Broken Green BottlesClive Warner

Technical Data:

Word Count: Approx. 68,000

Genre: young adult with adult appeal

Setting: Historical (NW England, the north Mersey coast. 1959), and El Alamein, Egypt, WW2.

P.O.V: The main protagonist is James, a 14-year-old boy. Written in first person/past tense. He is the reincarnation of Buddy, who died in WW2.

Other: I am preparing some line drawings to go with the text.

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Broken Green Bottles

“This life's dim windows of the soul

Distorts the heavens from pole to pole

And leads you to believe a lie

When you see with, not through, the eye.”

—William Blake

1

By the time I went walked upstairs, to bed, fog pressed against the windows. I pulled the

pillow over my head and listened to the bell-buoy, tolling its lonely sound from miles

away in the Mersey. Gug, the Barnacle Man, might be on his way, piloting his rotten hulk

from Formby Light to the Pier Head, looking for the lost. Gug, cruising slowly,

moonlight fingers searching through the trees! Great description that pulls me into your

story New passengers. Oh God! I shivered. Before At sunrise, Gug’s boat, slimy, green

and shivery, shrinking to a toy, would float into a filthy sewer intake beneath the main

sewer under the Pier Head, taking its tiny screaming cargo with it. (good images That’s

what the stories said about the onesof those who’d disappeared on the shore, lost after

dark. Were the stories true? Probably the only one who knew would be Old Beardy the

Hightown Hermit, and nobody dared speak to him; nobody of my age, at any rate. 

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Thinking of Beardy, I remembered the first time I saw him: I walked down Chester

Close, left along Saint Bernard’s Road, across the war memorial, straight on up

Thornbeck, and then off to the right, through the sand dunes. I climbed up a dune and

stopped dead. 

A shiver passed through me.

He stood on a sandhill about twenty feet away, staring at me. I knew straight away who

he was, from his description—there couldn’t be two people like him.  He stood quite tall,

taller than I, even bent as he was; like the silver birches on Formby Point, all bent over

one way, from the gales coming in off the Irish Sea.   Lovely description

The evening sun reflected off his specs, which were as big as the bottoms of Lucozade

bottles and the same yellow. It looked like he was wearing a school blazer, which seemed

pretty weird for an old man with almost no hair. A piece of rope held up his trousers. I

guessed he’d found the rope amongst the flotsam on the shore. His neck was terribly

wrinkly, like Nana’s almost, and his nose seemed to get bulbous at the tip, so that I

couldn’t help but stare at it, fascinated and disgusted, and imagine the drip, drip—

  Your description conveys well that this is a teenage boy

“Eh, boy! I know ye. I seen ye on the building site. I seen!” He waved a stick at me. 

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I turned and ran, ran, ran, until a stitch doubled me up. I clutched my left side, leaned

against an eroded lime-brick (what’s that?) wall, and panted for breath.

Yeah, that was the first and the worst time. I’d not seen him more than a couple of times

since then, and both times a long way off, on the beach.

Sleep wouldn’t come. I got to my knees, pulled the curtain back, and peered through the

window. The great cheesy face hung in the sky, and by its light, the shadows of the

leafless apple trees danced on the lawn. More lovely description.

I lay down but as sometimes happens, my thoughts began to spin faster and faster,

spinning out of control: ‘You know it will, oh but what about that, yes I know it won’t,

will work, will yes in the morning but will it. . .’ on and on and on. The room was so

quiet I could hear the pendulum of the cuckoo clock on the wall. So I started humming. A

stupid tune from my parent’s radio station, the BBC Light Programme. Sing Something

Simple. Over and over. Fill my head. And between cuckoo-clock tick and tock, I fell

asleep.I like the resonance of that last sentence; cuckoo-clock tick and tock.

* * *

I woke up. The clock said nearly half-past eight. I sat up in bed, reached over and pulled

the curtain back. Still dark outside. The fog had returned, and it was thick.,; ( don’t like to

see semi-colons when periods will do) I could hardly see the outlines of the trees in the

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back garden, and there was no sign of the sun.

Den and Merv were supposed to be at my house by ten. Den lived in Waterloo, about ten

minute’s walk from the station at Blundellsands. Merv lived in Thornton, and got (took or

rode or caught would read better) a bus to his nearest station, Crosby. But would the

trains be running in this fog? I doubted it.

I got up, had a washed, and got dressed. By the time I went downstairs, Mum was already

making breakfast. She put doorsteps of white bread under the gas grill, but forgot them,

as usual, and had to scrape the black parts off with a knife. Then she spread them thickly

with New Zealand butter and passed them to me. 

I sat at the table and stared glumly at my cup of tea. It must have been brewed a while

ago, from the greyish-brown patches of scum. What I really wanted was beans on this

toast. I got stood up and headed for the pantry.

“Just look at that fog outside,” my mum remarked in her best Lizzie accent. Mum

followed the doings of the Royal Family in the society pages. She thought she belonged

in Buckingham Palace.  LOL!

“Yeah. Den and Merv are s’posed to be here at ten.” I couldn’t find the decent opener, so

I hacked the Heinz tin open with the crude wooden-handled opener one my mum used for

Dougal’s dog food. I couldn’t find the decent opener. What an apt description of what a

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boy would do.

“Please, James. We say Dennis and Mervyn. Did you wash that before you used it?”

I hate her callingShe calls me James when she’s annoyed., Sshe knows very well I like to

be called Jim. “No. Sorry.”(good showing contrast of your inner, genuine dialogue and

your outer, polite, good son talk

Dougal, my mum’s Pembroke corgi, came panting in from the back garden, disappeared

under the table, and began sniffing my leg. I moved but he continued. My mum had to

have the same kind of dog as the Queen. Of course, the Queen has more of them. But

mum has a large tri-colour one she brought back from Wales. “They’re breeding them too

small now,” she says about the Queen’s corgis. Great, this tells reams about the woman’s

pretentiousness.

Dougal left my leg alone, but lay under the table watching my every move. I had trained

him to wait for the gruesome fatty lamb and lumpy Bisto that Mum serves without fail

every Sunday. So, for the other six days, I s’pose, that Dougal thinks I am being mean.

