Dirk Blacklock had spent the last two years fighting the war to end all wars and in doing so saw some things that if did not end your life would certainly change it.
Being in the trenches you tend to get to know the mates around you especially when you are rotting away in an open grave, staring daily into the face of death.
One of those that shared this nightmare was Declan Carmichael, he was always up front in the thick of it going over the top along side Dirk. Declan never complained never lost hope and never carried a gun.
Not your ordinary Chaplain.
When they would over run a German line Dirk would see him administering comfort and last rites to his fallen Scottish comrades along with the German lads, Declan saw no difference in them considered both sides equally mad and lost.
Towards the end of the war in October the two of them got pinned down in a bomb crater for a day and a half, the explosion had made a perfect circle in the mud, every fifteen minutes Dirk would walk the perimeter at eye level looking for movement.
Declan would giggle when Dirk cussed at him for not taking a shift, what do you want me to do Dirk throw my crucifix at them?
Hunkered down between walkabouts they began to talk Dirk curious to what drove this man to risk life and limb when he could be home safe warm and dry.
He asked the question, why?
Declan knew from experience that when you are in a place of worship built from a blueprint of horror you get to the point.
Well Dirk this Jesus fellow is quite a good lad, well worth climbing over the lip of this mud hole to help some poor bastard on his knees.
Why save these crazy buggers, asked Dirk.
Declan laughed, Jesus is no daftie he knows that the ones that are buggered up the most if brought back home make the best disciples, take a look at me I was a real bastard until he tapped me on the shoulder.
November 1918 came and with it the end of the war to end all wars, or some such rubbish.
Just before armistice Declan told Dirk that he had been called back to the home guard, gave him a big hug and told him not to forget the talk they had in that mud hole.
Out of their battalion only seventy five survivors Dirk and Declan were among the lucky ones.
For Dirk Glasgow was home, before he had joined up he worked as a barman at the Kings Gate pub in the Gorbals his job was waiting for him when he returned.
When he was not pulling pints you would find him in the boxing ring at the Bridge Water Gym, he won several amateur titles and if he wanted he could have gone on to the money circuit.
The Gorbals held a mixture of immigrants, mostly Irish and Italian, made for an interesting social mosaic.
Dirk was well suited for his job friendly when everyone was enjoying themselves, a frightening piece of work when things went wrong, at the King Gate that happened often, this clientèle had most of its social veneer peeled off some time ago.
He rarely had or wanted to use his fists but when he did it was not a pretty sight. The war had changed him and he never really settled into his old routine or frame of mind, he started to question things that before he would have taken for granted.
He even started seeing this human flotsam and jetsam sewn to the bar stools before him in a different light, their swollen and blood shot eyes once a veil to him now showed the same fear he had seen in the faces of his mates in the trenches.
There was one that he knew that must be living rough so one night instead of sending him out the door in a stupor at closing time he followed the staggering wretch, his home was under a piece of tin in a back ally.
Dirk had more friends than money so by calling in a few favours he built a little shed with a couple cots behind the pub, after a number of months the shed was bursting at the seams with the homeless.
Two years later through constant soliciting and bullying he had built a two-storey building on city property that housed over thirty people.
He often thought of Declan and how his actions and words had changed his view in the world wanted to share his achievement with him had the city name the dwelling “Carmichael house”.
He wrote the War Office asking for the address for one Declan Carmichael Chaplain 51st Highlanders.
The Return Letter.
Dear Mr Blacklock we are sorry to inform you that Chaplain Carmichael was killed in the battle of the Somme on August 17th 1916. War Office.
A Tapestry of Mumbles 
Very good.
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