Where My Heart Used to Beat Read online

  The other notable arrival was Brian Pears, known as “Fruity,” who was a vet in civilian life and through his work with horses had developed an interest in racing and gambling. He was invariably late paying his mess bill but generous with his occasional winnings. He had the rare gift of speaking German.

  While we were in Devon, Bill Shenton put together a cricket team to play the local villages. John Passmore was the best player, a looping left-arm spinner and aggressive number-five batsman. Roland Swann, a clumsy wicketkeeper, was the captain because Passmore was too modest. Brian Pears was an adhesive batsman but unreliable runner between the wickets: “Yes … No … Shit!” As Passmore pointed out, “‘Shit’ does not constitute a call, Brian.”

  Bill Shenton was the opening bowler, and the near-toothless Private “Gnasher” Lewis, who was killed in Tunisia, opened from the other end. Connor and McNab, two tough men from the battalion police, were in the middle order, and the team was completed by Private Easton, a spinner of sorts, Corporal “Tall” Storey, a batsman, and Private Hall, a swing bowler who died of his wounds at Anzio.

  Kilmington, a village with a wonderful flat pitch and a tall cedar in the corner, set us 240 to win, and we made it. We played a local school, then a club side at Sidmouth, where Shenton hit one over the wall at midwicket, across the road and into the sea. One Sunday, when things were quiet, we drove inland to the village of Chardstock, where the pitch is on a steep slope. For weeks afterwards, the men spoke about the tea the opposition had provided, with ham, cheese, and fruit from their own farms. I don’t remember that we ever lost a game, and this was largely due to John Passmore, whose buzzing left-arm spin took five wickets every time we played.

  It sounds more carefree than it really could have been. This was not 1914, after all; we knew what modern war entailed, and I was not the only one to have lost a father in the last one. We had no giddy patriotism or hopes of a swift ending; we were angry with the politicians and the diplomats who had once more failed us, worried that Europe would now be at war for ever—a continent doomed by unresolved historical enmities, by the weakness of our leaders, and perhaps by the very nature of the species we belonged to.

  And yet … when I look now, there was a degree of innocence. We were young and hadn’t learned the lessons of our fathers: we knew the truth but didn’t feel it. Each man brought his private self to the shared endeavor: “Gnasher” Lewis, from a small street in Leicester, proud to have been selected for the team, perhaps writing home to his mother with his version of a match report … John Passmore, quietly determined to see his wife again, to resume his life in the classroom … Private Hall, whose father was a plumber, writing a card to each of his three sisters.

  From the present day, it seems obvious which one would have a market stall and which would be a partner in a country law firm—as though character were always destiny—but that was not the case in 1941, when we were still unformed, our quirks not yet hardened into traits. We made little of the differences between us, and one of the things that bound us was the knowledge that machine guns did not discriminate. Shell fragments cared nothing for “potential.”

  The feeling I had for all of these men was pure and undifferentiated. I loved them not for who they were but for the fact that they were there.

  * * *

  WITHIN A FEW days of landing in North Africa, we saw all the action any of us could have wanted. It was now April 1943, and there had been many changes. The battalion was commanded by a man called Taylor-West, known to the men as “Sailor-Vest” or “Tightarse.” It was his opinion that we were not keen enough, and in a hall near our billet at the Algerian port of Bône, he set about giving us a demonstration of how a fighting man should sleep. He lay on a wooden table on his right side with his rifle gripped in his left hand, the bayonet point by his nose.

  “There’s no need for anything more than a dry board,” he said. “Blankets and straw just slow you down. Don’t loosen your boots. Two hours is long enough for an officer, three for other ranks. Open your bowels before breakfast each day.”

  He began his little talk by saying, “On the Western Front, when my company overran the Hun at Vimy, we found the machine gunners chained to their guns. Our men were also chained but by a stronger bond.” He paused and looked at the incredulous faces. “Loyalty.”