The radio was on the Light Programme. It played boring band music, mostly. Everything

on their radio was boring; the worst of all being a programme Mum and Dad doted on,

called ‘Sing Something Simple’. A chorus, singing the songs they sang in the war. Songs

they sang before the war, for all I know. I felt cheated, missing the war. Evidence lay all

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around me: chopped-off houses in Liverpool, large empty lots paved in rubble. And

everyone seemed old, like my gran. She had so many wrinkles her face looked like a map

of Seaforth.

The door opened. Dad, who my mum calls Eddie, came in, carrying a folded newspaper

under his arm.

“I wrote to the Echo again but they never printed it,” Dad said. 

“Oh. About the excavator? Mr. P called earlier. Are you doing the flowers again this

year? He wanted to know.” Mum looked at me. “Are you burning those beans,

JimJames?” I wondered why she called him Jim here and James earlier.

I gave them a stir then turned the gas off. The toast was already carboniszed, anyway.

I took the pan over to the table, and poured the Heinz Baked Beans on top of my toast.

The beans slid out of the pan like molten lava. Finally I scraped the especially tasty dried

crusty bits out and sprinkled them on top. Paradise on a plate.

Too funny, to look into a young boy’s mind

Dad slapped the Liverpool Echo down on the radio. 

The dial light went out and the band music faded away. 

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Good, I thought. 

Dad rapped the radio with his knuckles and the music came back, louder. “Bloody fools.

The sea’ll be through there one day, then there’s nothing to stop it before Ormskirk.” He

pulled his chair out from under the table and sat down.

Mum gave him a look.

“Oh.” Dad reached up and took off his grey trilby hat. 

My earliest memory of Dad was him chasing after just such a hat, perhaps the same one

for all I knew, on Waterloo beach. While he wasn’t terribly impressive—many mistook

him for the popular Liverpool comedian Arthur Askey—at least he was good natured,

which was more than I could say for my friends’ parentsfather’s.  (friends’ parents or

fathers? You mom doesn’t seem especially good natured.)

Mum daintily picked up some poached egg, using her fork upside down, as the Queen

did, supposedlywould. 

“Half the dune’s gone already. Mr. B said they’re going to stop it, one way or another.”

Dad lifted his cup of tea and inspected the brown tidemark.

“What does he mean by that?” Mum asked. “And don’t look at me like that. I poured

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your tea at the usual time.”

I sat down.

Dad said, “I Ddon’t know. And I don’t want to know. Don’t want to what? The wife said

nothing about drinking the tea. The tea’s cold.”

“What excavator, Dad?” I crammed buttered toast and beans into my mouth.

“The excavator? Damn fool machine Rainbrothers built. It’s out near the golf course, past

the old fort. Taking the dunes away, for building more houses.”

“Oh.” So that was where they got the sand from; the sand they used to build houses

where I played. One of my dens got bulldozed just last week. Immediately I formed an

intense hatred for the excavator. “But Dad, Mr Bulman told me that taking the dunes

away was bad. So building more houses must be bad.”

Mum must have caught me showing my anger on my face. “You mind your own

business, James. People have to live somewhere. Anyway, it's time to do your homework.

You’ve got mid-term. You’ll never pass.”

“Yeah, Mum.” I shoved the rest of the toast and beans into my mouth, then with cheeks

like a squirrel, washed my plate in the sink. 

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I’d have to talk to Den and Merv about the excavator. It must be a long way away,

though. Past the golf course, miles and miles. And we couldn’t ride our bikes through the

dunes. I remembered seeing the golfers from the train, on my journey to school. Groups

of men, tiny in the distance, pulling around small carts. Loonies!  I like this boy. He’s got

great imagination.

I put my plate in the drainer and dried my hands on a towel.

“Mrs. J buys ten pounds of sugar a week, according to the sub-postmaster.” Mum shook

her head.

“Eh? Is that a lot?” Dad frowned.

“It’s five times as much as we use.”

“Maybe they’ve got worms.” Dad raised the paper to indicate that his end of the chat was

over.   (Now I see where the boy gets it.)

On the back of the paper the headlines read: 

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DOCK STRIKE CONTINUES

I closed the kitchen door carefully, leaving my parents to enjoy the horrible music, went

into the lounge and picked up the phone. An eternity passed, then I heard the operator’s

voice. 

“Number please.”

“Crosby five-oh-seven-one.”

“Connecting you, caller.”

Some clicks and whirring sounds came down the line, then I heard the ringing tone.

“Hello?” Merv’s mother. I recognised her Welsh accent straight away.

“Can I talk to Mervyn, please?”

“He’s doing his homework. Just a minute—”

She put the phone down and went away. In the background I heard the sounds of a door

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being closed, footsteps.

“Yeah?” Merv’s voice.

“Hey. It’s Jim.”

“Yeah. Mum said.”

“You heard anything about an excavator? Somewhere out past the fort, near the golf

course?”

“Nah. Didja ask Den?”

“Not yet.”

“Well. Hey, I finished the guitar.”

“The bass?” Merv was building a bass guitar all by himself, since his parents refused to

give him any money to buy one. ‘Devil music’ his dad said.

“Yeah. ‘Course. I haven’t got an amp, but I can hear it if I put me head against the

kitchen door.”

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“Gear. Can you play it yet?”

“No, but I’m practicing. My fingers hurt.”

“Gorreny ideas for Sarraday?” I lowered my voice in case my mum caught me trying out

my scouse accent.

“No. You?”

“Ah wuz thinkin’ of goin’ to the fort. See if we could find the excavator.”

“There’ll be a lot of people working on it, won’t there?”

“Maybe not. Do they work on Saturday?” My mum and dad both worked, but not on

Saturday. 

“Dunno. Have to talk to Den. Gorra go now.” I heard a click, then the burring sound of

the empty line.

The operator broke in, startling me. “Have you finished, caller?”

“Er, yes. Thanks.”

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“Then please replace your receiver.”

Realistic dialogue

* * *

I made a mess of my homework because I couldn’t get the excavator out of my mind.

