LACHLAN

I swirled the razor in the sink and brought it again to my face, an automatic motion I've repeated more times than I can count.  The sharp blade cut a clean swath through the stark white foam, but even after all this time, I still can't get used to the face it revealed.  Christ, look at me.  So young and smooth.  A man out of time.  I leaned a hand on the edge of the sink and took in the view as I wiped the last of the foam from my face.  White towel wrapped around my hips, bare chest, face so goddamn young.... 

My hand brushed over the smooth skin of my side, over my left shoulder and right cheekbone, just a few of the places my old familiar scars had once stood.  My leg tingled where I'd taken shrapnel.  Ghost pain.  I turned my head and appraised the boyish visage looking back at me.  Barely a line on this face.  Smooth, not weathered and rough as it once was.  No lines from always squinting into the sun.  No scars.  No gray at the temples.

Fucks about with your mind, it does.  The only bloody thing I recognize is my eyes.  Not a boy's eyes anymore.  I have seen too much.  Done too much to ever go back.  The portal might have stripped the years from my body but not from my soul.  I still remember. 

I'll always remember.  

I used to tell Lil I was afraid to close my eyes; afraid I'd wake on a troop ship half way across the Atlantic.  Funny how life turns out.  I know what I did with Lil was wrong.  I loved her and my love broke her.  I will always be sorry for that but I'll never be sorry for loving her.  Those few golden moments, stolen and wrong as they were, are among the most cherished of my life.  And the truth is, I did wake on a troop ship half way across the Atlantic and those moments sustained me. 

Lambs to the slaughter.  I wanted to touch love, real love, just once before I died.  A foolish boy's thoughts, but it's the truth.  In war, every pilot draws on some thought to give him the courage to climb into the cockpit.  That was mine.  Love. 

Stupid foolish boy.  I soon learned that in war, there was no room for feeling at all.  

Back home in Cloncurry, all the young lads had dreams of joining up and we squabbled about with each other, arguing over which was better.  Army.  Air Force.  Navy.  Most of us had brothers or fathers who were already gone.  For me it was Angus, my older brother.  He was a pilot too and for as much as he made my younger years a living hell, I couldn't wait to join up and be just like him.  He looked so dashing in that uniform just before he shipped out, like he could take on the world.  Invincible.  I was in my last year at Uni when Mum and Dad received notice.

Mr. and Mrs. Curry, we regret to inform you that your son, Flight Sergeant Angus Curry, was killed in the line of duty on June 15th, 1941. 

Angus was stationed aboard the HMS Ark Royal, an aircraft carrier operating in the Mediterranean Theater.  He was shot down after the Ark Royal's planes engaged an Italian battleship.  I often wonder if that wasn't a blessing in disguise.  Later that year, the Ark Royal was torpedoed by a German U-boat, capsized and sunk off the rock of Gibraltar.  I reckoned if he had to go, he'd have preferred the death he got.  What pilot wouldn't take a quick fiery death over drowning?  Angus had always hated the water. 

His death sobered me, sobered us all really, Mum most of all.  She had two more sons behind me, Liam and Duncan, who also wanted to fly.  The year I joined up, Liam was in his first year at Uni and Duncan was finishing his last year of school, as keen to head off to Uni as the rest of the Curry boys had been.  But while Angus' death sobered me, it also fired me up.  Now the war was personal.  Those bastards had taken my brother and I aimed to take my pound of flesh.  To make them pay for what they did. 

Young men, hey?  Stupid bloody fools, the lot of us.  But then again, who else would be foolish enough to climb into the cockpit with the kind of odds we faced?  Average life expectancy of a green pilot?  Six weeks.  Six bloody weeks. 

I soon found out why.  Sweet Christ.  It was a nightmare over there.  I was stationed with the 350th at Mildenhall, an airbase outside of London.  Lambs to the slaughter was right.  Everything was rationed, especially fuel.  The wartime training new pilots got was drastically shortened and because of that, I'd say on average we had around fifty hours of flight time and usually only about five hours in the actual aircraft that we were supposed to fly before we were certified for combat.  My God, we were babies.  Five fucking hours. 

