Chapter 23 - Reading the Red Book

Short story by James Garside

On the left: My grandfather ‘Lofty.’ Image provided courtesy of the author.

Lofty stretches his great limbs, still stiff from the night before. Each night seems worse to him than the last, leaving the group worn out for the day ahead, following orders and keeping watch in the scorched desert city. There is no let up between the extremes of temperature, the stark contrast between night and day beneath a blank open sky. The soldiers have been camped here for several weeks now on the cracked hillside a mile or so away from town. They are fully equipped, sat around in dusty khaki fatigues, already dog-tired.

The night-shift are rooted like strange dead flowers. As if the desert drank their sap all night as they drained into the stones and withered. The others have not been up long. They drink with heads held back, pass around metal flasks that glint silver in the light of the new sun. Lofty just sits there, not sweating, and carefully sparks up a cheap cigarette. He is sometimes sure the desert renews itself overnight, a studio mock-up ready for them to act in the following day. Ever since the Arabs broke into their camp with an armoured bus and killed the night-guards, Lofty can feel the mounting tension.

The soldiers can endure anything except for the sound. There is nothing worse than the noise they wake to every morning. A drawn out cry, working its way into them, like the sand in their food and their clothes and their hair. Much more of this, Lofty says, and they will sweat nothing but sand and sound. There is a Minaret in the town, part of the Muslim temples. Each morning near dawn, an old man in white robes climbs the stairs inside the Minaret until he stands on top of the stone balcony. Here the man wails incessantly wavering tones, a religious babble calling the faithful to prayer and the soldiers to cursing. Lofty thinks the Arabs no doubt have another name for this, as he stubs out his cigarette on the ground. For the devoted it is a message, bringing them to their knees. For the soldiers it’s simply annoying, as they cannot sleep for the noise. There are other times when this sort of thing happens, but dawn is the worst.

Lofty sees the Minaret as a bell-tower with a man ringing out instead of a bell. He can tell who is on watch by who complains the most as the bell tolls. The noise has become a shared thing to talk about, a general consensus of opinion. For God’s sake, night and day, night and day, somebody shoot the bastard. Lofty smirks at the irony, they are supposed to be in Palestine as a peace-keeping force. This basically amounts to stopping the Arabs and Jews from killing each other over who has the God-given right to stay here. Both sides resent the presence of the British soldiers. Someone mentions that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. Lofty can see why. He moves off to one side away from the group. He sits with his rifle by his side as he listens to them complain, looking down towards the town where the religious man cries out even louder.

In the spare bedroom, the Son gathered his dead father’s things. He cursed himself for calling his father that, as the old man still lay in the master bedroom. It upset him to acknowledge the gulf that exists between two words, the shift in emphasis from dead to dying. For weeks now, people he didn’t recognise would come up to him in the street and ask ‘How’s Lofty, I haven’t seen him in years?’ The news didn’t seem to sink in when he told them, as if these strangers could not attach the word cancer to their memory of his father. People had always asked him about Lofty; it’s just now he’d started to notice. At work the Son had always been known as Young Lofty, especially to the older drivers. Over the years he had reluctantly grown into the name.

Mother had worked very quickly, cleaning and clearing, trying to drive death out of the house. Most of Lofty’s clothes and possessions had been given to the nearest charity shop, or were lined up outside the gate in black bin-liners waiting to be taken away. Very little of sentimental value remained. The Son’s brothers and sisters had already come round to squabble over who got what, and he no longer wanted anything to do with any of them. This was the old family home they had grown up in, crammed into three bedrooms. The son had spent his childhood in this particular room, a large cardboard box full of tanks and trains, cars and toy soldiers, once stood in the corner. Once the toys had disappeared it became a bedding box, shoved in the airing cupboard. The bedroom walls were covered in wood-chip, painted every few years with pale green emulsion. Mother had been sleeping here as Lofty’s condition worsened, but in the last few days she had literally camped by his bedside.

The Son thought his father once said that death was like sleep, except in the Army you got a blanket if you were lucky. At home all the bedding was to be thrown out. If there was one thing both of them agreed on, it was that funerals pissed them off. All those blessings and empty words from a religion you never believed in. The cremation would be a quiet affair, but even the crematorium is full of crosses. The Son though about this as he pulled down a cracked leather suitcase from on top of the wardrobe. Surprisingly heavy, he dragged it onto the bare mattress, the bed he and his wife had shared when they were first married and struggling to find a place of their own.