Our whole village was built on sand. When you dig, sand just keeps flowing into the

hole. Why this shift to present tense? If you dig deep enough, the hole fills with water,

the sides fall in, and you can’t dig fast enough. Then back to past tense. I imagined sand

draining from under foundations, houses tipping, walls cracking, falling, the sea rushing

in. Horrible! Our house, though, was different from all the other houses in the Close.

Theirs had traditional foundations. Ours was built on top of a raft of reinforced concrete.

I remembered that Dad told the architect to design it that way. Maybe our house would

float. Then I had to laugh at myself: the idea of concrete, floating!

Ormskirk must be at least ten miles inland. Ten miles of green fields and black-and-white

cows and farmers under salt water. All of them in Gug’s boat, heading towards the Pier

Head. Screaming. Smaller and smaller. Gurgling. Would tiny people gurgle in high

pitched voices? Yeah. Alvin and the Chipmunks going into a sewer pipe. Oh, this is

great, and too funny.

The phone rang. I heard my mum answer it. After a moment she came into the dining-

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room where I sat with my dog-eared exercise books and log tables. “It’s Dennis.”

I went into the lounge and picked up the phone. As usual, the plaited cable had turned

into a bunch of knots that reduced its length to about ten inches. I crouched on the floor

and jammed the cold black bakelite receiver to my ear. “Yeah?”

“That you Jim?”

“Yeah.” I looked out the lounge window. I could barely make out the garden wall in the

fog.

“My mum says I can’t go out in this. It’s too thick.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Merv rang. His mum said the same thing.”

“We’ll have to wait for next Saturday.” Tomorrow, Sunday, was no good because on

Sundays I always went with my mum to see nana, my grandmother, and grandad, and it

took us over an hour to get there by train and bus.

“Yeah. Oh well. Heard the new single by The Flamingos?”

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“Shake Sherry?”

“Yeah. Gear, isn’t it?”

“It’s okay.” I hadn’t heard it yet. Dennis had an HMV record shop near his house. He

spent hours in the listening booth with the headphones on.

“Only ‘okay’?”

“Yeah it’s gear.” I wanted to get off this subject. “See you on Monday then.” Den and

Merv were both in my class at Waterloo Grammar.

“Yeah.”

“Right.”

“Bye.”

I heard the click as he replaced his handset. I put mine down before the irritating operator

could come on, demanding to know if I had finished. Why did my village have the only

operator-controlled telephone system left in the country?

My mother’s budgie, called Dickie, whizzed past my ear and perched on the standard

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lamp in the corner of the lounge. Budgie poo covered the lampshade; really, it was

disgusting. After a few moments pulling at the fabric with his beak, the bird flew down

and strutted back and forth on the parquet floor, by the television in the corner.

Dougal the corgi wandered in and saw Dickie at floor-level. He charged. 

The bird waited until the last possible moment then flew up, out of harm’s way, and back

to the lampshade for a triumphant poo, while the dog, unable to stop on the polished

wooden floor, slammed into the wall.  Hilarious!

I wondered if someday the bird would be too slow. Hopefully yes. Then I wondered why

I thought these thoughts. After all, what had Dickie ever done to me? What a boring day.

Bloody fog. 

I wandered into the kitchen. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I said, opening the door to the

back garden.

“Where are you going, JimJames?” There’s that Jim again, rather than James. Perhaps if

you somehow let the reader know that only when she’s putting on airs does she call him

James. my mum said from the sink, where she was removing my burnt-on beans with

Vim and a metal scouring pad.

“To see if the trains are running.”

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“Oh. Don’t go too far, now." She showed me the pan. "Look—you’ve burnt the beans

again.”

I closed the door behind me and sniffed the air: dock leaves, Dad’s compost heap at the

bottom of the garden, some poo left on the lawn by Dougal, the leaves of the apple trees,

and the rotten bits of the garden fence where it touched the soil. ( Nice; picture shown

through smells.

Our house was a good mile from the river Alt but even so, if the wind was in the right

direction we still got a whiff of it. Dad said it smelt smelled? disgusting, but for me, it

wasn’t. It was boiled cabbage, drains, cut grass and damp soil, all mixed up. Except of

course for the rotting things, like the dead seagulls I hung from the rafters of the new

bungalows, to put people off buying them.

It seemed like I had cotton wool in my ears; everything muffled.

I walked straight ahead until I found the garden fence, turned right, and followed it to the

end of the garden, thirty yards to the east. Beyond was wild land still, although new

bungalows were going up a couple of miles away.

I stood at the end of the garden, tracing the local landmarks in my imagination: on my

left, to the north, starting about twenty yards away, the remains of an old lime- brick

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(here you separated the words; earlier, you put them together.) factory. Nothing more

than foundations really. Ahead, the rabbit warren, followed by a deep ditch—I had a den

in there—then more warren, and finally a chain-link fence and the railway line.

I decided to see if the trains were running. That meant walking straight ahead. I nearly

fell down the ditch, and twisted my ankle painfully in a rabbit-hole. A terrible clatter

above my head made me jump. I looked up to see the dim outline of a railway signal. It

was at ‘go’ and a green light shone from the lamp within. I hobbled on and on, a long

way. Surely I should have reached my house by now? Then I realisedrealizsed: suppose

that train hadn’t been coming from the north, but from the south?

A signpost loomed out of the fog; two small wooden boards fixed to a piece of

galvanizssed channel and jammed into the sandy ground. There was no signpost near my

house.

One board said: 295th BRIG HQ PURPLE

The other read: SEPTIC

This was no good, I must have gone in the wrong direction. I turned round and began

walking back the way I came. 

I heard a dog barking. Dougal? The barks, wrapped in cotton wool, seemed to float

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towards me from a long way off. 

I started running that way, but found myself caught in a patch of reeds. The tall stems

scratched my face. Wet oozed into my shoes.

The barking stopped. All around was quiet. I fancied I heard my heart thudding, the

sound magnified by the fog. No, it was a gentle plashing sound. 

Suddenly I realizssed (perhaps this is British spelling? If so, please disregard my

change.)I was caught in the reeds of the river bank, where it was all smelly, sucking,

mud.

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2

I pushed the reeds out of my face but they sprang back. With both hands I parted the

stems and stepped forward, but my right shoe remained stuck in the mud and came off.

