And suddenly I was wide awake.
They dragged me from my seat and manhandled me down the aisle. ‘Leave me alone,’ I screamed. ‘You mustn’t —’ A sticky hand that smelled of peppermints clamped itself across my mouth and I stopped trying to fight back. What was the point? There were just too many of them and the more I kicked out, the harder my invisible tormentors kicked back.
But where were they taking me? And what were they going to do?
All became clear, when they bundled me into the cubicle and bolted the door. I knew instantly where we were. The smell was so overpowering I could hardly breathe. And I had a pretty good idea what they were planning too. Dad had told me all about ‘bog-washing’, but according to him it was something that died out with grammar schools.
‘Please,’ I whimpered. ‘You can do anything, but not that.’
Blind panic seized me by the throat as they pushed me forward and started forcing my head down. I narrowed my nostrils, held my mouth tight shut and prepared for the unthinkable.
I could hardly believe it when my face made contact with the clean, cool water. It was the first bit of luck I’d had all week. Tommy Riley would have been terrified, but dunking my head in a sink full of water was something I’d been practising since primary school.
Instinctively I started counting; instantly my head began to clear.
Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty . . .
But when were they going to stop? I was good, but I wasn’t that good.
Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty . . .
My record was sixty-eight seconds. If I didn’t breathe soon I could forget all about Year Nine.
Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine . . .
It came to me in a flash. Supposing they thought I was really hurt? Twitching dramatically, I gave up struggling and let my whole body go limp. And I could sense their panic as I slithered to the floor.
A second later, the door opened. I waited until the last one had fled, flinging my rucksack at me, and gulped in a massive mouthful of air. I was bruised and battered and soaking wet, but at least I was still breathing.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
I’d never been so pleased to hear his voice. The blackness lifted. Looking up, I saw that Mr Catchpole was standing over me with a soggy school tie in his hand. ‘And why’s your hair so wet? Is there something you want tell me, Samuel?’
I automatically shook my head. It was totally dumb of me, but I hated the idea of old Catchpole knowing what a victim I was.
‘Very well then,’ he said, handing me a green paper towel. ‘You’d better clean yourself up and follow me. I’m not letting you out of my sight for the rest of the journey.’
He frogmarched me down the aisle, through a mass of iPods and mobiles, of PSPs, Nintendo DSs and even a couple of antique Gameboys. None of my tormentors looked particularly guilty. Some of them even whispered ‘words of encouragement’ as I struggled to keep up with Mr Catchpole.
‘Who’s been a naughty boy then?’ said Callum Corcoran.
‘At least he doesn’t smell of chicken poo no more,’ said Chelsea.
Animal was almost crying with laughter. ‘Listen to this,’ he said, reading from the touch-screen of his mobile. ‘You can’t kill a chicken until you’ve given her a good wash.’
Pete Hughes was carefully re-gelling his hair. ‘Wonder what The Emperor’s got planned for the grand finale?’
But the most chilling comment of all came from a voice I didn’t even recognise. ‘You can run, Sam, but you can’t hide.’
By the time we’d reached the teachers’ ghetto, I was almost crying with despair.
Despair morphed into misery when I realised that the Dad Phone was blaring Mission: Impossible. That was the last thing I needed.
‘Now sit down and be quiet,’ said Mr Catchpole. ‘Keep an eye on him, would you, Bryony? I think I saw some illegal substances back there.’
Miss Stanley was too engrossed in Adventures for KS3 Geographers to take any notice, but old Peel gave me a sympathetic nod before returning to his ‘cool list’. I sneaked out my mobile, cradling it like a baby, trembling with trepidation, as I prepared to read my latest message. What’s up? Having a bad hair day?
This time I was almost crying with relief. It was from Dimbo. (I should have realised from the punctuation.) There he was at the far end of the carriage, gnawing on a Pepperami and busily scribbling into his notebook. He looked up for a moment and nodded encouragingly. Who would have guessed that Dimbo would turn out to be my last hope?
Catchpole reappeared, brandishing a confiscated packet of cigarettes and two cans of Red Bull. ‘Right, you’d better find something to read, boy. Have you got anything?’