Children played outside. He could see them in the local park, over rooftops, through the leaded bedroom window. They would spin the rusted old roundabout as fast as they could, then jump on and see who could stay there the longest as others kept on spinning. It seemed that every kid who grew up here played this game eventually. The Son remembered his own two boys, coming home all cuts and grazes. They had slept top and tail in this bed, once when their Mam was in hospital. He hadn’t been able to get them to settle down that night. They had fought for possession of the Mickey-mouse alarm clock that sat in the window. Mickey’s hands pointed at the time, and were coated with luminous paint like the numbers so they glowed in the dark. The clock broke on the floor, but was never thrown away. It still told the same time now, in its place on the windowsill. The suitcase on the bed had little brass locks. You were supposed to need a key, but this was missing and the locks had been forced. The Son lifts the lid slowly.

Lofty squats restlessly, calculating distances, watches the old man on the Minaret raise his hands to the sky. The rifle Lofty cradles is an Enfield .303, standard military issue. All soldiers are trained to use the Enfield quickly and efficiently. But Lofty is also a class one marksman, sniper trained. In the right hands, his hands, the Enfield could hit a target two miles away through several layers of wood, enter one side of a building and pass into concrete on the other. He remembers what he was taught. The Enfield is not a weapon, it is an extension of the soldier. Bolt action, single shot. There is a small clip with half a dozen cartridges in it. To load them you must pull the bolt back and forth. The movement ejects the used cartridge and loads the next one. You are a dangerous weapon. Your enemy knows this better than you do. They are vulnerable because of your skill. Snipers are the first to go. You are classed as indiscriminate killers because you are trained to be so specific. All targets are viable. The sniper will take them out one by one. Lofty moves to a better vantage point, higher on the hillside. The man is a mile or so away, three at the most. Using an Enfield in this weather, Lofty knows he can do two with accuracy.

The son held his father’s army service revolver, weighed it in his hands. He remembered how he could never pull the trigger when he played with it secretly as a child. It used to be kept in a bedside cabinet in the master bedroom. He finally discovered the weapon was not loaded, fired every chamber click by click just to be sure. Even as a grown man the gun was still heavy to him, so he put it on the bed. The open suitcase where he’d found it was full of debris and memory. All that would remain of his father’s things was right here, items that Mother had gathered over the last few weeks. A silver-plated flask, scratched and heavily used. The Son presumed it was his father’s from the Army, though he had never seen it before. Three leather-bound albums, and lots more photographs just loose in the suitcase. The Son started to pick these up at random. They were nearly all family photographs, holidays he couldn’t remember going on, or daytrips organised by the Bus Company both he and his father before him were to spend most of their lives working for. Lofty worked more years for the company than he’d served in the Army. The colour photographs were as dull and unreal as the beaches they were taken on. A middle-aged Lofty in a brown suit, brushing sand off of his youngest daughter. Infants building sand castles or just staring inconsolably at the wet beach. The son with an excessively Brylcreemed quiff, giving his young wife a piggy back ride. Family members stood in strict poses, arms around each other. In one Lofty had been caught off-guard, as he turned to shout at his children who were sulking.

The Son’s favourite of his father was from Scarborough Coach Station. Lofty wore a dark blue suit and a white t–shirt with the blunt slogan ‘No Fucking Curries’ printed on it in red transfer. He was old and slightly pot-bellied, receding grey hair swept back neatly. Lofty is almost smiling next to his wife, who looks distracted and has her hands full with their two grandsons. The Son’s blonde boys are amusing themselves, wriggling in their Grandma’s arms; bright blue eyes fixed on something beyond the frame of the picture. Beneath some old shirts, the attachment to which he would never know, the Son found the two oldest photographs. A grainy black and white wedding photo, Lofty in full uniform, the customary smirk on his young face, stood next to his new wife all in white, herself just a wide smile and modest white dress, nearly covered by a large bouquet of grey flowers. The second picture was torn and creased, a group of sepia-coloured soldiers, so faded you could barely see them.

Digging deeper the Son found a thin red book. At first he doesn’t realise what it is. The hard cover is rough and darkened with age, like a children’s story book he once owned. In black italic type, two lines are clearly stamped: Regular Army, Certificate of Service. Between these there is a royal seal, embossed crossed swords over a lion standing on the crown. Beneath all this, in a black outlined rectangle there is a disclaimer at the bottom of the cover.

Any person finding this Certificate is required to hand it in to any barracks, post office, or police station for despatch (post free) to the Under-Secretary of State, The War Office, London, S.W.1

The Son sat on the edge of the bed, held the red book lovingly. His father had always been something of an enigma to him; feared and respected aswell as loved. Growing up he’d known very little about what had made his father the man he was. His mother told him that Lofty got his lifelong nickname in the Army, by being the shortest in his group. Lofty would never be a conscript; he had volunteered. He did his passing out parade the same week as they had the VE parade for Victory in Europe. They had finished with the Germans, who’d surrendered a few months before the Japs finally gave out. That’s when he had begun his actual service. But this nearly didn’t happen.

