Chris Cleave - Everyone Brave is Forgiven

“You dog!”

“But it isn’t like that,” said Alistair.

“Says you. I think we must let Hilda tell us what it is like.”

The worst of it is that Mary is consorting with Negroes. She spends days at the Lyceum and carries on as if it is the most natural thing. I suppose the morphine is her only counsel in the matter. Of course it is too awful for her parents. Their name suffers — I need not tell you how people talk.

Simonson whistled. “That really is the limit.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Of course it’s not nothing. Damn it, man — you look as if the devil has you by the scrote.”

I wish you to know that I do not hope to reopen anything between us. My circumstances have changed and I would not be an attractive proposition to you in any case. Rather, please know that I choose to close things between us by discharging the duty of honesty that I owe you for the kindness you once showed me.

“How does she sign it?” said Alistair.

“ ‘ Sincerely .’ ”

“I see.”

“And of course you are thinking ‘bitterly’, but you will see that she is right, I’m afraid. If half of what she says is true then you are best off without Mary, and this Hilda has done well to warn you.”

“I should like to know Mary’s side of the story.’

‘I shouldn’t be curious. Niggers are niggers, there’s no consortable kind. And morphine — my god. It’s filthy stuff. It’s for doctors and whores.”

Alistair flushed. “Mary taught children who were killed. And there was a friend of mine she was practically engaged to, and he was killed too. One makes allowances.”

“One makes allowances, Alistair, for fatigue and pain and misjudgment. But morphine and blacks? The woman is utterly fallen.”

“Women fall differently, that’s all. We die by the stopping of our hearts, they by the insistence of theirs.”

“Oh do give it up, Alistair. She’s lost.”

“I don’t believe that. Everything can be restored. If one won’t believe that, how does one endure all this?”

“One doesn’t have a choice, which makes the decision easier.”

Alistair sighed. “Anyway, I like her. A medic once told me to find a nice girl and forget the war — and so long as I think of Mary, I can.”

“So you won’t give her up?’

“Not even if I wanted to. Doctor’s orders, you see.”

“ ‘Well, poor Hilda’s letter seems to have backfired, wouldn’t you say?”

“Hilda’s not a bad egg, you know. She is funny, and rather pretty and… in another life, a girl like that…”

“Yes, but it is rather a desperate letter.”

“It is rather a desperate war.”

Simonson put his arm around Alistair’s shoulders and they looked out at the sea.

“What shall we do about you?” said Simonson.

“There is nothing to do. I’ll accept what punishment the lieutenant colonel thinks fitting. In the meantime I’ll arrange a burial detail for Briggs.”

“Briggs won’t mind if you don’t, you know. That’s what’s so admirable in the dead — they never ask one to do anything they wouldn’t do themselves.”

“Still, I should feel bad if I didn’t organize the service.”

“How would you like to fly to Gibraltar instead, and then take a boat on to England?”

“My number won’t come up for weeks.”

“But there is an evacuation order and then there is a social order. I was at school with half of Med Command. I could have them bump you onto the next flight out.”

“I’m not wild about taking another man’s place.”

“Then you’ll be here forever, because other men are cheerfully taking yours. Come on, we can have you away before the lieutenant colonel gets to your report. You’d be doing us both a favor — he wouldn’t enjoy disciplining you any more than I would.”

“It would only catch up with me in London.”

“It might not, you know. If this war has taught me anything, it’s that no crack is too small for our procedures to fall through.”

“Listen to us. Can you imagine us thinking such aw thing, a year ago?”

“Survival hadn’t been invented, then. One can hardly blame us for not using something that didn’t exist.”

Alistair smiled. “How long this war has been.”

“I’ll say. One hardly remembers how we lived before. Lightly — not worrying much.”

“Do you suppose we shall ever live that way again?”

“Oh, who knows? Given sufficient champagne and ether.”

“Maybe if we stay drunk to the end of our days, we shan’t remember.”

“That will take systematic drinking. We’ll need to stay drunk in cities, towns and villages. And in the hills and in the fields — How does it go?”

“And on the beaches and on the landing grounds.”

“Yes, exactly. We’ll have to stay drunk in some inaccessible spots.”

“And with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, don’t forget that.”

They leaned shoulders companionably and looked out to sea. Perhaps it was true, thought Alistair, that Septembers would come again. People would love the crisp cool of the mornings, and it would not remind them of the week war was declared. Perhaps there would be such a generation. Blackberries would ripen, carefree hands would pick them, and jam would be poured into pots to cool. And the jam would only taste of jam. People would not save jars of it like holy relics. They would eat it on toast, thinking nothing of it, hardly bothering to look at the label.

Alistair let the idea grow: that when the war’s heat was spent, the last remaining pilots would ditch their last bombs into the sea and land their planes on cratered airfields that would slowly give way to brambles. That pilots would take off their jackets and ties, and pick fruit.

He understood that he was finished with the war. He could not stop seeing the enemy airman, choking on yellow dust. He could not stop smelling Briggs, burning. It was too much. He had given everything that had been asked of him: fighting when fighting could be done, retreating when retreat was wise, and holding fast when it was all that remained. He had not favored himself, or measured his effort, or taken more than his share. He had done his best to help the men, and now all he wanted was to go home and see if he could help Mary. When set against the great corruption of the war, one’s own small rot seemed, if not excusable, then at least unexceptional.

“You know that I joined up voluntarily?” said Alistair.

“Bully for you. So?”

“So, will you think less of me if I leave the same way?”

“I’d be furious if you didn’t.”

Alistair hesitated. “Then I believe I will take up your kind offer.”

“Very sensible. The food on this island really isn’t as advertised.”

Alistair made to shake Simonson’s hand. His right arm surprised him again by not being there, and the lurch almost toppled him. Simonson held him steady.

“I shall pick you up at midnight,” he said. “Do try not to fall off the floor in the meantime.”

—

They left the fort on foot, under extravagant stars. A raid came in after they went, and they made their way southwest while the flashes sent their shadows flickering before them on the road. It was five miles to the airstrip at Luqa, and they said nothing on the way. Though they walked together they were distant. Alistair supposed this was the only possible end for a war: when men and women, who had thronged together to join it, made their way home alone.

On the airstrip the Wellington was already running its engines. An orderly hurried across the field to meet them. Alistair felt sick.

“Well,” said Simonson, “goodbye.”

They shook hands, with the left.