Five was the magic number back then.  Most of us green bastards bought it in the first five sorties.  If you made it past five combat flights, beat the learning curve, then you actually had a chance.  Talk about flying by the seat of your pants.  Do or die.  Literally.  Jesus, they didn't even make an effort to learn your name before then.  Just a call-sign when you were in the air and 'hey, mate' when you were on the ground.  Six bloody weeks, mate.  Christ, how do you live a life in six weeks?     

It was insane.  The Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, they fought without any reserves and because of that we were always short of pilots -  especially good pilots -  which is why so many of us have extremely high numbers of victories.  God... there were men, myself included, who were wounded ten or fifteen times during the war and still had to fly.  There was simply nobody else to do it.  We were constantly in combat. 

Fourteen hours a day, our boys were over the lines bombing, strafing and incinerating the German strongholds, raining fire down over German bivouac areas, searching out individual targets and pounding them relentlessly.  All day long the steady back-and-forth continued, a new flight taking off approximately every fifteen minutes, completed flights buzzing the tower and peeling off to land; ground crews working night and day to supply gas and oil, bombs, rockets and bullets.  Maintenance was continuous.  It had to be.  Do your job.  Get shot up.  Limp home.  Fix up both man and plane just enough so we were flight worthy and off we went again.   

On and on.  Day in and day out.  I lost count of the number of times the Luftwaffe broke through the English lines and bombed us.  Never shut us down though.  Point of pride with us.  They never put us out of commission longer than it took us to fill in the craters they blew in the runway.  I can't tell you how many missions I flew with open blisters on my hands from spending half my 'off' hours shoveling dirt before preflight.    

My mate Johnny and I started with the bombers.  It's a different type of flying than in a fighter plane but we eventually wound up flying both and then being transferred to the fighter wing permanently.  That was the way it worked then.  They had a hole to fill and we filled it out of necessity because they needed good pilots.  Both of us had shown an aptitude for that sort of engagement and I reckon they figured that since we hadn't bought it in the first five sorties, it might be prudent to give us a go at the fighter wing as well since they were always short pilots.  Still, the training we'd received didn't even teach us the half of it.  There was so much to learn. 

It started with roll call.  You'd drag your tired carcass in and feel the adrenaline for the coming flight begin to prickle through your body.  Roll call was always hard.  We heard it every day and every day it changed, the absence of a name, of several names, and usually the addition of new names.  By that time, Johnny and I had been around long enough that they knew our names and we'd stopped trying to learn the names of the greenies until they'd made it five flights or so.  Even before roll call, they'd be prepping the aircraft.  More bombs meant a shorter flight ahead; fewer bombs meant the target was further away and the mission required more fuel.  As we broke up and headed inside, we'd try to guess what the target was.  Winners, if they came back from the sortie, got their drinks free, courtesy of the rest of their mates.    

After roll was the briefing.  That was nothing like training either.  A group of motley young men in coveralls, armed and usually in need of a meal or a shower- or both.  A badly tuned radio playing a popular song nobody really paid attention to.  The head honchos all gathered round a map while the Intel officer spoke to them in low tones.  Sometimes one of us slept on the couch, too exhausted or wounded to be awake for the briefing but capable of flying if we woke him later.  Usually one of his mates was looking after him, giving him a hot foot soak or massaging a stiff arm or leg to help get him limbered up for the flight.  Nobody ever thought anything of it.  Not even our CO.  Others paid little attention, slumped in chairs, reading a week-old paper or petting the stray dog our unit took in.  We were a far cry from the sharply dressed, clean shaven lads we'd been in training, I'll tell you that much.          

When our Commanding officer was ready, he would give us general facts about the raid, destination, number of aircraft detailed, concentration, points of concern; then the Intel officer would outline the nature of the target and the reasons for the attack.  We'd have briefings from the bloke responsible for estimating weather conditions likely to be encountered and then our CO would run over the tactics to be employed and give us advice generally.  Usually it amounted to, "The chap who has the surprise and the sun on his side has control of the battle and the bloke who shoots the best gets to come home.  Enemy fighters?  Don't think you'll have much trouble with 'em, lads.  Good luck."

