spots. I think of that kicking I got at Millwall a few years back. Then I think of Derby and the time I stood aside and did nothing when Facelift had a go at him. Fitted in and behaved myself. Stood in the shadows. With Millwall I thought I was going to die. Maybe end up in a wheelchair. Or brain damaged. Kicked to death over a game of football. Murdered in some Peckham slum. Chelsea did the business but I was unlucky. It’s the luck of the draw. Another kind of lottery. Because a fight’s a fight. There’s no rules these days. No Queen’s regulations. Doubt there ever was. Nothing’s different except the wrapping gets more high-tech. They add some colour. It’s a load of bollocks. It’s all down to what’s inside and you make your choices. Have to live with them for the rest of your life. It’s personal responsibility.

  We’re a democratic people. This German decided to have a go at the famous English football hooligans and he’s lost out. The mob we’ve been rowing with has scattered and the rest of the England boys are chasing them for fun. The German on the floor is having a bad time of things from these two. He’s pushed himself to get out on the streets with his mates and this is the comeback. It’s time for the cunt to pay the bill. Taking the piss having a go at the English. Fitting in with his mates and playing his part. All that mutual respect is shit. Face in the gutter getting the shit kicked out of him by a couple of men ten years older. The bigger of the two hovers around him, stamping on the youth’s head. He’s deliberate in what he’s doing. He wants to hurt this boy. He’s trying to crack the skull. Damage that fucking kraut brain. That fucking German cunt responsible for bombing London and Coventry and Plymouth. Fucking slags the lot of them. Kill the boy and walk away with no second thoughts. Leave the body face down in the mud for his mum and dad to identify days later in some regimental morgue. Send the body home in a box. A few miles out of Berlin to some grubby German village. Do the cunt and let his old man sit by the grave crying in front of the wife. Looking soft. Bringing the back of his trainer down on the side of the boy’s face.

  I walk towards them and hit the one stamping on the German’s head. I punch him in the face and I punch him hard. It’s a good punch. There’s no panic or excitement, but I want to break his nose. I screw my fist in and try to hurt him. He stumbles back holding his head, half from surprise and half from pain. He’s the same size and a bit younger than me, but he’s a wanker. It’s the cowards and the psychos who stand there for hours kicking a dead man. Kicking a dead man to death. I hate that, going on and on when you’ve done the job and proved your point. These cunts have been hanging back waiting to pick up the leftovers. You never see these slags at the front when it goes off, and they’re the first ones on their toes when things go bad. They’re a couple of wankers. The kind who in a war torture prisoners and rape women. Scum basically. There’s rotten apples everywhere. You have to have standards.

  The second man turns round and says they’re English. Thinks I’ve got them mixed up with the krauts. I tell him to fuck off and kick him in the balls. He moves sideways and it only half hurts. He chokes and leans forward, then snaps back as I kick him in the mouth. He’s a tart and does as he’s told. Not fit to call himself English. He pulls his mate away and they hurry off. I watch them go, then look down at the German. He’s moving and trying to crawl away. I turn him over with my foot but he doesn’t have a face, just blood from his nose smeared with grit. I think of what Harry was saying in London a couple of weeks ago, when we were getting stoned on some of Rod’s dope. Up to your fucking eyeballs on Arab camel dung and Fat Boy’s running off at the mouth, going into one. You’d think he’d slow down but he was so fucking chuffed about the coming trip two hours on the herb didn’t knock him out. My old mate, new mate Harry going on about how he imagined the face of Balti after he’d been shot. Wanted to know whether you could see the features or just the skull. I didn’t want to start thinking about all that because fuck knows with the camel shit. Didn’t want the paranoia, but the image stuck. Now I connect everything looking at a face that could belong to anyone.

