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by Stephen Minchin |
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Captain Edward King lay on the bed, breathing raggedly through
his moustache as his family moved quietly around him. He saw them come and go,
and watched the nurse with the fake smile, try to keep him alive, although he no
longer had the will. Edward would have given anything to get out of there, out
of the tiny room and into the fresh air, the wind and rain and sun that were
only a few meters distant and yet a lifetime away. He was trapped, pinned between the white
sheets as his life was drawn out by the machines humming gently beside him
There were flowers all around the bed, old photos
dotted between them like ghosts staring out from the edge of a forest. There was a
picture of Edward's wedding, with him standing there beside a wife he had barely
known, and who was now ten years dead. There were photos from the Second World
War, his platoon, and his friends who had died somewhere in France. On the nightstand
was a photo of the family, taken when they'd gathered for Edward's birthday
last summer.
But he was tired now, cold after his eighty years. His
life had been so full that he felt an anger that it had come to this, a slow
running down instead of an end he could be proud of. Finally, after months in
the hospital, he felt heaven calling him, and he heard the angels' voices in his
dreams. Edward knew that he was fading away and he wasn't fighting it any more.
"It's his time," someone had said, a stage
whisper as though he wasn't even there.
But the voice was right.
When he died there were few tears. His sons clustered
around his bed, their wives and children silent. Even the youngest could feel
Edward's death in the stillness of the room.
As he slipped away from his body Edward heard the
voices, and felt fingers beckoning. For a moment he was overjoyed, buoyant when
he realized that he was finally moving on. But when the hands clutched at his
soul, holding him tight and dragging him down, Edward was afraid for the first
time in years.
When Edward woke he was screaming, overflowing with
raw memories of claws catching at him as he was dragged down a lightless
tunnel. His world had become full of howls and a hot breath on his face, and a stab
of pain into the root of his being.
He stopped in mid-scream as his eyes twitched open. There was a
moment’s nausea as he felt himself heaved back into a body again. Edward raised
a hand, shielding his eyes from the blazing white light that filled his vision,
the sun glaring down on him as gray-blue clouds whipped across his face. He was
lying on his back, stretched out on the rocky ground.
Sitting up tentatively, he could feel his heart still
beating hard as the memory of fear and pain slowly faded. He had left his body,
he knew that, but had it been seconds or hours ago? He felt disorientated, like
waking up after an operation, or a hard night's drinking.
He looked left and right, taking in what little
scenery there was. All around him was desert, a plane of endless sand and
gravel fading into the featureless horizon. There were no trees that he could
see, no dunes.
Despite the white sun, the air was cool, bringing a
shiver to Edward’s body. He looked down, suddenly realizing that he was naked and as
young and tanned as he’d been sixty years ago. He stared at himself for a
moment, then reached up and touched his face, feeling the soft skin, freshly
shaved. Edward glanced around, suddenly embarrassed at his nudity, but there
was no one there to see him.
He stood slowly, feeling his joints moving with a
smoothness he hadn't known in years. He'd never forgotten what it was like to
be young and strong, and when he laid trapped in bed these last months and
remembered how he could run a mile in four twenty, Edward had often wished that
he had gone senile. This was the first time in God knows how long that he could
actually stand upright, with no walking frame or nurses standing next to him.
It was the greatest pleasure he had felt in years.
Edward took in the vista, but even standing, there was
nothing to see. The world was almost colorless, featureless and dead, and apart
from his breathing, absolutely silent. He could smell nothing. Despite the
clouds tearing past overhead, he couldn't feel a breath of wind. Whatever this
was, it wasn’t the heaven he had hoped for.
He started walking. There was nothing else to do.
Edward had no way of tracking time, the sun sitting
motionless in the sky as he picked his way slowly across the desert. His feet
were soon cut and bloody, torn open on the jagged stones that covered the
ground. He clenched his teeth and kept walking.
With only the blank horizon in front of him, he had
nothing to walk toward, and nothing behind him to walk away from.
Edward walked on.
