The Last Post

This happened in 1952. I was young, a boy of seventeen. A conscript, like so many of my friends. Some of them were unlucky enough to be sent off to fight in Korea. I was one of the lucky ones, posted to Norfolk on the east coast of England. It was a bleak and isolated place, but I didn’t mind; it was better than fighting. My service consisted of endless parade-ground drills, physical exercise and rifle training. I’m not sure what good I did for my country, but perhaps the boys fighting and dying in Korea felt the same.

I was heading back home on leave. I planned on catching a train passing through the local station at 9 p.m. Getting this train would allow me to catch the overnight mail express in Norwich. I would be at home first thing in the morning.

I headed out front gate of the camp. It was already dark and the country roads were unlit, but I knew the way to the station like the back of my hand. After a fifteen-minute walk, I arrived at the station, a small red-brick building. The platform was empty. The station building was dark and the waiting room was locked. I was alone.

I read the notices on the platform to pass the time. Having quickly exhausted this diversion, I stared without thinking at the other side of the railway line, across from the platform. I found myself looking into misty blackness. I knew in front of me were hectares of flat farmland. I checked my watch. Five minutes had passed, with ten to go. I looked up from my watch and glanced over to the other side of the railway tracks again. Shapes were moving in the dark fields in front of me, just beyond the reach of the platform lights. As I stood there, my mouth open and my heart racing, I could hear voices. British voices. I could hear words being spoken, words which were very familiar to me. They were orders, barked in an all too familiar military tone. Attention. At ease. Dress right. These were the commands I was used to obeying without question at the endless drill parades I endured. I could feel my muscles twitching to obey.

I wondered if a troop embarkation was scheduled, but I would have known. There are no real secrets on an army base. I also knew troops wouldn’t wait for a train in the darkness of a muddy field, not when there was a perfectly good platform. The noise from the fields beyond the railway line continued. In the darkness, in the muddy field in front of me, troops were on parade. I was terrified. Against all logic and reason, I knew there were dozens, if not hundreds, of soldiers in the field opposite me. Soldiers I couldn’t see.

I heard a command. Attention! The troops were suddenly quiet. There was a pause, laden with tension, then a bugle sounded. It was the Last Post; the signal the military day had ended. It was also played when a soldier was laid to rest. The bugler stopped, the notes drifting across the field. There was one last command.

“Soldiers! You have done your duty. You are dismissed!”

The field opposite me was suddenly empty.

I jumped out of my skin as the train slid into the station. I took it to the next station and caught the mail train. I spent a week with my family then returned to Norfolk. I finished my time as a solider without firing a shot in anger and, my duty done, went home with a clear conscience. I only have one thing to add, something which might help with the solution to the mystery. Over the last few years I have done some investigating. The camp where I was stationed had been used as a disembarkation camp for troops in the First and Second World Wars. From the camp they were taken straight to the docks to board the ships to would carry them to Europe and beyond. Many of the men sent overseas never came back home. Perhaps it is of significance, perhaps not, but I will never forget what I witnessed in 1952.

∼ RJ Meldrum

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