Now I was standing with one foot in the air. If I put it down again it would be covered

with the gluey black stuff, so I balanced on my left leg, let go of the reeds, and reached

down for my right shoe. 

My left leg sank even deeper.

I couldn’t reach the shoe even if I half-crouched. I had to stand on both feet and bend

down. Now my stockinged foot was covered in mud too. 

I groped around in the muck and got a couple of fingers inside the shoe, but could hardly

move it. God, that stuff was sticky! I heaved with all my might, feeling the left foot with

my remaining shoe plunge deeper. 

Finally the right shoe came loose with a sucking noise. I poured the water out. It looked a

horrible mess. Now I had the problem of the left shoe. I tried to keep it on my foot as I

pulled, but my shoeless right foot sank deeply into the gunky mud and my remaining

shoe came off the left foot. 

Jesus! Where was it? Black water had filled the hole already. I grovelled, elbow deep, but

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couldn’t find it. And worse, I was up to my knees. And the tide seemed to be coming in.

Just the previous week in the Crosby Herald I read about two boys that were drowned

trying to wade the river. They’d probably stepped in a hole and gone under. I bet it was

the mud, though. 

Frantically I pulled my left leg free, only to push the other deeper. I took one step

forward with the left. Reeds scratched my arms and face. I couldn’t get the right leg

unstuck. Think, think! 

I’ll drown here, the water rising, lapping around my mouth, ripples entering my nostrils.

The last frantic struggles with my feet, flapping my arms, clawing at the water, but

sinking deeper. Sewage flowing cold down my throat, filling nose, lungs. Coughing,

spewing, gasping, gurgling, thrashing, expiring.

Stop panicking! Think! 

The reeds?

I flung myself forward, and the reeds made a kind of mat to support me. There went the

rest of me covered in mud. I worked my stuck foot back and forth until it came out, and

crawled a few feet until I found firmer ground.

The fog still pressed in all around me. I stood with my back to the river, panting, holding

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my one pathetic muddy, limp shoe in my hand. I tipped it up and poured out the

remaining river water, and wiped it on the coarse sea-grass that grew along the bank. It

made little difference. My mum was going to kill me when I got home. (you certainly

know how to wrench up a crisis and describe it well.)

I put my shoe on and hobbled along for a while but I felt stupid and uncomfortable going

up-down, up-down, so I took it off and carried it, even though it hurt when I stepped on

pebbles. I became angry at the mud, at the fog, at myself above all, and had to resist the

desire to hurl the remaining shoe, all squelchy leather, through the fog and into the river.

Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Thinking these thoughts I failed to notice my feet leaving the sandy path and walking

across a slick, smooth surface. Too slick, for I slipped and had to go down on all fours to

save myself. Close up, I saw concrete, green with algae. I tried to stand up and nearly fell

flat.

Slowly I turned around and crawled away, but began to hear gloppy, gloopy sorts of

noises. I turned again, until they came from directly in front of me. The bell buoy

sounded, dooooooom, ahead in the estuary. 

Stop now, stupid! But somehow I could not stop, and I stood up and walked slowly

forward to the edge. Below, a thin stream of foamy water poured from a jagged-edged

brown clay pipe into a lagoon of liquid mud. The colour of the mud ranged from olive

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green to light brown. As I watched, the surface erupted, going ‘gloop’, splattering the

concrete sides. A smell like rotting cabbage wafted to me.

I was safe, at least ten feet above the surface, but now I was afraid to move in case I

might slip and fall in. But that was stupid. If I moved slowly, there would be no problem.

Silly. Just move carefully away, step backwards—but somehow I leaned forward over the

edge. It was the same feeling as when I visited Scarborough a year ago, and on a high

bridge, found myself wanting to lean over the guard rail, stretch my arms out, tumble

over, and fly. A feeling as if I were vibrating inside, a peculiar excitement, just step

forward . . .  You describe the draw of the dangerous well

Another bubble formed on the surface, slowly swelling. Bloop! It burst. Pooh! What a

stink. I felt dizzy. Another bubble, there, growing . . .

Ahhh! I found myself swaying forward and jumped back, skidding and having to put one

hand down for a moment. Ugh. Slime. But the spell was broken. I retreated to the path,

and when I turned again, fog concealed the outfall. 

I seemed to have walked much further than the boat club and was about to turn around,

when I found the paling fence that protected the boats. I followed it, trailing my hand

along the wooden fence staves, happy to be in familiar ground. Soon I came to the gate

and turned left, passing the first houses, then left again at the war memorial, down St

Stephen’s Road, and into Hester Close. I was thankful for the fog now; it hid the tattered,

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filthy state I was in. 

Even before I got to the house I heard my father calling my name. I waited until I got into

the back garden before I shouted, “I’m here!”

Dad came from the rabbit warren, with two of the neighbours, Bill Cointon and Ted

Brosely. They looked at me, shook their heads, and Bill said, “Well, he’s back. I’ll be off,

then. Best of luck.”

“Thanks Bill. I’ll deal with this now.” My dad looked at me and said through gritted

teeth, “Go to the bathroom and wash that mud off.”

I pushed the back door open and started walking through the kitchen but my mum said,

“Don’t walk on the floor like that! Stop there!” 

She took a wad of old newspapers from the pantry and strewed them in a path, through

the kitchen, through the hall, up the stairs, across the landing and into the bathroom. 

After half an hour I was clean enough, but it took me half an hour more to clean the

bathroom, pick up the muddy newspaper and put it in the bin. All this time my parents

maintained a stony silence.

My mother started: “Where is your other shoe?” dangling by one shoelace the slimy

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remains I had carried back.

“I lost it in the mud.”

“The mud?” turning the shoe slowly and inspecting it as if it were a dead animal.

“I lost my way in the fog and got stuck in the mud down by the river.”

“I told you not to play down there! It’s full of all sorts of diseases!” Dad wrinkled his

nose and took a step backwards.

“Did anybody in the village see you like that, with no shoes?” Mum walked over to the

kitchen rubbish bin, lifted the lid, and dropped the shoe into it.

“No, mum. Honest.”

“Where do you think we’re going to get new shoes? The shops aren’t open tomorrow and

the trains aren’t running in this fog.”

