0:00:02 > 0:00:04GENTLE PIANO MUSIC
0:00:04 > 0:00:10This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12BUZZ OF CHATTER
0:00:29 > 0:00:33Douglas Fairbanks there thinks he's in with a chance.
0:00:33 > 0:00:34A bit of company on a wet Friday night.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Except old Dougie doesn't have a cast in his eye and a built-up shoe.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43At least, not last time I was at the flickers.
0:00:47 > 0:00:48It's always the eyes.
0:00:50 > 0:00:51That's how you know.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55A glance held just that little bit too long,
0:00:55 > 0:00:59dragged off to one side, like the trail of a Very light in the dark.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04After the do, the, um, interview...
0:01:05 > 0:01:11..the officer asks me, not unkindly, I must say, "So how do you chaps,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14"chaps like you and the captain, know one another?"
0:01:14 > 0:01:15So I told him.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20Not my words, something somebody said to me once.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26"A certain liquidity of the eye."
0:01:30 > 0:01:31That's how HE knew.
0:01:36 > 0:01:38My eyes are bad, mind you.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40Too bad for shooting Prussians at any rate,
0:01:40 > 0:01:42so I was shunted onto hospital work.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44"Cushy", says Sam.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47"That's a charabanc holiday, Perce.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49"You always wanted to see France, didn't you?"
0:01:51 > 0:01:54I remember my first day in resus - the resuscitation tent.
0:01:56 > 0:01:58That's where they take the dying or the nearly dying
0:01:58 > 0:01:59and the shocked ones.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03There's heated beds to put some life back into them, and transfusions.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07Our guns were going hell for leather.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09The sky was all lit up - powdery, green.
0:02:09 > 0:02:10Horrible green.
0:02:12 > 0:02:13Like the air was sick.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16Star shells, Verys, dumps going up.
0:02:18 > 0:02:20And then the ambulances come in and we have to ferry them in,
0:02:20 > 0:02:21the ones that can't walk.
0:02:23 > 0:02:24And they've got these labels on them
0:02:24 > 0:02:26that tell you what's wrong with them.
0:02:28 > 0:02:29Like left luggage.
0:02:31 > 0:02:32Have you ever carried a stretcher?
0:02:32 > 0:02:34Bloody horrible.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38You feel like your arms are going to pop out of their sockets.
0:02:38 > 0:02:39Some chaps can get very heavy.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48Those that can walk into the hospital...
0:02:49 > 0:02:51..are covered in mud and salt sweat.
0:02:51 > 0:02:52Caked in it.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55All stiff and cracked, like moving statues,
0:02:55 > 0:02:58like those poor fuckers in Pompeii what got covered in lava.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01I've seen photographs of them in the lending library.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04And then, in the resus tent, a thing you'd never expect.
0:03:06 > 0:03:07Silence.
0:03:09 > 0:03:11Not a moan or a groan.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15They're beyond all that, I suppose, most of them.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21Smoking, breathing, just about.
0:03:21 > 0:03:23Mind you, I've seen what a transfusion can do
0:03:23 > 0:03:25and it is a bloody miracle.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30Lads with one foot in the grave and their pulses all thready,
0:03:30 > 0:03:32they have the transfusion, they're up, they're joking,
0:03:32 > 0:03:34they're having a smoke in a couple of hours.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38I said to Captain Leslie, I said, "You wouldn't credit it, would you?
0:03:38 > 0:03:40"It's like... It's like witchcraft."
0:03:42 > 0:03:43"Sounds about right", he says,
0:03:45 > 0:03:46"since we're in hell."
0:03:47 > 0:03:49But he says it with a smile and when he does that
0:03:49 > 0:03:52there's these creases in his cheeks like ripples in the sand.
0:03:55 > 0:03:58"You're a credit to this unit, Percy", he says to me.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01"You've all the tenderness of a woman."
0:04:01 > 0:04:02And he shakes my hand.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06"It's Terrence," he says and I says, "What is?"
0:04:06 > 0:04:07He says, "Me.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10"My name. Terence Lesley.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12"Do call me Terence.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14"I can't bear all this formal rot."
