Days went by, then more days, then even more, and it still didn’t get better. I kissed daddy and mummy and forgave them for letting go of Will, but it didn’t make it better, he still wasn’t there and it still hurt so much. There was so much bubbling around inside me over this; loss of my best friend and biggest cheerleader, a big, empty, echoing space in my life where Willie should have been, a feeling of dislocation and something deeply wrong, like the universe had taken a sidestep, and fear way down deep inside because Willie wasn’t gone because he was at university; I could have lived with that.
No, my fears were circling around where he was, and what he was training for; he was going to be a soldier, an officer in the army, and he was getting ready to go to war far away, our soldiers were dying in that war because it wasn’t a game, it was a real place, a death-place, and he was going there…
He’d always wanted to serve in both his and my daddy’s regiment, The Blues and Royals and be a tank commander in the armoured regiment like his daddy. Willie was never going to wear that shiny breastplate and carry a sword and escort the queen on a black horse through London looking all romantic and historic like daddy had; no, he was going to drive a tin can in a killing-zone and wait to be attacked, or lead formations of tin cans and hope the Taliban didn’t have sufficient firepower to knock them out. He was training to be a target, and my heart ached and shuddered at the thought of him fighting alone, so far from home, knowing he was the trophy scalp those crazy lunatics were looking for.
All of this bubbled around in me for days, keeping mummy a safe distance away from me because I was explosively outspoken, and mad as hell, and she didn’t want to deal with my moods and my mouth while worrying about daddy. Daddy did the best he could, for a soldier he was a remarkably soft-spoken, gentle man, and he gave me some of what I needed, but there was so much I didn’t understand going on with me, quite apart from the loss and anger, and anyway, he wasn’t Will; only my big bear could make it better, I was sure of it.
On top of that, whenever I tried to visualise Will’s face, his smile, his naughty grin when he was trying to put one over on me, the look on his face when one of my school friends (a boy, let’s be honest) tried to hold my hand or put their arm around me, or even just touch me, that icy, narrow-eyed look that said “get your grubby mitts off my sister or you will die…” my heart literally lurched and thundered and I dissolved in tears. I didn’t know his leaving would do this to me, how long and how much it would keep hurting, if I’d known I would have thrown myself in front of the car just to keep him with me…
The truth was I couldn’t stand even a day without him, this enormous pain inside me because I needed him so much was eating me up and I couldn’t stop it…
Talking to mummy was pointless; she loved me but she wouldn’t understand what I was feeling, daddy was even less help, he just wanted to baby me, so that left Aunt Kay, and I ended-up unburdening on her, telling her everything I was feeling, because she was the only “No-Judgement” zone I had.
She heard me out, all my angst and woe, and then she asked the real question, the one I wanted the answer to most of all.
“Georgy, what’s this really all about? Why does Willie going to military college hurt so much? You knew he had to grow up and leave one day, but he’ll be back, he has breaks and holidays, he can come back at any time, so tell me truthfully, what’s this really all about?”
She knew! She knew and she wanted me to say it, so I did, because I had nowhere left to go.
“I love him, Aunt Kay, and I want him back…”
Aunt Kay smiled sadly at me.
“I know baby, we all love him, and…” but I cut her short.
“No, I mean I LOVE him, really love him; I need him, I can’t be without him, and it’s burning me up inside!”
Aunt Kay pulled me closer, blotting my tears and crooning at me, calming me down, before hugging me close, the way she did when I was tiny.
“Georgy-Girl, I know you think you’re in love with Willie, it’s natural, he’s been part of you since you were a baby, he’s always been there for you, he’s your handsome big brother, your guardian angel and first call when you need help or a hug, and I know you think that means you love him, you should, but not in that way. Willie is your hero, he should be, but you’ll find other boys as you get older, boys you’ll start to like in… in that way, and you’ll eventually find a boy that you really do fall in love with, one who’ll make you feel like the way you do about Will right now, and you’ll both be happy. Give it time, baby, and give yourself a chance, you’re only young, you have plenty of time, believe me.”