It began slowly, imperceptibly, a gentle murmur at the
edge of his hearing. He didn't notice it at first, but it grew to become the
sound of voices, distant and faint, but unmistakable. Edward stopped and turned
a full circle, his head cocked. There was no one to be seen and for a moment he
was disconcerted, spinning quickly around as he tried to catch a glimpse of
whatever it was he could hear.
Edward stood still, then, and listened to the faint
voices. He could almost make out what was being said, but it was as though he
listened through a long tunnel, the words broken until they were
unintelligible.
After a moment's pause, Edward began walking again.
Gradually, they became clearer. He began to make out
syllables, almost picking out words as he walked and listened to the gentle
voices.
Soon he caught the occasional word, someone murmuring infantry
as they passed invisibly by his shoulder. A moment later he heard a whispered krieg.
He kept walking. There was nothing else to do
As Edward's feet grew numb, the words grew into
snatches of conversation. The voices had become his companions now, moving with
him across the desert so that he was no longer alone in this wasteland.
“Captain”?
Edward stopped, suddenly knowing that this voice had
spoken to him instead of just being overheard by him. There was something in
the soft voice that he almost recognized.
“Captain, is that you”?
He turned a full circle, but there was still no one to
be seen.
"Hello?" he called tentatively.
“Captain, it's Private Walken, sir”.
Edward froze, a puzzled look on his face as he
remembered the name, the voice. He shook his head, and started walking again.
“Captain”?
Edward walked faster, striding across the stones,
feeling fresh blood flow from his feet.
“Captain”?
As far as he could remember, it sounded like Walken's
voice, Walken, one of the men from his platoon. One of the men who had died in
France.
Edward covered his ears with his hands and started to
run, cutting his feet even more as he fled the voice from too long ago. He ran
until he was exhausted, his breath burning in his throat and his feet covered
in blood. Worn out and breathing hard, he collapsed to the ground, his head in
his hands.
The voice was still there, though, waiting for him.
“Captain, you can't leave us again”.
Edward looked up as tears ran down his cheeks. Walken
stood in front of him now, a transparent ghost in his dirty uniform, his helmet
missing and a bloody gash down the side of his chest. He looked exactly as he had
years ago, the hint of a smile just as Edward remembered. He'd still been
smiling when they found him, dead in a roadside ditch.
"I didn't leave you," Edward whispered, his
voice hoarse.
“Splitting hairs, sir. You outlived us.” The voice had a hint
of laughter in it. “That's close enough”.
Walken paused, frowning for a moment as he studied Edward.
“We're all here, sir”, he said, crouching
down with a look of concern on his face. “Everyone's here now. You were the
last”.
"Why are you here? Why am I here?" he shook
his head. "God, Walken, where are we?"
The young man shrugged and smiled crookedly. “I
couldn't really say, sir. I've been here a while, though, since I left you all
back in France. We've been waiting for you, me and Rogers and everyone”.
"Leave me alone." Edward's voice was flat,
hollow.
“You can't mean that, sir. We've been waiting for you”.
"Leave me alone."
He pushed himself up onto his feet again, and starting
walking.
The ghost of Walken stood and trotted to catch up. He
walked beside Edward, concern on his face as he sunk his hands deep into his
pockets. Edward glanced across at him, scowling slightly. It wasn’t right; this
wasn’t right. There’d been a mistake.
As the pair walked in silence, other ghostly figures
gradually faded in like steam coalescing around them. Pale clouds would thicken
to gray pillars, growing limbs and a face until a man was formed. These figures walked
slowly across the desert, the color seeping into their bodies. Some were
missing a limb, some carried scars and bloody wounds that would have turned any
soldier's stomach, but none seemed to notice. The faces of these ghosts were drawn,
blank but for a sadness in their eyes.
Edward didn't recognize any of them, nothing more than
countless, unknown soldiers spread around him as he, Walken and the ghosts all
walked on. It looked as though every nation was there, a parade of different
uniforms, English, American, German. There were others too - the Great War, the
Boer War, a few young men naked as he was, and others in modern uniforms,
carrying modern weapons. Most of the men were silent, but some, those with the
most horrific injuries, talked to themselves as they marched.