0:04:14 > 0:04:17But he's an officer and it don't seem right, so,
0:04:17 > 0:04:21"I'll stick to Captain Leslie," I say, "if it's all the same."
0:04:22 > 0:04:25He just smiles again and shrugs.
0:04:26 > 0:04:27And his eyelashes are long.
0:04:30 > 0:04:31Long and blonde.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36I can't see much of his hair cos it's under his cap,
0:04:36 > 0:04:38but then one day I'm bringing in a stretcher...
0:04:39 > 0:04:43..and he takes his hat off and, just like that, his hair tumbles out.
0:04:45 > 0:04:46Yellow as corn.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51And I must have stared because he grins at me
0:04:51 > 0:04:53and pushes his hair out of his eyes and says,
0:04:53 > 0:04:55"Come along, Perce, stir your stumps."
0:04:57 > 0:04:58But I don't move.
0:05:00 > 0:05:01And just for a bit...
0:05:06 > 0:05:09Well, like I say, held just a...
0:05:09 > 0:05:10just a moment too long.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17Douglas Fairbanks over there will give me a wink in a minute.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23There you go.
0:05:23 > 0:05:24HE SIGHS KNOWINGLY
0:05:26 > 0:05:28I've always been a skinny bugger, me.
0:05:28 > 0:05:29Thin as a whip, Mother says.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32Father was the same.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36Mother always had a bit more beef on her after she had Albert and me,
0:05:36 > 0:05:38and there was one before us.
0:05:38 > 0:05:39A boy.
0:05:40 > 0:05:41But he died.
0:05:41 > 0:05:44He was called Percy, an' all.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47Poison berries. Never think a thing like that can happen, but it does.
0:05:48 > 0:05:52I can remember Mother showing me the pictures in the medicine book,
0:05:52 > 0:05:56all shiny and glossy pictures like Jesus in the book at Sunday School.
0:05:58 > 0:06:00And little Percy had grabbed a handful of these berries and...
0:06:02 > 0:06:03..that was that.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08Box, I think, the berries.
0:06:08 > 0:06:09Black, like little bullets.
0:06:09 > 0:06:11Like liquorice sweeties.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15Maybe that's what little Percy thought they was.
0:06:15 > 0:06:19Anyway, they done for him and then, a year or so after that,
0:06:19 > 0:06:21along comes I and they call me Percy, too.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26A bit odd, some might say, a bit morbid,
0:06:26 > 0:06:29but Mother always said that she could see him in me.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32And she looks so funny when she says that to me...
0:06:33 > 0:06:34..and she looks so sad.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40But I don't think it's just because of little Percy because there was
0:06:40 > 0:06:42another time she looked at me the same way.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49It was freezing, I remember that.
0:06:49 > 0:06:50We was waiting for a train.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56Dad had some business in Reading, I forget what it was.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59We were to come with and make a day of it.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01I was 15, thereabouts.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04Albert was 12. I'd been dispatched in search of tea and buns.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08They all sat in the waiting room, steam coming off them like wet dogs.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11Anyway, I'm on my way to the refreshments
0:07:11 > 0:07:15and there's a commotion, so I think, "Oh, the train must be coming in,"
0:07:15 > 0:07:18so I say to the girl behind the tea stall,
0:07:18 > 0:07:21pretty girl I remember with bows in her hair,
0:07:21 > 0:07:22I ask her to get a shift on.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25She says, "What's the hurry? The Reading train isn't in for another
0:07:25 > 0:07:29"quarter of an hour." So I think, "What's all the fuss about, then?"
0:07:29 > 0:07:31And then I see it ahead of me on the platform.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33Policemen, at least I think they're policemen,
0:07:33 > 0:07:37but then I look properly and they're not, they're from the jail.
0:07:37 > 0:07:42Dark uniforms, little hats with shiny brims.
0:07:42 > 0:07:43And between them,
0:07:43 > 0:07:46well, a...a prisoner...