So I let her wipe my tears away and hold me, and rock me, and soothe me, but I knew she was wrong; Willie was mine, and one day I was going to show her how wrong she was!
*****
Watching Will at his passing-out parade was the hardest thing I’d ever done; I didn’t think how dashing and martial he looked, I didn’t think for one second how smart his cadet uniform was; all I could think was ‘this is it; now he’s a soldier, and he’s going to that place and I may never see him again.’ What had I ever done to be punished like this? I was going to lose daddy, and sometime soon, I was going to watch the news as they unloaded the coffins at RAF Lyneham and heard Willie’s name listed among the dead, I just knew it, and all my dreams and hopes and plans for my life would be for nothing, just a life alone and another coffin in the family vault, and the final end of the Wilmot name after nearly nine hundred years.
*****
Dreaming Of the Someone You Could Be
Will:
Leaving home, and leaving my baby sister Georgy behind, was the hardest, most heartbreaking thing I have ever done in my life; the look of loss and deep betrayal on her sweet little face literally ripped my heart in two; I actually came within a hairsbreadth of telling dad to ‘stop! I’m not doing this, I can’t!’ but I didn’t, and the last I saw of Georgy was her stricken face as she cried for me to come back.
The drive down to Camberley in Surrey was mostly in silence; mum and dad were excited at the thought I was going into the Royal Military Academy, but they weren’t exactly jumping with joy at the thought of me leaving home, and I was missing Georgy with a sick intensity I’d never felt before. Part of me was missing, and I really didn’t feel like filling the gap with trivial conversation, so any questions they asked me usually got a morose, monosyllabic reply. I didn’t feel like chit-chatting, I was missing Georgy sitting in the back of the car with me playing ‘Bug-Slug’, where she punched me every time she saw a VW Beetle.
*****
Settling-in was a lot easier than I thought it would be; the 44-week officer’s commissioning curriculum we studied ensured we received a well-rounded military education, with solid military training, and the option to continue with more academic pursuits post-commissioning existed. I wasn’t going to do that; I was looking to complete pre-commissioning, go to regular army units for more specialised training, pass-out as a commissioned officer, and accept further academic training if my circumstances warranted it.
There was a lot (a lot…) of P. E., and obviously our curriculum was heavily biased toward military pursuits, so lots of martial history, from the Punic Wars to Korea, basic military skills and physical fitness, and leadership and academic training in various subjects and disciplines. This was also when I was able to definitively make my selection for my future regiment, the Household Armoured Cavalry, like my father before me.
In between terms we were sent on adventurous training exercises both in the UK and overseas; my enduring memory is visiting and training with the British Army Gurkha Selection Unit in Kathmandu, but there was also desert training in Bahrain with elements of the 7th Armoured (‘The Desert Rats’), and jungle warfare training in Belize.
Drill sergeants yelled at us a lot, made us practice formations and parade-ground manoeuvres until our legs were ready to drop off, then make us do it all over again the next day; they treated us like the sons they’d never wanted, so no hints of favouritism could ever reasonably be levelled their way. Lots of death-threats were levelled at us, and, bearing in mind we were all technically officers in Her Majesty’s armed forces, screamed statements along the lines of “You worthless fucking maggot, you drop that one more time and I will shove my boot up your arse, why are you here, do you like pissing me off, or do your parents just fucking hate you… sir?”
It could get kind of surreal at times…
*****
Whenever I did get home, Georgy would literally pounce on me and bowl me over, laughing and gabbling and crying all at once and I’d hug her tightly because it felt so good to have my best bud back again, and she’d drag me off to go see her newest thing, usually another horse, and we’d groom her horse together and chat about Sandhurst, home, any and everything.
Dad seemed to not be doing too well, even though he swore up and down that he was fine, just old-age catching up with him which set my alarm bells ringing ‘dead-slow’; dad was only 52, but he looked much older, thinner, and what was with the walking stick? Of course he laughed it off when I questioned him, so did mum, and Aunt Kay, even Georgy, so I had to leave it be, but I still couldn’t figure out why everyone felt they had to lie to me every time I went home, and why dad looked older and more haggard and just beaten down…