Уильям Николсон - Motherland

A first floor corridor leads past bedrooms to a bridge across the courtyard entrance. This is the family’s private way to the chapel. The vaulted space is in darkness but for a single light over the altar. When Larry first enters, it appears to be empty.

‘Anyone here?’

A voice answers from the darkness.

‘Is that Larry?’

‘Yes, it’s me.’

Ed uncoils himself from where he’s been lying, stretched out on a row of dark oak chairs. Larry walks down the aisle to him.

‘I suppose Kitty sent you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Dear Kitty. She does her best with me.’

Larry is on the point of saying something noncommittal and sympathetic when he changes his mind.

‘Why don’t you just sort yourself out, Ed?’

Ed raises his eyebrows, smiling.

‘There speaks the voice of reason.’

‘Sorry. Stupid thing to say.’

‘No, you’re right. But the thing is, I’m not sure I can sort myself out. And even if I could, who’d sort out the world?’

‘Oh, honestly,’ says Larry.

‘All the rottenness and mess.’

Larry thinks of Kitty gazing at him in the parlour with tears in her eyes.

‘It won’t do, Ed,’ he says. ‘What right do you have to indulge yourself in the luxury of despair? You have a wife. You have a child.’

‘Well, well.’ He’s not smiling any more. ‘Did Kitty ask you to tell me that?’

‘This isn’t from Kitty. This is from me. We’ve known each other for almost fifteen years. You’re my best friend. You’re the man I admire most in the world. Compared to you, I’m nothing.’

‘Oh, don’t talk such rot.’

‘You think I don’t mean it? I was on that beach, Ed. I was in such a total funk I couldn’t move. I would have sat there on those bloody pebbles for all eternity. I was sick with fear, helpless with fear. And then I saw you.’

Only now does Larry realise he is here for his own reasons too. There’s something he must say to his friend: a tribute and a confession.

‘Don’t do this, Larry,’ says Ed.

But Larry can’t be stopped now.

‘It was like seeing an angel,’ he says. ‘I saw this man come walking up the beach where the bullets were flying and the shells were landing, like he was taking a stroll in the park. Up and down that beach he went, saving life after life, and every time he turned back from the boats he threw his own life away. And as I watched him, the fear went out of me. You were my angel, Ed. Because of you I got up and I walked to the boat, and I lived. I’ll never forget that to the day I die. Mine was one of the lives you saved that day. By Christ, you earned that VC. You earned a hundred VCs. Do you have any idea what that means? God was with you that day, Ed. I know you don’t believe in God, but I swear to you he was by your side on that beach. I’m supposed to be the believer, but God wasn’t with me. God abandoned me the moment I stepped off the boat into that sea of dead men. But God was with you, Ed. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because you gave yourself up to God and God knows his own. I didn’t. I clung to my wretched little life. I thought only of myself. You walked with angels, and God saw you, and God loved you. And because God loved you and protected you, you have lost the right to despair . You have to love yourself, whether you want to or not. That’s the choice you made on the beach at Dieppe. That’s your life now. So wake up, and live it.’

He stands before his friend, pink in the cheeks, breathing fast, furiously pushing his hands through his curly hair. Ed looks back at him, his blue eyes bright.

‘Quite a speech.’

‘Have you heard a single word I’ve been saying?’

‘I heard every word.’

‘I’m right, aren’t I? You know I’m right.’

Ed gets up and stretches, reaching his arms high up into the shadowed air. Then he starts to prowl, up as far as the altar and back.

‘You say I’ve lost the right to despair,’ he says. ‘But you live in a different world to me. I’m somewhere else, far away, beyond despair.’

‘Why should you live in a different world to me?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe we all live in different worlds. You have God in your world. You say God was with me on that beach. Why wasn’t he with all the other poor bastards?’

‘I told you. God knows his own.’

‘You say I gave myself up to God. You have no idea. No idea at all.’

‘Then tell me,’ says Larry.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m your friend.’

Ed doesn’t speak for a few moments, pacing the aisle of the chapel like a ghost in the night.

‘Well, then,’ he says at last. ‘I’ll tell you how Lieutenant Ed Avenell of 40 Royal Marine Commando won his Victoria Cross.’

He comes to a stop in the aisle and stands facing the altar. His voice is quiet as a prayer.

‘I’m in the landing craft. In the smoke. And there ahead of me is Red Beach. The Fusiliers have gone in just before us. I stand up in the boat and see bodies in the water, and bodies on the beach. I see shell craters and I hear the big guns booming out of the cliffs. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it’s all a colossal mistake. It’s a stupidity. It’s a joke. All these men are being sent to die for no reason. A bunch of fools in London have dreamed up this adventure without the first idea of the price to be paid. And here am I in the middle of it, and I’m going to die. The folly of it, the wickedness of it, just took my breath away. My CO saw it too, he’s no fool. He gave the order to turn back, and then a bullet got him. A fine man went down, just like that, for no reason. That made me angry, I can tell you. Jesus, I was angry. I wasn’t angry at the Germans, I was angry at Mountbatten, and the chiefs of staff. And then I got angry at all the world, this stupid wicked world that hurts people for no reason. So after that I went a little crazy. I thought, I’ve had enough, time to go. Time to say goodbye. So I waded ashore and the mortars were dropping in front of me and behind me and the bullets were humming over my head and nothing touched me. Not a blind thing. I wasn’t being a hero, Larry. I was being a fool. I wanted to die. I was going up that beach shouting, Here I am! Come and get me! And nothing touched me. So I thought to myself, while I’m waiting for my number to come up, why don’t I help some poor bastard lying on the beach? So I went from body to body and rolled them over until one moved, and I picked him up. Not his fault he was smashed up. He never asked for this. So I took him down to the boats, and went back up the beach, waiting for my turn. Here I am! Come and get me! You hear what I’m saying, Larry? It wasn’t courage. It was rage. I didn’t want to stick around to see the whole sick joke told to the end. I wanted to get out, all the way out, finished, dead. But nothing touched me. You say God was with me. God was nowhere on that beach. God was absent without leave. God knows the way the joke ends and he’s gone off to get pissed and forget all about it. Why didn’t any of those bullets get me? Luck, that’s all. There’s nothing unusual about that. Half the men who landed on that beach were killed or wounded. That leaves half the men who never got a scratch. I was one of those men, one among thousands. That’s all. The only way I was maybe different to them is I wanted to die. So it wasn’t an angel you saw, Larry. It was a dead man walking. I never saved your life. You did that yourself. And I’ll tell you something for free. The guns didn’t get me on Red Beach, but I died anyway. I don’t belong in the world of the living any more.’

He puts his hands on Larry’s shoulders and holds him with those bright eyes.

‘Do you understand a single word of all that? Because I’m never going to say it again, and I’m never going to say it to anyone else.’