George MacDonald Fraser - Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II

On the fiftieth anniversary of VJ-Day I made a special trip to Carlisle for the Cathedral service, wearing my medals for the first and probably the last time. I hadnt intended to go. Im not one for formal reunions, with British Legion standards and intonations of Laurence Binyon, and never felt comfortable watching the big Burma bash in the Albert Hall on tv (or the Remembrance Sunday show, for that matter, with its energetic Sea Scouts climbing poles and artillery teams assembling guns to the cheer-leading of a commentator, before the petals shower down). I dont know why this kind of thing doesnt attract me. I think its because it has bugger-all to do with Tich Little (no, give him his real name now, Ike Blakeley) going down before Kinde Wood, or John Luke (Gale in the book) dropping in the bunker entrance, or going in under the guns at Pyawbwe. I dont need a reunion to remember them; theyll be with me always. But of course their kinsfolk werent at Kinde or Pyawbwe, and must take their memories from the last time they saw them, and I guess the Remembrance ceremonies are a comfort to them.

The annual 9th Border service at the Cathedral, and the booze and sandwiches at the Castle later, are different. There are never that many of us, forty maybe, and its good to gossip and be jolly. Camaraderie, thats what they are about, and old times, and seeing Sam Wilson and Dalgleish and Jimmy Gibson well and hearty. None of 9 Section survives, so far as I know, and Tommy Martin, whose voice (pure Denton Holme gravel) was always in my ears when I wrote the dialogue passages, died a couple of years back. But, as I say, that kind of occasion is different, or was, for now weve held the last of them.

VJ-50 was something else. I had supposed, in advance, that it would be used as a great propaganda occasion by the anti-bomb brigade, who would have a field day about the obscenity, inhumanity, etc., of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After all, the VE-Day 50th anniversary had been marred, for me, by the great outcry not long before over Dresden, with a member of the Royal Family being dragooned, no doubt unwillingly, into apologizing for that bombing. As if it was his damned business; he wasnt even born. To think of our air crews, people like Bill Hetherington, my wife Kathys Canadian cousin, killed in action, and Bob Fowler with his parachute on fire, and contrast that with a British Royal having to humble himself before the nation who started it all, and gave Hitler their full backing. But I must be calm. Anyway, it wasnt a good augury for VJ-50.

In the event, it was a terrific success. The sun shone in London, and the old buffers turned out, and Prince Philip took part in the march past, and it was all glorious. XIVth Army were the countrys darlingsno longer forgotten, as the pundits kept saying. (Quite honestly, I never thought we were.) Hiroshima and Nagasaki never got a look-in, probably because our case had been stated, unanswerably, in the tv programmes in the run up to the day itself. The P.O.W.s had a good airing, the horrors of the railway were described, and at last the message got home that if it hadnt been for the bombs the prisoners would probably have been massacred, and Allied casualties would have been horrific. Anyway, the country was in no mood to be sorry for the Japs.

I had taken part in two or three tv programmes, about the war, and the Japs, and guilt, and was able to say on the air what Ive said in this book. I hope I put it fairly; I noticed that most of those interviewed said the same thing; we were not forgiving. The man I was most pleased to hear was Bishop Montefiore, whom no one could accuse of being a blood-lusting reactionary; no one listening to him could doubt that the bombing was right.

Anyway, I had decided to give the Carlisle Cathedral service a miss. I declined an invitation to read the Kohima Epitaph at the service (the thought of Lance-corporal Fraser doing that on national tv, when there were so many worthier people available, was unbearable), but at the last minute I decided Id like to be there. Long John Petty had died just a couple of weeks earlier, I hadnt been able to get to his funeral, and for some reason that helped to make up my mind. I bummed an eleventh-hour invitation, and went over the day before, staying at the Crown and Mitre, next door to the Cathedral.

In the morning I put on my good suit, regimental tie, and the gongs, and loafed out in good time to have a walk round the old city before the service. They already had the barriers up, but there werent many folk about, only a couple of young policemen outside the hotel. They noticed the gongsand saluted! I must say that took me flat aback; I mumbled something and took off, thinking, how nice of them. I tooled about Scotch Street and Fisher Street and Long Lane and the Cathedral grounds, and then went in when the crowds started to arrive.

There were a lot of grey heads and Burma Stars in the pews, naturally, with the VIPs down in the nave, but I had one of the choir stalls (Canon 11) which heave you out if you go to sleepor so they used to tell us when we attended the old Grammar Schools service on Ascension Day. Some port-wine-faced berk tried to pinch my seat, but I looked at him and he faded.

I didnt care for the sermon. The preacher struck me as rather trendy, and I got the impression that he was a bit of a reconciler and forgiver. The hell with that. Also, they had some ghastly new version of Who would true valour see?imagine, someone, some appalling brute that perishes, actually thought he could write better verse than Bunyan! Well, the hell with him, too; I sang the old words, hobgoblins, foul fiends, and all. Likewise in the National Anthem, while the rest were singing the unutterable, sanctimonious, politically correct pap of the new third verse, Im glad to say I was confounding their politics and frustrating their knavish tricks at full belt.

The chap who spoke the sort of laymans part of the service felt he had to say something about forgiveness, too, but Im sure he didnt mean it. I thought of Oliver Cromwell standing in the Cathedral 350 years earlier, giving orders for the stabling of his cavalry mounts in the nave (a bit gross, but thats Old Noll for you), and thought to myself that he wouldnt have had much time for forgiving the Huns and Japs, either.

The whole performance being on national tv, I was delighted when Long Johns picture came up on the screen, and Johnny Burgesss, and I thought: Ahs wid tha, marras.

Afterwards, the veterans, as they call us (in my youth a veteran was a 30-year service man), fell in outside to march to the Town Hall. I had determined that I was not going to make a spectacle of myself by shambling in the ranks at my time of life, but when I saw them forming up I thought, what the hell, its the last time, and fell in, too. There were Kings Own behind me (they amalgamated with the Borders years ago), and of course they were belly-aching about how it was all Border Regiment today, and why hadnt the service been held in Lancaster? For the very good reason that the Border Regiment had three battalions in Burma, and no regiment better typified XIVth Army infantry.

They marched us to the Town Hall, a couple of hundred of us, old as sin and not two pounds of us hanging straight. The people behind the barriers began clapping, which I confess took me by surprise, and I found my eyes stinging. I thought wed stop at the Town Hall, but damned if they didnt march us back along Castle Street, and the people still clapping and cheering, and I heard a little girls voice piping: Ey, theers granpa! Ey, granpa! Lucky granpa, whoever he was.