The Soldier's Return

by Melvyn Bragg

  ‘Why has there to be?’

  ‘Can’t you see?’

  ‘No.’

  Sam attempted to stifle his growing frustration.

  ‘Look, Ellen. I might not be much but I think I’m better than I’m ever going to get the chance to be here. I think you’re just being obstinate. What can I make of myself in Wigton? What is there to do except the same old thing that I’ve been doing and my kind always does? I go down to that factory and the lads are good lads and the work well, there’s worse work – but more and more I feel suffocated. I can’t explain it. I just seem to be in a thick fog that I’ll never get out of – I can’t explain it in words. It’s so shut in. I’m completely shut in.’

  As he struggled to convince Ellen the feeling he experienced at the factory crept up on him and he breathed with some difficulty, felt his body pinioned, wanted to break free.

  ‘You’ll have to change that job, then.’ Ellen’s tone was sympathetic. ‘That can be no good for you.’

  ‘I want to go away, Ellen.’ His voice was low, his head sunk forward. It was a plea.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said, not unkindly, almost helplessly. ‘And what about Joe in Australia?’

  ‘Kids settle anywhere.’

  ‘Joe’s been unsettled enough moving from Market Hill to Water Street without thinking about Australia.’

  ‘Look how pinched and cramped we are here.’ Sam felt a renewal of energy. ‘There’s more rationing than there was in the war. We have to take charity from America – and Australia by the way. Everything black or grey or clapped-out. Everybody has his place and that’s it -you’re marked down as a private in the pioneers for life. There’ll always be the haves and the have-nots in England and we’ll always be the have-nots.’

  ‘What makes you think Australia will be different?’

  Because of what I believe, he thought, and need to believe – that was the heart of it, but it was too emotional to be spoken aloud.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Ellen felt Sam’s yearning. The shock of his announcement had been absorbed somewhat and the strained, longing expression on her husband’s face made her want to help him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just … can’t.’

  She was so definite. The three syllables went into Sam like nails.

  ‘But why not?’

  Ellen opened her hands, palms upwards as if in supplication for an answer for herself.

  ‘You can’t leave Wigton. A fact.’

  She shook her head. Did not trust herself to speak.

  ‘Why not?’

  Again, all that Ellen could manage was the dumb show of a shaken head.

  ‘So all of us have to stick it out because of that. Something that you won’t even talk about. You talked about Joe. Do you want him to be brought up where he’ll be kept down? And yourself – is cleaning other people’s houses as high as you can go?’

  ‘We could have a good home here,’ said Ellen. She swallowed as she found her voice but the words were firm.

  ‘Not that again.’

  Sam’s puzzlement and disappointment funnelled into anger.

  ‘You’re not still on about that. We settled that.’

  ‘You walked out, that was all.’

  ‘We settled it!’ His voice rose and Joe, who had been uneasy for some time as the intensity of their conversation had penetrated to his room, now woke up fully in alarm and curiosity.

  ‘You might have settled it. It isn’t settled for me!’

  ‘I’m talking about Australia and you want to move up the street? It would be comical if it wasn’t so bloody stupid.’

  ‘Don’t you swear at me, Sam Richardson.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  That house, thought Ellen, but said nothing. Sam’s temper had always been short on occasion. She did not quail but neither did she want to provoke him. She kept her peace.

  ‘You see? You have nothing to say.’

  Oh yes I have, Ellen said to herself, but not now.

  ‘You think that by sitting there like a sphinx 111 just give up. I won’t, Ellen. I won’t.’

  And, as he said it he knew, neither would she.

  ‘We can get there for nothing. Nothing! There’ll never be another opportunity like it. Hundreds and thousands of our lads are going over, with their wives and families, taking their chances, looking to build a new life in a new world and get away from all this, all this -even just for the adventure, for the chance, Ellen.’

