Writing for Fun
December 2020
Desert Rat – (Conscious Decision) - Pete Norman
School was not ‘the best days of Montgomery’s life’ as everyone claimed. He had been traumatised for life by the experience and for this he laid the blame fairly and squarely at the feet of his father. That wretched name he had been given at birth had caused Montgomery so much grief and heartache that his early years had been all but destroyed.
The first time he heard the song ‘A Boy Named Sue’ on the radio he had sobbed his heart out – it was as if Johnny Cash had written the song especially for him. In that song the boy’s father gave him the name Sue to toughen him up, to give him the strength to survive in this cruel world. There was a reckoning and a dreadful fight settled the heartache of decades.
However, that was a luxury Montgomery did not have, as his father had died when he was very young and was therefore forever beyond his reach. His mother had often tried to convince him that his being named Montgomery was never intended to reprise that song, in fact the truth was so much simpler – simpler if you happened to know his father, that is. Apparently he left the hospital to register the birth of his son but, in passing the Rose & Crown, he had decided to stop – just for a moment, mind – and to ‘wet the baby’s head’. By the time he finally reached the Registry Office he was in no fit state to remember his own name, let alone the name his wife had chosen, so instead he registered the boy with the name of his war-time hero, the renowned Desert Rat.
As a baby Montgomery was a delight – he slept soundly, hardly ever cried, walked early, talked early and had a playful giggle that would melt the heart of any grandmother. At Playschool he was proclaimed to be ‘their little star’ and in Primary school he was a popular child within his peer group . . . but this was all to end – on Monday 2nd September 2001 at 8:50am to be precise – the time that Brendan Cooper entered his life.
It was a new year, a new class and a new teacher but the first day of term ‘familiarisation’ routine remained the same as it always had been – each child in turn had to stand up and state his or her full name to the class. Most of the children were able to give common and more popular names but Montgomery had to endure the annual misery of sharing his unusual name with the whole class. Brendan Cooper, on hearing this revelation, snapped around to stare at the skinny, geeky kid and his eyes sparkled and his lips curled up in an unpleasant smile.
Brendan was a thug. You might consider the word ‘thug’ to be a little excessive for a 10 year old child but Brendan was not even in the same ball-park as ‘bully’ and he had just identified his next victim.
In a matter of hours Brendan began his campaign with the tried and tested formula: isolate, intimidate, humiliate, dominate.
‘Isolate’ was easy – in a few days time any friends the kid had would be under no illusions whatsoever that anyone who did not totally support Brendan would treated as if they totally opposed him, with all of the pain and suffering that entailed. Very soon each and every one of them had joined the army of acolytes that followed Brendan around like sheep.
‘Intimidation and humiliation’ were his speciality: Montgomery is a stupid name; are you a desert rat too?; much too posh for a nerd like you; bet your dad was too much of a coward to go to war; your name is bigger than your brain . . . the thug’s creativity was limitless.
‘Domination’ involved the subtle use of the push, the trip, the dig where it would leave no marks, the kick, the school bag on top of the bike shed, the sandwiches trampled in the dirt – and all done in such a way that there were never any witnesses and there was never any evidence.
It has always been said that you should stand up to bullies and that they will stop but he only ever tried that once and he vowed never to repeat his near terminal stupidity – the frequency and severity of the incidents increased exponentially.
As the days and weeks went by the misery had increased to the point where, in a vain attempt to avoid going to school, Montgomery tried to convince his mother that he was suffering from every illness known to the medical world but, as mothers do, she saw through his prevarication and she was having none of that nonsense.
He was soon too frightened to leave the classroom and risk the terror of the playground – but, of course, school rules prohibited them from remaining within the sanctuary of that room, ‘children needed fresh air for health’ and so he was forced to shadow the mid-day assistant each lunch break as she patrolled the playground, never allowing himself to be out of her sight – but she soon tired of his obsessive behaviour. He tried taking a good book around into the infants’ playground but very soon that was ‘not to be encouraged’ either.
As the end of the school year approached he was counting down the days with determination. He had passed his 11 Plus and had secured a place at the Grammar, which he knew Brendan could never possibly achieve and which would remove the thug from his life forever.
However, he was to be denied even this. On the first day at the big school his heart sank as he saw a familiar face coming through the school gates and he knew, long before the allocation of the classes, that his worst nightmare had been realised.
The Grammar was in many ways far more strict than the Primary but in others it was far more lax: gone were the mid-day assistants to keep watch in the lunch break, gone was the infants’ playground in which to shelter, gone were all of his usual places of refuge.
However, completely by accident he discovered a much easier and more sustainable remedy – there was a small library, which was open every break time and supervised by a different teacher each day to prevent theft, damage and unruly behaviour.
Montgomery immediately made the library his own personal sanctuary and as a by-product, to relieve the tedium, he improved his general knowledge from the wide selection of carefully targetted literature on its shelves. However, a sanctuary is akin to a prison and with the enforced separation from the company of his peers the isolation continued, without abating, year on year on year.
