upon learning of his death’ (surely that wasn’t a crack in Nixon’s voice?) ‘aboard HMS Coventry is as bitter as it is heartfelt. The mood of depression both in the staffroom and in this hall tells me that this grief is shared by all of us.’ (Mr Nixon took off his glasses and for a moment he looked not like an SS commandant but just somebody’s tired dad.) ‘I will be sending a telegram of condolence to Thomas’s family after assembly, on behalf of the school. I hope that those of you who are close to the Yews will lend them your support. Life can inflict few cruelties – perhaps no cruelty – more acute than the death of a son – or brother. However, I also hope that you will give Thomas’s family sufficient space in which to grieve.’ (A few of the third-year girls were weeping now. Mr Nixon looked in their direction, but he’d turned his death ray off. He said nothing for five, ten, fifteen seconds. A bit of shuffling started. Twenty, twenty-five, thirty seconds. I intercepted a look from Miss Ronkswood to Miss Wyche that said, Is he okay? Miss Wyche shrugged, very slightly.) ‘I hope,’ Mr Nixon finally went on, ‘that, as you consider Thomas’s sacrifice, you will think about the consequences of violence, be it military or emotional. I hope you will note who initiates violence, who conducts the violence, and who must pay the price of violence. Wars do not simply appear from nowhere. Wars come, over a long period of time, and believe me, there is always plenty of blame to be shared out between all those who failed to prevent its bloody arrival. I also hope you will consider what is truly precious in your own lives, and what is merely…flim-flam…grandstanding…froth…posturing…egotism.’ Our headmaster looked spent. ‘That is all.’ Mr Nixon nodded at Mr Kempsey at the piano. Mr Kempsey told us to turn to the hymn that goes, Oh hear us when we cry to thee for those in peril on the sea. We all stood up and sang it for Tom Yew.
Normal assemblies have mile-high messages carved into them like Helping People Is Good, or Even Dimmest Dimmers Can Succeed If They Never Give Up. But I’m not sure if even the teachers were sure what Mr Nixon meant this morning.
Tom Yew’s death killed the thrill of the war. There was no way to get his body back to Worcestershire so he’s been buried out there, on those rocky islands still being fought over. Nothing’s got back to normal yet. Make-believe grief is fun. But when someone really dies, there’s just this horrible draggingness. Wars go on for months, or years. Vietnam did. Who says this won’t be one of them? The Argentinians’ve got 30,000 men on the Falklands, all in dug-in positions. We’ve got just 6,000 trying to scramble out of our bridgehead. Two of our only three Chinook helicopters were lost when the Atlantic Conveyor was sunk, so our soldiers’re having to advance towards Port Stanley on foot. Surely even Luxembourg’s got more than three decent helicopters? There’s rumours of the Argentinian navy breaking out of its ports and cutting off our sea-lines to Ascension Island. We’re running out of petrol, too. (Like the armed forces of Great Britain just add up to this crap family saloon car.) Mount Kent, Two Sisters, Tumbledown Mountain. The names’re friendly but the terrain isn’t. Brian Hanrahan says the only cover for the marines are giant boulders. Our helicopters can’t give air cover ’cause of the mist, snow, hail, gales. Like Dartmoor, he said, in midwinter. Our paras can’t dig foxholes ’cause the ground’s too hard and some’ve even been crippled with trench-foot. (My granddad once said how his dad’d got trench-foot in Passchendaele in 1916.) East Falkland’s one massive minefield. The beaches, the bridges, the gulleys, everywhere. At night, enemy snipers call for starshell so the landscape’s lit dazzling like fridge-light. Bullets rain down. The Argentinians are using ammunition, one expert says, like they’ve got an unlimited supply. Plus, our men can’t just bomb the buildings or we’d end up killing the same civilians we’re s’posed to be saving. And there’s not that many of them. General Galtieri knows the winter’s on his side. From the balcony of his palace, he said Argentina will fight until the very last man, dead or alive.
Nick Yew hasn’t come back to school. Dean Moran saw him in Mr Rhydd’s shop buying a box