CHAPTER 75
Matthew was as solidly cheerful as I should have expected, and we made quite the show of old warriors at the top table. Some judicious work by phone had secured the attendance of all the lads from the show, and I found myself looking forward to watching it. I stayed off the booze as my guts were not feeling too well, but the food went down well, and of course I was with friends. Such a different night to a certain evening one February. Val was sitting at another table along with Susie and Andy, and there was a large group from the yard.

The tables had been arranged so the we all got a view of the big screen that had been set up at one end of the main room, with some sort of electronic thing that projected the television onto something almost as big as the Army Kinema Corps lads had used in the field. They dimmed the lights, and we were off.

They had added lots of extra bits we hadn’t seen filmed, and it had all been broken up with comments and spliced in ways that made it seem as if we were seeing something brand new rather than a simple recording. It started with Tom standing on a hillside I remembered all too well. He was wearing a blue waterproof jacket.

“Throughout recorded history there has been conflict. Wars, piracy, invasion; whatever form it took there has been a need for human beings to put themselves in harm’s way to protect family and home, country and culture. With the benefit of hindsight, we may not always agree with the justification offered for such violence, but we cannot ignore the effect that involvement in conflict has on the mind and soul. Tonight, we will be with a group of men who survived in at least three cases true hell on Earth, while they were at…The Sharp End”

The image changed to one of me doing my level best to look intelligent and managerial as Darren worked on a Bolinder, and Tom’s voice came out with a few platitudes about daily work, and one by one the other lads were introduced. There had been a small cheer as I appeared on the screen, and similar noises came with each of the little vignettes, Joe’s in particular. There was footage of tanks moving off the beach in Normandy, some dusty place I realised must have been Aden, and finally a shot of someone with a moustache and a huge pack turning away from the camera as his lips clearly formed that word of Bob’s. The Falklands, obviously. For each scene, Tom’s commentary placed one or more of us at the centre, and then we saw the ceremony in Belgium, complete with the fire brigade band and a brace of mayors. Once more, Tom gave location and potted history, this time in person to the camera.

“Three of the men we are with today left friends in this village as they fought to stop a German attack which was part of what is popularly called The Battle of the Bulge”

The picture changed to the little lounge we had sat in, where the filming had been done almost in stealth, and once again I heard the words.

“What was your job, Gerald?”

“Were you ever knocked out?”

There was silence in the hall as my recorded voice told the story, and it faded into images of a wreath going on Wilf’s grave, before coming back to Joe, whose face frightened me.

“I were there too. Had some [short silence] bastard in British kit we took away and strung up”

At the bit about ‘how much blood…all over fresh snow…’ I felt Rodney’s hand squeezing my shoulder. Tom’s people followed it up with Joe’s account of their scurrying retreat over the bridge, his mate’s brains all over Joe’s own webbing, and I had to go for some air. I don’t know whether it was the editing, the way the pictures and words flowed so neatly one into the other, or my illness making itself felt, but I just had a sudden urge to breathe. Ernie was there, of course, as he always had been, and then Val and her daughter. The older woman looked worried.

“Gerald? OK, love?”

“Oh, aye. As rain. Just all a bit, you know. Memories, seeing Wilf’s face, hearing him ask…”

On cue, Ernie chipped in. “Time for a brew?”

My mood broke, once again so quickly, and I just had to laugh. “Come on. Bloody guests of honour shouldn’t be skulking about outside”

Val hugged me. “Did you just swear, Gerald Barker?”

“I bloody well did, Valerie Lockwood! Come on, let’s sort ourselves out before thieving hands pinch our dinner”

Everyone inside did their best to seem unconcerned, but there were still one or two sharp glances, and the show continued.

“It were four days before he were found…”

“A job for coppers, not for soldiers…”

Stock footage I had seen so often of THAT place in Germany, intercut with footage of myself, Joe and Ernie staring off into the wastelands of our memories.

And so it went, right up to “So we all drops us trousers and…”

To my astonishment, the scene changed to what was obviously a very old photograph, in black and white. I looked at Ernie, and he winked, as I turned back to the screen. An army wagon, passing a great stream of men on foot, one whole side filled with men bent double, facing away from the Germans, battledress trousers pushed down to their knees as they ‘showed Jerry exactly what they thought of him’.

The scene changed once more to that well-remembered hill, and Tom in his blue jacket.

“We are here once more at the place where Gerald Barker and Ernie Roberts sat in their Cromwell tank and watched their friends burn, although Ernie couldn’t actually see. He just had to listen to them dying over his radios set. Where Joe Eyres crouched waiting for the orders to leave his shelter and pass through the wreckage to take on the enemy with bullet and bayonet. We have heard these men speak of what they went through, the friends they lost, the men they saw die. The ones they killed themselves, looking into their eyes.

“We have seen the way they managed to keep their humanity, their sense of humour, even if it did take on a harder edge”

Once more, the scene changed, and we were in the garden of a house in Belgium, as our friends pointed to the dip, the hedge.

“And we have seen that other people remember that the men in question gave them life, and liberty, and freedom from fear. Men who stood at The Sharp End”

The credits started right then, and instead of music it was Tom’s voice again, doing his honest best to drum up donations for the Legion. I sat in silence for a little while, and then it was broken as first one, then more, then all of the lads and ladies present stood to applaud us at our little table. It was odd; I didn’t feel pride, but in the end it had turned out to be just like that February night. It had been an education then for two of us, as Susie discovered what I had had to bear and in turn showed me that I was not the guilty one, not a coward, not a failure. I looked at the faces round me, I listened to the head of the local club speaking about honour, and debt, and example, and I knew, at last, that I was actually worth something. I hadn’t failed. I hadn’t run. I had all those around me as evidence of what we had done, me, Ernie, Joe, Chalky, all those lads who had set out and maybe not had a Bob to bring them home.

I couldn’t help it and the tears flowed. Matthew was on one side, Val on the other, the two who knew what was going on, and the old man, my old friend, just whispered three words into my ear.

“Courage. Not shame”

The first very nearly failed me again, for I understood that this was not to last, that I would leave them all too soon, but the hands in mine, the arms over my shoulders, they were there, and they would be to the end.

Courage, Ginge. Not a bloody thing to be ashamed of. I had people around me who loved me, and they were of the finest. If they felt like that about me, how could I disagree with their estimation?

Bob’s voice came back to me, from that awful day on a Normandy hillside. Do your job. Up straight, Trooper Barker. You have a daughter to see wed.

Do your job.