PART TWO

CHAPTER 16
“So, ladies and gentlemen, now that I have thoroughly ruined Ernie’s character, as is traditional, can we now do the other traditional thing and raise our glasses to the bride and groom, Mrs and Mrs Ernie Roberts!”

There was the usual answering chorus, and I looked round a sea of unfamiliar faces in which my friends’ shone brightly. It almost felt like coming home.

Dad had come through on his promise, and I had started out as a trainee fitter at a river mooring and repair place at Bishopsthorpe. It wasn’t that far by bike from home, and to be honest I had got quite attached to the open-air life after so long with the Tanks. I didn’t miss the rough sleeping and the bad weather, of course, but it still felt right to have air to breathe rather than what someone else had left behind. Mr Dobbs at the boatyard was a remarkably patient man, and he set out his stall early on.

“I know where you’ve been, lad, and there’s some habits you’d best lose sharpish. Hurrying’s one of them. Nobody shooting at you here, so take it steady and get there right. Now, what I had in mind for today is to have a look at a couple of engines we’ve got to fettle. One’s a Lister, t’other’s a Bolinder. Old thing, that one—hear that? Thump, thump, thump? That’s one there, going down to Selby. They’re right odd engines, those. Lister’s a bit more modern. What did you have in tank?”

“Meteor. Rolls Royce thing, basically what they put in a Spitfire. V-twelve. Governed down, of course, without a blower, and with lower-octane fuel, of course”

He had smiled at that. “See what you’ve done there, lad? Given me more engine detail in ten seconds than most people will ever know. Now, lad, thing with these is they’re compression-ignition, and unlike petrol, their fuel’s a lubricant, and so…”

Patience is what he taught me, how to lay everything out tidily whether on a bench or down in the bottom of a boat. I didn’t get to like boats, exactly, but the work grew on me. There was a contemplative aspect to it, a sort of meditation, and Mr Dobbs had a saying or proverb for everything.

“Always right tool for right job, lad, right spanner for right nut. Unless you need the number-four adjusting spanner, of course”

“Not seen that one. Which is it?”

“Lump hammer, lad. Sometimes summat just needs a bloody great wallop with something heavy. Goes for folk as well, I always say”

The warmer days became a steady progression of increasingly complex jobs, each requiring the tool roll he gave me to be laid out neatly to one side of my work space, and only the occasional application of the number four adjusting spanner for things like recalcitrant propellers.

The dreams were still there, of course, but Dad never spoke to me again the way he had that first day back. He had cracked once, it appeared, and men didn’t do such things. Men were strong, steady, resolute and didn’t spend the small hours with tears in their eyes. I noticed that he was spending a lot more time on the settee at night rather than with Mam, and I thought I understood why. The same things were in both of us.

Ernie’s wedding was an event I had really looked forward to, and Mam did the honours with the shapeless sack I had been issued, almost making something elegant from it, even sewing on my ribbons. Dad bulled my shoes for me, and I rode the train up for the bus past the race course to St Paul’s, where Ernie and Ada tied the knot in traditional style helped by a hoarded parachute her brother had apparently ‘saved’ after a shooting down when the Germans had tried our defences from Norway. Our war never went away, it seemed, even at times like this.

Ada was a pretty girl, beautiful that day, and even without her heels on she was taller than Ernie by an inch, but the two were clearly besotted with each other. The service was indeed traditional, though Ada had apparently had to have Strong Words with my old comrade about that little word ‘obey’, which in the end did not make an appearance. God alone knows how many sugar rations had been hoarded, but the cake was impressive in both its size and in the speed with which it vanished. Some people seemed rather keen to get their ration back in one sitting, and more besides. Ada’s Mam kept some aside for my own parents, though.

Part way through the reception at the Railway Club, I noticed a young woman by the door, a child in her arms. Ernie caught my gaze, and called me over.

“Thanks for coming, love. Ginge, this is Minnie Braithwaite, and this must be…”

Minnie looked down. “Wilf Ernie Bob Gerald Harry Braithwaite. I wanted to come and say thank you, and Ernie here kept in touch, so here we are. Not best place for little tyke here, so I won’t stay too long. Just wanted to meet a couple of the lads that kept him safe so long. You’ll be Hawkeye, then?”

Eh? “You what? I mean, beg pardon?”

“Our Wilf, he were right taken with you. Said if you could see it, you could hit it. Censors took some stuff out, but Ernie here’s filled in blanks for us. Got lad from Chronicle to look up some photos of that big tank you blew up. That were a right good job, and our Wilf, God rest him, told me all he was allowed to”

I could feel the blush. “Not just me, was it? I mean, Ernie here was quick as flash loading, and Harry knew how to drive, and Bob was spot on with tactics”

“Aye, would have been nice to meet those two as well. They not back?”

“Oh, Bob’s regular army, like. Still in Occupation over there. Harry…”

I looked at Ernie, and he shrugged. I stuck with the lie. “Harry had accident on way home to Harwich. With a pistol”

Minnie winced. “Oh what a shame! After he’d got all through to end as well!”

That was my first real appreciation that there were things never told to those who hadn’t been there at one time or another, and worse: that they simply never considered what the bloody mess had done to those of us who had, indeed, been through it. I thought of Dad’s own hesitant attempts to get his own pain into the light, I thought of Harry, of that smell I still experienced at times of stress, and I asked the obvious question.

If we are normal, if we are human beings, is it actually possible to come through it and reach some cleaner shore on the other side? We said our platitudes, we wished each other well, and agreed that yes, it would be a good idea to travel one day to show the boy where his dad was and why.

“Oh, Ernie?”

“Aye, Minnie?”

“Got that picture of yours framed and in best room. It’s right good: I knew it were Ginge here as soon as I saw him”

He laughed. “Hair not a clue? We used to use him when running blacked out. Happen his hair’s so bright we’d tie him to engine deck to warn vehicles behind”

I made a mock slap at his head, the cheeky Arab, and we told tales of cooking and brews, camouflage and scrounging, and Minnie just smiled, thanked us again. Ada had joined us at that point, and Ernie introduced them.

After another ten minutes or so of tale-swapping Minnie checked her watch, pinned to her dress like a nurse’s. “Got to go. Two trains to get, and littl’un needs his rest. Thanks for all you did for his dad, boys”

She gave each of us a kiss on the cheek and was gone. She placed little Wilf on a bench and took a different train, one that didn’t stop at Thirsk. It stopped in the end, though, once the driver reacted. It seemed I was wrong, and others did carry some of the same wounds we did.