CHAPTER 22
“Come in, do! George, is there a problem?”

“Sort of, sir. Chap here, Gerald, he’s come all the way down to ask a favour of you”

“Beattie, may we please have some tea. Gentlemen, tea?”

He led the way into what I would have called a sitting room, but it was far bigger than ours. The house was old, oak beams darkened with the years, and a coal fire crackled in the grate.

Mr Nolan sighed. “I can’t seem to stay warm these days, my friends. Oh, and can I please ask, Barker, that we leave other forms of address behind. I can ask no more, considering what we have shared. I am Rodney. Please forgive the state of the old place, do”

There were newspapers spread on a small table, and a cupboard holding a large number of bottles and decanters. Two decanters and a bottle, of some gin or other, stood on the table by the newspapers. I wondered how much he was drinking, and at the same time I answered the other question in my mind, because the reasons were obvious; I knew them all too well myself.

Beattie bustled in with a tray of cups and pot. “Would you gentlemen care for some biscuits?”

Mr Nolan smiled, which seemed to be a strange thing for his face to do. “Thank you, Beattie, I do believe we will”

As she departed, he turned the smile back to me. “Gerald, I believe, if you will, and I am Rodney. George, will you elucidate me?”

“Certainly sir”

“Rodney”

“Not when I’m on duty, sir”

Mr Nolan, Rodney, laughed out loud in a sharp bark. “Oh dear, that brings a memory or two back, eh, Gerald? What was it your sergeant always said? It was always Bob when you were closed up, but Sergeant for propriety and witnesses? Barker? Gerald? What is it?”

“It is actually about Mr Wainwright, er, Rodney”

He was pale now. “I made sure he was sent home. I didn’t want… was it an accident”

George coughed. “No, sir, he’s still alive, as far as Gerald here knows. He has just, well, Gerald. He has to know, yes? Otherwise you’re just wasting your time”

I held my cup in both hands for a while, looking round the room. The locked gun cabinet, the thumb stick against one wall, photographs, an empty whisky tumbler.

“Bob’s been arrested. He’s on a charge, Rodney, and he’s guilty, we think”

“Was it a private soldier, Gerald?”

I looked up in shock. Had I been the only blind man in our unit? “How did you guess, sir? I mean, I don’t know who Monkeys caught with him, but, well, how did you know?”

Rodney stared out of the window, a tic working at the right corner of his mouth. “Most of us knew, Gerald, but he was a fine soldier, a true leader of men. I dare say we---I mean my brother officers, we all went to similar schools, sometimes even the same ones, yes? We knew who the buggers were, the bumboys and arsebandits, but Bob was different. I really do believe…”

He shook his head violently, and went over to one of the decanters. Some bitters, and a lot of gin went into the tumbler, and half of the resulting pinkness went down his throat in one angry gulp. He grimaced, and turned back to us.

“Sodomy is a crime and an abomination in the eyes of the law as well as against His Holy Word. That is what I saw in school. It was all about sexual gratification of the vilest kind, but what struck me was the way the worst and most predatory of queers seemed to stop as soon as they left. It was all about their gratification, and they took it where they could. That is how it seemed to me, at least. Wainwright… Bob was different. Gerald, did you not have eyes to see?”

Oh dear God, but I had to ask the question. “See what, exactly?”

The rest of the drink vanished. “No. You clearly didn’t. Now, when did you arrive?”

“Last night. Train to Canterbury, found a bed and breakfast place near station”

“How long were you intending to stay in the area?”

“Don’t know. All I wanted to do was find you, and that’s done”

“BEATTIE, if you please!”

The woman appeared at the door once again. “Yes, Major?”

“Would you be so kind as to make up the guest room for Mr Barker here? He has come a long way, and I will not see a comrade and, yes, a friend, staying in a squalid bedsit. Which one was it, George?”

“Irene Higgins’ place, Major. Bit less than generous with the fry-up, by all accounts”

“Then I must beg an indulgence, George. Well, two”

“As you wish, sir”

“Would you be so kind as to collect young Gerald’s affairs from the Higgins establishment as well as any, ahem, unearned deposit he may have left there? And what are your duties tomorrow?”

“I am having a day of rest, Major”

“Then I would be delighted if you would return here this evening with your good lady for dinner. And, well, we shall most probably get squiffy, so I shall ask Beattie to prepare another room. We have an abundance of such things here, and they so rarely see any use. Where was I? Oh, yes”

He turned back to me, the gin working on his tongue a little. “I am sorry, Gerald, but I did not seek your permission. Will you stay here? The company would be appreciated, and we do need to discuss strategy if we are to render assistance to our dear friend Bob. Will you stay?”

“Thank you, sir. Rodney. I will that. Could I please beg another favour? Do you have a telephone I could use to let my lass know what’s happening?”

