Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘You’ve got a bullet in the bum,’ he says. ‘Can you cope for now?’

‘Sure.’

‘Go and get it sorted when you’re home.’

Now that he’s been told the wound is real, Larry becomes aware that it hurts. He tries to shift his position to ease the pain but only succeeds in making it worse. He accepts another glass of brandy in the hope that he might sleep.

HMS Calpe finally begins its journey home at three in the afternoon, the last ship to leave the scene. The return is slow, because there are heavily laden landing craft to escort. It’s past midnight when the last of the fleet reaches Newhaven.

Larry files off the destroyer in his underwear, wrapped in a blanket. On the quayside there are hundreds of figures moving about with hurricane lamps, lighting up the ambulances, troop trucks and mobile canteens lined up along the dock. A soldier hands him a pack of cigarettes as he steps off the gangway. A nurse takes his arm and ask him questions.

‘Can you walk? Do you need immediate assistance?’

‘I’m okay for now. I could do with a cup of tea.’

She takes him directly to the canteen, and gets him a cup of tea.

‘See to the others, Nurse,’ Larry says. ‘I’ll be all right.’

He stands on the dark quay among the quiet bustle and drinks his tea. Now that he’s out of danger the numb sensations of the last many hours are beginning to lift. Exhaustion and pain sweep through him in waves. And then at first in fragments, then in whole sequences like scenes from a film, he starts to recall his day under fire. He feels the pebbles slip under his boots. He sees the corpse-strewn beach. He tastes the memory of his fear. He sees the tall lean figure of his friend striding up and down the beach, saving the lives of others. And he sees himself, crouched under cover, thinking only of his own survival.

Where is Ed now?

As Larry sips the hot strong tea and feels strength return to his body, the shame in him grows and grows. He bows his head and starts to sob. He weeps for the horror and the weariness and the waste, but most of all for his own moral failure. He wants to ask forgiveness but doesn’t know who to ask. He wants to be comforted but believes he doesn’t deserve comfort.

‘Larry?’

He looks up, face streaming with tears, and there’s Kitty.

‘Oh, Larry!’ He sees the shock on her face. ‘Are you wounded?’

‘Nothing much,’ he says.

He reaches up to rub the tears from his cheeks. His blanket slips. She holds it in place for him.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘There are beds right here.’

He lets her lead him to a nearby warehouse, which has been fitted out as a field hospital. She hands him over to the nurses. They take him in and get him into a bed. They examine his wound and dress it for the night and tell him he’s going to be fine. Then Kitty comes back and sits by him and holds his hand.

‘I saw Ed over there,’ Larry says. ‘He was a hero. A real hero.’

‘He hasn’t come back,’ says Kitty.

‘Why not?’ Larry knows how stupid this is even as he speaks the words. Somehow it hasn’t occurred to him that Ed wouldn’t make it.

‘Not accounted for,’ says Kitty.

‘But I saw him!’

Larry falls silent. He wants to say, Nothing can touch him. He was invulnerable. But as he forms the thought he realises the absurdity of it. The opposite is true. Ed took insane risks. How can he have survived?

‘He hasn’t come back,’ says Kitty again, her voice shivering like glass about to break.

Larry closes his eyes and lets his head lie back on the pillow.

‘A lot of men haven’t come back,’ says Kitty. ‘But at least you have.’

‘Amazing job! First class!’

Admiral Mountbatten paces up and down the room, flexing his upper arms, as if so moved by admiration that only his agitated limbs can express his feelings.

‘I want to hear all about it.’

Larry Cornford is standing, using a walking stick to ease the weight on his right buttock, from which a bullet has been extracted. The only other person in the room with them is Rupert Blundell. Larry has no idea how to tell his supreme commander about the action at Dieppe. Two months and more have passed, but it feels like a hundred years.

‘I don’t really know what to say, sir.’

‘I know, I know,’ cries Mountbatten, turning on him his intent and seductive gaze. ‘That’s what we all say afterwards. When the Kelly sank under me, I thought, no one can ever know what this feels like. No one. But then I got talking to Noel, and you know what he’s done? He’s made a film of it! Bloody good film, too. I’ve seen it. It should be showing in a few weeks. Go and see it. I can fix tickets for you if you want.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ says Larry.

‘You were on the beach at Dieppe, were you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good for you. That’s what I want. The real unvarnished PBI view. They say the lessons we’ve learned from Jubilee are priceless. Shorten the war by years, they say. Plus the whole show finally lured the Luftwaffe out of their hidey-holes and let the RAF give them one hell of a spanking. I’ve had Winston patting me on the back, I’ve had Eisenhower like a kid in a candy store. But at the end of the day it’s the Poor Bloody Infantry who did the job.’

Larry can think of nothing to say to this.

‘Pretty bloody for real, eh?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s war for you. You heard about Lovat’s outfit? Copybook operation. So the Canadians did us proud, did they?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘A hard, savage clash, as Winston says.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I shall tell your father when I next see him, Larry. You chose to go in the line of fire. You didn’t have to be there. I don’t forget things like that. Your name has been put forward.’

‘No, sir.’ Suddenly Larry becomes agitated. ‘I did nothing, sir. I landed, I was on the beach for two or three hours, and I got away. I don’t deserve to be noticed above the others, sir. Above any of the others.’

Mountbatten continues to eye him keenly.

‘I understand,’ he says. ‘Good man.’

‘If you’re putting names forward, sir, there’s one you should add to the list. Lieutenant Ed Avenell of 40 Royal Marine Commando. I watched him carrying wounded men to the boats, while under constant fire himself. He must have saved ten lives at least.’

Mountbatten turns to Rupert Blundell.

‘Make a note of that, Rupert.’

‘Another one of ours, sir,’ says Rupert.

Mountbatten turns back to Larry.

‘What’s become of him?’

‘Missing in action, sir,’ says Larry.

‘Got that, Rupert?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And there’s something else to note,’ says Mountbatten, apparently still talking to Blundell, but with a nod towards Larry. ‘Here’s a man who volunteers for the front line, charges into the heart of battle, catches a bullet, and all he’ll tell me is how some other fellow is the true hero. That’s the sort of spirit that Noel understands.’

He turns to Larry and holds out his hand.

‘It’s an honour to have you on my staff.’

Rupert Blundell escorts Larry back down the corridor to the exit.

‘He’s not a complete chump,’ he says. ‘He knows it was an almighty balls-up. He asked me if I thought he should resign.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him it all depended on the nature of his failure. Was it extrinsic or intrinsic? Did he think he could learn from it?’

‘Christ, Rupert, you sound like his father confessor.’

‘It is an odd relationship. But he’s a very unusual man. He’s vain and childish, but at the same time he’s humble and genuinely serious. Of course, Edwina makes an enormous difference. He depends on her approval more than anything, and she holds him to very high standards.’