It’s a tradition:
Like every eldest male in his
family, Bill had wanted to join up, to serve, to contribute, and to honour his
family’s military history. Since records
have been scribed and portraits hung, the Cuthbursons had dutifully fought for
king, queen or country. The family had
prospered and suffered equally for their resolve and Bill felt the weave of
events and actions bound him to continue the history. He
took a sip and reflected on a remembrance day four years ago.
The sun that day had glinted
pride from the medals the old soldier had pinned to his blazer pocket. He’d
pushed through his pain from the march, up the rise and into his village
square. Bill could see the agony in his
grandfather’s set face, the tears in his eye were not born from forcing his seized
joints to move again and again, they were the tears from the grief of lost
sons, dead friends and broken marriages.
There was however, behind the pain, still that steely resolve locked into
that wizened countenance, a resolve burning him to march with his last breath, with
honour and without regard to self, all for the glory of victories past and the
fight for right. It was this masculine
exemplar that drove the continuing Cuthburson legacy of militia enlistment. Bill’s own son had stood there, that 11th
day, at attention, by his side, parade uniform pressed and his unadorned chest
swelled with bravado.
Not for this latest
Cuthburson would be the rat-putrid and fetid trenches of Europe, nor the ocean-locked
solitude and tactical blundering of the Falklands. No.
Young Will would be made forever aware of the ditch or mound beside a
desert road, cautious of a welcoming resident, permanently watching the back of
his buddy and command. A degree course
in paranoia locked in an oven of discontent would be Will’s lot, and Bill knew it
would scar the lad and taint his life forever.
The memory of that 11 November
morning in 2008 was today playing on Bill’s mind. 11/11/08 was the last day the three warrior
Cuthbersons had shared a drink at the local, the old man quietly lamenting the loss
of his dearest son, the young soldier espousing the invincibility of
technologies in modern warfare, and Bill was there, caught between a sense of
pride, of loss and with a gnawing fear for his son’s wellbeing. Their parting was cursory after a few drinks,
the old man was taken back to the home, young Will put on the bus back to
barracks and Bill had wandered home to his dank flat to ponder again his ruined
marriage through a whisky clouded cut-glass lens. All of them had shared a hug and a ‘see you
soon’ back at the pub, knowing that they would.
But they had not.
The old man had passed in his
sleep and young Will was posted to Kabul the same day. Bill received a text from his wife saying she
was sad to learn of the old man’s death and wishing their son well. Bill had no idea how to respond so he
didn’t. What he did was have a drink
and remember. He remembered the fear of
scuds and the scream of air support as he was hunkered down in the grasses with
the winter wind whipping his kit . He
remembered the mortar thud vaporising half of his sergeant in the ditch beside
him and he remembered vomiting as he charged forward to the next hillock,
closer to the enemy but away from the mortar’s sweep. It was the only memory he could be sure of
from his service, the drugs and the abuse he had delivered on himself and his
wife had in time erased the Falkland horrors.
He wasn’t sure if he drank now to remember or to forget. Through the
familiar lens the paintings of his grand forebears had looked down incongruously
from the stained walls of his tiny flat.
Lowering the glass his eye had fallen to the painting of the young
be-medalled officer who had been his father, a man he’d never known other than from
stories told by others. The husband who
his mother could not speak of without grief choking her words. The father whose memory he had idolised and
on whose behalf Bill had gone to war to deliver a Cuthburson retribution on a
different enemy.
There was no logic in
warfare, the Germans had killed his father, the Argentinean’s would die.
But they did not suffer at
his hand. It is not a war won on the
field, it is a battle lost at home. For
every life stolen in trenches, on beaches, in air and water there are ten at
home destroyed by loss, or worse, by the return of a cracked and broken
sub-hero. Bill’s father, he thought, was
in that way lucky to have caught a friendly cannon round in Ypres. The fight when home is much longer and less
clearly defined than the mission away, the lessons learned in strategy, defence
and attack are meaningless in the lounge room.
The families of veterans may
expect to be idolised, abused or ignored but they can not expect normality from a
returning warrior. There is no rule, no
school, the soldier should cope. The able soldier will most likely return
to war where his skills are more attuned.
November, 2011, in
the icy rain, young Will had worn the old man’s medals proudly on his right,
before returning for his fifth tour, a twelve month back to back. Major Will Cuthburson prefers active postings
to the alternative.
So today Bill slumps in his
armchair, drinks his whisky and listens to how it was that it is Syria that has had the
weapons of mass destruction all along. Nothing
has changed. Every horror or conflict near or far, every economic or moral
cause still exudes the same nationalistic call for loyalty. With fervour and outrage, a sense of decency,
for the sake of the monarch, for peace and the rights of all humans, his country
will voice its stake. This small and savage
island will again and forever send it’s best to serve, to suffer, to die, or
worse, to return home.
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