CHAPTER 14
There was a court of inquiry in Colchester, a sort of inquest affair. They took each of us in turn, each of his mates, and gave us everything but the rubber truncheon. I assumed they were trying to find out what we had done to push him over the edge, and I was only just beginning to realise how close to the edge he had been and what had kept him from stepping off.

It let me see how close we had all been. It was only our little family that held us together, and Harry had seen us leaving him.

There were three officers behind the table and they looked as tired as I felt. It was obvious they considered that the dying should have finished, but here they were to pick over yet another loss.

“We didn’t really hear the shot, for there was that much noise on the ship with so many soldiers it was hard to think, it was just the shouting that brought us out”

One of the officers, a major, picked up a bit of paper.

“He left a note, Barker, tucked into his paybook”

Can I see, sir?”

It was short and to the point in an absolutely brutal way.

“I can’t get the smell out of anything I wear. I can’t sleep without seeing them. Without my crew I would have been done months ago. Please tell my uncle it was an accident. Your mate Harry”

That was it. No love to give, no messages, just shut the door after I leave. I had been learning how to hate since June, and now it got worse. I had slept on the deck for the rest of the voyage, trying to avoid Harry’s traces in our room, but it had to be faced. I looked up at the major, tears pressing at my sight.

“Barker, we are simply looking to find a reason for this. From the position of the body, we have to assume it was suicide. Why would he do that? Do you have any notions?”

“I know he lost his family in the Blitz, sir. I think that were part of it. Then there was…”

“Go on”

“We were at a place, sir. A camp. What we saw were bad enough, like, but Harry, well, he were asked to do extra stuff, on account of being a driver. Tracked vehicles, that is. They had a bulldozer”

“Where was this?”

“Place called Belsen, sir. A very bad place”

“Ah. I see”

“Harry were never the same after, like. Sense of humour went, he got very moody. Said he needed new boots after, said it over and over again. Said he couldn’t get smell out of them”

Another officer, a captain, looked at a piece of paper on the table they shared.

“Private Marshal was found without his boots, sir”

“The Webley?”

The major looked at me. I swallowed, wondering what shit I might catch.

“Webley came from our tank, I think, sir. Our skipper, our sergeant, Bob Wainwright, he weren’t too happy with issue kit”

“Pray explain, Barker”

“Sergeant Wainwright had been through the desert, and Italy, like, and he said he’d seen too many people, too many mates burn because they got stuck getting out. He had us modify us pixie suits---er, I mean our tank suits. Cut the belt off, get rid of the holster. We never wore the tin lids, er, helmets, neither, because all of that gets caught up when you try and get out in a hurry”

I paused. “He were dead right. One time we were shot up, all of us got out except Wilf, but then round went through where he were sat, so…”

The major nodded. “The Webley?”

“Sergeant Wainwright got two for Stan, our tank, and we managed to fit the holsters inside the turret, right where we needed them. Looks like Harry lifted one as we left Germany”

“Were they ever used?”

“Yes, sir. Once”

Heels drumming in the snow. “I shot a German with one in Belgium. It were just before we got brewed up”

“I see”

He looked around his colleagues. “Anything else, gentlemen?”

Another major looked up at that. “Barker… did you have any reason to suspect that Marshal was planning something like this?”

“No, sir. We were like a big family, really. Wilf had even named his kid after us all. We were right close. As I said, he just sort of lost his sense of humour. That were all. I didn’t think he was, well, that bad. I mean, I knew he were bad, but…”

I drew a few breaths to get the words in order. “We are all bad, sir, all of us, and anyone that says he isn’t is either a liar or weren’t there. I dream, sir, I dream waking and sleeping. What dreams Harry had, I really never want to know”

The first major nodded sharply, and they all sat silent for a few seconds as he shuffled some papers. He looked to left and right, receiving two more sharp nods from his peers.

“Thank you, Barker, that will be all. You are dismissed. Please send the next man in”

I walked out in a daze and nodded Ernie towards the room. Harry had been so strong, so solid under fire, and then he was gone. It made sense, in a way: he had been part of us, part of our family, and it wasn’t just the support we gave each other, it was, well, his bit in giving that support. I remembered how he wouldn’t talk about what he had had to do in that camp, but he had got up each morning and done his duty, because if he hadn’t done it the shitty end of the stick would just have been handed to some other poor soul. He drove with his head out most of the time, had driven rather, and I wondered how much of that had come from the smell he couldn’t lose.

Ernie was half an hour, then Bill. The latter came out shaking his head. “NAAFI, boys? Brew, or a pint?”

It was a pint, of course, and a few more before we found our way to our temporary billets. It had seemed as if the day had no end, but for Harry that was no longer relevant. Ernie whispered from his pit.

“You think they’ll go for accident, Ginge? Save the poor fucker’s family?”

“I hope so, Ern, I really hope so. He’s got nowt else left”

Three days later, we got the verdict, which was ‘accidental discharge’ and ‘death by misadventure’, and that left his Uncle Albert free to remember a Mention in Dispatches rather than see his boy buried facing the wrong way. Two days later, and Bill, Ernie and myself were handing back our kit and receiving odd things called ‘shoes’ that I dimly remembered. The QM’s lads let us keep our boots and battledress, but the pixie suit went along with all our webbing and badges. Bill held up his BD trousers.

“What the hell do I do with these, lads?”

One of the stores boys laughed. “Keep you warm when your coal ration’s gone, mate!”

We each got a suit, a shapeless, baggy thing, and a chit for our accumulated pay, which was when it struck me that we were no longer soldiers. It was over: our little group was parting, each going their own way. I found myself on a train to London with the other two, and we would be together only as far as King’s Cross. It was all too quick. Before my mates set off for the other station, Ernie called across.

“Hey, Ginge? Happen we’ll get together and have a trip out to see Minnie, aye? Give the lad our blessing!”

“Aye, that’ll be good, pal. What about you, Bill?”

“I feel a bit out of that one, lads. I mean, well, I didn’t know him, obviously…”

Ernie slipped an arm round his shoulder. “You filled his place for us lad, you didn’t replace him, aye? Different man, different story, but you are still one of us. I’ll write to her, fix a date, and we’ll go together. These last two years, they won’t just go away. Trust me there”

I knew what he meant, and like Harry I remembered it every night. “Ernie?”

“Aye, Ginge?”

“Give your lass one for all of us, aye? And when you set a date…”

The daft sod blushed. “I were going to write to you, Ginge. I don’t do so well face to face, like. Happen we’ve set a date, and it’s next month, in Thirsk, aye? And, well… fuck it, Gerald Barker, will you be my best man? I were going to write, like, as, well, don’t take it the wrong way, but I were thinking of Bob, and he’s still over there. Doesn’t make you second best, lad. Just, well…”

He squeezed Bill again. “I’ve been right lucky in this war, luckier than Wilf or Harry, and I were dead lucky to know them. REALLY lucky, I mean. There’s none of you that’s second best to nobody, right? None of you. I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be getting wed if it weren’t for all of you, so will you do me the honour of standing by me in church?”

He was nearly in tears, and so I had no real choice. He was wrong, though. He was honouring me, not the other way round.

Bill laughed at us both. “Me to organise the stag night, then?”

More laughter, swift and firm handshakes, and I was alone for the first time in years.