‘It would be the best thing if he did go,’ Queenie had said once.

It was the first time I realised she could be heartless.

After a raid I’d have to coax my father out from under the bed with bread and jam – the wireless on so loud it sounded like we lived in a dance hall. Sometimes he’d dance round the room on his own, holding his arms up for an imaginary partner when he thought no one was looking.

They were running out of young men in this new war, conscripting older and older men every week. There was nothing else for it. Fire watch and black-out duty weren’t enough. And a bank clerk who spent all day writing figures in ledger books would never be essential to the home front. It was my turn for derring-do.

All I knew was that I was going overseas. Embarkation leave – one week with loved ones, then off. Of course I had no idea where I was being posted but Queenie kept asking. ‘It must be somewhere hot if they’ve given you a tropical uniform,’ she said. The chaps who trained with me laughed at that – tropical uniform could mean Iceland or Siberia. ‘You must know where you’re going. Can’t you ask them?’ She thought I was just keeping it to myself. Of course they wouldn’t tell us, otherwise it would be news in every dance hall that ever saw a chap dressed in his best blues. ‘They won’t tell me,’ I told her. I’d shouted in the end, raised my voice.

I hadn’t wanted to spend my last day with her like that. We should have been having a kiss and a cuddle. She let me do it to her, of course, but only because I was her husband and going away to who knew where? She let me, but she lay there like a limp rag. Wouldn’t even put her arms across my back. And as for kissing – she turned her head away. I had to kiss her cheek. I mean, my mother let me do that. When she waved me goodbye she said, ‘Take care and be sure and write.’ But she’d shut the front door behind me before I’d got down to the last step.

Liverpool was overcast in those days before I left. Dishwater sky. Wet-weekend-in-Wigan days, Queenie would have called them. I left with a heavy heart (I’ll be honest). Wished I’d parted from Queenie on better terms. Seemed to hear the door she’d slammed everywhere I went. Boots on wood, train doors, distant gunfire – all had me turning with a start. Silly, of course.

I’d watched on deck in drenching rain as the coastline gradually slipped into the sea. I’d never left England before. Only once could I recall turning back to look at land. Paddled out too far at Dymchurch. Startled to realise I’d gone so far. Ma, a little unrecognisable figure on the beach, calling me back. Pa wading out, sweeping me up safe in his arms.

England disappeared so quickly. Soon there was nothing but sea. My legs wobbled. Couldn’t get my balance, find my grip. I sat down to watch the spot where my country dissolved. It was there, etched on to my eyes like an afterview of the sun. Pa’s back as he tended his vegetables. Queenie waving at the door before she slammed it shut. All were left indelible.

I held my pen above that blue flimsy paper on that prison floor. Held it there for so long that the sweat trickled down my arm and dripped off the nib like teardrops. Soon the paper was too soggy to write on. And ‘Dear Queenie’ had blurred to a blue stain then run until it was just a blot.

Forty-four

Bernard

He said it like I’d won the demob in a raffle. You wouldn’t have known the man had put me in prison in the first place. Looked me straight in the eye. Happy to deliver his news. No doubt thought someone with my record would consider it an honour that a CO would tell them personally. ‘Bligh. Your number’s up. Collect your kit from Cal. You’ve got a week to get to Bombay. You’re going home.’

Rumour had it our unit was one of the last left in India. And, thanks to this CO, I was later than most. One chap had even gone native. Refused a boat home – took his demob in Cal. But only a few of the unlucky were still left counting. Flight Lieutenant Moon, sitting high in his truck, wanted to tell his driver to carry on but stuttered over the command. ‘Ca-ca-ca—’ he said, before miming it with a flick of his hand.

There was nothing left of the basha. The RAF police had cleared every last trace away. Except the scorched marks where it once stood. A sooty black square drawn in the dust. It was impossibly small. Looking no more than the size of a packing case. Hard to imagine where charpoys lay, let alone where eight large men fell. Alf Lamb, Bill Bulmer, Nobby Bloomfield, I knew them all. Nobby especially. We’d been on a river salvage together. He’d volunteered to dive into the water, swim under the wreck of the plane to attach cables round it. I was on the party that heaved the Wellington out. So was Alf, I believe. It only took a hint of interest to get Jock Davison to recount the story of the tiger he killed for some natives. Attached a pig to a tree evidently. Sat all night in the branches waiting. Got it with one bullet between the eyes. He was a local hero for a while. Didn’t know Gordon Pink or Jack Bark – they’d not been long on our unit. Ron Simpson was an unlucky man even without the fire on his score sheet. Been in Normandy for D Day. Parachuted in. Watched most of his unit shot down before they hit the ground. Got wounded twice himself. Thought he was going home on VE Day. Drunk as a navvy, climbed a lamp-post with a Union Jack painted on his bare behind. Next week he was marched on to a boat out east. The eighth name on that gruesome list was, of course, my friend George Maximillian.

This stripling CO’s vehicle drove right across the scorched remains of the basha. I watched it as I stood there saluting this officer in the dusty wake of his vehicle while he swerved two tyre tracks over the grave of eight aircraftmen. Basha no longer there, it was a bit of a handy short cut for him. I had to spit on the ground after he’d gone – rid my mouth of the grit and dust, you see.

So that was how I found myself once more in Calcutta. Vultures still sat like scrawny hunch-backed hags looking down from the rooftops. They watched me as I walked along. Silly, but their gaze was so keen I imagined they recognised me from the last time I was here. The carnage they gorged on then was now all cleared away. Of course. The piles of putrefying rubbish – the pecked and gnawed bodies of the dead – all gone. But still those ugly beasts seemed to be dallying patiently for some next time. Picked up my blues from the holding centre. Only bit of kit I had left. The forage cap made me look like an old man. One of those coves from the Home Guard, playing soldiers. Trousers were roomy, jacket a little big. Left them there years before, you see, when I was a stouter man.

It was in the maidan I saw him walking. Johnny Pierpoint – Spike to his asinine friends. Wouldn’t have believed it could be him. Too carefree. Sauntering. A skip in his step. But he stopped me. Hand on my arm. Held me back. To a trusting eye, he was pleased to see me.

‘Well, well, well, Pop. You still here? I’d have thought they’d have got you on a boat before this. What you been up to?’

Nothing for it. Had to tell him I was on my way to Bombay.

‘What you doing in Cal then?’ he said. Then stopped my answer with, ‘Don’t tell me. You’ve finally taken my advice. Eh, Pop? Come to get some bint here? See if you can’t learn a few things to show that wife of yours before you get home?’

I was speechless. The scoundrel should have been locked away not standing in this sweltering city insulting me with ‘I can recommend a few. Not down Free School Street, though. Let me give you an address. They’ll see you’re all right. All very clean. Very young. Pretty. You know.’

‘No, thank you,’ I told him.

‘Pop, do yourself a favour. Your gentlemen’s friend really does need a decent outing. It’s withering away in there.’