Resting: Memories of a Soldier (Shortly After D-Day)

‘Resting’

My father sits back in his chair, his eyes begin to mist over as the memories come flooding back, “I tell you what son, it was bloody awful, just bloody awful.”
I look at him over the top of my pint and acknowledge his single, heartfelt statement. My silence giving him the encouragement, if any was needed, to carry on.
“I remember one day,” he paused as he began to relive the time all over again, “I was OP-ack, and me and the Lieutenant were stuck up in this bloody great church tower over looking the German positions.” He paused to take a drink as though trying to wash the memory from his mind. “You see, it was our job to direct the fire for our guns, and of course we ‘ad to be somewhere up high to see. The bloody trouble with that was, that if we could see the Germans, then they could see us! And they let us know it too. They were forever taking pot shots at us. Mind you, if it got too bad then we would call up a couple of guns to give them ‘three rounds ranging’, that bloody well soon shut ‘em up.” He smirked at the thought, confident that he now had a captive audience. “You know son, we could put a round in a dustbin from over a thousand yards with our twenty-five pounders.“ he added with obvious pride. I nodded in deference to the man, my father, who had done and seen more than I had ever imagined, to me after all, he was just my dad!
I went to the bar for more beer, all the while I could sense his impatience as I stood at the bar; he had a story to tell and was eager to get on with it.
I set the pint in front of him and he growled his acceptance. He did so not out of ungratefulness, but because he didn’t want to say anything in case it broke the spell he had woven, for fear the topic would veer away from his reminiscences. I opened my mouth to speak but was abruptly cut short, “Cor, I tell you what son; one day we were billeted in this house, the French had long since left, but they had left a cellar full of wine, so we were alright. Anyway, one day my section was getting ready to move out to the church tower, or what was left of it,” he said thoughtfully. “The Jerries had given it a right good stonking the night before, killed our Lieutenant too. Anyway, we always would go out and sit in the back yard of this house when we were ‘resting’. That’s when the other section was on duty. The weather was warm and it made a nice break from the smell of dirty socks and sweaty blokes – we never ‘ad much chance to wash really.” Dad sipped his pint, his eyes glistening with the thought of the terrible times and the awful sights he had seen. “One day, my mate from the other section was sitting out in the yard when Jerry let us ‘ave it with a machine gun. There were bullets flying everywhere, bits of brick and concrete whizzing about all over the place. I called out to my mate to come into the house where it was relatively safe. ‘Come on in you silly sod’ I cried, ‘get yerself in ‘ere for Christsake, before they blow another silly hole in yer head.” Dad shook his head as he took another drink, his whole being now back in a town just off the beach on D-Day. “I’ll never forget him, Nobby, Nobby Clark, he was, came from Nottingham. I called him again but all he did was look up at me scornfully as the machinegun bullets edged ever closer to him. ‘Sod off, my section’s resting,’ he hissed, ‘I’m on me break and I’m ‘aving a brew. Now just leave me alone.” Dad stopped for a minute, living out the moment of fifty years before. I looked at the man in wonder and awe, the man whom I had only known as my father, the village policeman.
“Oh ‘im?” my dad responded to my unasked question, “copped a bullet as he drank his tea; never knew what ‘it ‘im.” He drained the beer in a single go, “Come on son. Time to go home; mother will wonder where we’ve got too.”
I follow silently, still finding it difficult to accept that someone I knew as a kind and loving father had seen, and been through, so much, even as a humble private attached to 45 Commando at the D-Day Landings.

I took Dad back to the very beach he had struggled ashore on all those years ago. He showed me the church tower, since rebuilt, and the house where Nobby never finished his tea. He spoke very little that weekend, and when he did his voice often cracked with emotion, often leaving the sentence unfinished. There was seldom a tear far from his eye, and I remember how his hand shook as he stroked the barrel of the twenty-five-pounder gun that adorned the sea front as a memorial to the great sacrifice so many men made during that summer.
Dad’s gone now, and with him his memories of six hard years of war. But I still remember the few, reluctant, stories he used to tell. Reluctant, because he didn’t want to boast and crow that he had come through it and others hadn’t. Reluctant, because he didn’t want to stir up half forgotten memories, memories of pain and suffering, and of unbelievable comradeship.
As his epitaph, there is one memorable quote of his I would like to leave you with. It was Christmas Eve and his birthday; I had been a soldier myself for over a dozen years and had myself seen more than enough. We sat by his open fire in the comfort of his lounge, with a bottle of Glenfiddich and two glasses. He raised his glass in salute to my toast and said wistfully, “ You know son, if I’d thought I’d be sitting here, with a thirty year old son, drinking malt whisky on my birthday, then by Christ I’d have been a lot bloody braver in the war!”

But could he?

END

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