Basic training for a Guardsman was always a few weeks longer than for normal soldiers. And Lofty’s enlistment into the Guards was postponed due to serious injury: Concussion, severe facial bruising, a fractured jaw and the loss of several teeth. All of this he received whilst showing off to his girlfriend at the local fairground. He had been repeatedly jumping on and off a ride known as the Cock and Horses. As he jumped onto the ride it sped up suddenly and threw him right off. He’d landed face first onto some brick steps. His girlfriend helped Lofty to her mother’s house, which wasn’t far away from the fairground. Here the mother administered basic first aid and gave Lofty some very sweet tea to help combat the effects of shock. But Lofty had never had sugar in his tea before and was immediately sick on the floor. Mother had laughed when she told the Son this was Lofty’s first meeting with his future mother-in-law.

The son opened the red book. He wanted to know what it had been like for his father. To serve in places where nobody wants you, and even children bear arms against you. To be trained to kill, then left on the scrap heap once your usefulness had expired. As he turned the pages, reading the red book, he saw nothing that explained any of this. What he found was dirt-yellow parchment barely held together, official details in dead language, certificates, dates and records. There were several hand-written profiles by senior officers, like a school report for soldiers. But even these were impersonal, detached in tone. The Son was convinced some pages had been removed. He decided to read everything more closely.

(This page must be entirely free from erasure) Lofty lies down with his Enfield. He crawls across the earth on his belly like a snake to get a better look at the old man who still wails on the Minaret. The troubles of Palestine are deeply etched into the Arab’s face. Lofty tries to read these lines as he looks down his rifle at the man. He concentrates on nothing but the man’s movements, the rise and fall of his breathing, until he is inside the man’s cries. Description of soldier on leaving the Colours. Years later, Lofty would teach his son to shoot at matchsticks with an air rifle. He’d set up a battered old dartboard in the outhouse, a cold place full of nothing but cobwebs, tools and junk. Furniture that never made it inside the family home when they first moved there, stacked up high on every side. Lofty fastened matches to the dartboard. He would leave the outhouse door wide open, directly opposite the back door. This opened into the kitchen, where washed plates piled up on the sink. From here there was another door into the dining room, with an oval glass table where they sat quietly and ate Sunday Roast every week at the same time.

Standing in the dining room, Lofty fired through the kitchen into the outhouse at the dimly lit dartboard. He could light the matches, shoot their brown heads clean off, or light them every time. And once, just once, as he stood by his son, whispering instructions into his ear and lightly holding onto his arm, he guided him patiently through the whole process. The young boy fired and struck one of those matches perfectly, making it flare up briefly in the dark.

As he trained his sights on the man, Lofty repeated the words he would say to his Son: You are the weapon. Year of Birth 1927. Lofty remembered walking the streets of Palestine. Here the Jews swore at the British troops, called them Nazis, barged into them deliberately as they passed them. The soldiers were not fully informed of the political situation, and felt they were there to enforce the law between equally between the Arabs and Jews. The Arabs had attacked several of their camps and outposts, and the Jews were bombing and shooting anything connected to the British. Some of the soldiers were veterans, having survived previous conflicts. This was not what they had trained for. They were soldiers, not politicians. Height 6ft2ins.

One time he was on duty, in full uniform, officially attached to the Palestinian police. He had been ordered to be on the lookout for potential terrorists, whatever that was supposed to mean. Lofty didn’t imagine they would make themselves obvious, carrying signs that read ‘I am a terrorist’. What did a potential terrorist look like? Complexion Pale. Eyes Grey.Old men sat in the shade. Women and children watched him suspiciously. The rifle Lofty carried was a 2.2 non-army issue. It was an offence to have this weapon, but he liked to carry it anyway and often took it out for company.

Eventually Lofty came across two youths in the middle of looting, breaking into some place, the sign of which he could not read. When he caught them, they made a run for it, refusing to stop even when Lofty called out a warning to them. Looting was an offence punishable by death. They were about a hundred yards away when he shot them both. The only problem was he’d used his own 2.2 to kill them.