  Taylor-West belonged to another regiment and had been dropped on us by the divisional commander. On the face of it, you could see why. He was a regular soldier who had won an MC on the Somme in 1916 and a DSO at Dunkirk—the sort of man you’d want as a battalion commander. His approach to war was simple: kill as many Germans as possible. Some of us had expected that his long experience would have given him some subtler tactical understanding, but his lust for German blood came first. He seemed quite manic with it sometimes.

  Richard Varian had been appointed his adjutant and found it hard to conceal his dislike. I suspected that what irked Varian, who enjoyed a cigar and a drink in the mess, was that Taylor-West was a nonsmoking teetotaler; I think Varian found something repugnant in a man who could soberly wish to kill so many others. In order not to appear disloyal, Varian began to play a muted part, spending hours on “liaison.” To the rest of us, this seemed a waste of our best officer.

  And our turn had come. Command of B Company had passed from Varian to Vesta Swann, now a captain, and I was his second in command. Donald Sidwell and Fruity Pears commanded A and C Companies, respectively; John Passmore was given D. I suspected the reason that I was the last to be promoted was that I was not a public schoolboy, but I was happy to let Swann take the flak from Taylor-West while I concerned myself with the morale of the platoon commanders, who were impatient to start fighting.

  The Eighth Army had driven the Germans eastward across North Africa. They had been able to use tanks over the level desert sands, but the terrain near Tunis became mountainous. Tanks were no use, and artillery had to be brought up to support the final infantry assault that was meant to remove the Axis powers from Africa for all time.

  Our spotters had identified a ridge behind which the big guns could be concealed. The battalion was ordered onto this elevated position, which was less than a mile from the German line. We were only a few hundred yards forward of our own artillery, and we had two 25-pounders at our company HQ. Vesta Swann had been bitten by a dog and taken to a hospital to have rabies injections, so I found myself in charge of B Company as night fell. We were to occupy the extreme right of the ridge: A Company was in the middle, D on the left, and C in reserve.

  I had Bill Shenton with me, for which I was grateful, as well as plenty of men I knew from my old platoon. The ground was full of small rocks and stones, and we were not allowed to follow the normal practice of digging in, for fear of making too much noise. So it was that my first close-quarters infantry action entailed me lying beneath the stars, with no comforting walls of earth to flank me, quite unprotected from anything the Hermann Goering Parachute Division might throw at us. It was not what we’d learned from the infantry rule book.

  This was the strangest moment of my life, yet some low drive in me contrived to make it normal. I thought about the ancient city of Carthage, which had been on the site of present-day Tunis. Its greatest son, Hannibal, had defeated the Romans three times, once, in northern Italy, when he supplied his troops by elephants driven over the Alps. So impressed had the Romans been by Hannibal that they sent Scipio Africanus to confront him, using his own tactics, at Carthage, just a few miles to the east of where I lay with Sergeant Major Shenton, from Accrington, under the same stars.

  I told Shenton about Hannibal, and he asked me how I knew.

  “Livy. The historian.”

  “Who?”

  “Livy. Titus Livius. He wrote a history of Rome.”

  “But this Hannibal was beaten here. In Tunis?”

  “Yes, he was. Just over there. Those distant lights—a good omen, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe. I’d give anything for a smoke.”

/>   “Me too.”

  “Do you think the Huns are really watching? They’d see a little light?”

  “Probably. May as well get some sleep,” I said.

  “On the rocks with my boots on,” said Shenton. “Tightarse would approve.”

  “Don’t stick your bayonet up your nose.”

  I lay down on the scrubby ground and rested my head on my haversack. I had begun to think about Mr. Liddell ringing the bell on the piece of string outside my bedroom door in my last year at school. It must have been the thought of Latin. Then I began to replay very slowly the cricket match at Kilmington in 1941, seeing if I could remember the exact course of events. I was aware that my thought patterns were bizarre, but I supposed it was because I didn’t want to inhabit the moment. I could allow my mind to wander for a long period without touching the home ground of self-awareness. War, Tunisia, the stony desert ground, the possibility of imminent death—I absented myself from all that, then wondered what it might be like to think like this always, never to check back with that constant sense of who and where one was. Would a person with such ability be a genius or a demigod, or simply the village idiot?