  He was tormented now and her opposition began to melt, seeing the desperation on his face, hearing him fight for the words that would say what need not be said in words because it was so plain, the longing, the terrible longing on his face, how could she resist this when she loved him and she did love him as intensely now, in these moments of flat confrontation, as at any time and yet she did resist him, she hung on, she could not give in, she could not let go.

  ‘Just for the chance.’ On that last word his voice almost broke and almost did her resolve. ‘I could be somebody different over there. I wouldn’t need to feel inferior all the time or lacking or left behind because so many of us would be starting from the same base – from nothing much but all more or less the same and then it would be fair, don’t you see? It would be fair in a way it can never be fair here however much we like it – it can never be fair. It isn’t fair from the moment you’re born and that’s all right, I’m not complaining, but imagine what it would be like, just imagine, to have the same chance as everybody else, no excuses, no privileges, all of you off the same boat and may the best men win. Can’t you see, Ellen, can’t you see how much I want that?’

  Ellen was silenced. On her tongue, in her head, in her heart. His force moved her so deeply she wanted to surrender. To throw her arms around him and say yes, I’ll come with you, we will go together and come what may we will have taken our own lives in our own hands and made what we could of them as so few people do or have the chance to do. But an even greater pull held her back.

  Sam had leaned back in the chair, eyes closed, not exhausted but done. He had said all that he could say. More than he could have dreamed of saying. He had found a way to say all that he meant.

  I’m sorry, Sam,’ she began, eventually.

  ‘No you’re not. If you were sorry you would come with me.’

  ‘It isn’t a crime to want to stay here.’

  ‘No.’ He opened his eyes and looked at her so fiercely that it took all her nerve not to shiver. ‘That’s one way of getting out of it.’ The small room began to close in on him. He pulled at his collar.

  ‘I’m not trying to get out of it.’

  ‘So what are you doing, Ellen? Just tell me. That’s all.’

  The harshness was turning bitter.

  ‘It’s just too far,’ she said.

  ‘That’s pathetic’

  ‘Well. It’s what I think. You asked me to tell you.’

  ‘So you won’t go.’

  Ellen literally bit into her lip.

  ‘Come on. You’re saying -no- you won’t go.’ He paused. There was such a fury coming from his eyes. ‘You’re frightened to come out with it.’

  ‘I’m not. No. I won’t go.’

  ‘Right!’ The word smacked into her. ‘I’ll go on my own!’ He sprang up and at that moment noticed Joe peeping round the corner of the stairs, his sleep-filled face quite terrified.

  ‘Go on your own then. Just go!’

  ‘What are you doing up? Back to bed!’

  Joe did not move. The loud fierce words pinned him to where he was. Ellen turned and saw him and his terror flowed into her.

  ‘Don’t shout at him.’

  ‘I’ll shout as much as I damn well like. Bed!’

  Still Joe would not, could not move, and Sam made a start to go across to him, but Ellen was out of her chair, blocking his path.

  ‘Leave the boy alone,’ she said.

  ‘He’ll
do as he’s told.’

  ‘He’s frightened. And no wonder.’

  ‘No wonder what?’

  ‘You’d scare the daylights out of anybody.’ She turned her back and went across to Joe, arms beginning to open for him, soothing sounds in her throat, her whole posture telling him that he would be looked after and safe. Her loving, devoted, unquestioning attitude was so violently in contrast with how Sam thought she had appeared to him that he could not endure it.

  He stepped forward, caught her by the shoulder and pulled her round, roughly.

  ‘I’ll deal with him,’ he said. ‘You’ve all but ruined him as it is.’

  ‘Don’t you push me like that.’ Sam had unbalanced her and when she regained her balance she pushed him away. He retaliated and she stumbled backwards against the door.

  Joe ran from the stairs and looked from one to the other in panic.

  ‘You,’ said Sam, bound in confusion. ‘Get to bed.’

  ‘Mammy!’ Joe went to Ellen, who was a little dazed, not so much from the impact of what Sam had done but from the fact that he had done it. She gathered Joe up. Sam saw the boy’s arms swiftly circle her neck, his head sink against her cheek, his small body press hard against her. He went to them and grabbed the neck of Joe’s pyjama jacket, to rip him away.