In the hangar, the navigators would all be working round a large table with their plotting charts and topographical maps, making calculations and comparing their results with one another.  When everyone was sorted, we'd head to the locker room.  Dressing for a flight wasn't too bad except for the poor buggers who operated the gun turrets.  They were exposed to the wind and near froze their bollocks off every single flight.  Woolen underwear and electrically heated suits.  Good job I decided to be a pilot, mate.  I hate woolies.

Once we were geared up and had strapped on our buoyancy jackets and parachute harnesses, we'd stand around chatting while we waited for the transport.  The padre would be handing out flying rations and the doctor would be there passing out 'caffeine' pills right and left to anyone who needed them; a little something to kept you awake and alert on long flights.  Never mind about a cuppa, or that if you were that tired you really shouldn't be flying.  Bitter as fuck those little pills were, but we'd take them anyway.  Nobody ever wanted to watch the greenies then.  They were shaky enough before they were drugged into combat readiness.

There were usually two kinds of pilots when it came to 'caffeine' pills, those that refused to take any, like they were too proud to admit their bodies got the better of them with the grueling schedule we kept, and those who took a couple and spent the next few hours so damn wired the only thing that kept them in their seat was their safety harness.  I made that mistake once. 

Once.

There's a fucking reason they call it 'speed'.  Felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest.  After that, I used to take one if I needed it and palm another for later if I was really knackered.  Typically, it took a several hours to even reach the target and then after the mission we still had to fly home.  That was the worst part, all keyed up from engagement and having to ride that wave all the way home.  Cocky, wired and tired.  Fucking terrible combination.  When it was really bad, I used to suck one of those bitter little bastards on the way home to just keep alert.  Sometimes you just had to.  Of course, then when we got back and were debriefed, everyone else would crash and I'd be up walking for hours, only to fall into bed a few hours before I was supposed to be waking again, but hey, you do what you have to do to get by.  Simple as that. 

Once delivered at our planes, we'd have a smoke and a chat while the ground crew finished up tweaking our babies.  Double checking everything.  Fuel levels.  Bombs loaded and secured.  Detonators hidden in secret compartments for emergency destruction if we went down behind enemy lines.  Propaganda leaflets stowed near the flare chute.  If we finished early, we used to lie down under the kites and share a smoke with the ground crew while we waited for final confirmation.

The worst thing that could happen then was for the mission to be called off.  All wound up and no place to go.  That was never a cause for celebration.  We just wanted to get on with it.  Get in as many flights as we could.  Insulate ourselves from all feeling and emotion and just do our jobs.  It was a rare event if we were ordered to stand down.  There were too many places to bomb.  Too many Jerries buzzing about.  Too many things still to be done.  And often times, even if Intel suggested it wasn't prudent we engage, we were providing the cover for ground units and without our presence, they were nothing more than sitting ducks.  So, off we went, hey? 

We flew two kinds of missions, ones aimed at knocking out a specific target - a bridge, a damn, a fortified bunker, and ones that were more broad - aiming concentrated firepower at larger industrial centers.  Imagine not just 20 or thirty bombers, but 900 or 1000.  It always made me think of that story from history class.  No doubt I paid attention that day because the teacher was discussing a beautiful woman.  Helen of Troy, the face that launched 1000 ships.  Jesus.  You ever seen a thousand ships?  So many the sky was black with them, like a swarm of locust.  It is a sight beyond words.

It was a slow crawl to the proper cruising altitude with a fully loaded bomber.  A bit like flying a lead brick with wings.  The navigator would be charting the course and relaying us the pertinent information and soon we would rendezvous with the other bombers dispatched from the other bases on the same mission.  The radio silence was eerie, but with bombers being mobilized from all over East Anglia, it was critical the Germans not know our precise time of takeoff so they couldn't prepare for our attack.  The planes that had taken off from Mildenhall would join the others, all leaving at the precise time so we could reform in route into one massive armada. 

We called it the stream.  

Soon the radio silence would be broken by the call that always sent shivers down my spine.  "Enemy coast ahead."  You couldn't do anything but brace yourself and ride it out.  First came the flak, the anti-aircraft artillery fire, buffeting the plane and making it shake so hard your teeth rattled in your head.  And with them, the search lights.  Christ, those were almost worse.  The coast was lined with a thick band of them, sometimes one or two.  Sometimes twenty or thirty stacked in these huge cones. 

