Grandads Secret by Jason Brown
9 March 2021 { General Fiction }
Grandads Secret Jim Smith was known to his family as Gramps, and now he was in his dotage, he spent a lot of time sitting in his favourite chair by the window. It was a typically dated house with his slippers by the fireplace, and his trusty pipe within easy reach. Gramps lived on his own now after his beloved Elsie had been taken from him after a long struggle with cancer over five years ago. He still thought about her as well as many other things. Around his neck, he wore a silver chain with a tiny key on it.
He was glad that he had never shared his guilty secret with her and knew that she would have accepted it but would certainly not have liked it. Glancing at the picture on the mantelpiece showing him in his dress uniform taken in 1944, he remembered how fit and active he used to be. Nowadays a walk to the corner shop was getting too much for him. A carer came in once a day to make his lunch and check that he was taking his prescribed medication.
He liked to watch the kids playing in the street and wished he could join in a game of football with them. His three grandkids called every weekend with his daughter Alice and spent the day with him. He was frequently asked about his strange choice of necklace, but simply told them it was the key to his heart. If only all his memories were as good as those.
The nightmares were becoming more frequent now and he often woke up in a cold sweat. It was always the same one, with him imagining the stark wartime fields of Holland.
Gramps had served in the parachute regiment and was deployed in Holland behind enemy lines as a prequel to the Normandy Landings on D-Day. He was one of the lucky ones who survived the parachute jump, but many good mates were lost.
On his ninetieth birthday, before his family party, the local press had interviewed him about his exploits. The reporter referred to his medals asking what it was like at that terrible time. He had replied that it was indeed awful and he didn’t want to talk about it. The reporter left without a story. His daughter showed him out and promised to ring some details through to the paper.
Gramps was obviously in one of his grumpy moods, but she wasn’t going to let it spoil the party. After a toast with a glass of wine, he was allowed to open one of his presents, a bottle of Woods Rum.
‘Just one little nip a day,’ warned Alice.
He was later tucked up in bed and lay thinking and thinking of the past before drifting off into a fitful sleep. It happened again, and he woke up in the dark, sweating. This is worrying, he thought, maybe it’s time to make my peace with God.
A week later Gramps collapsed while attempting to make a brew in the kitchen. His carer arrived to find him on the floor hardly breathing. She immediately dialled 999 and a paramedic arrived to examine him. After the usual checks, the medic decided he needed the hospital. Gramps refused and wanted to stay home. The medic told him his heart was failing and he needed intensive care. Alice arrived and sided with the medic.
His stubborn side came to the fore.
‘I know my time is near, and I want to die in my bed!’
The medic asked Gramps to sign a no-treatment form and after leaving some tablets, told his daughter that she should make him comfortable and call the family.
Gramps lay there surrounded by all he loved dearly and felt quite good. He beckoned his eldest grandson and gave him his necklace and key.
‘At the back of the wardrobe there is a black box, bring it to me.’
‘Open it ’he instructed.
Inside wrapped in black velvet there was a gun.
‘What’s this Gramps?’
‘It’s a German Luger pistol, Son.’
‘Wow!’
‘I’m going to tell you my secret, which to my shame I’ve kept all these years.’
He related the events of that time in Holland when the surviving paras regrouped and began to take out German machine-gun posts.
‘I somehow got separated and stumbled upon a young German soldier, not more than a kid. He was terrified, shakily holding his hands up in surrender. I had no way of taking a prisoner, so I shot him dead. I’m not a hero, but a coward. That was his pistol.’
The bedroom went into a shocked silence, and tears welled up in Gramps's eyes before he made a rattling sound, and his tortured face turned into a smile.
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