happened.’
I nodded, ‘that’s how he got his VC,’ I knew the tale of Lieutenant Colonel H Jones, Commanding Officer of 2 Para, well enough to recite it myself.
‘Posthumous VC,’ Danny corrected me, ‘he went straight at them but the machine guns got him in the end. Bravest thing I ever saw. It was his example that got the boys up the hill that day.’
I could see how much Danny respected bravery and I was starting to get a sick feeling like he was going to admit something to me that I might not want to hear. All these years I’d took it as read that my brother was a hero who went into battle in a hail of bullets, against awful odds. I didn’t think I’d be able to cope with it now if he suddenly told me he was a coward. Having one in the family was quite enough.
‘So what happened?’
‘I did my job,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t do enough,’ his voice faltered, ‘I found cover when I had to, I went forward when the NCOs ordered me to, I fired my rifle, I even killed a man, shot him from a distance and found his body when we went forward again. He didn’t look any older than me, but… ’
‘But what?’
‘That’s all,’ he said, ‘I didn’t distinguish myself. I kept my head down when some of the others were running through the bullets. I moved after they moved. I fired after they fired, I was never the first to get up that hill. I made sure I didn’t get my head blown off. I came out the other side without a scratch. We lost seventeen men. Seventeen dead and sixty four wounded and I didn’t even stub my toe on a rock. When I look back on it now I sometimes feel like I wasn’t really there, the fear stopped me from performing the way I know I could have, the way they’d trained me to. I should have been quicker. I should have been stronger. I should have been first.’
‘Christ!’ I shouted in exasperation, ‘is that it?’
‘What do you mean is that it?’ he looked at me like I was crazy.
‘I thought you’d seen something awful or done something awful. All these years I thought maybe you’d accidentally shot one of your mates, or murdered some Argie prisoners or run away or something.
‘Run away?’ he asked me, ‘Course I didn’t fucking run away. What do you take me for?’
‘I don’t know Danny, maybe not run away but I thought it was something worse than… well what you’ve just told me. Jesus, your whole life,’ I couldn’t comprehend him, ‘you’ve been so messed up since then and that’s all it’s been about? Just because you weren’t bloody Rambo?’
‘I did see something awful,’ he told me calmly, ‘the whole battle was awful, people having their arms and legs blown off, mates from my company getting shot in the head, of course it was awful.’
‘But that wasn’t what kept you awake at night?’ I said quietly, ‘was it?’
‘No,’ he told me, ‘you don’t get it, you weren’t in the army. The thing that gets you through it is your mates and the fear of letting them down. That’s worse than being shit scared of dying or ending up paralysed or a vegetable. Worse than all the god-awful horror of a battle is how scared you are that you are going to let your mates down when it comes to the crunch. That’s the code. I can’t tell you how it feels when you are standing in the pissing rain next to one of those big, open graves full of body bags, while the padre reads out the names of your friends and all you can think of is “I could have done more”,’
‘Did someone say something to you?’ I asked him, ‘afterwards. Did someone say you’d let your mates down, that you’d not done enough?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘no, nobody said anything, but I knew I had and that’s all that matters.’
‘Shit Danny, you didn’t fuck up. You did your job. It’s not like you dug a hole and hid in it crying. You moved, you fired your gun, you engaged the enemy and you killed one of them. You weren’t Audie Murphy but Jesus man, who is? If you’d done any more they’d have been burying you on that bloody hill. You were 18 for Christ’s sake. Everybody I know still thinks you’re a total hero just for being there and walking through that. You didn’t fuck up and you have no reason for feeling like a failure. The only thing you really feel guilty about is surviving and I can understand it, but that’s just the luck of war. Thank God you weren’t one of the poor bastards who didn’t come back. We did. Me and ma, we thanked God.’
‘I thought you were an atheist?’
‘I am but back then I was only a wee bairn, so I prayed anyhow, every night.’
‘I know you did and I’m grateful but I tell you there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t relived that bloody battle in my head and wished I’d done better, wished I’d been the soldier I know I could have been.’
I thought about this for a moment that seemed to stretch out in front of us.
‘You still can be Danny,’ I told him firmly, ‘you still can be.’
The front door to the Gosforth mansion was hanging off its hinges when we got there. I held the gun out in front of me, in case the fifth Russian was still there with Sarah, and walked inside. Danny followed me in. I hadn’t forgotten there were meant to be five of them. I’d been dialling Sarah’s mobile number on and off with Palmer’s phone since he picked me up outside the railway station. No answer. I was worried sick but I couldn’t let that distract me. I’d be no use to her dead.
The only sign of a struggle was in the hallway; an up-ended table, the phone lying redundantly on the carpet next to it. We gave the downstairs a quick once-over and found nothing. There wasn’t a sound. I left Danny watching the door and slowly inched my way up the stairs, not bothering to call out because I didn’t want to warn anyone who might still be up there keeping a guard on Sarah. I could feel my heart thumping. I’d have sworn the sound was audible it was pounding so fast.
The landing was clear, the door to Sarah’s room open. It was empty, the posters from her pre-college days seeming absurdly innocent, all pop stars and cute animals.
There was a light on in what I took to be the master bedroom. I could see it beneath the crack in the door. I listened intently but heard nothing. I began to feel too vulnerable on the landing. This Russian could drop me through the door before I even saw him, but it was too late to go back now. I had to find Sarah. I took a few quick steps towards the door and kicked it open, pointing the gun out in front of me Jack Bauer-style as I stepped through.
THIRTY-THREE
Sarah was on the floor. She was sitting up, dressed in just a fleece and knickers like she’d been about to go to bed but there was a pair of torn leggings on the floor nearby. From the look on her face, she was in shock. And she had good reason to be judging by what else was on the floor in front of her; a big, shaven-headed, presumably Russian, bastard, lay face down and motionless. His trousers were round his knees and there was an old lock knife sticking out of his neck. The full size mirror had a big, wide arc of blood across it and more blood covered the floor. Some of it had even reached the ceiling. As I drew nearer, I realised some of it was on Sarah’s face.
Good girl, I thought, and the relief flooded through me. Sarah Mahoney had never been near her old man’s world, yet the minute she was cornered, her instincts kicked in and she killed rather than be killed. Talk about a chip off the old block.
It looked like the Russian had been dead a while. She must have been sitting here on her own looking at the body for hours, too shocked to move, just waiting for someone from Bobby’s crew to turn up and help her but, of course, no one came. I was the only one left.
When she finally registered it was me, Sarah jumped to her feet and ran towards me. I had just enough time to move the gun before she threw her arms around me. I couldn’t tell you how relieved I was that she was alive.
‘Are you alright?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he hurt you?’ I asked.
‘Tried,’ she said.
We left the dead Russian where he lay and I steered her to her bedroom. I pulled an old suitcase down off of the top of the wardrobe and told her, ‘pack some clothes, enough for a couple of days,’ then I added, ‘you’ve got two minutes.’ I didn’t want the other Russian guys turning up looking for their friend.
Sarah pulled on her jeans, stuffed some clothes and toiletries in her bag and we got out of there.
