AN EXCERPT from A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF
A Gift Remembered
A Small Boy Makes a Strange Companion
A brisk northwest breeze carries sounds of the Mersey across the Wirral peninsula like passages from the Bible, reminding the living to pray for sailors in peril on the sea, and not forget the widows and orphans of those drowned. The psalm of the foghorns, ships’ whistles and the dirge-like clank of the middle ground buoy which marks the western end of the Pluckington Bank were my lullaby. Another poignant impression of that tear stained face of England ten years after the slaughter was over, was the hush that settled over the crowd at the Cenotaph on Armistice Day, November 11, a few seconds before eleven o’clock. Clutching my mother’s hand, I would squeeze tightly when the gun went off. Curiously peering up into her face, I wondered about the tears on her cheeks as the plaintive notes of the Last Post echoed across the cobbles. At that time of my life I knew nothing of my Uncle Tom who had been killed in France
in 1918 a few weeks before the end of the war.
A few days later a knock on the front door brought my mother out of the kitchen wiping the flour off her hands, and telling me to stay back while she undid the front door bolt From the safety of her protective skirt I peered up and saw, framed by the doorway, a tall scarecrow of a man dressed in the tattered remnants of an army uniform. A greatcoat with several buttons missing pinned together at the bottom, barely disguised his mutilated body. An empty sleeve sewn across his chest matched a pant leg which hid the stump of a leg.
Leaning heavily on a crutch, the wind catching the tail of his coat in a sudden gust, he smiled down at us and touched the peak of his cap. His name was Alex McKye, once corporal in the Royal Welsh Regiment.
"Mornin' missus," he wheezed through a bushy, red beard, "Have yis any use for a notion or two t'day?"
Opening the lid of a cardboard attaché case slung around his neck, he displayed a handful of toothbrushes, razor blades and boxes of "Clipper" matches. A row of medals hung suspended from inside the lid.
"Whatever ye can afford, missus," he said rearranging the contents of his case with a dirty forefinger. "A penny? Tuppence? Just so's I can get a cup o' tea."
The internal struggle lasted but a few seconds before Mama opened the door wider and said,
"Won't ye come on in out of the wind, man, and rest a wee while?” To my horror, Mama let him in.
I watched him close the lid of his box and struggle crabwise through the front door. Once sitting at the kitchen table, he unbuttoned his greatcoat, let out a great sigh and closed his eyes.
While Mama set about preparing him a bowl of porridge, I eyed him cautiously from the far end of the table, my attention focused on his blotched, scarred face which, he told us later, was caused by mustard gas at Vimy Ridge.
Later, no longer frightened of him, I would sit next to him while he told Mama about the terrors of war.
As the weeks went by, Alex appeared regularly at the front door at eleven o'clock each Thursday for his weekly meal and a chat. I noticed that each time he came, he seemed brighter and cleaner. His once-unkempt fingernails were trimmed, as was his red beard, now washed, and noticeably flecked with grey. When a knock on the door announcing his arrival, Mama would go to the mirror and set her hair straight.
I came to trust this mutilated man. I felt warm and at peace sitting next to him. One day after he had left, I asked Mama why he came here all the time. She picked me up and whispered in my ear “Alex McKye is dyin’, darlin’. He’s bidin’ his time just waitin’ for God.” I tasted her tears when she kissed me.
I knew from the terrible cough that he was very ill. Every so often his body would be wracked convulsively, and he would wipe away a thin trickle of blood from his chin.
“Phosgene gas at the Somme,” he told us after he had regained his breath. “I’m one of the lucky ones, laddie. Most of me mates died after taking one whiff of that stuff.” After a short pause, he went on, “Lost me arm and me leg at the second Somme – and that was the end of the war for me.” Alex gave a little twisted smile. “Aye,” he muttered, “I was lucky, ‘cos we left 20,000 of our lads on the field, dead and dying.”
I heard my mother whisper, sweet Jesus.
He held my arm for a minute or two and gave me a bright smile. “All them fellers is not forgotten, y’know, laddie, for every spring when the flowers start to come out, a red poppy grows in the exact place where those soldiers died.” I believed him, and part of me wants to go on believing.
I think he fell in love with Mama - and she with him. I used to watch them talking over that old wooden kitchen table. I heard Mama tell him how her brother, Tom, had been killed by a sniper's bullet three weeks before the end of the war, and saw how Alex put his hand over hers. I did not understand much of what was going on. What was a sniper? What really happened to my Uncle Tom whom I did not know? But I knew that this war they spoke of was a terrible thing. Men were cruelly killing other men for no apparent reason.
In the spring of the following year Alex’s visits became less frequent. By May they had stopped. Every day, all summer long and halfway through the autumn, I watched through the front window for his gaunt figure to lurch up the road. My tears dried but my heart continued to ache. He never returned.
This clear memory of Alex is an everlasting poppy in my mind. I reached out to him, and he approved of me – a priceless gift for a small boy.
*
Peter Wright -
a Liverpool Sailor