‘Only this Sir,’ I said, unzipping my rucksack.
‘What on earth’s that?’
I’d promised myself I’d finish it by the next time I saw him. ‘It’s my granddad’s war story, Sir.’
‘Eye-witness accounts are a historian’s goldmine,’ said Mr Catchpole wistfully. ‘Just make sure I don’t hear a peep out of you for the rest of the journey.’
I’d been making all sorts of excuses not to read it. Perhaps fate was nudging me in the right direction.
Sliding Off
the Edge of the World
No one knew what was happening at first. The Thanatos listed violently to starboard and the mess-deck lockers swung open, unleashing a barrage of letters, photographs and more bizarrely, I seem to remember, a selection of Egyptian fezzes. Only when the water started rising in the lee scuppers did it become obvious we’d been ‘tin-fished’.
Blind panic seized the mess deck. Old salts stuffed their pockets full of cigarettes, and a lad from Green Watch screamed hysterically for his mother. Some tried to rescue little treasures from home - a letter from the missus, a photograph of the kids, but everyone was gripped with the same passion, the passion to survive.
Everyone except Tommy that is; I couldn’t believe his apparent coolness. He sat at the mess table, sucking an acid drop, the water lapping his ankles.
‘Come on, Tommy,’ I shouted. ‘Get a move on.’
‘I’m not coming, Ray.’
I was acutely aware of the stampede for the mess-deck ladder. ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of, you know. Come on, Tommy, get that bloody lifejacket on.’
He didn’t move. ‘I’m not frightened.’
‘Then for God’s sake pull yourself together,’ I screamed. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘What’s the point?’ he said. ‘You know I can’t swim. Save yourself, Ray. It’s the only logical thing to do.’
The water was already up to my knees. ‘Look, I’ll stay with you the whole time. We can do it together. I know we can.’
Poor Tommy; beneath the show of bravado, I suddenly saw that he was paralysed with fear. ‘Promise you won’t leave me, Ray?
‘Swear on my mother’s life.’
He nodded and reached for his lifejacket.
It was a starless night. The hiss of steam mingled with the tortured cries of the wounded, and a young subby (sub-lieutenant) was cutting away the Carley floats whilst another dashed about with a megaphone hollering ‘Abandon ship!’
‘Women and children first,’ quipped a would-be comedian, as we started our ascent of the quarterdeck.
The further the Thanatos lurched to starboard, the more hazardous our climb became. Cascades of empty shell cases clattered towards us like a gigantic pinball machine.
At the top, we somehow managed to negotiate the port guardrail and ease ourselves onto the side of the ship. Scores of our shipmates were lining up to throw themselves into the sea.
‘Come on in,’ shouted the comedian, ‘the water’s lovely.’
We slid down as far the bilges, the barnacles gouging great grooves in my posterior. Darkness beckoned as we crouched side by side and prepared to leap into the unknown.
‘I can’t do
it,’ whispered Tommy.
‘Of course you can. Now come on, I’ll be with you all the way.’
I took his hand. He crushed my fingers in his vice-like grip. ‘All right, Tommy, after three. One, two . . .’
But the Thanatos was in her death throes. A colossal explosion blasted us into the air and the next thing I knew I was being dragged underwater by the sinking ship. Twice she pulled me down; twice I managed to claw my way to the surface and spew out a mouthful of oily water.
‘Tommy! Tommy! Where are you?’ I bellowed.
Under different circumstances, it might have been a rather charming spectacle: hundreds of men, torches twinkling, bobbing about in the water. Some of them were scrambling aboard the Carley rafts and some were warbling that God-awful ditty ‘Roll Out the Barrel’. I thrashed about in the inky-black water, hallooing Tommy’s name and praying for a miracle.
The first corpse I encountered made me retch. By the time I came across the third I was quite adept at flipping them onto their backs and shining a light into their blue, lifeless faces. Pitiful as it was, I couldn’t help heaving a sigh of relief every time I realised it wasn’t Tommy. Something told me he was still alive; something told me I had a cat in hell’s chance of finding him.