Edward stopped and turned around slowly, taking in the
sight of the thousands of ghostly men. They milled around aimlessly, each
heading in a different direction like an ant nest in disarray. One or two
looked at Edward as they passed, fixed him with their sorrowful eyes, but most
ignored him and ignored each other.
"Who are they?"
Walken shrugged. “They're just soldiers, sir”.
"I can see that, Walken." he snapped.
"But what are they doing here?"
“Your guess is as good as mine, sir. Everyone's here, though,
I've even bumped into my uncle a few times. Everyone's here”.
"I can remember you telling us about the brother
you left back home…"
Walken shook his head. “He's not here, sir. Not my
father, either”.
"No?"
“No, sir. I met your brother a while back, though”.
"Richard? Is he here somewhere?"
Edward glanced around, looking at the faces that surrounded him.
“He had some fantastic stories about the desert campaign, sir”. Walken offered.
Edward smiled at him. "I can imagine.
God, the stories we told when we got back to New Zealand. It must be like a
school reunion here."
“Yes, sir. Just a shame that we're missing so many people”.
"Everyone from the platoon's here,
though?"
“Yes, sir. Just a few people from home who didn't make the cut”.
Edward nodded slowly. "Where are we,
Walken?"
He took a deep breath, shutting his eyes for a moment.
“Come on, sir, there's no point worrying about that now. All of
the boys are waiting for you. We've been waiting forever, it seems”.
Walken half turned, lifting a hand to point into the
distance, across the crowd.
“Everyone's waiting for you. It's not far”.
Edward sighed softly and fell in behind Walken.
“We've been waiting forever”, the younger man repeated, keeping his eyes
ahead as he picked his way through the crowd.
They walked past hundreds, thousands of figures.
Edward's strength was beginning to fade when the platoon appeared, a small
clearing in the throng of ghosts with a row of men in New Zealand uniforms at
its center. It was as though a cordon kept the others out of this circle, but
Walken stepped straight through and walked across the bare ground, shaking
hands as he joined the group. Edward passed through behind him, stopping a few
meters in from the edge of the crowd.
He instantly recognized the faces in front of him.
Thomson was there, Rogers and Marsden. The whole platoon, as though the photo
Edward had kept the last sixty years had sprung to life in this desert. For a
moment, the sight of all these men he had seen dead or dying was too much for
Edward, and his head spun as though he were drunk.
Walken turned to him again.
“Come over, sir. The boys haven't seen you in years!”
Edward reached up to rub his eyes, and took a slow
breath before he looked at his men again. They watched him intently, and he
knew that they were welcoming him back, that they were glad to have him there.
This was his home, his family, and he smiled as he
began walking toward them. Everyone was together again, and his brother was
here somewhere, too. It was just like a school reunion, but with people he'd
never thought he would see again. He held out his hand to shake Thomson's,
everyone's, hand.
With no warning the sky changed, a bloody sunset
blooming at the horizon and flowing overhead in an instant. Edward looked up
and saw the deep red glow, but more than this, he felt a surge of fear so strong
that he could taste it in the air. Behind him, a scream rose from the crowd of
ghosts, a million voices celebrating their pain. Walken was grinning, his teeth
flashing as he watched Edward's face.
“You made it just in time, sir.”
The platoon surged forward as one. Edward barely had
time to turn before they were on top of him, their fingers clutching at his
back as he tried to run but felt his legs forsaking him. Their hands were
around his throat but still he tried to leave the circle as the ghosts formed a
wall as though around the edge of an arena. The ghosts faced him, shoulder-to-shoulder,
and howled.
Edward fell to his hands and knees, a stab of pain as
the stones cut into his skin. He felt his men around him, their hungry breath
against his skin, and heard a soft voice as they drove their claws into his
flesh.
“Some of us have waited sixty years for this, sir, so
you'd better make it worth our while”.
Even as his men tore at his body, Edward could
hear the screams of the ghosts in the crowd. With all the strength he could
find, he gave his voice up to their chorus.
There was nothing else to do.