Forever the Colours

by Richard Thomas

  ‘Well I must say, if this is a dream, I feel terribly real, and since I feel terribly real, I will introduce myself. Lieutenant Maurice Rayner, at your service, Adjutant with the 66th Berkshire Regiment. Oh, and I do a spot of interpreting as well, just in case you want to ask the lovely nurse out for dinner, what.’

  Tommy had to smile at this. As he walked over to the Lieutenant, he held out his hand and said, ‘Thomas Evans, Private, the Queen’s Own Fusiliers, nutcase!’

  Rayner shook it. ‘Well, Private Evans, I don’t recall the fusiliers being part of our little party, so unless you are quite mad, or have gotten lost out here in this bloody furnace, I suggest you become a private in the Berkshires, because if the skilled Surgeon Major comes to the conclusion that you are, in fact, insane, then its cheerio to dear old Private Evans, hello asylum!’

  Tommy thought about this for a while whilst listening to the hustle and bustle outside the tent. What the hell, he thought. If I’m dead then none of this will matter, and if I’m in a coma, well, there’s no point fighting it, just go where it takes me. As for going back in time, well, that’s just silly.

  ‘All right, sir,’ said Tommy in a smart voice. ‘Private Evans of the 66th reporting for duty. Must beg your pardon, sir, as I seem to have mislaid my memory, and this Private begs your indulgence.’

  Chapter 5

  Friend

  There is a distinct smell to a hospital, a clinical smell, a smell of TCP, disinfectant, Savlon, chemical smells in general. The strange smell here, though, Tommy couldn’t place. He had never liked the smell of hospitals; it meant sickness and death. It also meant watching your loved ones take their last breath, like Granddad Stan, curled up on a bed fighting for every breath; six stone soaking wet and looking a hundred-and-fifty-years-old. He didn’t always look like that though; no, once he was a big man. A big strong man and a soldier, it’s true. Tommy had seen all the old photographs from the war when he was a child. All those black and white prints of young Stan and his mates, standing alongside burnt out German tanks, artillery pieces and even brothels (though he wasn’t supposed to see those photos, and Gran went mad when Tommy asked who the black girl was sitting on his lap, drinking out of a champagne bottle).

  ‘Ah, well now,’ Stan had said, ‘that was a poor Nubian that I rescued from the Nazis, boy. Poor girl was so happy when we took that French town, she gave us all a drink and a kiss, as thanks, you know.’ And with that he had quickly buried the photo at the bottom of the shoe box where they were kept.

  He was at Dunkirk as well. Three days, he was on that beach. He only ever spoke about that when he’d had a drink, and even then not much; it was the only time during the war when he had been truly frightened. There was one occasion, though, when he’d gotten quite drunk, and it was then that Stan told Tommy a secret.

  It was the third day on the beach at dusk and he had just waded back after the Destroyer he had tried to board had taken a direct hit from a Stuka dive bomber. When he got back to the hole he had dug in a sand dune, he found another soldier hiding in it. He had gotten into an argument with the man, who had point blanked refused to move, with Stan arguing that he had dug that hole with his own two hands. Just then, as a fight was about to ensue, a German ME 109 fighter came screaming down the beach heading straight for them. As the other soldier’s attention was taken up with the fighter, Stan thumped him in the stomach and dragged him out of the hole and dived in. In between sobs, he said, ‘I watched that poor boy disintegrate right in front of me, lad. He was gazing right at me and then he was gone. Why, why did I do it? There was room for the two of us.’ Tommy left his Granddad crying, alone in his potting shed, and it was never mentioned again.

  ‘What is it?’ Tommy asked, as Arun passed him a wooden bowl with what looked like vomit in it.

  ‘It is food, Private Sahib.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that it might be food, but what sort of food?’

  ‘Err, it is being wholesome food, Private Sahib,’ and with that Arun walked back out of the tent.

  Tommy sighed heavily and sniffed the contents of the bowl. Well, he thought, it smells like soup or stew or something like that, anyway. How is it that, if this is the afterlife, I’m not eating huge hunks of pork and beef, and bowls filled with all different kinds of fruit, and drinking wine, and getting a bed bath from a group of virgins? He sighed again and, picking up the wooden spoon, placed a small amount of it in his mouth. With a mighty effort, he started to chew.

