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Vol. 1. SHORT STORIES
Long Lasting Memories of True Stories My Dad Told of World War II
IMPACT
Having parachuted down, landing somewhere in-occupied France, my father was now within the perimeter of a field, quickly gathering up his parachute.
Just after completing these manoeuvres he heard a fast, increasing whistle coming from above, directly overhead. He instinctively looked up, to see a black dot, becoming larger every second.
Jim’s stance instantly took on the appearance of a juggler in some kind of bizarre life or death circus act, whose highly thrown and dangerous object had moved disturbingly out of position; all arms and hands, with legs spread apart, feet shuffling, quickly moving him from one foot to the other, as if on red-hot coals, springing himself from side to side, every sinew filled with, if it was possible at this stage, even more adrenalin, eyes popping lidlessly outwards, neck craning, back-backwards sprung, still looking upwards, trying to work out, in which direction to move. Not to catch this object though, but to get out of the way very quickly, away from the incoming plunge of a plummeting and death bound poor soul, whose parachute didn’t open!By sheer luck for Jim and a lot of calculated agility on his part, the body missed by a matter of yards, Thhud. The now corpse, God bless him, had ploughed into Jim’s field and was immediately cast into a mould of firmed down turf; planting itself somewhere in the not so occupied depths of one of France’s plentiful terra firma regions.
I say now corpse, because a few seconds before my father had seen a bloke speedily flailing downwards, unswervingly through the sky, at a horrific rate of descent. And now in my father’s mind, and possibly at this point, in his imagination, Jim told of seeing the fellow’s expression, as if in that instant, deathly moment, he had actually looked into the falling man’s eyes for a fleeting nanosecond.
These nightmarish, headlong glances, along with this unfortunate chaps split second body language of trying to protect himself, with his arms and hands, from the fast approaching Earth, must have been a mind stirring experience, if not a mind blowing sight to witness, even for a soldier! Something impossible for any sane human being ever to get used to, train for, or forget!After cautiously running over to find the fallen fellow, - who, my father soon came to realize, was encased a foot deep into the field, lain face down, with his legs spread, and arms akimbo, - Jim’s duties now were to dig out, retrieve and collect this dead man’s dog tag for identification purposes. And I’ll always remember Jim saying, that on doing this gruesome task, he had noticed, amongst the other things lodged in and about the body, that the deceased’s wristwatch had embedded itself neatly into this poor chaps wrist, such was the impact.
~ N.W.
| Nigel Wilson |
Page 1 |
15/05/2002 |
Vol. 1. SHORT STORIES
Long Lasting Memories of True Stories My Dad Told Me of World War II
Impact Foot Notes
Out of absolute respect for both my father and his army comrades, I hope the details of this story and possibly a few others that I have in mind, are as accurate, and as true as possible. Although they are far from being nice, they have nevertheless still happened, and it shouldn’t be forgotten how and what these people gave of themselves to save their Country; otherwise that really would be a shameful waste of Human Lives and their Histories. It seems that in due course, some bad things told in story form, are better shared for the good!
I was around five or six when Jim told me this particular story for the first time, now I’m nearly thirty-six and I’ve never forgotten one expression or detail of his to this day. You could say then that Jim’s war stories, and his certain way of telling them, left an impression on me, if not having at the time an immediate impact! Although admittedly over the next two decades, these stories, - that I have only recently given names to – continued to crop up, individually; usually triggered off by some chanced or roving conversation at work, or on my hearing the same stories being told by Jim, to customers in our cycle shop.
From recollection, I would say that I have heard these tales told in all, between three and a half a dozen times, each, in twenty years! Not that many times, coming to think of it, yet the overall effect, of each story’s repeated recital, seemed to me, to be like a slow drip into my life, rendering myself in my ignorance, with what I thought at the time as being another boring rendition. I recognize now that the apathy of my mid youth towards my father’s stories was only familiarity paddling in the shallow end of contempt, leading off to nothing more than a mild and occasionally forgotten under-current of low voltage frustration. All linked to a mind, seemingly naturally able to remember, and hence, naturally unable to forget, certain, strange and unusual things.
Unabashed by bias from the first, I had already come to the conclusion that these were note worthy stories, and I felt that they shouldn’t only be banded about by word of mouth alone! I was of the mind that they were too precious, of a unique history. “You aught to write a book!” my mother would say to him. I would agree to myself, in my own feign to reticence; after that you wouldn’t have to keep repeating them, as you’d be able to give us all a book to read instead! I won’t have to worry about forgetting any of the details either! I could sense that Olive’s idea wasn’t taken into Jim’s thoughts too seriously though; somehow knowing that this wouldn’t be in Jim’s nature; probably because I could see that he enjoyed talking to enlighten people in his own special modus operandi, and to the point of envy, he was, I realize now, a joy to hear and watch. So thankfully I saved my breath and Jim’s words in my head.
After hearing these stories of Jim’s, I feel like I’ve been there in my mind, on and off for the last thirty years. I’ve been subconsciously proud to remember these heroic and horrific tales, pictured and stored in my head, and consciously proud of knowing someone from this era, who unknowingly passed on their memoirs, for me to write! I’m glad I was there to be told; which has eventually driven me to put pen to paper, in another genre! - passing on ‘our’ first short story! – for this (accidentally?) coincides with a fairly recent inclination of mine to write poetry, which also derives from a pure restlessness of mind. Giving me vent to inner feelings, absorbed latent observations, present day thoughts and even moving me to push onto my imagination!
Having been greeted with some interest, but primarily because I’m enjoying writing about nostalgic little glimpses of past moments spent with my father, I feel inspired to thoroughly recollect these funny stories, which Jim used to randomly exuberate off the cuff. Giving the listener, and now the reader, a snatched insight of torture, earth, mud, blood and guts, all from the safety of nearly sixty years of time.
Yes, now is the time to tell of them. Now Rest In Peace! And on we go.
God bless you guys up there, and down below!~ N.W.
| Nigel Wilson | Page 2 |
15/05/2002 |
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