“I dunno, mum.”

“You’ll have to go in your gym shoes.”

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“It’s not allowed, mum. Black shoes only.”

“I’ll write a note for your teacher.”

“I can go in my other shoes, mum.” I meant my black winklepickers.

“I’m not having you going to school like a teddy boy, and that’s the end of the matter!” 

“But mum—”

“Go into the dining room and do the next lesson. And no argument about it!”

I picked up my books and closed the kitchen door behind me. Through the door came my

mother’s raised voice saying, “Teddy boys!” and “After all we do for him!” You portray

the mother well, as a harsh, unsympathetic parent

That late September night my parents sent me to bed at eight o’clock, part of my

punishment I supposed. They never said anything. It was already getting dark outside,

and the birds were sleepy. For a while I listened to them arguing in the trees, then I

pushed the bedclothes and sheets away from me, sat up, leaned forward, and pulled open

my side of the curtain.

At first I thought the window was steamed up, so I rubbed it with my hand. But no, it was

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still foggy, though it didn’t seem so thick now. I could easily see the outline of a street

light, about ten yards away. Earlier it would have just been a glow.

The light shone through the garden apple trees, through my window, and onto my

bedroom wall, making strange patterns on the wallpaper. There was a stain on the

wallpaper where it had got damp or something; in one place, if I blurred my eyes a bit, it

looked like a person standing there. When I moved my head from side to side, the face

seemed to follow, as if someone or something was moving through the edge of a dark

wood. The face reminded me of something—not something nice, but something shivery.

I closed the curtain and lost sight of it in the dark.

I reached over to my bedside table and clicked the radio on. It took a couple of minutes to

warm up. One of the output valves was a bit dicky and the loudspeaker cone was torn.

The thing I noticed most about it—the thing anyone would notice—was that just inside

the cardboard back cover, sat a huge green ceramic tube that almost glowed, it got so

hot. 

I spotted the radio on the rubbish tip, a few months ago. The tip is not too far from Den’s

house. I don’t think I would ever say that to his mum. I go scavenging there for telly parts

and anything electric. I bought a fifty foot reel of aerial wire from Curry’s in South Road.

That’s four stops south on the electric railway. The wire runs from the top of my window,

across to the opposite corner of the garden, where I put up a wooden post about ten feet

high. This is my aerial. It’s called a long wire type. This is in a book called ‘The

28

Foundations of Wireless’ by a guy with a really funny name: Scroggie. The aerial gets

Radio Luxembourg. It’s too dangerous to connect it to the inside of the radio, but I found

that if I wrapped it round and round one end, Luxembourg comes in really gear.

A scratchy sound came from the torn speaker, then a familiar voice: “—Batchelor’s

Infrawdraw Method, Keynsham, that’s Kay . . Eee . . Why . . Enn . . ” and I knew it was

tuned in. 

I spent an hour or so listening to a programme of the latest American hits. I really liked

the sound of Bobby Vee, but there was one group, the Crickets, that were great. Then I

drifted off to sleep.

It must have been about one in the morning when I woke up. I was lying on my back,

turned slightly to my right. Moonlight speared through a chink near the top of the curtains

and into my eyes, making me want to blink, but for some reason, I couldn’t.

I lay on the bed and listened as Radio Luxembourg slowly faded in and out. I tried to

remember the titles in case I found them in the second-hand singles racks in the Cremona

Souvenir shop. Personality, by Lloyd Price. Venus, by Frankie Avalon. Lonely Boy, by

Paul Anka. Dream Lover, by Bobby Darin. Good details

I sat on the bed, drew my vest up over my head and when it cleared my eyes, it seemed to

me that a man was standing in the wallpaper, where the stain was, as if he were half part

29

of it and half not. It was as if he'd always been there but somehow I'd not been aware. 

I thought, "I'm dreaming," but then I heard the night birds calling in the distance, and I

knew I wasn't. Goose pimples stood up all over my arms, and the hair on the back of my

neck prickled. 

"It's all right Jim. I used to be friends with your father. In the war." His voice sounded

soft, muffled, but I had no trouble making out the words.

"You're not having a good time of it here with your mum and dad, are you?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm your uncle Buddy, Jim. I died before you were born."

"But what are you doing here now? You're, um . . ."

"Dead. That's the word. But that doesn't matter. The war was just over when you were

born, Jim." Suddenly he detached himself from the wall and walked forward, stood

beside the bed. 

I looked up at his face. It was reddish-brown as if he’d been in the sun. He had on a

uniform—khaki shirt and shorts—the same as in the mantelpiece picture. 

30

“Come on Jim. We’ve got work to do.” Buddy reached his hand out.

I took it.

Buddy turned and stepped straight towards the wall. As I got closer I saw in the dim light

that it wasn’t really a stain at all, it was more like a shivering sort of movement that you

couldn’t really focus on. 

Buddy stepped through and pulled me after him.  You tell this and describe it well. I get

that the boy is going into a different dimension with Buddy.

31

3

I felt my heart thud in my chest: fer-domp. 

Bright sunlight hit me in the face, making me squint. In front stretched barren rocky

ground for a hundred yards or so. 

I was carrying quite a weight. A heavy backpack, and a rifle. And a heavy belt round my

waist, with canvas pouches. Somehow I knew they were full of .303 bullets.  And now I

get that the boy is either remembering a past life or traveling into a book he read or

something he imagined.

In front of my face a fly hovered, and for a moment I thought it was stuck in time, but

then I noticed its wings. Up, pause, rotate slightly, then down, pause, rotate slightly back

again, up . . . 

To my left and right stood men in khaki uniform, rigid, unblinking. I took a step forward

and saw that I stood in the middle of the front rank of a squad of men. They all looked

disturbingly similar.

Fer-domp. My heartbeat boomed in my inner ear again. Somebody nudged my elbow. I

turned and saw a small boy; he carried the open top of a fruit crate as if it were a tray, full

of withered yellow fruit. 

32

The boy looked up at me and said, “Mango, effendi?”

A rough-looking sergeant came up to me. “Come on Buddy. Get in line. The Teds aren’t

going to wait for us.” Good introduction of his name.