  It might be a potato stew, he thought after a moment. And maybe some meat as well. He stopped chewing, and swallowed quickly. Meat! he thought again. What kind of meat? He inspected the bowl, stirring the contents up and checking the bit of gristle he had managed to find. Beef, he thought, that’s got to be beef, probably the testicles or some other offal. But he was hungry, very hungry, he realised. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten; he thought it might have been a packet of crisps on the morning of the patrol. Morning! What time is it now? What day is it now? Do they have days here? Tommy thought. Am I going mad or something?

  ‘Sod it,’ he said, and threw the rest of the stuff down his throat.

  ‘My, who’s a hungry boy, then?’ came a voice from the tent flap. ‘Don’t forget to stop at your fingers, what.’

  Tommy looked up and saw Lieutenant Rayner standing by the tent entrance. He smiled and licked the spoon. ‘Not too bad actually when you don’t think about what’s in it.’

  ‘Food of the gods, I’m sure.’ The Lieutenant limped over to his bed and climbed onto it. With an exaggerated sigh, he collapsed back onto the roughly stuffed pillow. ‘That, my fine fellow,’ he said ‘was an awful lot of work just to have a shit.’ He rolled onto his side and faced Tommy. ‘Feel any better, Mr Dead and Gone to Hell?’

  Tommy placed the bowl on the little stool next to his bed, swung round and sat on the edge. ‘You can take the piss all you want, Maurice, but I know what my eyes are telling me, and they’re telling me that, unless I’m dead, I’m asleep and dreaming. If I’m not dreaming, then I’m as mad as a box of frogs, and if I’m not mad, then I’ve gone back in time, for what reason I couldn’t tell ya. Personally, my money’s on the dreaming.’

  ‘Well, I don’t care for any of those scenarios.’ Maurice leaned up on his elbow, ‘Because, Thomas, if you are dead, then I’m a ghost, if you are dreaming, then I don’t exist, if you are insane, then I am just a figment of your overactive imagination and if you have indeed gone back in time, as you say, then I have already lived this life and I am, well, already dead!’ He smiled at Tommy. ‘Saying that, though, at least I get to live again. Even in your mind will do.’

  Tommy sat thinking for a moment. What if Maurice is right? As insane as it sounded to Tommy, what if he had gone back in time? He looked over at Maurice, then looked around the tent, and thought, How could this be a dream? It’s so real! He had never had a dream like it; in fact, he couldn’t recall ever having a dream and realising it was a dream at the same time. Can you even do that?

  ‘Why the bloody hell would I have gone back in time? What possible reason would there be for that to happen? No, no, I’m obviously dreaming or something, because, you know what, I can feel pain. How can you feel pain when you’re dead? Eh? Tell me that, then, Maurice.’

  ‘You can feel pain, old bean, because you are indeed alive! As we sit here debating on the why’s and wherefores of heaven and hell, your heart is pumping blood to that close approximation you call a brain. You are also, I might add, breathing. You have just eaten some of that slop, for goodness sake. And believe me, if you weren’t real, I would be the first to tell you.’ With that, he leaned down from the bed, picked up a wooden bowl and threw it at Tommy, catching him in the leg.

  ‘Ow! Why did you do that?’ exclaimed Tommy. ‘That bloody hurt!’

  ‘Aha!’ shouted Maurice. ‘You can feel pain, you are alive and I am a genius, as I always knew I was.’

  ‘I already told you I could feel pain,’ complain
ed Tommy.

  ‘Yes, yes, I was testing your theory, so please don’t ruin my moment of triumph.’

  Just at that moment, the tent flap parted and the Surgeon Major walked in, followed by another, rather large officer, by the look of him, or so Tommy thought.

  ‘You, young man, are supposed to be resting that head of yours. Now swing those legs back up and lie down, or I will tell the Sergeant Major here that you are fit for duty. I’m sure he could find you plenty of jobs to do.’

  ‘Yes sir, sorry sir,’ replied Tommy, and he swung his legs back up onto the bed.

  Tommy looked at the Sergeant Major and found him staring back, looking from underneath the bushiest eyebrows he’d ever seen. This was a big man, at least six-foot-five or six, broad in the chest and shoulder, and standing ramrod straight. He had a large moustache and beard as well, though they were well groomed. In fact, he looked quite magnificent. He was wearing an off-white uniform, all shiny brass buttons and a pith helmet. He gave off an air of absolute confidence, and Tommy felt slightly intimidated.