Death from below.  Searchlights and flack batteries.  Worse, some of them were radar controlled.  Mate, if one of them locked on to you, the other lights would snap over and pin you to the sky - followed directly by a coordinated effort from several anti-aircraft guns.  Flak so thick it lit up the night sky.  If that happened, it didn't matter how bloody good a pilot you were.  There was only one outcome.  Goodnight Irene and a letter home to your Mum.       

Those of us that made it through the heavy flack and searchlights would approach the target.  On night missions, our specialty, reconnaissance flares would light up the sky like suspended streetlights, illuminating a stretch of road or a section of river the navigator would be frantically trying to identify.  Tracer rounds of all colors would be streaming by in every direction.  The bomb-aimer would be looking down through a window in the bottom of the plane, searching for the proper drop point and to be sure that there were no friendly aircraft below us before he let it fly.  Between the bomb bursts, the gun flashes, the searchlights and tracers, it was hellishly confusing, especially when the air gunners were directing us to avoid the artillery and searchlights in all directions at once - in a sky filled with 1000 other planes all trying to do the exact same thing.  Organized chaos.  Like a flock of birds in a hailstorm. 

Afterwards, the bomber stream would return home.  That was the worst time.  Especially on the longer flights when the nights were cold and clear.  Gave you time to think about what you did.  Flying in over a town blanketed in snow, like some sort of scene on a Christmas card.  Little houses.  Buildings.  Factories.  We'd drop our bombs and see them explode, blackening the snow.  Explosive bombs to knock them down.  Incendiary bombs of flaming phosphorus to burn them up.  When you saw the waves of bombs exploding from high above, especially the incendiaries, they looked like diamonds sparkling brilliantly among coals.  I think that's what saved most of us.  It all seemed so surreal.  But on the clear nights?  To watch the houses burn and realize they were your bombs?  It was....disturbing. 

I dream about it still.   

You would have these images in your mind on the return flight as we all rejoined the stream.  I'd be sucking that bitter little pill, feeling it take over as the rush of the mission subsided.  Often times we'd limp home badly shot up or with dead or wounded aboard.  That was the hardest time as we were low on both fuel and ammunition and vulnerable to attack by the German fighter squadrons all the way home.  And of course, it meant another pass through the searchlights and the flak.  Jesus.  The flack would rip through the fuselage like paper.  Sometimes ricocheting around inside if it caught a piece of equipment instead of the thin skin of the aircraft.  Does a lot of damage to the plane.  More to a man. 

When you're a green boy just joining up, first off, you don't think that could ever happen to you.  Secondly, the kinds of wounds you imagine are quick.  Clean.  One shot and it's over.  Lights out.  They never tell you how it really is.  You never know how it really is.  Not until you're here.  Not until you've heard men screaming until they're hoarse on the flight home or seen heavy flack take off half your gunner's face, spewing bits of pulpy bone and teeth all over the inside of the plane.  Nobody ever thinks they'll see that.  A man with no lower jaw and a non-mortal wound.  Living like that was worse than dying.  And yet, somehow, you take it all in stride.  Just another day.  Swallow it down and get up and do it all over again.   

My mate Johnny was promoted and permanently transferred to the fighter squadron nearly a month before I was.  I had a bit of a reputation for being a larrikin.  Smart mouth.  Bit unpredictable in the air.  Had a tendency to break formation on the smaller flights to gather reconnaissance if I saw something that caught my eye or drop my bombs on a secondary target (rail lines, bridges, bunkers, etc) if I happened to run across one.  It happened for me too, though, eventually.  They needed good pilots desperately and seeing as how I'd managed to last five months and not get dead, they eventually gave me new orders.

Things seemed to move faster and faster from there.  And again, five was the magic number.  This time, it was a bit more positive, however.  If you made five confirmed air-to-air kills, you 'made ace'.  In those days, nothing felt quite as good as when you got to ask the supply officer for the paint to make that mark under the starboard window of your airplane, just below where your name was painted.  A mark to show you'd made a confirmed individual kill.  And hopefully, the longer you flew the more marks you got to make.  Johnny already had two by the time I was assigned.  Two!  Might not sound like much, but it was.  In those days, the ace of aces, the really bad boys had 19, 20, 25 maybe, and a whole mess of 'damaged' and 'probables' as well.  No marks for those though.  Pity. 