“Er, right.” Why did he call me, Buddy? Where was Buddy, anyway? I looked around but

Buddy was nowhere in sight.

The sound of lorry engines came on the wind, then louder, and a line of Bedford three-

tonners drew up. 

The soldier next to me said, “Stick with me Buddy. We’ll show the Teds a thing or two.”

He steered me towards the nearest lorry. 

We clambered in. 

Shortly the Bedford pulled out, us swaying back and forth in the rear as the driver

accelerated, then crashed the gearbox, then accelerated again, finally getting up to a

boneshaking forty-five. My teeth rattled and I had to clench my jaw. The man next to me

laughed. Somehow I knew his name, Rusty. “It’s called washboard, Buddy.”

“Where are we going?”

33

“Some place the Teds are in, I dunno, Wadi El Araish or something like that.”

“Oh.”

“Your brother Eddie’s already there.” Here I get Eddie’s his dad in his real life, his

brother here, so the boy is his uncle Buddy during a war.

“Oh.” I got tired of shouting over the roar of the engine. It seemed weird to be here but

even weirder that Dad was here too, like in the fading black and white photos in the

dresser. Rusty just smiled or shrugged when I shouted questions at him, pointing to his

ear and shaking his head; the engine was so loud. I didn’t learn much. 

The other man in my team, Frank, had somehow dozed off and was leaning heavily on

me.

The sun went down and the horizon grew dark, but the lorries didn’t put their lights on. A

man with a dim red torch sat at the back of each. Every half mile we passed a shaded

lantern. 

As it grew darker the dust seemed to grow thicker, and many of the lanterns had been

smashed, so I began to wonder if the whole snake of vehicles would maybe end up in the

middle of the Sahara, that is if we were anywhere near the Sahara. My geography has

34

never been good, exactly.

After a couple of hours the driver changed down through the gears, turned right off the

rutted road, and bounced along over even rougher surfaces for a couple of hundred yards.

Then we stopped. 

The tailgate went down with a crash and I heard a loud voice shouting, “Everyone out!

Come on, sharpish!”

We climbed down onto the surface of the desert. It was low scrubby bushes, pebbles,

hard baked sand and clay. The men started digging trenches but it was hard going. Rusty

led me over to where three men were unpacking a box.

“Buddy, set up the mortar.” 

I began fumbling with the box.  You know, I haven’t been able to critique much in this

section; it pulls me in so, and has me racing through the story. Good work.

“Come on! Look, here is the baseplate.” Rusty handed me a curved steel plate.

It surprised me how easy it was to set it up. The rest of the night I helped dig, so by the

time the first rays of the sun came over the horizon in the east, we had a pit about four

feet deep. A lot of the guys, though, the ones that had preferred to get some sleep, just

35

had scrapes in the soil.

* * *

“Here come the Teds, Buddy. Time to get busy. You do know how to aim it, don’t you?”

“I’ve read the instructions,” I said.

“He’s read the instructions!” Rusty roared with laughter. 

Frank joined in. 

“Well, tell you what. You can spot. If we’re short, you have to say “up” to make us shoot

further, and give us the distance in yards, like ‘up fifty’ or ‘down twenty’. Got that?”

“Yes.”

I went and stood on an old ammo box and peered through the binoculars. Surprisingly

large through the glasses, a line of clumsy-looking armoured cars was coming toward us.

I lowered the binoculars and tried to estimate how far. Maybe four hundred yards? I

wasn’t too good at distances.

The field telephone rang. 

36

Rusty picked it up. “A.F.V.’s, yes. Cars. Three hundred? Right.” He turned and said,

“Three hundred yards, fire smoke.”

One soldier picked a bomb from the stack of ready ammo, then passed it to the other who

dropped it into the tube. After a moment the hollow-sounding explosion shot the bomb

into the air. 

I turned back to the front to see where it landed. 

A puff of yellow smoke came from somewhere behind the line of cars. At the same time I

saw bright lights winking from them and a moment later, the ‘ker-ack’ of bullets going

over. 

I leaped off the ammo box and crouched down. “It fell behind,” I shouted. 

I think they’d already seen that and adjusted the range. Hardly were the words out of my

mouth than the two-man team began dropping bombs into the tube as fast as they could,

which was pretty fast. 

“Three in the air,” Rusty yelled. “Four.” 

I became aware of the sounds of the other mortar teams on our left and right. The bullets

suddenly came a lot lower so I dropped below the parapet of the hole. Then I heard the

37

sound of the first bombs, ‘crump’, ‘crump’, crump-crump’.

“Drop twenty. Keep it up, lads!” I sneaked a look over the edge.

To my right, I heard loud bangs. Somehow I knew that they were our two-pounder anti-

tank guns opening up.

Rusty said, “They’re going away.” He peered quickly over the parapet. “All right, cease

fire, cease fire. They’re out of range.” 

I looked through the binoculars. The armoured cars had vanished behind clouds of dust.

Rusty’s voice came from behind. “How about a brew, JimBuddy? Why did he call the

boy Jim rather than Buddy? The tea’s in the sock over there.” 

I lowered the binoculars and saw the sock hanging on the side of the pit. 

The mortar team were was already starting a fire of petrol mixed with sand, in a

blackened petrol tin. 

I felt dizzy. The sun started going round and round my head, a roaring sound filling the

air, things going faster and faster until everything became a blur. 

The roaring sound changed to a loud moaning, went up in pitch like the wind howling in

38

telephone wires, became a shrill whistle. Great transition back into Jim’s world.

"JamesJim? Are you all right? You must have fallen down the stairs.”

A blur of pink settled down and became my mum's face above me. 

I hurt all over, especially my elbows, knees, and the side of my head. Then Dougal

arrived and began licking my face. I was lying in the hall at the bottom of the stairs,

listening to mum’s whistling kettle. 

"Mum? What's a mango?" It must have been a dream.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny, with no trace of the fog that had ruined Saturday.

Through my bedroom window I saw one of the electric trains leaving the station on the

northbound track, heading for the next stop, Formby, four miles north on the coast. I got

up just before nine and went downstairs to the kitchen. 