He left school at the first moment that he could and never once looked back.
He secured employment in a local office where, away from the enforced formality of school, he shortened his name to Monty and life settled back into some form of normality. He was, however, still very much a loner – he could not find his way out of such an enduring habit. He spent an inordinate amount of time on the computer, teaching himself programming and many other tekki skills but his primary passion was books and he read prolifically.
When the weather permitted he liked to spend time on the beach; it was a small, local beach which had never seemed to attract the notice of outsiders. Most of the locals who visited the beach remained on the sandy stretch by the steps but his own hideaway was right at the far end where the sand morphed into large and uncomfortable pebbles. It was here that he would sit in isolation for hours on end soaking up the sun, sand, sea and a good book.
It was on a warm Saturday in the middle of August that it happened and the beach could hardly have been described as crowded. He had been for a swim, which was the perfect exercise to keep up his strength. He took very little notice of the other bathers or sun-worshippers because he had the latest Dan Brown novel and he was totally absorbed in the frenetic pace of the plot.
It was a sudden scream that dragged him back to reality. He was well aware that children cannot ever seem to play without screaming and he had become adept at filtering out this particular irritation . . . but this scream was different, it was the most terrifying sound he had ever heard. He scanned the beach and saw a young woman standing at the edge of the beach staring out to sea. He followed the line of her sight and saw something white far out in the water.
His blood ran cold. As he had first arrived he had seen a small child playing on a large inflatable swan and there was little doubt in his mind what had happened. It seemed that no one else on the beach was doing anything at all, they were all simply interested bystanders.
Without thought Montgomery threw down his towel and sprinted across the beach, ignoring the discomfort of the pebbles. He ran into the water and then hurled himself bodily forwards. He was a good, strong swimmer and he sliced through the water like a man possessed. After a while, as he began to tire, he stopped for a moment to make sure he was still moving in the right direction but to his dismay the swan seemed hardly any closer than when he had started. He tried to rationalise that the view from a few inches above the water was very different to that from a standing position but then the dreadful realisation hit him; when he had first arrived the flag had been flying and blowing straight out to sea. There was an offshore wind and the large inflatable swan was acting like a sail. In that moment he knew that he would struggle to reach the child.
He put his head down and swam on with renewed determination, he swam through the pain barrier, he swam with only one thought in his mind: he must reach the swan before the wind and the tide washed it further out towards the shipping lanes.
Every time he lifted his head the swan appeared to be a fraction closer so knew he was definitely making some ground but he could not afford to stop for a moment. Eventually he was close enough to see the small hunched figure of the boy hugging onto the neck of the swan as if his life depended on it – which, of course, it most certainly did. Monty could only hope that the child held on until he reached him, he could not even consider the thought of what would happen if he did not.
It seemed to take forever but eventually he reached the swan. He could not hold onto it to rest because he could not risk upsetting its stability. Instead he trod water while he did his best to reassure the terrified child while regaining his strength.
Thankfully the swan had a length of string fastened to it, presumably for a doting father to tow the thing around in the shallows. However, his task would be far more difficult and far more dangerous than that, because if he was to unseat the child then the unthinkable might happen.
He tied the string around his waist, gave the boy some very specific instructions and then turned towards the shore . . .
. . . which was a thin line on the horizon.
The word demoralised came nowhere close to how he felt at that moment; he was exhausted, the beach was an impossible distance away and he knew that he had absolutely no chance of dragging this huge swan all that way against a headwind.
He closed his mind to the negatives and focussed on one thing and one thing alone. He started to swim.
He knew he had no chance to make the speed he had on the way out and so instead he settled into a steady but persistent rhythm – he knew that he could keep up this pace all day . . . unless, of course, he was towing this monstrosity behind him.
Every time he raised his head the shore seemed to be no closer but he was tiring fast and he knew that there was no way this was ever going to succeed but he also knew that he was out of options. He dug in and began to swim again.
As he swam his mind was elsewhere, all manner of mundane thoughts drifted through his head and in one way this was a comfort but in another his focus on the swimming was waning, his tired limbs were screaming for rest and a little respite and he was slowing. His ears began to buzz with an irritating noise and he wanted to ram his hands against them to shut out the noise but his subconscious told him that this was not a possibility.
The water was beginning to feel warm and comfortable, like a soft downy duvet and he wanted so much to stop and wrap himself inside its luxurious comfort but in the deepest recesses of his subconscious he knew that there was a very good reason why he should not do this . . . however, this feeling was very persuasive and his ability to fight against the thought was steadily weakening. He stopped swimming and lazily trod water for a few moments with legs that had all but seized up. He could feel himself drifting closer to the soft duvet and he knew that if he wrapped himself tightly within its warmth then that irritating buzzing would go away . . . forever.