I went on as many sorties as I could, both regularly scheduled ones and volunteer missions as well.  I wanted my pound of flesh.  Wanted not just to make my mark or to make ace but to avenge Angus' death as well.  It was a different kind of flying than the bombing runs.  More personal.  I'd always imagine that the bloke who shot down Angus was the one flying the plane in my sights.  Hell of a way to inspire yourself to victory, mate.  Back in the days when I could still feel something, hate and rage roared through me like wildfire.  Between that and those bitter little pills, I was one hell of a burning sword for the Cause, mate. 

We did loads of air-to-air but not much ground-to-air, at least not at first.  Occasionally we'd take off and beat up the E-boats in the Channel.  We used to go off two at a time - called it 'peasant shooting' on account of the fact that the French were on the other side.  The E-boats would come through the Channel, escorting something, and we used to go and give them a squirt, shoot them up and they'd go away.  It was grand fun as fun goes.   

See, even inside the horror of war, we found things to give us a giggle.  It was a running joke in our squadron for other symbols to 'mysteriously' turn up on our planes along side the marks that indicated a kill.  I was personally responsible for the crudely painted cow that turned up on Johnny's and for a few other marks (an E-boat, a dodgy looking outhouse etc) that graced several of my mates' planes. 

Our primary directive was the German fighters, but when the bullets are flying, often times they go wide or long.  In the little game my squadron played, anything one of us hit with a shell was fair game to be painted on a plane.  Which is how I wound up with a pair of women's knickers painted on mine.  Bastards.  Two Jerries surprised us on the way back to base.  It was a low engagement that took place over a rural farm.  Johnny damaged one of them and I finished him off.  He crashed ignobly, digging a furrow into the ground, straight through some poor sheila's washing, hung up to dry on the line.  The rule was one week.  You had to keep the symbol on the plane for one week.  Pink knickers on my plane for a whole bloody week.  Young men, hey?  

It was a different sort of fighting than the bombing runs and strangely, more satisfying.  I felt less guilty for it too, defending myself from a direct attack was somehow more justifiable to me than dropping burning phosphorus on some bloke's home.  Same rules applied though.  Get above your opponent and the advantage is yours.  Get up-sun of your opponent and he won't see you.  Get close before shooting and you won't miss.  That last one was a particular favorite of mine.

"I felt I was in the presence of a very unusual young man. He didn't give a damn for me. A youngster really, who was chomping at the bit to get to it, to get an airplane and have a go."

"God Almighty, he's quick and he's got the most marvelous eyes, but he's a hell of a chap at being able to keep with us."

Words from my fitness report.  I was a bit of a loose cannon in those days.  Actually, as time progressed and my kills started mounting, I was given the nickname 'Killer'.  A name which really wasn't of my choosing or my liking, but that's often the way of nicknames in the service.  It seems I'd made it something of a habit of shooting up any enemy vehicle I saw below me when returning from a sortie.  Invariably, I landed back at base with almost no ammunition left.  One hell of a grin, though.  I reckon Angus had one too, wherever he was. 

Over the course of the war, I saw a hell of a lot of the world.  The 350th was constantly on the move.  We served in England and in North Africa - for several different campaigns.  The summer of '43 was the start of the Sicilian Campaign, where we began the tradition of flying in bad weather when others stood down, in order that the massive allied convoys would be safe from German recon planes and air attacks.  Ground crews worked 16 hour days keeping our planes repaired, refueled and rearmed.  The fall of '43 saw us on Sardinia and Corsica, islands in the Mediterranean, defending air bases and the naval base the allies had established at La Maddalena. 

By the summer of '44 we were flying sorties over the west coast of Italy.  By fall, we'd moved again, providing cover for the allies as they invaded Southern France.  We were based in Tarquinia.  What a fucking mudhole it was that winter.  The planes had to be towed to the runway, the only dry ground on the whole bloody base, but still we didn't stop.  When it got too bad, we simply took off from there and landed at an airbase 200 miles north when we'd completed our missions.  We moved the whole squadron that way, one flight at a time from one base to another, without a single break in operations.  In the spring, when the mudhole had dried up, we were back again. 