0:07:48 > 0:07:51..waiting to be taken away, I suppose.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54And it's not the first time I've seen as such.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56I used to see them a lot, poor bastards,
0:07:56 > 0:08:00shuffling along in their chains and the arrows on their clothes.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03And it's rough clobber, like to make you itch, worse than this.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07So, "Why are all these folk whispering and pointing?" I wonder.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11So I look at the chap in the chains and he's a big chap,
0:08:11 > 0:08:14sort of like a big bear of a fella.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18With a big slack, pouchy face.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23Fat-ish, except it's all sunk in now,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27and his hair, which was most likely black as your hat
0:08:27 > 0:08:29is now shot through with grey.
0:08:29 > 0:08:31And he looks wretched.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35As well he might. There's rain dripping off his hair
0:08:35 > 0:08:37and down the creases in his big face.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42And then I realise, it's not just rain, he's bloody crying.
0:08:44 > 0:08:45And then he looks at me.
0:08:46 > 0:08:47And there it was.
0:08:51 > 0:08:53In that moment...
0:08:54 > 0:08:57..a certain liquidity of the eye.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02And then he looks back down at his boots...
0:09:02 > 0:09:05and it's as if the whole world has come tumbling down around him.
0:09:08 > 0:09:09I stand there.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12And I think,
0:09:12 > 0:09:13"He knows me.
0:09:16 > 0:09:17"He knows me for what I am.
0:09:20 > 0:09:21"He can see it in me."
0:09:22 > 0:09:24And I start to shake.
0:09:24 > 0:09:26And it's not from the cold, it's shame.
0:09:28 > 0:09:29And fear and...
0:09:31 > 0:09:32..terror.
0:09:33 > 0:09:34And someone starts laughing.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38And there's a little girl and she's wandered close to the prisoner.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41She's got a little wooden horse on a dirty bit of string.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44And then her mother goes up and drags the girl away from the man
0:09:44 > 0:09:46as if he were like to eat her up.
0:09:47 > 0:09:48And then I hear it, a name.
0:09:50 > 0:09:51Whispered behind fancy gloves
0:09:51 > 0:09:54and November hands what are stiff with cold.
0:09:55 > 0:09:57"It's him, isn't it?"
0:09:59 > 0:10:02And suddenly Dad's beside me and he's gripping my arm and he says,
0:10:02 > 0:10:03"You all right, Perce?"
0:10:03 > 0:10:05And he's proper worried.
0:10:07 > 0:10:09And there's a sort of ringing noise in my ear and I feel for a moment
0:10:09 > 0:10:12like I might faint, but then this chap goes straight up
0:10:12 > 0:10:14to the prisoner on the platform and he...
0:10:15 > 0:10:17He spits in his face.
0:10:18 > 0:10:19And Dad looked shocked.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23And just then, the train comes puffing into the station,
0:10:23 > 0:10:24steam everywhere.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28And I look back to the prisoner,
0:10:28 > 0:10:31but he's covered now in a great big cloud of steam.
0:10:34 > 0:10:37Dad picks up the tea and the buns and he gets us into the carriage.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40It smells of damp wool and musty, like church,
0:10:40 > 0:10:43and there's little beads of rain on the window, the open window.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46And Mum pulls down the leather strap and the sound sort of...
0:10:47 > 0:10:48..snaps me out of it.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53"What was all that fuss about there, Clem?"
0:10:54 > 0:10:58And Dad sups at his tea and it hangs in little drops from the ends of his
0:10:58 > 0:11:01Kitchener 'tashe. "You won't believe it," he says.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06"Out there on the platform, waiting to be taken to prison..."
0:11:06 > 0:11:08"Who?" pipes up Albert.
0:11:08 > 0:11:10And he looks at us and he shakes his head in wonder.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16"Oscar Wilde!" he says.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22And then Mum looks at me.
0:11:25 > 0:11:26Tender, like...
0:11:31 > 0:11:32I've never had the nerve.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36That's the thing, I suppose.
0:11:36 > 0:11:38A notion of getting in trouble or being a bother...
0:11:40 > 0:11:41I could always imagine Mother's face
0:11:41 > 0:11:44if she found out I'd been up to things.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49And I couldn't bear it, I couldn't bear to disappoint, so
0:11:49 > 0:11:51I didn't, I didn't do anything about it.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55Not even a tuppeny wank with Sam or nothing.