  Bill Shenton had started to snore, and I wondered if it would reach the Germans. I heard the overpraised song of a nightingale, then a loud snapping noise, followed by others. It was a moment before I recognized the sound as rifle fire. I was annoyed that Three Platoon on our extreme right seemed to have opened fire without my order, and I sent a bright nineteen-year-old called Watts to tell them to stop it.

  He didn’t come back, so ten minutes later, with the noise increasing, I set off with Shenton and two others to find out what was going on. As we rounded a rock on top of the ridge, we saw a group of German soldiers below us in the moonlight. They were advancing, bent double, climbing towards Three Platoon. I knelt down and tried to think.

  Our attack was not due for forty-eight hours and was supposed to follow heavy softening up from our artillery. I would be in trouble with Taylor-West if we precipitated too much action too soon. Little gobbets of infantry wisdom came back to me: reinforce success, if in doubt go forwards … None of them seemed appropriate. I was aware of a griping pain in my bowels. What on earth am I supposed to do? I must have said this out loud, because Bill Shenton said, “Kill them, sir.”

  I liked it that he remembered to say “sir.” Unfortunately I only had a pistol with me, so I told Shenton to throw a grenade. After it had detonated, we saw them scuttling back towards their own line, though one of them lay wounded, possibly dead. These Germans must have been a patrol or a section that had become detached because it was a well-organized body of infantry that was attacking Three Platoon, as we discovered when we got there. I ran back and ordered another platoon over to reinforce Three, which still left me with enough men to stay in touch with A Company in the middle of the ridge.

  Rifle and machine-gun fire was starting up all along our line. There was no time for discretion any more, and I felt relieved; if the Hun was coming, let him come. I resumed my original position with Shenton beside me and organized our defenses as best I could. It was difficult to see the enemy by night, and we had to fire in the direction of a flash or a sound. I ordered some of the men to start digging pits for the Bren guns and told the lieutenant, a new arrival called Bell, to send for more ammunition. After about two hours, it became clear that the worst had happened and the enemy had got in behind us. My company was now under fire on three sides and there was nothing our artillery behind us could do. Our only hope was that C Company might be sent up from reserve. The radio had broken down, so I sent a runner to battalion headquarters to explain our plight.

  “They’ve got a machine-gun post up there, behind that rock,” Shenton yelled at me. “We’ve got to get rid of it.”

  “How the fuck did they get in there?”

  “We’re strung out too thin. I’ll go if you like, sir.”

  “I’ll come too. Get three others you trust. We’ll use grenades. All right?”

  “Yes. Then rifles and bayonets when we get in close.”

  I couldn’t see which three men he’d got. Their faces were blacked, and I didn’t want to know. We set off, Shenton leading, over the scrub and stones. There was some sort of hut, possibly a shepherd’s shelter, from which the enemy machine guns were firing towards A Company on our left.

  We got as close as we could, behind some thorny bushes. The three men knelt down beside us, panting in the dim moonlight.

  “On the word ‘go,’ we just charge,” I said. “Is that right, Sergeant Major?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  My mouth was so dry I had to lick my lips before I could speak. “Nothing fancy,” I said. “As fast as you can. Throw your grenades and keep running.”

  The machine gun started up again. Under the cover of its noise I gave the word, and we set off. After three years of physical training, we were quick over the ground, even that treacherous, dark surface. When I estimated we were twenty-five yards short, the furthest I could accurately lob, I threw my grenade, and the others followed suit. We kept running and, as the bombs went off, made it round the side of the hut. We came in from behind and began to fire on those still standing. There were a dozen men in there, only three or four of whom had been disabled by the blast of the grenades. The rest we killed. I don’t know who did what; I can’t remember. You are not yourself at such a time. We lost one man in the attack and I gave the order to get back to our line at once. We would find and bury him the next day.