  I lean down and grab the boy round the neck. Hold onto the collar of his shirt and pull him to his feet. He’s unsteady at first. His legs are weak for a few seconds but then the messages start coming through as the computer reconnects. He leans into me. Realises I’m not going to hurt him. Probably thinks I’m a local. His weight’s on my shoulder as I half-walk, half-carry him to a brick wall. He leans back and shakes his head. Takes a hanky from his pocket and wipes the blood off. Gets his thoughts together. Looks at me again and seems confused. Nods his head up and down. He seems a bit spastic as the current starts firing and I watch the pulse in his temple. I kill time looking down the street to where I can hear shouting and the sound of breaking glass. England are moving along another row of shops and wrecking the place. I can see men running after other men. England are on the rampage but everything has broken up and got confused. I want to get back with the others and enjoy the fun. Make every second count.

  I stay for a minute or so. The noise drifts further away and there’s nobody but the two of us in the street. It’s a fucking ghost town suddenly. Everyone’s hurried to keep up with the fighting and left us behind. I look at the youth again and he’s got his hands on his knees and his head down. I think he’s going to be sick, but nothing happens. There’s the blood but it’s just his nose. Nothing serious. Fuck knows if they’ve done his bones or something internal. He stands up, looking better. Starts to say something, but I shake my head, frown and turn away. I jog down the road to catch up with Mark, Carter and the rest of the boys.

  —And when you’re in that situation in a time of war, as I was, with the world going mad around you, with millions dead all over the globe, you have to make decisions. I saw the German youth crawling and his gun was in his hand. Maybe he was trying to turn, maybe not. I’d killed before and I could have kicked the gun away, but I couldn’t be bothered. I’d seen men with their brains blown out and boys with their intestines torn from their guts crying for their mums. I’d seen men with their balls in the mud and exposed hearts filling with rain water. Men castrated by shrapnel and bleeding to death. A lot of them weren’t men. I was only a kid myself and I’d seen too much, and when the boy moved I didn’t try to think. My brain was heavy and maybe I was insane. I shot him in the head and blew his head open. I shattered his skull with the crack of my bullets. I don’t know how many shots I fired but I didn’t need them all. I stuck my bayonet into him as well, but by then he had to be dead. I dug it in ten or more times. I killed a boy younger than myself and he stayed in the mud as I moved forward. I doubt he was ever given a funeral. He was probably a brave boy who deserved better from his rulers. I left his corpse to rot. I was mad and angry and would have killed anyone. I lived and thought about everything that happened. I married a survivor from a concentration camp and hated the men who raped her, the men and women responsible for the rapes, murders, tortures and experiments. After the war I thought things through but never really came to a conclusion. I saw Mangler but what could I do? Nobody wanted to know. It was a war and bad things happen. It’s not an excuse and I’ve always wondered about the boy and I still wonder today. There’s rubbish everywhere. I did my duty, and things could’ve been different. I’ll never be sure and that’s the hardest part. When I see war veterans on the television meeting old enemies and shaking hands I wonder what it would be like to meet that boy all grown up with a wife and children and grandchildren of h
is own. What would it be like to have a drink with him in a German beer garden? I would be embarrassed and turn my head away when he thanked me for his life.

  I pick up my suitcase when the bell rings and open the front door. My daughter is taking me to the airport. I’m excited now and my head is clear. We make our choices, and as a young man you think things will get better, but they don’t. It’s what we are. We fight and kill and breed to rebuild. It’s the English way, but more than that it’s the way of the world. When you get older you slow down and realise it’s daft, but you can’t really explain it in words, and anyway, nobody’s listening. People get embarrassed and the likes of me don’t count. Life moves on and there’s no telling people.

  No telling the General in his marble bunker, deep inside stone corridors where nobody hears the prostitutes scream. Nobody heard Balti die in the street, the only witness a woman with the shits who saw everything through glass, and Harry wanted revenge, because life was unfair and the screens all around him were pointing the way ahead. He was powerless, but if he played the game he could have it all. The machine offered a perfect world, where nobody asked questions and an all-powerful state was prepared to crush those animals over the horizon. Harry had to pay his dues and channel his anger in a new direction.