‘Come on, Tommy, I know you’re out there.’
The twinkling lights from the Carley rafts were slowly receding into the gloom. I needed to find him, and find him fast.
‘Come on, Tommy, give us a shout.’
It seemed like a miracle. His voice was breathy and weak, but I would have recognised it anywhere. ‘Ray . . . Ray . . . Is that you, Ray?’
‘Don’t worry, Tommy. I’m coming to get you.’
And there he was, clinging to a piece of driftwood. He winced as my torch beam caught him full in the face. ‘You took your time.’
I wanted to give him a big hug. But as you know, I’ve never been a great one for unnecessary displays of affection.
‘Come on, you ungrateful bugger, let’s get the hell out of here.’
His voice grew feebler by the second. ‘Promise you’ll stay with me, Ray.’
‘Of course I will, but we need to get a move on. Those lifeboats aren’t going to hang around forever, you know.’
How swiftly elation can turn to despair. All thoughts of an improbable happy ending vanished instantly when my torch picked out the gaping hole in his chest that was spouting blood. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me he was dying. No man on earth could have survived such a wound.
And yet somehow he managed to smile. ‘What are you crying for? Not going soft on me are you, Ray?’
‘I’m not crying,’ I said, my salt tears mingling with the oil and seawater. ‘I’m laughing.’
They were tears of frustration. ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ was fading into the distance. Fate had presented me with the starkest of choices: either keep my promise and stay with Tommy until the bitter end, or make a break for the lifeboats and save myself before it was too late.
The next time I saw Tommy was in the 68th General Hospital in Alexandria. I couldn’t understand why he was already up and about while I was still languishing in bed. After all, I was one of the lucky ones; most of the poor devils on the ward were burns victims, smothered from head to toe in gentian violet and reeking of blistered pork, whereas all I had was mild exposure and a sore bum.
It was such a relief to see him. But I couldn’t understand why his face was still covered in oil. And I couldn’t understand why no one had thought to dress his wound, which was still spouting blood. Nor could I comprehend his stony silence - how he stood at the bottom of the bed and simply beckoned.
And suddenly he was gone.
I screamed for the nurse. Why had my old oppo walked out on me without even saying goodbye? She smiled professionally and said I must be mistaken. It was the middle of the night. Visiting hours were between two p.m. and three-thirty. Besides, if he really was such a ‘good chum’, he was sure to be back tomorrow.
The nurse was right - Tommy visited me every night for a week, standing at the bottom of my bed and beckoning reproachfully, until one afternoon, a gunner from the Thanatos confirmed what I already knew: that ‘the Professor’ was dead.
On my next leave, I went to see Tommy’s parents. I told them how brave he’d been, how lucky I was to have had such a good friend and how life would never be the same without him. But I didn’t tell them how he’d died, how I was the coward who’d condemned him to a cold and lonely death, and how I’d never forget the look he gave me when he realised I was deserting him.
As we parted, I presented his mother with a copy of the photograph we’d had taken in Alexandria, and she gave me a quarter of sherbet lemons for the return journey. Stumbling into the blackout, I tripped and fell, cutting my face on a broken milk bottle. I didn’t actually tell anyone it was a war wound, they simply assumed it. And my dear old mum was so proud of me that I never had the heart to tell her I’d got it running for the twenty-seven bus. Some war hero, eh, Sam?
To begin with, I thought about Tommy every day. Fortunately for my sanity, it didn’t last. But before every important moment in my life (first job, wedding day, children, retirement - grandchildren, of course) I’d have these vivid dreams about him. And just occasionally, I fancied I’d spotted his face in a crowd, though of course whilst I got older, Tommy was forever eighteen.
So I knew exactly what was going to happen when I started dreaming about him again. Just as I also knew that if I didn’t tell someone what really happened that night our ship went down, I’d never be able to die in peace.
10.40 a.m.
‘For goodness’ sake boy, put that thing away.’
I stared at the last paragraph, wishing literally and metaphorically that it wasn’t the end of the line.