Slowly, imperceptibly his legs stilled and his arms drifted to the surface . . . his head slipped slowly down into the soft comfort of the soft duvet darkness.
His mother was trying to get him out of bed and off to school but all he wanted to do was to stay here where it was safe and warm. She tugged and pulled on his arms until he could feel himself being dragged out of bed and into the freezing cold wind. Disembodied voices were shouting instructions at him but he did not want to open his eyes; he did not want to sit up; he just wanted to sleep. The irritating buzzing started again and he surrendered to oblivion.
When the lifeboat reached the shore he was stretchered quickly into a waiting ambulance and within minutes he was racing away along the seafront.
Monty opened his eyes but the bright light stung them so he closed them again. Then his tired brain engaged – he was not alone in the room. He opened his eyes again, more carefully this time. Absently peering out through the window was a young lady with long, light brown hair and wearing a slightly crumpled t-shirt and jeans. Beside her, on a regulation grey hard plastic chair was a small boy, his attention entirely focussed on a mobile phone on which he was furiously tapping, apparently destroying some invading alien horde. His face was familiar but the last time he had seen it, it was frozen in a rictus of terror. It was the swan boy.
He looked back at the woman – so she must be the screamy lady. As the thought crossed his mind she turned away from the window and smiled. ‘You’re awake . . .’ her eyes strayed to the white board above his bed, ‘. . . er . . . Monty. How are you feeling now?’
Monty was not really sure how he was feeling, he had been drifting in and out of consciousness, or exhausted collapse, or sleep – he was not really certain – for some time now. His head was thumping and he felt weak, obviously in need of the life-giving fluid slowly dripping into his arm. ‘I’m feeling a lot better,’ he lied.
She said, ‘Monty is an unusual name, is it short for Montague?’
The black curtains in Monty’s mind began to flutter.
‘No . . .’ there was no possible way that he wanted to do this – he had survived perfectly well as Monty since the day he had walked out of that hell hole of a school and he had no desire to change that any time soon. However, her question was so innocent that he found that he was unable to fight against it. ‘Er, no, my name is actually Montgomery.’
Her smile broadened. ‘Montgomery – that’s such a beautiful name – so regal. Wasn’t there a . . .’
Monty completed the sentence for her, ‘He was a Field Marshall in the war – the Desert Rat.’
‘Well, a Field Marshall, that makes you almost royalty. You must be very proud of your name.0’ She gestured towards the white board above his bed. ‘It’s such a shame that they shortened it up there.’
Monty desperately wanted to divert attention away from his name so he turned to swan boy. ‘What about you, young man? How are you feeling after your ordeal?’
The boy looked up from the screen for a brief moment and said, ‘I’m good, thank you,’ and then resumed his frantic tapping.
Screamy lady threw up her hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘You have to excuse Mikey, he’s only just got this new game and he acts as if it’s the centre of his universe . . . but he is only four.’
‘Well, four is old enough for his dad to teach him to swim.’
Mikey didn’t even look up from his screen as he said, ‘I haven’t got a daddy.’
Monty looked askance of his mum who replied, ‘He hasn’t got a daddy because the rat cut and ran the moment he discovered that I was pregnant.’
Monty was shocked. ‘But doesn’t he ever see his child?’
She screwed up her face in disgust at the thought. ‘You clearly don’t know Brendan – he would never demean himself to admit that he even had a child.’
Monte could feel the black curtains in his mind begin to shake violently. He paused, concerned for her obvious anguish and whispered, ‘Brendan Cooper?’
She looked surprised. ‘How did you know?’
‘Because I went to school with Brendan Cooper.’
She studied his face for a moment. ‘It doesn’t look as if that is a very fond memory.’
Monty nodded towards Mikey. ‘I shouldn’t talk bad about his father in front of him.’
Mikey piped up, ‘Don’t worry, mummy calls him an ass ole.’
Monty laughed. ‘I reckon I’m with your mum on that one.’
She joined him with a broad grin and then said, ‘I think I need to get my embarrassing little one home for some parental chastisement . . . and you need to rest. We only dropped in to say thank you so much for what you did – you’re an absolute hero.’ She choked back a tear. ‘Embarrassing he might be but he is the centre of my universe and I don’t know what I would have done if . . .’
Monty put up a hand. ‘It wasn’t a conscious decision. I’m no hero . . . but no one else was doing anything . . . ’
She whispered, ‘But you did.’ She opened her handbag and scribbled on a piece of paper which she pressed into his hand, closing his fingers tightly around it. ‘I’m Becky. Give me a ring when they release you – it would be nice to meet up for a coffee sometime and talk about . . . shall we say, mutual acquaintances?’
Monte covered her hand with his. ‘I think I would enjoy that very much.’
After Mikey had had the phone prised from his fingers he rushed up to the bed and threw his arms around Monty’s neck, planting a sloppy wet kiss on his lips. ‘Thank you for saving my life uncle Montymummyme.’