We finally find this car park, half-way up the hill, just the other side of the Town Hall. But though it's just the other side of the Town Hall, it's as though Chatham stops and the wilderness begins. It's as though Chatham wasn't ever nothing more than a camp. There's just a low, scrubby wood with a muddy path leading up through it to where the memorial ought to be, except you can't see it because of the trees, no signs, no nothing. And the only advantage of the trees and of the fact that it looks like somewhere no one ever goes unless they're up to no good, is that, what with the beer we've drunk and the to-ing and fro-ing in a state of agitation round Chatham, Lenny and I need to piss again badly. So, soon as we're out of sight of the car park, we strike off the path to get the benefit.
He says, 'He never said it was up no bleeding hill,' panting and pissing at the same time. 'And I know we're doing Jack a turn, but I never knew it was Remembrance Day either.'
I say, 'Okay for Vie. It'd take a bit more doing, wouldn't it, for us to pay respects to our lot?'
He says, 'I aint so sure, way things are going.'
He breathes hard, though we haven't come so far. His face looks like strawberry jam. Vic's up ahead, walking on all by himself, determined, as if he's trying to put on a proper show. I don't suppose it helps when he looks round and sees Lenny and me taking a slash in the undergrowth. Whisky puts you at an advantage. He turns and presses on, though you can see him puffing too, and Vince is way on ahead of Vie, all in a huff of his own, not looking back, like he's team leader and he's not going to wait for a bunch of walking wounded, he just wants to get to the top quick and get it over with.
He's carrying the bag, Rochester Food Fayre, but he took out the coffee.
There's buds on the trees. Sunlight's trickling through the branches.
Lenny says, 'Wavy Navy. Frigging frigates.'
We move on and the path gets steeper. You can see where it comes out of the wood and there's just long grass, pale and wintry, with a scraggy bush or two shaking in the wind. We can't see no memorial. We see Vince stop and look around, a hand on his hip, like he's taking in a view. His coat flaps in the wind. Vic's getting nearer to Vince. We see Vince say something to Vie, though we can't hear it. Then Vince looks down at us as though he's enjoying watching us suffer.
Lenny stops, coughs and spits. He looks up at Vince. 'He aint letting go of it now, is he?' We stumble on, then Lenny stops again, his chest going like a pair of bellows. He leans over with his hands on his knees. It's as though he might be going to say, 'Raysy, you better go on without me.' There's a touch of froth in the corner of his mouth. I think, It wouldn't do for Lenny to peg out before we've said our last goodbye to Jack. It wouldn't do for any of us. I don't feel so A-l myself.
But he levers himself up slowly. He puts a hand for a moment on my shoulder, leaning. Vince is looking. Then he gives me a soft nudge with his knuckles in the back. 'Do or die, eh Raysy?' like he's read my thoughts.
We carry on, not speaking, breathing too hard to speak. Then we come out of the trees and we can see the memorial all of a sudden, like it's been waiting for us all along, expecting us, sticking up tall and white against the sky, though the base of it's hidden behind the brow. There's a word for it. We can see the view spread out below, with the hill sloping down. Chatham merging into Rochester, the bend of the river with cranes sticking up, the cathedral like some big old bird sitting on a nest. You can see how a town gets set down where it is, in the folds of a valley by a river, by a bridge, and you can see where the river goes twisting on by the shape of the hills. You can see the sparkle of light on windows and cars. The sun's shining from under a bank of cloud across the pale grass and it's as if, though we're still climbing, we've entered an easier, kinder, cleaner zone. It's as though the tower of the memorial is pulling us up towards it. It's an obelisk, that's the word, obelisk. The sun's shining on it. It's white and tall. It looks like it's floating, because you can't see what it's attached to, like when you get near to it, it might shift off somewhere else. There's still no signs up to tell you, just the rough grass, ruffled by the wind, and a ragged path, and there aren't any people except us. It's like it got built then forgotten. Vince is going on ahead, getting closer, Vic's following behind. It's like it was only half meant to be here and so were we, but here we are, together, on top of this hill It's like an effort at dignity, that's what it is, it's like a big tall effort at dignity.
Vie
... we therefore commit their bodies to the deep.
It would rear up howling and hissing, ice like marzipan on the forward deck, the bows plunging and whacking, so it seemed you didn't need another enemy to fire off shells and torpedoes at you, the sea was enough. Or it would stretch out broad and big and quiet as the moonlit night up above, the convoy spread like ducks on a lake. Floating coffins. Which was worse, a calm or an angry sea? Or you wouldn't see it, only feel it, through the swing and judder of steel. You joined the Navy to see the sea but what you saw were the giddy innards of a ship, and what you smelt wasn't the salt sea air but the smell of a ship's queasy stomach, oil and mess-fug and cook's latest apology and wet duffel and balaclavas and ether and rum and cordite and vomit, as if you were already there, where you might be, any moment, for ever, in the great heaving guts of the oggin.
He leant over me and I knew he was hoping I'd be asleep but my eyes were open and I said, 'Cramps died, didn't he?' Because I knew. His cheek was cold from the wet night air and his hair was damp but his clothes still had the hospital smell, the smell of Gramps. It wasn't so different from the usual smell, the smell on his skin of other people's dead skin, and you'd think if it was his daily business and had been Gramps's too that it would be a way of making it not matter so much when it was Gramps.
He said, 'Yes, Gramps died.' I knew he'd wanted to save it till morning. I might have pretended, for his sake. Now he would know he would have to leave me alone soon to face the whole of the night, in this strange room, with the rain at the window, with the knowledge that Gramps had died. But I wanted him to know I could do it, I could take it. Like when he told me what he did. He put people in boxes, because people died. But this wasn't people, it was Gramps.
I said, 'Will you tuck Gramps up yourself?'
He said, 'Course.'
He leant over me. He said, 'Night night. God bless.'
The rain made a noise like needles on the window, the wind swished. It would have been raining when Gramps died, it had rained all day. But I don't suppose he knew, or that it mattered, where he was, the weather outside. Whether it was sunny or wet, cold or warm. Or if you could see the sea, which you could if you went to the big window at the end of the ward, shiny and smooth, crinkly and grey. Though Gramps couldn't.
That's why they'd coine here, Grandma and Gramps, to be by the sea. Bexhill-on-Sea. That's where people go when.
On a night like this you could think of all the people out at sea and how you were warm and safe and cosy, and how the people out at sea must be wishing they were warm and safe too, but Gramps couldn't think like that, not any more.
I could hear them talking downstairs, not the words, only the voices. Later when I woke in the night I could hear them being awake too. There were no voices, just the wind and the rain, but I could hear them being awake. I could hear how we were all lying awake in this dark, wind-rattled house, so each of us was like Gramps lying awake in that strange ward with all those other men around him, but alone, and all those other men alone too, like we were all together in this house but alone really, each of us in our beds, tucked up like we would be one day for ever and ever.