  ‘Leave him alone.’

  ‘I’ve left him alone too long. He’s for bed.’

  ‘I’ll take him.’

  ‘He’ll go on his own or I’ll take him.’

  Joe turned. Sam saw a wild little face, the smaller face of Ellen, screwed up in a frenzy.

  ‘I want to be with Mammy. I don’t want to be with you. I don’t like you.’

  Sam used both arms and levered the screaming boy off his mother murmuring, It’ll be all right. It’ll be all right.’

  ‘No!’ Joe kicked out, which Sam disregarded, but again he screamed, ‘I don’t like you! I just want to be with Mammy!’ and deep in Sam there was a wrench of despair. His son. Their son. ‘I don’t like you!’ The boy’s tiny hand reached out to Sam’s face and little nails raked down one cheek.

  Sam hit him. The blow landed on the shoulder and the boy dropped to the ground and got up and turned back to his mother when another blow caught him across his back and spun him round. Again he fell. His legs and arms went in the air to defend himself as Sam moved forward, all but out of control now, bearing down on the boy, and he lashed out again, this time the blow catching Ellen who got between them. She straddled Joe and faced up to Sam, her eyes wild with despair, her arms raised in anger, and he could not bear it.

  His arms fell to his sides and the past broke, broke in his mind. He was his father now.

  Ellen was panting. Joe was whimpering, too stunned yet to cry.

  ‘Go on your own then,’ she said. ‘The sooner the better.’

  How could he say he was sorry when there was so much in the way? He could find no words for anything.

  He took his jacket from the chair and saw his hand was trembling. He could not bear himself. He had failed and he had spoiled everything. But where could he go? How could he bear what possessed him? His violence had recoiled on him and finally there was no escape from that unimaginable darkness beside the white pagoda in Burma. He stood, his head hung down, as Ellen soothed the boy and took him upstairs. He sat and listened while she crooned to him and waited for her to come down, but she stayed with Joe. Then he braced himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It was past the middle of October but still raining and the humidity was high. More than three months now of damp tents, damp sleeping bags, wet clothes and no way of getting them dry. Their gear – the green uniform, green shirts, green socks, green pack, all items dyed green in the same vast vat – was as sodden as the tropical landscape through which they moved. It was now an advance of attrition against the long, fighting retreat of the Japanese, who would sooner commit hara-kiri than surrender.

  The company was camped for the night in one of the burned-down areas which the Burmese would farm for a few years and then, when they had exhausted the soil, move on to burn down another patch. Yoke, the only farm labourer in the platoon, never got over the waste of good land. It was a running lament.

  Sam remembered that evening in detail. Perhaps in pushing it so deeply to the bottom of his mind, by sealing it off so severely, he had preserved it whole like an object silted and complete, buried until now. They had made fair progress despite the rain and mud and forest. The intelligence was that the Japanese were preparing a big stand just ahead, in a few days, or less, or more, no one really knew. The going had been interrupted by ambush and counter-attack and snipers. But the night attacks had reduced in number over the past three days. That, more than anything, convinced Sam that the Jap was pulling back to regroup.

  There could be no relaxation, but Sam remembered, or thought he remembered, a feeling that despite a level of savagery which had seared his mind and shattered the world he had known, despite the depression and burden and recurring sense of futility and anger, there was, in that evening, ready for instant battle though they were, a sense of rightness; even, though he could not explain this to himself, a sense of calm. The Japanese, unprovoked, had viciously trampled through Thailand, French Indo-China, Malaya, Borneo, the Philippines, Indonesia, and now Burma, and but for their defeat at the battle of Imphala they would even at this moment have been terrorising India. And there were too many reports of their thinking cruelty to prisoners and to natives to dismiss them as exceptional or as propaganda. Only very rarely did this feeling of rightness come through the weary, cynical, day-to-day slog of going on going on. But it was there, in the grain of that evening.