Mum was just putting down Dougal’s breakfast. The dog licked his lips as she placed the

bowl on the floor. My mother’s lips were set in a grim line, compressed and bloodless. Of

my father, I saw no sign.

“Where’s dad?”

“Out.”

“Oh.” I looked at the kitchen table but there was no place set for me.

39

Mum took a scouring pad from the sink and started scrubbing grease off the stove. I went

into the pantry, took the cornflakes box, and filled my Beatrix Potter bowl, the one with a

picture of Roger Rabbit playing cricket. I liked the bowl but I didn’t care much for the

cornflakes. They got soggy so quickly.

“Is it all right if I go out, mum?”

“Where? You’re not allowed to go near the river. The village, all right.”

I had a sudden flash of inspiration. “Can I go to the cricket club then?”

“I suppose so.”

I went to get my bike and cricket balls, but my bike had a flat tyre. By the time I fixed it

with the John Bull puncture kit, it was lunch time.

Dad came back just before Sunday lunch. My dread, but Dougal’s delight.

I sat in the window bay.

Mum pushed the kitchen table towards me, boxing me in.

My dad sat on the other side, making escape impossible, and lifted his newspaper.

My mum plonked a plate down in front of each of us, then sat down.

I stared at mine: triangular pieces of pale grey meat gathered in the middle of a pool of

lumpy brown gravy. Three shrivelled brown potatoes sat next to four mushy Brussells

sprouts.

40

I carefully scraped as much gravy as possible into a heap, then glanced down, under the

table. Dougal, watching me intently, pricked his ears up.

“The sea level’s rising, you know.”

My mum remained silent but my dad continued, “It’s those nuclear tests. They’re making

the earth hotter, melting the ice.”

“Mr B says the council should do something about it.”

“About the tests?” my dad lowered his newspaper slightly and peered past it, at my mum.

“No, dear. The excavator.”

“We were talking about that yesterday. I was talking about the tests.”

“Yes I know, you reminded me of what Mr B was saying because of the water. Going in

as far as Ormskirk.”

“Oh. What does Mr B know about it?”

“I believe he’s one of the ones going to take a look. Him and Mr P.”

41

While they were busy with their grown-up talk I took the chance to feed my lunch to

Dougal. After a decent interval I stood up. “Well I’ll be off now, mum.”

“If you go anywhere near the river—” my dad started.

“I’m going to practice my bowling. At the club.”

“Oh. I suppose that’s all right.”

There was a match going on at the main part of the club, so I went further down the lane

to where the second and reserve teams played.

After a while I got bored with bowling into the net. I crossed the field, heading towards

the used-tyre dump. They weren’t car tyres, but big, fat, round ones. Den once said they

were aircraft tyres, left over from the bombers in the war.

A half-empty ditch ran along the edge of the field. Tiny minnows, silver and gold, swam

in and out of the bullrushes. I knelt down and gazed into the clear water. After a while,

sudden movement caught my eye. A caddis fly larvae had found some prey.

A faint creaking sound made me look up. It came from the old pavilion, half-hidden by

brush and scrub. Although everyone called it the ‘Pavilion’, really it was just a shack.

42

I walked over to it. A few rickety wooden steps led up to an open front. I stepped to the

left, I don’t know why, and pulled the doorknob, the one on the door marked ‘visitors’.

The door swung open, so I walked inside. The room had a distinctive smell of wood, old

cricket pads, and dead flies.

A man was sitting in the corner. He wore cricket shorts, cricket shoes, white socks, but no

pads. He had on one of those white V-neck cricket sweaters. He wasn’t as old as my dad.

He wasn’t young, either. Probably he had been in the war. It seemed to me that pretty

much everyone had, since they still talked about it all the time.

Why was he dressed for cricket? I looked around. Wooden lockers, doors hanging open.

Sunlight glowed through the window, sending their pattern across the springy wooden

floor. It had been ages since anyone had painted the place. Dull white flakes of old paint

lay in drifts in the angles between walls and floor.

“Hello. Where are you from?”

“Oh—the village. You know.” I gestured vaguely in the direction of the cinder road,

perhaps a hundred metres down a rough track. “Been playing?”

“Bowled out. Gammy knee.” He pointed to his left knee. “Look—”

I moved closer. The skin over his knee looked like a crater.

43

“See this? motorcycle crash. Couldn’t walk for a couple of months. I can still bat, but I

can’t field. Here—” He took my hand and put it on his knee. “You can feel the bone isn’t

the right shape, can’t you?”

Feeling uneasy, I took my hand off his knee. “Yeah. Must’ve been a bad accident. What

speed were you doin’?”

“Whatever, it was too fast. Mind if I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.” I sneezed, without warning; the place was so dusty.

“Why do they come here to die, do you think? Why don’t they see what happened to the

others?”

“What?”

“The flies. All summer they come, and die like all the rest. Just like the war.”

He leaned forward and the evening sun, a deep ruby colour, painted his face. I saw a

pattern of lines on his cheek, deep at the corners of his eyes. He looked up.

“Do you like to touch yourself? Down there?”

44

The silence stretched between us. Cold dropped through the dusty air and settled on my

arms as gooseflesh. “No.”

“Liar.” His faded cornflower eyes stared through me, through the planks, across the fields

and far away. “Frogman liked to touch us down there. In the showers after the game. Play

up and play the game, Jennings.”

“The game?” Weren’t you supposed to humour crazy people?

“Oh, the great game, the greatest game of all.” He stood up and went to peer out the

window. “It’s going down.”

I thought I’d better be getting out of there.

He moved to the door. The boards creaked on the verandah, his shadow interrupted the

sunlight, just for an instant. Was he gone?

I sat there in silence until the first flight of ducks came over from the salt marsh. You tell

this spooky episode well, in an understated way, all the spookier for that.

45

4

I had to get the eight o'clock express train from Hightown or I'd be

late for assembly. Trouble was, the eight o'clock always arrived full of

sixteen-year-old snob girls from the all-girl Manor High. Manor being

fee-paying, they always had a style of putting me in my place, and

since they towered over me, this really pissed me off. So I pushed and

shoved my way on, all elbows and knees, with my nastiest face pasted

on. They got off at Crosby, but it took till the next stop, where I got

off, to get my expression back to normal. LOL

Skin, the school headmaster, announced that speech day was only

three weeks away. I groaned inside my head. Half an hour we all

stood there in assembly, in the great wax-floor-smelling hall, in four

columns facing the stage: Tudor House, with the first years in front,

and the A level guys at the back. Then to my left, Stuart House,

Lancaster House, and York House.