“You are married, then? Congratulations!”

“Not yet, Rodney. We got engaged a little while back. She’s grand!”

The smile was wistful, and his eyes went to the mantelpiece, one of the photos. “I am sure she is delightful, Gerald. You are a fine man, and you will make her a very happy woman. Now, what of the rest of your happy band?”

I reminded myself that he knew all about Harry and Wilf, and those two were subjects best left well alone.

“Well, I was at Ernie’s wedding, that were grand, Ada’s right lovely, and then Bill, Bill that replaced Wilf, he’s off with Mavis and the boys to Australia”

“Boys? I knew he had one”

All at once, everything rose up and I shamed myself by bursting into tears. Slowly, slowly the other two men drew out the story of that evening’s horrors, the baby abandoned, the driver devastated. George had a hanky, and Rodney another glass and a tot of whisky. At eleven in the morning? I needed to pull things back together.

“Aye, little Wilf got adopted. Mavis were right adamant, there were no way the tyke were going into orphanage. He were family, she said, just like whole of crew, and Bill said same, said it were true even though he never met Wilf, like”

George was nodding. “Isn’t that God’s honest truth? What I said in the station, Gerald, I stick by that. You can’t explain it to some people, they haven’t been there, haven’t felt it”

He looked across at the decanter, grinned, then shook his head. “Major, I will also borrow your telephone, if I may. I think the lady wife will need and indeed demand warning to accept your invitation. If I may?”

“Certainly. It’s in the hall by the stairs”

George went to make his phone call, and Rodney gave another wistful smile. “May I guess that your purpose in coming here was to enlist my aid in delivering Bob from his difficulties?”

“No, Rodney. Seems there’s no way we could do that. Too much evidence against. Character witness, that were it. Bob’s a good man, bloody hero. Let them chew on that and see if we can’t get punishment down to least possible. We were all going to go, except Bill, of course, what with being in Australia, like”

“Then we are agreed. Ah, here’s George. Pray go and make your phone call and ask Beattie to join me if you pass her”

I rang the shop, after some difficulty in getting the operator to understand me, and Cyril answered.

“What news, son?”

“Found him, Dad”

God alone knew where that came from, but suddenly it was the right word. I had two Dads now, and one of them was hers. He chuckled. “Get wedding over first, son, but happen I like sound of that”

“Well, there were a young copper at police station, looked about twelve, and he’s calling me ‘son’, like!”

“Happen it’s part of their training. Anyway, you found your officer?”

“Aye. I’m stopping over with him, having dinner tonight with copper that knows him. Drove me out here. Nice man. You can tell my Mam that I’m settled nicely and being looked after. Going to have dinner tonight with Mr Nolan and sort out plan of campaign for Bob. And could you tell Tricia…”

I simply couldn’t say those words to another man, and certainly not my intended’s father. He just laughed happily.

“Aye, son, I’ll tell her you send your very best, but perhaps you could do that yourself? Lass is standing by me”

“Gerald?”

“Hello, love”

“You safe?”

“Staying at Mr Nolan’s. Couldn’t be safer”

“What was it you wanted Dad to tell me?”

“That I love you more than life, and I’ll be home soon”

There was a sob then, and Cyril came back on.

“How the blazes does a man ever understand women? She’s sobbing her heart out and grinning like it’s Christmas! Now, you do your best down there, lad. We’ve got faith in you. Talk soon, aye?”

“Aye. Thank you”

George was leaving as I came in, and I told him my room number as he passed. I joined Rodney by another small table under the picture window that gave onto the rolling farmland, a wood in the distance.

“Everything is sorted, Gerald?”

“Absolutely. Confused Tricia’s Dad, though. I said… well, I said what a lad says to a lass, and off she goes sobbing heart out at same time as what he says is grinning like it’s Christmas”

“You told her you loved her, then”

No question, just a flat statement. I felt my face heating.

“Aye, I did”

“It’s a big concept for a small word, Gerald. That is the thing. Officers can love their men, the men can love each other, but it is agape, philanthropy, not eros”

“Beg pardon?”

“Brotherly love, love of humanity, not sexual desire. Agape is the word in the Greek versions of Holy Scripture. When the Saviour said to love one’s neighbour, love one another, it was agape. And the word ‘charity’ is the same in origin, to care for other children of God. That was what I was smiling about earlier, at your blindness”

He rose, and went to pour another gin. “The odd thing about our school buggers, as I have said, was that they were all entirely and utterly consumed by the need for sexual gratification. Where there are no females, such need must be sated in other ways, Bob was not like that”

Another large draught.

“Bob loved his fellow man, but he loved men. He was in love with one man, I believe, exactly as if they were not both men but man and woman. He was in love with YOU, dear boy”