Helen Simonson - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

“You have kept me too long, Major,” he said. “I must go to my prayers.”

As he stepped forward, the Major fumbled in his pocket for cartridges and stuck two in the barrels, snapping the shotgun closed with one hand. Even against the rising moan of the wind it made a satisfactory crack. Abdul Wahid stopped and looked at him as the Major took two long steps downhill and began to sidle up between Abdul Wahid and the cliff edge. He was miserably aware of the crumbling and uneven nature of the ground, and his inability to look behind him made his legs tighten until his right calf muscle cramped. Abdul Wahid smiled gently at him and said, “So, Major, you do intend to shoot me after all?” He opened his arms wide until the wind buffeted his shirt and he stumbled forward a step.

“No, I do not intend to shoot you,” said the Major. He stepped uphill and turned the gun around in his hands presenting the stock end to Abdul Wahid. “Here, take this.” Abdul Wahid caught the gun as it was pushed into his stomach. He held it, puzzled, and the Major stepped back, uncomfortably aware of the barrels pointing at his chest. “Now I’m afraid you are going to have to shoot me.”

“I am not a man of violence,” said Abdul Wahid, lowering the gun slightly.

“I’m afraid you have no choice,” said the Major. He stepped forward again and held the barrel end of the gun against his own chest. “You see, I cannot let you go off this cliff and I intend to spend all night, if necessary, standing between you and the edge. Thus you will not be blown over by accident at any point. Of course, you can always jump, but that was not your plan, was it?”

“This is silly. I could never hurt you, Major.” Abdul Wahid stepped back half a pace.

“If you die here today, your aunt Jasmina will be lost to me, and I do not want to live without her.” The Major struggled to keep his voice even. “Also, I will not face your son, George, and tell him I stood by and let his father kill himself.” He stepped forward again, pushing Abdul Wahid back. Abdul Wahid moved his hands to grip the gun more comfortably. The Major prayed his fingers were not near the twin triggers.

“You must see that your sense of shame will not die with you, Abdul Wahid. It will live on in your son and in Amina and in your aunt Jasmina. Your pain will haunt their lives. Your wish for death today is a selfish act. I am also a selfish man-from these years of living alone, I expect. I do not want to live to see this happen.”

“I will not shoot you.” Abdul Wahid was almost crying now, his face twisted with anguish and confusion.

“Either shoot me or choose to live yourself,” said the Major. “I can’t face your aunt any other way. How strange to think that we come as a pair now.”

Abdul Wahid gave a bellow of anguish and threw the gun away from him onto the ground. The butt end hit first and the gun gave a roaring boom and discharged what the Major registered as a single barrel.

He felt a white-hot sear of steel shot through his right leg. The force of the close range spun him around and he fell heavily, slipping in the grass. As he rolled, he felt the ground disappear under him. His legs slipped over the edge of the chalk into empty air. There was no time to feel any pain as he scrabbled above his head with his hands and felt his left elbow bump a metal stanchion that had once held a wire fence. He grabbed the stanchion. It held briefly against the tug of his body as he rolled over and then it began to move, the metal squeaking like a dull knife. In an instant, a body landed on his left lower arm and fingers dug at his back to find any grip. His legs jackknifed and his left knee struck the cliff with a pain that flashed like a light in his head. The Major heard the clatter of stones preceding him over the edge. It was so fast there was no time for thought. There was only a brief feeling of surprise and the smell of cold white chalk and wet grass.

The Major was keen to push away the nagging idea of pain, which started to seep into his head along with the light. It was comfortable in the warm darkness of sleep and he struggled to stay down. A murmur of voices, a clattering of metal carts, and the brief percussion of curtain rings swept aside made him think he might be surfacing into an airport lounge. He felt his eyelids flutter and he tried to squeeze them shut. It was his attempt to roll over that shocked him awake with a tearing pain in his left knee and an ache on his right side that made him gasp. He scrabbled with his hand and felt thin sheet over slippery mattress and knocked it against a metal post.

“He’s waking up.” A hand held his shoulder down and the same voice added, “Don’t try to move, Mr. Pettigrew.”

“Isss Major…” he whispered. “Major Pettigrew.” His voice was a hoarse whisper in a mouth that seemed to be made of brown paper. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue felt like a dead toad.

“Here’s something to drink,” said the voice as a straw snagged on his lip and he sucked at lukewarm water. “You’re in the hospital, Mr. Pettigrew, but you’re going to be fine.”

He slipped away again into sleep, hoping that when he awoke again it would be into his own room at Rose Lodge. He was quite annoyed to discover later the same cacophony of institutional sounds and the pressure of fluorescent lights against his eyelids. This time he opened his eyes.

“How are you feeling, Dad?” said Roger, who, the Major could see, had spread the Financial Times over the bed and was using the Major’s legs to prop up the pages.

“Don’t let me keep you from the stock tables,” whispered the Major. “How long have I been here?”

“About a day,” said Roger. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I was shot in the leg, not the head. Is it still there?”

“The leg? Of course it is,” said Roger. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Yes, of course I can,” said the Major. “But I didn’t want any nasty surprises.” He found it quite exhausting to speak but he asked for some more water. Roger helped him sip from a plastic cup, though most of it dribbled uncomfortably across his cheek and into his ear.

“They dug a whole lot of shot out of your leg,” said Roger. “Lucky for you it missed any arteries, and the doctor said it only clipped the edge of the right testicle, not that he expected it mattered much to a man your age.”

“Thanks very much,” said the Major.

“You also tore up the ligaments in your left knee pretty badly, but that surgery is considered elective so they said either it’ll heal on its own or you can join a waiting list and get it in about a year.” Roger leaned over and, to the Major’s surprise squeezed his hand and kissed him on the forehead. “You’re going to be fine, Dad.”

“If you kiss me like that again, I’ll have to assume you’re lying and that I’m actually in the hospice,” he said.

“You gave me a fright, what can I say.” He folded up the newspaper as if embarrassed by his moment of affection. “You’ve always been an unmovable rock in my life and suddenly you’re an old man wearing tubes. Quite nasty.”

“Nastier still for me,” said the Major. He struggled a moment to ask the questions to which he was not sure he could bear the answers. He was tempted to feign sleep again and put off the bad news. It must be bad, he thought, since there was no sign of other visitors. He tried to sit up and Roger reached over to a button on the wall and the bed raised him into a slanted position.

“I want to know,” he began, but he seemed to choke on his own voice. “I must know. Did Abdul Wahid jump?”