  Ian had gathered enough slivers of bamboo and somehow dried them well enough – a much appreciated art – to start the fire under the tin of water into which, precisely at boiling point, he cast treasured tea leaves followed by two broken matchsticks to attract the stray leaves. Condensed milk and sugar were added to taste. His bush hat was set goofily square, pressing on his ears. As he went quietly about his business, he crooned the sentimental song of the moment:

  ‘My thoughts wander homewards

  ‘As evening draws near.

  ‘I see your face smiling

  ‘With maybe a tear.

  ‘And I see a vision of all I hold dear

  ‘In my letter from you.’

  Sam knocked Ian’s hat, lightly, as he walked past to have a word with the corporal in the next section. As he talked to him, he looked over his own men.

  Doug was cleaning the light-coloured Lee Enfield which from day one he had resolved to steal from His Majesty when the war was over. When they had first been given their rifles, Doug had thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever beheld and when the sergeant had said, ‘She’s your wife, treat her well and she won’t let you down’, Doug had muttered, ‘I’ll treat her a bloody sight better than that’. While appearing engrossed in the rifle, he was carrying on some sort of conversation with Titch, who had taken off his boots to reveal his large white spongy feet, the soles devoid of all feeling.

  ‘These feet’ll do for me in the end,’ he said. Tt always starts in the feet. My Dad told me that. In the last war. Watch your feet was what he said when I left.’

  ‘You do bugger all else,’ said Doug.

  ‘Your feet are the biggest killers of the lot.’ As he talked, Titch pinched and kneaded the spongy substance with his fubsy fingers.

  ‘Not as big as mosquitoes.’ Doug squinted down the barrel.

  ‘Feet get more in the end.’

  ‘Not as bad as beriberi. Look at the size Jimmie ended up.’

  ‘Feet’s the slow killer.’

  ‘Or cholera. Or dysentery. Or scabies.’

  ‘Feet,’ said Titch, heavily, bringing the debate to a close, ‘is a law unto their own.’

  A few yards beyond them, Alex – the Prof – was scribbling away. Sam had expected that Alex’s writing would have a philosophical turn – comm
ents on their condition, thoughts, ideas. When he read it, it turned out, in Sam’s opinion, to be disappointing. ‘Spotted two flying foxes. No idea they were that size. Crows extremely bold – would they attack us if they were hungry and we were weak? Must find out how they train elephants. What is this famous memory of theirs? For the first time can see why sailors were attracted to parrots.’ Nothing to do with the war, nothing to do with the big subjects he would happily talk about at the drop of a hat. Yet he concentrated on that little notebook as if he were spelling out his last will and testament. The tiny neat writing used up every last piece of the paper.

  Ugly Spud, who would always skive if he could get away with it, was sat leaning against a tree stump smoking a cheroot and dreaming of the beautiful Burmese girl who had sold it to him two weeks back. He needed maximum comfort and maximum peace of mind to think about her properly. She was not only the most beautiful girl Spud had ever seen but after selling him admittedly twice as many cheroots as he had first intended to buy, she had given him the ‘come on’. There was no doubt about that. On Spud’s bashed-in features, the battle between incredulity and desire had been epic. The definite ‘come on’. And sod’s law, at that very moment they’d been ordered back. Another ten minutes. Another five. The definite ‘come on’. The cheroot smoke wreathed into the air, a signal to her, way behind them now, that she would never be forgotten.

  Yoke and Buster, who was his second man on the Bren gun, were wringing out some of their gear and then flapping it between them, knowing it was hopeless but somehow cheered by the effort. They chuntered away, all the time, those two. But when Sam drew close and overheard them, there seemed neither beginning nor middle nor end to it. Buster would throw in some of his experiences as a bus driver; Yoke would ramble on about sheep or turnips; but mostly they would chatter through what had happened to them during that day. The talk was unbroken, with no highs or lows, just a steady, consoling thrum.