There was a public outcry and Lofty was to be arrested and tried under civil law. But the army intervened, and placed him under their authority. There was to be a formal enquiry, and he would be tried as a soldier. Lofty suddenly had his picture in the paper, wanted dead or alive. He was a wanted man. Terrorists wanted him dead, and there were thousands of copies of him in print. Marks and scars (visible)

Lofty’s commanding officer had given him the option to return home due to the threat to his life. Lofty refused and wanted to resume his tour of duty regardless of the consequences. He was placed under military arrest, partly for his own safety and for the army save face. In the end he received a token sentence. Scar right shin. Tattoo both forearms. The charge: possession and use of an unauthorised firearm. And as an aside when the sentence was passed, a compliment on his shooting. Lofty got several days in the Glasshouse. But his cell was always open and the guards weren’t bothered. Mostly he stood around smoking with them, talking about their families. The above assessment has been read to me. Signature of soldier.

The son nearly pulled a page out as he turned it. He remembered watching TV with his father one Sunday afternoon as a child, after dinner. Lofty lounged in his great armchair, smoking. Certificate of Transfer to Army Reserve. The Son hugged his knees to his chest near the fire, directly in front of the old television set in the corner. Black and white images flickered on his face, flames of static and interference. Lofty told him to keep quiet or get out when his programme came on. Date of transfer 3rd March 1953.

Father and Son sat and watched ‘All Our Yesterdays’, a half-hour weekly series covering events during World War Two, in Korea afterwards, and the trouble in the Middle East of the late 1940s. Lofty watched the programme religiously. It was mostly compiled of black and white footage taken by military and media cameramen of the day. This would have been shown in the cinema at the time as public information films. Mother was upstairs with a migraine. She never sat and watched these documentaries. This particular night was about the King David Hotel Explosion.

Rank and or Appointment on Transfer: Guardsman. The Son barely paid attention to what was being said on-screen by the monotonous presenter, but was transfixed by the images that stayed with him all his life. Civilians and soldiers working together in the aftermath, passing rocks between them hand to hand, searching for anyone living or dead trapped underneath. He looked to his father who said nothing. Cause of Transfer: Expiration of his period of Colour service Para 389 in QRs 1940. Rubble in the shot, a bleak moonscape. The cameras were focused on the debris more than the people. Some were carried away face down on stretchers. One man’s hand hung limply over the side as soldiers removed his wrecked body from the scene. Service with Colours on Date of Transfer: 7years193days.

No one really knew exactly what had happened, and historians would argue for over thirty years about the event. Certificate of Discharge. It seemed that a group of Jews dressed as Arabs had entered the hotel and setup the explosives in milk churns. A diversion bomb was set off elsewhere, triggering the wartime air raid system. Police were on their way as the sirens wailed throughout Jerusalem. Date of Discharge 22nd August 1957. The Hotel explosion flattened the whole south-west corner of the building into nothing, six floors and twenty eight rooms collapsed into rubble and bloody ruin: Ninety-one people dead, seventeen of which were Jews. This had made Lofty laugh, as it was supposedly the work of Jewish terrorists.

Rank and or Appointment on Discharge: Guardsman. Lofty had helped to sift the debris for bodies. Injured Arabs from a bus outside, had stumbled blindly into the Secretariat and huddled there for shelter and first-aid, which had only increased the death toll. Police could confirm that the explosion took place at exactly 12.37pm, because it had stopped every clock in the hotel at that time. According to the programme, the place had been targeted because it was a popular hang-out frequented by the British troops. Cause of discharge Termination of first period of Colour service Para 634(vii) QRs 1955. However, the Son grew up to rumours that the explosion had been intended to destroy certain political documents kept in the building.

‘I was there when that happened,’ was all Lofty said on the matter.

Corps from which Discharged: Coldstream Guards. ‘These were the last British troops to leave Palestine’ the programme continued. The footage was of ordinary Tommies making their way to the docks, in short trousers and sleeved shirts. They were of course armed, so many walking forwards, so many walking backwards, for cover. Making their way out slowly to the dockside, through dangerously empty streets.

Service on Date of Discharge: a) with Colours 4 years 193 days b) in the Reserve 4 years 142 days. ‘The last few hours are perilous for these troops as they could be attacked at any moment by terrorists or resistance fighters.’ These soldiers were the rear guard, securing a safety buffer between those still leaving and any potential threat. The main bulk of them were already put onto ships. When the programme said who were the last group, Lofty was indignant. ‘That’s a load of rubbish. They weren’t the last to leave,’ he said to his Son. ‘They had gone hours before us, so had all the cameras. We were the last group to leave, we were protecting the ones being filmed.’

