Distinguished Service.

After what happened Pastor Hickey didn’t know what to say to his congregation. He knew them well, perhaps too well. A shifting in the seats and the Craig’s baby crying and being comforted by John and Wilma. Some of the older women fanned their faces with their prayer books. Men in shirt and ties went through the motions of listening, of being attentive to pre-lunch chit-chat about God. Then the Spirit moved through Pastor Hickey, his unsure voice, unusually strong.

‘To save a county,’ said Pastor Hickey, ‘you need to destroy it first. And in doing so, you destroy yourself, destroy your soul. Let me tell you about that.’

The children in the back row stopped whispering. He had their attention now.

‘As many of you know, when I was young, when I was a boy, before I became a soldier in Christ, I was a soldier for this great nation. I got a Distinguished Service Medal. There’s a great truth in that bit of tin.

‘I did something commendable. I stayed alive. Any man that doesn’t see himself as being a coward in battle is a liar.

‘Christ knew he was going to the cross and had to be crucified. He sweated blood, as we all did in those foxholes. Blood and shit. We don’t like to talk about shit. But when you talk about war you need to talk about shit.

‘My saviour was squad Staff Sergeant Gomptrez. There was nothing exceptional about him. You’d see guy like him every day driving taxis, fixing your taps, mowing your lawns, crossing the road and not give him a second glance. But he saved me.

‘The ground was rocky and stubborn, but it had rained solid for the last four days and nights. We knew they were coming and we were just waiting.

‘Gomptrez looked at me and looked the foxhole I’d dug. I was a short-sighted clerk in the army, with soft hands, but now I was an infantry soldier.  “Son,” said my Saviour. “Son,” said my Sergeant, “Dig it deeper. Much deeper.”

‘I did. We all did.

‘We were here to liberate them, but they didn’t take kindly to that notion and came for us that night.

‘They’d got it down pat, because you were blind at night. Planes wouldn’t go up because of the rain, because of the dark.

‘We bunkered down. Fighting, not for your country, or the girl you’d left at home, or for the men in the next foxhole and the one after that, or the men standing on your toes fighting beside you. Everyone an enemy, even your friends. You are fighting for your life. You are fighting to stay alive.

‘Judas comes in many guises. I see many of them sitting here today. Good men. Nice women that wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’

Pastor Hickey slapped his chest and some of his congregation jerked backwards as if he had slapped their faces. Others sneaked a look at their phones and sighed.

‘Out there everyone is a coward. You’d turn your back and flee, leaving everyone and everything behind to live another day, another hour, another moment. A good soldier always meets his Judas early. Staff Sergeant Gomptrez had met his Judas and knew how to turn ours back.

‘We fight because we fight and we don’t flee because of Gomptrez, not so someone down the line gets another promotion and silver star.

‘It’s a turkey shoot,’ said Benny, after the first wave of the attack and before he got his face shot off.

‘He cried for his mum. We all did. We were eighteen and involved in a stupid war. Christ on his cross crossed over that bridge between terror and acceptance, as we must all do as we near death.

“Abba Father,” He cried. And He lost faith.  

‘Jesus was scared to die. Any man that ain’t scared of dying ain’t human. And any man that loses faith is already dead. Some men get little more than a flesh wound and talk themselves into dying. We all got shot up. Benny didn’t die quickly and didn’t die pretty. Some men are blood and bone and mush and God alone knows how they stay alive. I was one of those, left for dead.

‘I cried for my mother too. And I heard Sarge saying, ‘It’s a turkey shoot and we’re the turkeys.’

‘Life is cheap. They just kept coming. You make choices and you make sacrifices, but you don’t really make choices or sacrifices. You just keep shooting. Clip after clip, until the rifle is an extension of your body. The rifle is your brain. It’s all you’ve got until the ammunition runs out.

‘In truth it didn’t make any odds. There was always a body following the body that you’d shot at. A .30 machine gun mowed them down, but in the rain they sprung up again. We’d no artillery. Nothing. Judas was strong in my ear. I was no turkey, not yet.

‘We had an anti-aircraft guy. Command was stupid that way, making us lug it forward, because, of course, they didn’t have any aircraft. But it was a meat grinder. When we used that they stayed down. They stayed dead. It struck fear into them and that cheered us. But it was only a matter of time.

‘When we come into this house, this house of God, we do not say life is cheap.’ Pastor Hickey shook his head and spat. He walked down through the congregation that watched him and out the main doors. ‘Jesus is not mocked. He sees the cowardly thing you have done. The cowardly thing you have become. He spits you out of His mouth.’