  ‘Now then, Sergeant Major, you wished to see Corporal Armour. You will find him in that bed over there,’ the Surgeon Major said, pointing to the third occupant of the tent. Then he went and sat at his desk.

  The man in the other bed had suddenly lost the colour in his face and he was visibly shaking. The Sergeant Major walked over to the foot of the bed and looked down. This guy is brilliant, Tommy thought. He seriously looks the part, and even comes with one of those cane thingies.

  ‘Now then, Armour, would you like to explain to me why you are not back with your chums and performing your duties like a good soldier? Because the Surgeon Major here has told me your wounds have healed and you are fit for duty.’ He paused his slow, sonorous voice for obvious effect. ‘Now, for some strange reason you, have told the Surgeon Major that you are not fit for duty, that you have not fully recovered from your wounds and you are refusing to leave the Surgeon Major’s tent, a tent for genuinely injured soldiers.’ He took an enormous inhalation through his nose while looking above at the roof. ‘Now then, sonny, if I were to think that what you were in fact experiencing was not sickness but, say, cowardice, for instance, well, I would have to report it to the General. And I would presume that he would make an example of you to the rest of the regiment. The Cat hasn’t seen the sunshine in many a year.’ He gave Armour a piercing stare. ‘So I will ask you, Corporal Armour, are you or are you not fit and ready for duty?’

  The man Armour jumped out of bed and stood at attention, and barked, ‘Corporal Armour ready and fit fer duty, Sergeant Major Cuppage.’

  The big Sergeant Major nodded like a proud father. ‘Well done, lad. Now you have a little time to get your things together, and then report to Sergeant Rollings’s Company.’

  ‘Yes Sar’nt Major Cuppage,’ Armour nearly shouted.

  The big Sergeant Major turned and started to make his way back to the entrance. But he caught site of Maurice and stopped. ‘Well, I did not see you there, Lieutenant Rayner. You are making a speedy recovery, I hope, sir?’

  ‘I am, Sergeant Major, thank you. You are well yourself?’

  ‘I am in excellent health, sir.’

  ‘Tell me, Sergeant Major, have you met our new arrival?’ he asked, nodding toward Tommy. ‘No? Well, may I introduce Private Thomas Evans, formally of the Fusiliers, newly joined in India and now a man of the 66th. Private Evans, may I introduce Sergeant Major Alexander Cuppage, backbone of the regiment.’

  For a moment Tommy forgot where he was and put out his hand for Cuppage to shake. The Sergeant Major looked at it with indifference and then looked back at Tommy. He realised his mistake and jumped out of bed and came to attention. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sar’nt Major.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘And what is wrong with you, exactly? For you look healthy and well fed to my eyes.’

  ‘I was caught by an RPG, Sergeant Major,’ replied Tommy, without a thought for what he had just said.

  Cuppage raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘An RPG, you say. Very good. And what, pray tell, is an RPG?’

  ‘I am afraid, Sergeant Major,’ intervened Surgeon Major Preston, ‘that the young Private has taken a knock to his head, and, well, frankly talks nonsense now and then. But he is recovering, albeit slowly.’

  Realising his mistake, Tommy said, ‘Sorry, Sar’nt Major, what I meant to say was a cannon. Yes, a cannon shell took me off my feet.’ He wanted to laugh but kept a straight face.

  ‘Indeed. Very well, lad, I pray you make a speedy recovery.’ He turned to Preston and Rayner, nodding at them in turn, and said, ‘Good day, sirs.’ Then he made his way to the entrance. But as he got there, he turned and looked at Tommy, who felt that, for some strange reason, the Sergeant Major was seeing right into his mind. After a moment Cuppage shook his head as if to clear it, and then left.

  ‘Well, that was strange,’ said Rayner.

  ‘What was?’ replied Tommy.

  ‘Well, my erstwhile friend, it seems as if you spooked old Cuppage. I mean, what was that look about, as though he’d seen a ghost or something?’ He realised what he’d said, ‘Oh damn it all.’

  ‘Ah ha,’ exclaimed Tommy. ‘There you go, mate, now you’re talking.’