During that winter, I got very sick.  Lack of proper diet, strain of combat and a severe case of dysentery left me barely able to walk and down nearly four stone.  Christ, I looked like a skeleton, although nowhere near like those poor bastards they were freeing from the concentration camps.  It was during this time I was ordered to accept an officer's commission, something I'd been reluctant to do for a very long time.  Second Lieutenant Curry.  Made Mum and Dad proud when I wrote them with the news.  Made my life even more difficult.  I was still too much a cowboy to want the responsibility that came with that, but I'd been around and knew how to get the job done.  And so it goes, hey?

By the time the 350th had returned to Mildenhall, I'd made First Lieutenant.  Since first stepping foot there in the beginning of the war, I'd been wounded eleven times.  Shot down twice.  Crashed once due to mechanical failure.  Punched out once over enemy lines.  I'd had dysentery, trench fever and the clap.  Had reduced hearing in my right ear due to an artillery shell explosion that occurred at close range.  Made ace three times over.  17 confirmed kills, 3 shared, 13 damaged and 3 probables.  Was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and recommended for the Victoria Cross.  Flew more than 400 sorties.  Killed God knows how many people.   

And lost more mates than I can count.

From there, I was reassigned, given new orders to attend instructor training and Johnny was reassigned to a squadron stationed in China, whose main objective was to bomb the bloody crap out of Japan.  While I was in training, he was badly wounded and spent three months in hospital before he was stable enough to make it home.  He was scared to go.  Afraid of what Kate would say when she saw him.  Lord love her, she waited for him....and what did she have coming home to her?  A cripple.  My best mate, paralyzed from the waist down.  His legs didn't work, never mind his dick.  Half a man.  Sounds bloody cold, but that's how we all felt.  Him included.  

Fuck, that was worse than being dead.  No man likes to be dependent on anyone for anything, especially after what we'd been through.  I thought I'd never go back there again, thought I'd never see Lil again, but he was my best mate and when he asked me to take him home, to help him face Kate, I couldn't say no.  For the first time since I joined up, I requested leave and was granted enough of it to see Johnny home to Kate. 

My God.  Summer in the Canadian outback.  I reckoned it wasn't any warmer this time than the last.  It was like a whole different world.  Johnny deserved a hero's welcome, flying back to his girl's arms high as a kite, riding the wind on a yellow biplane.  We arrived by way of military ambulance I borrowed from the base.  It was the only vehicle capable of easily transporting a wheelchair.  Johnny was silent most of the way there.  I was as well.  Neither of us were the happy-go-lucky boys we'd once been, invincible and ready to take on the world.  Now we felt the weight of the world, carried it inside us wherever we went.  Invincible no longer.

Kate broke into a wide smile when she saw him and for a moment, I think all of us imagined a different homecoming.  How it should have been.  Him running to her, grabbing her in his arms and giving her a kiss as he spun her round.  She was smiling through her tears as she took in the sight of him and then as she ran forward to embrace him, she saw me and blanched.  Guess good ol' Johnny didn't tell her I was the one bringing him home.  I can see why, but as it turned out, Kate's sin of omission was a hundred times worse. 

Let me back up.  Johnny knew what he was asking of me when he requested I be the one to bring him home.  He knew how I felt about Lil.  How I still felt after all these years... but war, it changes a man.  Especially after I happened to met her Frank at a popular allied watering hole in Italy.  I sure as fuck didn't tell him who I bloody was, but meeting him, it brought home just how wrong I'd been in pursuing her.  Now I had face to go with the name that haunted me.  Somehow, seeing him made what I'd done more real.  Until that moment, the man I'd wronged had been easy to put out of my mind because he wasn't 'real' to me.  He bloody well was after that run-in, though. 