TOTAL SERVICE: 12 years NIL days. That was it, the Son thought. His father’s military career tallied up like a maths sum, covered in signatures and stamps, the official markings of Birdcage Walk. He barely had the heart to finish the red book. The scraps of official letters and loose pages at the back handled awkwardly. He also knew what had to happen soon, even though the Mickey-mouse clock in the spare bedroom only told the correct time twice a day. The pages dropped out of his hands onto the floor. He picked them up and looked at them briefly as he folded and placed them into the book again. The Son put the red book into his back pocket. He closed the suitcase filled with Lofty’s things, and put it on top of the wardrobe where it would stay. Then he forced himself to go downstairs.

Lofty moves a little, shifts on his belly, then rests. Concentrate. Focus on the man. Find the mark. Move with him. Easy now, that’s it. Breathe slowly. Breathe in. Hold for the count. (Palestine) (Tripoli) (Cyprus) (Egypt) Slowly squeeze the trigger. Medals, clasps, decorations, mentions in despatches; any special act of gallantry or distinguished conduct brought to notice in Brigade or Superior Orders: General Service Medal With Clasp Palestine. Closer. Here it comes, silence the moment. Body shot. Perfect.

ARMY FORM D 401. NOTICE TO BE GIVEN TO A MAN COMPLETING SERVICE IN THE REGULAR, RESERVE, OR AUXILIARY FORCES WHO WILL BECOME A MAN OF THE ARMY RESERVE UNDER SECTION 1 OF THE NAVY, ARMY AND AIR FORCE RESERVES ACT, 1954

No matter how hard he tried, the Son could not light the matches on the dartboard. He managed to hit one, but it only splintered. He gave up, put the air rifle down on the glass table. He knew he would never light one of those matches again. Lofty’s educational record clearly didn’t do him justice. Third Class, most of it crossed out in the red book, left blank. He’d done courses in Sanitary Duties and Christian Leadership. But Lofty wasn’t stupid. On Civvy Street he was a Union man for the drivers at his work, this was where he became the most outspoken. Lofty would never say much about his military service, never really spoke about the things he’d done or seen. He wasn’t proud of it. It would be years after Lofty’s death before the Son even found out his father had been a sniper.

Subject: Termination of engagement. As Lofty goes over to the other soldiers, the words formal enquiry cause a wry smile to flicker briefly across his dry lips. Your period of Section ‘B’ Royal Army Reserve liability expires on 22 August 57 and in accordance with current War office Instructions you will be discharged ‘Termination of first period of Engagement’ Para 634(vii) QRs 1955 on that date, with liability to recall as a member of the Army general Reserve (unpaid). He sits back down with the group, as the dead old man lies bleeding. Will you please, therefore forward Army Book 334 (Regular Army of Army Emergency Reservists Instruction Book), Army form B.108 (Certificate of Service –RED BOOK) and your reservists Badge to this Headquarters in the enclosed addressed envelope as soon as possible. One of the young soldiers passes him a silver-plated flask and tells him to keep it. Army Form B.108 will be returned to you after necessary documentation has been completed. Please also complete the enclosed form and return the appropriate half. The Enfield leans against him as he drinks gratefully, at rest, saying nothing. Army form D.462 must also be completed and forwarded to this office immediately. Birdcage Walk. Complete silence wraps around them like a great stillness, the dead man no longer prays. “Thank God for that,” someone says.

The Son’s two boys had arrived. They bustled through the door ahead of their Mam and Grandma, still boisterous after school. The Son kisses his wife on the cheek and nods to his mother as they come through the kitchen. Nobody says anything about the rifle on the table. The boys are a flurry of coats and arms as their Mam tries to take them off whilst they are moving. Lofty had demanded the clearout, the disposal of his possessions. He wanted everything sorted out whilst he was still around. His final request was to see his grandchildren once more before he died.

Leading his boys up the stairs, the Son knows how others will remember his father. They would talk in drunken rants and half-assed descriptions about the things he’d done, so long as he wasn’t around to catch them. They would sit around in the Crown pub, looking over their shoulders and whispering over empty glasses, in case he was still there to listen like a mad ghost. Stories would be exchanged. Like the one about the armoured Arab bus he blew up, when it broke into his camp in Palestine attacking the soldiers, and he’d refused a medal afterwards.

The Son could have sat vigil by his father’s bedside, but Lofty would not allow it. Instead his own sons are herded into the master bedroom to see their grandfather one last time. The curtains are closed to the bright day outside. Lofty is a half-dreaming shadow of a man; most of his body lay crumpled beneath a white sheet. The boys are oblivious and want to climb all over him. ‘You still look like twins’ he whispers to them. They fidget silently, too young to understand.

‘They’re growing up so fast’ Lofty says to his son. The two men look to each other, calculating distances.