0:11:57 > 0:11:58I kept my own counsel, as they say.
0:12:03 > 0:12:05Also, there was a girl who was sweet on me.
0:12:05 > 0:12:06Annie.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11And that sort of stopped people asking, I suppose.
0:12:13 > 0:12:14We courted for a long while,
0:12:14 > 0:12:17but she got fed up because I never asked her to marry me.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21I took on like Annie had broke my heart and then,
0:12:21 > 0:12:25what with one thing or another and then the war, it sort of, somehow,
0:12:25 > 0:12:29I got away with it. A lot of questions, of course.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31Especially when all us Tommies were billeted together
0:12:31 > 0:12:33for the first time. "You married?" "No."
0:12:34 > 0:12:37"You got a girl?" "Well, I used to."
0:12:42 > 0:12:45And then one day, in Amiens, there was a sort of lull.
0:12:47 > 0:12:48Hot as hell it was.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53Not what you think. People think of all that mud and rain,
0:12:53 > 0:12:55but we was there the live long year
0:12:55 > 0:12:57and sometimes it was hot and parched.
0:12:57 > 0:12:58Fucking flies everywhere.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03Blue and green bellies on them. Fat.
0:13:03 > 0:13:05Great clouds of them because of the dead bodies.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07And Captain Leslie comes up to me
0:13:07 > 0:13:09and he slaps me on the shoulder and he says,
0:13:09 > 0:13:11"Come along, Perce, we're going hunting."
0:13:11 > 0:13:14And I say, "What?" He says, "Butterflies",
0:13:14 > 0:13:16because we're camped on this sort of downland.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21And there's marigolds and poppies all over, little splashes of colour.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25I can still taste the dust.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30Chalky in your mouth and your hair and...
0:13:31 > 0:13:33..on the Dunlop tyres like white paint,
0:13:33 > 0:13:37because Terrence had only gone and got us bicycles, the silly bugger.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39And it was only for a few hours
0:13:39 > 0:13:41but you could forget, you know, for a bit,
0:13:41 > 0:13:42everything that was going on.
0:13:45 > 0:13:46And we came to this sort of lake.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50It was a crater hole, I suppose,
0:13:50 > 0:13:55and the water was glass green and clear like a perfume bottle.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00And Terence, he starts hollering and rattling the bike down to the water
0:14:00 > 0:14:02and he pulls off all his clothes and in he goes.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08I follows, and then we go splashing about in our birthday suits.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11And he's brick red from the sunshine,
0:14:11 > 0:14:13but not where his shirt's been,
0:14:13 > 0:14:16so he's got this sort of red face and arms, and the rest of him is...
0:14:18 > 0:14:19He's like a ghost.
0:14:22 > 0:14:24And after we've swum about,
0:14:25 > 0:14:28we just lie in the grass and fall asleep.
0:14:31 > 0:14:34You can hear the buzz of the flies, but they are way off
0:14:34 > 0:14:36and some of the ones that are closer are butterflies,
0:14:36 > 0:14:38so that's all right, and I just...
0:14:39 > 0:14:41..lie there and I watch Terence sleeping and...
0:14:43 > 0:14:45..his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
0:14:47 > 0:14:48And his hair is golden.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52And the line of his jaw is just sort of...
0:14:53 > 0:14:54..perfect.
0:14:56 > 0:14:58Like a draughtsman's drawn it.
0:14:59 > 0:15:00Like I'd drawn it.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06And his lips are dark and full and they're like bramble.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11And all I want to do is bend down and...
0:15:14 > 0:15:16And he opens his eyes...
0:15:17 > 0:15:18..and squints.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23And he lifts his hand to cover them so he can see better.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28And he says, "We'd best be getting back."
0:15:33 > 0:15:35We all had on us the stench of death.
0:15:37 > 0:15:39The bread we ate, the stagnant water,
0:15:39 > 0:15:42everything we touched had a rotten smell.
0:15:44 > 0:15:45But that day, everything was OK.