  The journey back was quick, and the enemy fire came close only once. I lay down by my haversack, gasping. There was blood on my bayonet and I wiped it on a bush. A messenger came to say the Germans had driven tanks past the right end of the ridge. I sent more men to defend our right flank, where some were now forced to fire towards our own lines.

  We could only fight on. There was nothing else to do. That they were still coming for us showed that the ridge was important to them, that the war had not passed us by. I went round encouraging the men, though I could see the fatigue in their eyes.

  Time seemed to slow and hang heavy in the noise of guns. I felt if I closed my eyes I might sleep forever. But this was battle, and at least I had not yet disgraced myself, I thought, as I trained my field glasses on the ground behind us. It was starting to grow light, and I saw what I thought must be C Company under Brian Pears coming towards the ridge. Word must have got through. But their progress was impeded by the German tanks and infantry that had outflanked us. Behind them I could see British tanks starting to maneuver, and within twenty minutes a counterattack had begun. It was a wonderful sight. Tanks reminded me of Hannibal’s elephants: cumbersome, thick-skinned, spitting fire from their long trunks. I saw a flash from one and watched a German tank explode before the noise of either detonation reached me.

  An hour later, Brian Pears arrived with the battalion water cart. We had had nothing to drink for a day.

  “I had you at six-to-four against holding on here,” said Pears. “I suppose I’ll have to pay up now. The counterattack’s gone well. The Hun’s thrown in the sponge.”

  “Nice of you to turn up,” I said.

  In the morning light, I could see an old mosque about half a mile west on the ridge that had been occupied by Germans, and I suggested to the gunnery officer that he might hit it with a 25-pounder. It was an adventure for him to see his target, as he was normally so far back that he fired according to wireless or telephone direction from a forward spotter.

  He seemed at first reluctant to have his accuracy so nakedly tested but eventually fired a single shell. There was a whine and a juddering, and then the mosque fell in with a roar, disgorging a dozen Germans with their hands up and, at the end of this dusty line, a relieved Gnasher Lewis, whom they had captured.

  By noon the Germans were in full retreat, leaving behind scores of dead and wounded in the plain and on the ridge. The battle pushed on to the east, but we had done what had been asked of us. The battalion,
shaken and dust-covered, was still in place. I went to visit my platoons, to check on the casualties.

  To my delight, I saw poppy fields on the other side of the slope; then by an olive tree I found the body of nineteen-year-old Private Watts, whom I had sent to his death. Such was the cost of appearing “bright.” We buried him beneath the tree and stuck his bayonet and rifle in the ground with his helmet on the butt. I gathered half a dozen men and read the funeral service, a copy of which I had in my pocketbook.

  The casualties were lighter than I had feared from the intensity of the assault. We had killed enough Germans to satisfy even Taylor-West and had taken twice that number prisoner. It was beyond doubt a victory, a hard-fought one at that, but I felt no exhilaration. When, under Lieutenant Bell, the men were safely on their way back to battalion headquarters, I knelt down behind a rock and wept.

  * * *

  A FEW MONTHS after the battle in Medjez Plain, I found myself standing among hundreds of men packed into a troopship’s muster area. During the voyage up from Salerno, I had been able to spend much of the day on deck. It was cold up there in the winter wind, but at least the air was fresh and there were things to look at through my field glasses: the docks of Naples, packed with Allied shipping; the crown of Vesuvius preparing to erupt. For the last few hours, though, since we had come within range of German artillery and bombers, we had been confined to a space belowdecks where there was no room to sit down except on the metal floor.

  In our last week in Tunisia, Taylor-West had been wounded while leading a patrol (something he was not supposed to do); on returning from hospital in Algiers he was detailed to join a commando training school in Scotland, and Richard Varian was promoted to colonel and given command of the battalion. The morale of the men seemed to lift at once; it felt as if the king across the water had been restored.