  ‘Talking about what?’ asked Preston.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing, Major, sir. More ramblings from Private Evans. But there is improvement, wouldn’t you say? Every day, yes indeed.’

  ‘Hmm, well that remains to be seen, Lieutenant Rayner. Now if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I have to attend the smoothbore battery.’ He made his way to the entrance. ‘It seems we may have a case of cholera. If you need anything, please instruct my wallah Arun to attend you.’ He nodded and then left the tent.

  Tommy was lost in thought until Private Armour dropped something with a loud clang in his haste to pack. Tommy and Maurice looked at each other and started to laugh.

  ‘What ye laughing at, eh? And you should know better, Lieutenant, being a young gentleman and all.’

  ‘You are quite correct, Joseph. It is Joseph, yes? On behalf of Thomas and myself, please accept our apologies for the puerile behaviour.’

  ‘Well that would be, well, alright then, sir.’ Armour didn’t know what else to say to the two young men, so he just nodded, picked up his kit and left.

  ‘What a tosser,’ said Tommy.

  ‘I would agree with you, Thomas, but I have no idea what a tosser might be, so I will assume it means a malingerer of sorts, what.’

  ‘Yep,’ replied Tommy.

  ‘Very well, Thomas, we have managed to get our poor injured brother in arms evicted. Now I think it’s time we shared a little snifter, what.’ He reached down to the floor, picked up what looked like a canvas bag, opened it and produced a green glass bottle with a flourish and held it aloft like a trophy.

  ‘What’s that, then, mate?’

  ‘My dear Thomas, this little beauty and I have travelled far and wide, from England to India, and now to our little haven.’ Maurice handled the bottle as you would a baby. ‘This, Thomas, is an 1865 Hardy cognac that I picked up from London, and I have been saving it to share with a friend. So what say you, Thomas, will you procure a couple of crystal glasses so we may sample it?’

  Tommy looked around the tent. ‘And where would I find them, then, Maurice?’

  Maurice shook his head, ‘My dear Thomas, you truly need to open your ears a bit more. When I said crystal glasses, what I meant was anything we can drink out, of including those wooden cups there on the honourable Major’s desk.’

  Tommy hopped off the bed and walked over to retrieve the cups. As he picked them up, he noticed the Surgeon Major’s journal open. He had a quick glance and found that Preston had once again written something about him.

  21 July 1880. Subject: Male, approx. 20–25 years.

  I have now ascertained that the subject is one Thomas Evans, Private, formerly of the Fusiliers. He apparently transferred to the 66th Foot whilst in Indi
a. This information I have yet to corroborate. I thought the young man was making progress, but it seems he still has the odd bout of psychosis, in that he continues to display a detachment with reality. If he has not improved within the next few days, I will be forced to have him relieved of duty and returned forthwith to Kandahar and then back to India for further treatment. I will continue to monitor his behaviour.

  That’s not good, thought Tommy. He walked back to his bed, handed Maurice the cups and sat down.

  ‘Well, I must say, you appear extraordinarily misanthropic considering I have just unveiled a short term restorative to our ills,’ intoned Maurice.

  Tommy did not reply, as his mind was in turmoil about the consequences of the Major’s journal. Shit! What the hell am I gonna do? I need to get home! Shit! Home, now where the hell is that? Mum and Dad haven’t even been born yet, or Granddad Stan. Think! What are you gonna do?

  While Tommy had been lost in thought, Maurice had pulled the cork from the bottle, poured two healthy measures into the cups and passed one to Tommy. He looked at him thoughtfully few moments.

  ‘You seem distracted, Thomas.’

  Tommy looked at him. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking.’

  ‘An overrated pastime. About what, pray?’

  ‘About how the hell I’m gonna get out of here and back to where I came from, Maurice, because you know I don’t belong here.’ He looked at the floor. ‘I don’t!’

  ‘Alright, old bean, now don’t fret so. I’m sure the two of us can divine this conundrum, but for the immediate future, let us toast our good fortune at not having to labour out there in that furnace.’ He indicated to the tent entrance.

  Alright, Tommy thought, just gotta go with the flow, and he downed the cognac in one, which he regretted five seconds later as the liquid burned its way to his gut. He coughed with gusto.

  Maurice chuckled, ‘Well, if you throw it down your neck like some backstreet ruffian, that’s the result. This nectar is far too saintly to be gormandised like that.’