0:15:48 > 0:15:49It was bright.
0:15:51 > 0:15:52And it was pure, you see?
0:15:56 > 0:15:58And nobody had seen, had they?
0:16:02 > 0:16:04I've done my bit.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07The officer mentioned that.
0:16:07 > 0:16:08Exemplary service.
0:16:09 > 0:16:13When he took me aside for a quiet word.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15And of course, what had Terence and me...
0:16:15 > 0:16:17What had the Captain and me...
0:16:17 > 0:16:19..got up to?
0:16:20 > 0:16:22Sweet FA.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25But someone had seen us and...
0:16:26 > 0:16:29..they thought, "Hello, what's going on here?"
0:16:29 > 0:16:34And it's bad for morale and all of that, so I was to be sent elsewhere.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44And, of course, I didn't get to see the Captain, did I?
0:16:44 > 0:16:45Because he'd been transferred, too.
0:16:47 > 0:16:49I was packed onto this carriage...
0:16:50 > 0:16:53..sweat and tobacco smelling and fellas pushing up against you
0:16:53 > 0:16:56and shoving for room, and the train gives a great big lurch
0:16:56 > 0:16:58and then it starts off.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02I just sit down on the floor and pull me cap over me eyes
0:17:02 > 0:17:04and drift off.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10I don't know how much time has passed, but...
0:17:10 > 0:17:13I wake up and it's dark outside.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17And the train's pulling into a station
0:17:17 > 0:17:21and in the carriage it's just these little night lights on - bluey.
0:17:23 > 0:17:25They make everyone look three-parts dead.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28And the train pulls into the station
0:17:28 > 0:17:30and it's going slow, like, puffing,
0:17:30 > 0:17:32like some of them boys in the resus tent.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37And then, I do see him.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41Terence.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44He's out the window, on the platform.
0:17:45 > 0:17:50Grey coat, hair tucked under his cap, neat.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52And he's talking to someone.
0:17:53 > 0:17:54And they must have made him laugh
0:17:54 > 0:17:57cos there's those little lines in his cheeks again.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59But he don't see me.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03So I push through the carriage past the other fellas
0:18:03 > 0:18:05and it's not easy now cos most have dropped off
0:18:05 > 0:18:07and I trip over some poor bugger and he curses me,
0:18:07 > 0:18:10but I make it to the window and I pull down the sash...
0:18:11 > 0:18:13..and the air outside is warm.
0:18:16 > 0:18:17And all I want to do is wave.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21But, of course, what can I say?
0:18:21 > 0:18:22Um...
0:18:23 > 0:18:26"So long, Captain Leslie?"
0:18:27 > 0:18:28"So long, Perce."
0:18:30 > 0:18:31But then he does see me.
0:18:33 > 0:18:34He glances over,
0:18:34 > 0:18:36but he's still talking to his pal
0:18:36 > 0:18:38and just then the train lurches forward.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43The brakes go on and the blue lights go out
0:18:43 > 0:18:45and just like that, pitch-black.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51And all the other fellas in the carriage start groaning
0:18:51 > 0:18:53and someone says, "Oh, here we fucking go,"
0:18:53 > 0:18:57but all I can feel is my heart beating and the air.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00And the darkness pressing against the window
0:19:00 > 0:19:03and my hand gripping the window ledge.
0:19:04 > 0:19:06And then someone takes my hand.
0:19:09 > 0:19:10Someone outside on the platform.
0:19:12 > 0:19:13And it's Terence.
0:19:18 > 0:19:20And he takes my hand and he just...
0:19:22 > 0:19:24..lifts it to his lips and he kisses it.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38There's no train then, there's no troops, there's no war.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43There's just his bramble lips
0:19:43 > 0:19:45pressed against the tips of my fingers...
0:19:46 > 0:19:48..and all the hair on my neck goes up on end.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57And then the train lurches forward
0:19:57 > 0:20:01and he's let go of my hand and all the blue lights go on, and...
0:20:05 > 0:20:06Outside there's nothing but steam.
0:20:10 > 0:20:11Steam and darkness.