‘That’s the one. Well, I was looking around the yard outside that smashed-up nurses’ home and I noticed a statue. It was another one of your kings, King Edward the something, from way back, and it was the only thing still standing. It made me think your kings must be built to last – with the possible exception of your most recent King Edward, of course. The eighth, I mean.’
‘Let’s not talk about him.’
‘I know. Another Englishman with a great career ahead of him until it was all ruined by an American woman?’
Jago smiled at her. ‘No comment,’ he said. ‘So anyway, you think you’ve got enough information to put your readers in the picture?’
‘I think so. I just wanted to make one simple point – that when you drop bombs on a city from the sky, you’re as likely to hit a hospital as you are an aircraft factory. In a modern war, no one’s out of range. I notice, of course, that your own newspapers here always say the RAF bombers only hit what they call “selected military targets”, but I don’t think anyone seriously believes that, do they?’
‘I think people who read newspapers believe what they want to believe.’
Jago stood up. ‘We get off at the next stop. Let’s go.’
The tram halted on the western side of the river. They descended the narrow, winding staircase, Dorothy first, and as they stepped down onto the road she continued the conversation.
‘And what do you think people here want to believe?’
‘That’s simple, isn’t it? They want to believe this war’s worth fighting, that we’re in the right, and that we’ll win. The trouble is, I expect a lot of Germans probably believe the same about themselves, and some of them might be looking at a bombed hospital of their own and thinking it right now.’
‘No one can accuse you of being jingoistic, can they?’
‘By jingo, no,’ said Jago with a laugh. ‘Come along, let’s have a drink. I know a nice little place just up the road.’
They headed away from the river, up Bridge Street, with the Palace of Westminster on their left.
‘Would you mind if we took a small detour for a moment first?’ he said. ‘We’ve got about twenty minutes before blackout time, and there’s a place here that’s important to me.’
‘Of course, yes. What is it?’
‘The Cenotaph. I expect you’ve already seen it, and it may sound silly, but I was thinking recently that I’d just like to bring you to it sometime. I can’t really explain why. Perhaps it’s a bit like taking you to meet my family, except I haven’t got one – more like meeting part of my past, I suppose.’
‘Let’s go, then.’
The cold wind he’d felt on Westminster Bridge blew into their faces as they walked up the wide avenue of Parliament Street to the white Portland stone war memorial. Its smooth surface was now pitted by the blast of a bomb that had hit the Colonial Office on the corner of Downing Street since his last visit.
‘Maybe it’s just me being sentimental,’ said Jago, ‘but sometimes if I’m in the area I like to come here and look at this.’
‘To remember the Great War? I don’t think that’s sentimental – I think it’s honourable. You’re showing respect for your comrades. I can understand why that’s important for you.’
‘Can you? I appreciate that. There’s no names on it, of course, but when I’m here I remember the men I knew – the ones who didn’t come back. That’s all, really. They’re gone, and there’s nothing to remember them by except monuments like this. I know some of them had families who might still mourn them, but I’m thinking of all the ones who died before they could marry or have children. Who’ll remember them when the rest of us have gone? There were so many of them.’
‘Yes, it’s unbearably sad – all those young lives cut short. I haven’t seen a lot of England yet, but it seems like every town and village has some kind of memorial with the names of their men who died engraved on it. I guess at least that means their names live on.’
‘Yes. And have you heard of the thankful villages?’
Dorothy shook her head.
‘That’s what they call the English villages where every man returned alive from the war. I once heard that someone had worked out there were just thirty-two of them in the whole country. So almost every village lost someone.’
‘But you can’t live in the past, John. You know that, don’t you? Life has to go on.’
‘It does, yes. And it did, for me – I’ve had another twenty-odd years that those men didn’t have. It’s just that I feel I can never leave them behind or forget them. It would be like a betrayal.’
‘It sounds as though you feel guilty for surviving.’
Jago fell silent as he reflected on her words.
‘Yes,’ he replied slowly, ‘I think that’s it. I do feel a kind of guilt because I’m still here and they’re not. I see young people being happy and I think I can’t be like that, I don’t deserve it, I’d be denying what happened to my friends.’
‘Don’t you think they’d want you to be happy?’
‘Maybe, but that’s not how it seems to work inside me. Look, I hope you don’t mind me talking like this – it’s a bit gloomy, I know, but it’s important to me because it’s what makes me who I am. And there’s a whole generation of us walking the streets who must feel the same way.’
Dorothy flashed him a warm smile. ‘So what would you do if you met one of those lost and forgotten men now?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘I think you’d take him for a drink.’
‘I get it,’ said Jago, smiling back at her. ‘You’re right. OK, let’s go to that little place I mentioned.’
Five minutes later they were standing outside a pub on the corner of Bridge Street