Den, standing next to me, muttered into my ear, "bloody German

first." A nearby prefect a nearly perfect what? swivelled his head

snake-like in our direction, so I couldn't reply.

Smug, the German master, watched as we lined up outside our own

classroom. Then he pointed his steel-edged ruler and bellowed

46

"Herein!" He was a big man, maybe six feet or so. We all spent forty

minutes cowering at our desks while Smug stalked back and forth

whacking the ruler into his hand. I was supposed to be construing the

third person nominaitive (spelling?) of the verb scheissen or

something like that. My brains were mush. All I could hear was the

whack! whack! of the ruler. I had ridges in my scalp from that ruler.

"Mimms get up."

Mimms, at the front of the class, started quaking. I saw his face falling

like ash.

"Mimms, ich möchte, du . . . "

Mimms was really shaking now. Speechless.

Smug stepped quickly forward, took hold of Mimms' ear, and pulled

Mimms to his feet. "You haven't been listening! I'll teach you!"

Smug brought his other arm around in a round-house slap and belted

Mimms across the ear with his open hand.

47

Mimms flew across the classroom and oof! into a cast-iron steam

radiator.

Smug went after him and dragged Mimms back up to his podium, then

bang! He gave him a good one in the other ear.

Mimms flew into the wall on the other side. He just managed to avoid

putting his head through the window. Slowly he walked back to his

desk shaking his head from side to side, and sat down. Then he fell off

his seat.

Silence. Mimms lay there.

Somehow, the nurse arrived. All this seemed to be taking a very long

time. The nurse led Mimms away. Wow, heavy story.

Break. I found Merv and Den at the side of the bike shed. I wasted

half the time talking about Smug and Mimms. Then I remembered my

plan. "Last weekend was crap. I lost my shoe in the Alt and mum

hasn't spoken to me up till now."

"Yeah." Den nodded.

48

"So if it's not foggy, and not raining, you've got to come, right? By

nine." If they didn't come I would be imprisoned again, with only

Dougal and the budgie on my side.

"Alright but you've got to go to the dance tonight. I'm not going on my

own and Den can't go," Merv said.

"Oh, all right. Now, on Saturday, I want to get as far as the old fort. I

found a map in my dad's bureau." I remembered that in the same

drawer, I found a book called 'The Miracle Of The Human Body'.

"There's a lighthouse, maybe two miles past the end of Thornbeck.

And then it shows the fort, maybe two more miles."

I'd often seen the fort, or rather just a corner of it, miles away, from

the train. I'd seen a tall fence, a gate, a concrete bunker, a strip of

road that started nowhere, led through the gate and disappeared into

the giant sand dunes.

* * *

On Wednesday evening I put my best gear on, including my

winklepickers, and caught the train two stops, to Crosby. The dance

49

was in the town hall, near the station, so it only took me a couple of

minutes walk.

Some skiffle group was already on, and they were pretty good for

skiffle, but when the main group came on, the skiffle seemed square.

The Starlites played like most of the bands. The lead guitar drowned

out the rhythm guitar, and the drums drowned that out, and the

vocalist got what was left. The VOX AC-30 amps sounded really loud.

The hall was about sixty feet long. On the left sat all the girls. The

boys including me sat on the other side. In between was no boy's or

girl's land. The band played desperately on.

After a couple of numbers some of the girls began dancing with each

other, giving the boys scornful looks.

I had no idea how to advance from the boy's trench across neutral

territory and speak to the aliens that sat over there. Did they wear

those new things they call tights? Too funny

"Den my head is spinning. How can you smoke those things?"

"I dunno you get used to it. Look at that blonde one over on the left.

She's wearing tights though."

50

"She's with that one with the big legs?"

"Oh God you're right. I don't fancy yours much." Den laughing.

Stuff you, Den. Me, I was secretly wishing of course that one of the

girls might accept an offer to dance. Out there. On the acres of

polished wood floor.

"The band is gear, innit."

"Gear. Yeah." Some guy marched out on the floor. Christ who was it?

About a year older than me. A girl with flaming red hair got up to

dance with him. Pretty. A huge pang of jealousy struck through me. I

found myself advancing across the dance floor. This horse-faced girl

with protruding teeth. Surely she wouldn't refuse. "Wanna dance?"

"No thanks."

I stood there with no reserve plan. Totally screwed. And then an

avalanche of guys arrived and in an instant all the girls were on the

dance floor jumping up and down with their partners. All except for

me. I went back to the wall and stood there thinking about girls.

51

I was always looking for one of those pneumatic American girls like in

the romantic films on at the Odeon. The films the girls liked. But they

didn’t look, these girls, anything like the ones in the films. These girls

had pinched blue faces and bruises for eyes and TCP kisses and Dettol

lips. These girls were all lumpy under the surface. These girls came

from council estates with prefabs and had brothers who were Teddy

Boys at night.

For a couple of weeks I had a girlfriend called Elaine, a blonde girl. I

didn’t meet her at one of these dances. Actually I had never met a girl

at a dance. Elaine organised a Dansette and a box of forty-fives for a

party one night, and I tagged along with someone else. We had a

game of spin the bottle and she took me upstairs with her, into her

room, a goldfish, a big poster of Elvis on the wall, and on the bed, we

did something. But in the morning I had bruises for eyes and had to

put TCP on my bitten-up lip. And after school that day I heard that

someone called “Danny” was looking for me.

I stood there against the wall until the music stopped, and thought,

good it’s nearly time to leave for the ten-thirty train.

"That was gear, wonnit." Dennis grinned.

52

"Wasn't it." My mum has been nagging me for speaking scouse. I put a

look on my face.

"Yeah. Gear . . . " Den had a smirk on his face.

I could see he was thinking of the girl who practically threw herself at

him.

"German tomorrow."

His smirk vanished.

53