‘Interesting, was it?’ said Mr Catchpole.
Now that I’d finished Granddad’s story, I had a nasty feeling that the only thing running in my genes was running itself. All I could manage was a dazed, ‘Yes, Sir.’
‘You hear that, Bryony?’ said Mr Catchpole, fumbling in the luggage rack for his Tesco bag. ‘A St Thomas’s child who actually professes an interest in reading.’
‘Yeah, nice one,’ said old Peel, winking at Miss Stanley and squidging his coffee cup. ‘I thought you were the one who did the funnies, Colin.’
Most of 8SE were already on the platform, pressing their faces against our carriage window, like a gallery of ghouls. And one of them, if only I’d known who it was, had scrawled in the dust.
‘Come on, Samuel, you’re keeping everyone waiting,’ said Miss Stanley. ‘Why don’t you go and join your friends?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Mr Catchpole. ‘We don’t want him wandering off again, do we? You’d better walk with Miss Stanley and me – and no more funny business.’
I didn’t care about the squawking and barrage of random abuse that greeted me when I stepped onto the platform flanked by my two sour-faced minders, because for the next ten minutes at least, I was safe.
‘Now, do not make me shout,’ shouted Mr Catchpole.
‘And for goodness’ sake, keep still while Miss Stanley does a head count.’
‘Better look out for Sam Tennant, Miss,’ said Pete Hughes, putting an imaginary revolver to his head and pulling the trigger. ‘I think he might be about to lose his.’
Mr Catchpole led our ragged crocodile along the riverside walkway, past swathes of sweaty joggers, cool London kids on skateboards who even made Pete Hughes look dorkish, aluminium-tabled sushi restaurants and an old man and his dog lying behind a felt-tipped message on a scrap of cardboard: PLEASE HELP ME. I’M DESPERATE.
I knew exactly what he meant. Looking across at the bleak outline of the To wer of London, I was starting to feel like the condemned man. But at least Anne Boleyn knew she was going to get her head chopped off. I hadn’t a clue what was waiting for me.
‘Why are they so quiet?’ I whispered. ‘What are they going to do next?’
/>
Dimbo was two paces behind me, peeling an orange. ‘No one seems to know. They’re waiting for another signal from The Emperor.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a hunch who it might be.’
‘You said you hadn’t the faintest idea.’
‘I’m sure you remember Sherlock Holmes’s theory, ’ he said rather smugly. ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
‘All right, who is it then?’
‘I need to check something first, but I’ll let you know as soon as I’m absolutely certain.’
‘Well, get on with it. They could have killed me back there.’
A sarcastic ‘oooohhh’ went up when we came to a halt in front of the Belfast. But even though she was pretty impressive (six enormous guns pointing to the sky) I didn’t give her a second glance, just stared into the murky green water, hardly able to believe that only two weeks ago I’d actually been looking forward to this.
12.30 p.m.
I was far too scared to eat, but after the others had finished their packed lunches and we’d sat through what would normally have been a fairly interesting presentation on the D-Day Landings, Mr Catchpole led us up to the quarterdeck for a ‘final briefing’.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Can anyone tell me what we’re actually here for?’
‘To strangle a chicken?’ suggested a voice from the back.
‘We are here to consider the reality of war,’ said Mr Catchpole. ‘And while we are doing so, may I remind you once again that the good name of St Thomas’s Community College is at stake. Do I make myself clear?’
Callum Corcoran clicked his heels together and gave a Nazi salute. ‘Ya mein Führer!’
‘Right, Corcoran, that’s a detention,’ said Mr Catchpole, glancing for approval at the man in naval uniform who checked the tickets. ‘Now, we will meet back here at one-thirty precisely. And woe betide the foolish individual who keeps me waiting.
‘But before you go, I think we should have two minutes’ silence, two minutes’ silence in which to consider what it might have been like to serve on the Belfast in time of war. Imagine if you will, a young man, not much older than yourselves, away from home for the first time, and faced with the very real prospect of never returning.’ He checked his watch. ‘Two minutes’ silence, starting from . . . now.’
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