My God.  Frank "Woody" Woodward.  He was a good man and a good CO.  Well liked and respected by his men.  Quiet.  Nice chap.  The ugly truth is it'd have been easier if he'd been an arsehole.  While he was busy saving lives over there and risking his own, I'd been back home screwing his wife.  That's the plain, unvarnished truth.  It didn't matter that I loved her.  I should have just walked away and never looked back.  Instead I'd wooed her with flowers and poetry and romantic trips to the 'seaside'.  Stupid selfish boy.

The last few miles out to the farm were excruciating for me.  I should have been thinking of Johnny, and in truth a part of me was, but there was a part of me that I couldn't silence.  God, would she be there?  Fuck.  Would Frank?  Did she ever think about me?  Did she have any idea how much I still thought about her?  What had happened to her in the time since I'd left?  This is such a small community.  I felt like a real bastard when I left knowing I'd ruined her and abandoned her there in the only place she'd ever known.  I knew I'd be leaving and still I couldn't keep away from her.  I might have bloody well just painted the scarlet 'A' on her breast.  Had they ever forgiven her her sins?  Had she ever forgiven herself?  Christ, had Frank?

As it turns out, all my worry was futile.  Kate had kept the truth from us all these years.  Lil wrote to Frank.  He wrote back that he understood her reasons and sympathized with both her loneliness and her heartache and that he could even find it in his heart to forgive her for breaking their vows.  He said he could forgive but not forget and the reminder she carried was too great.  He could no longer live as husband to a wife he didn't trust.  He asked for a divorce.  Still in deep grief over the loss of her brother, Lil hung herself in Betsy's barn three weeks after she received his letter.  She was four months pregnant.  

The news devastated me.  I barely remember my brief stay with Kate and Johnny.  I didn't stay for the wedding.  Johnny's my best mate but even with all we'd been through, I couldn't stay in that house a moment longer.  Lil's ghost was too loud.  Too many memories.  The lounge where I'd made love to her that first night.  The tub where we'd made love the morning after.  The things she had touched.  The scent of her perfume. 

I was numb.  My beautiful Lil and our child, gone forever.  It seemed so unfair.  How many missions had I been on?  How many times had I chased death only to cheat it at the very gates?  How many times had I been in that shadow place between this world at the next?  I walked in danger every single day that I was gone and she was the one to die.  Something inside me broke then.  Johnny knew it.  Could see it in my eyes.  We sat up half the night talking.  Making a moment of our own.  Saying what we both knew was goodbye.  I would never go there again and he would never leave. 

I left in the morning.  Took a drive to the 'seashore'.  I walked to our place up on the ridge, too.  I was too weak to go to Betsy's.  I said my goodbye to Lil there.  Dug a hole and buried my wings in it.  The part of me that Lil had touched, I didn't think that part of me would ever fly again.  She had truly slipped the surly bonds of earth and she no longer needed an eager craft to chase the wind.  She was free.  Free.  How I envied her.

And God, a child.  No wonder Kate never wrote of it to Johnny.  She must have known he'd tell me.  That made me feel worse.  Not for not knowing, but because I wouldn't have wanted a child then.  I loved Lil but I wasn't ready to be a father.  What I'd seen in the war had changed me, though.  Shown me an appreciation for life, for the innocence of childhood.  For the innocence I'd lost.  Ironic, isn't it?  Now I ache for something I'd have blanched at if Lil had told me the news before I shipped out.  I was angry about that for a long time until I realized how much she must have loved me to let me go in silence. 

Beautiful stamps.  

She was a beautiful woman, inside and out.  My Lil who was never mine and a child I never knew.  I wasn't worthy of either of them.  Not then and not now.  I was a different man when I returned to my post.  Numb.  Quiet.  Still as much a cowboy as ever, but now I had no inclination to crack wise.  I did my job, trained the babies, tried to instill in them the things my instructors tried to instill in me but the longer I stayed put, the more I hated it.  I craved the action, the rush of combat.  It was the only thing left that had the power to make me feel.  Training was too safe, too quiet.  It was strangling me and my CO knew it. 

I was reassigned, flying once more, thank Christ.  The war might have been officially over but there was still much to do.  I flew in support of ground troops for several months and eventually wound up flying supplies into Berlin after Russia cut off all land routes into the city.  "Operation Plainfaire."  God.  Dropping supplies - food, clothes, fuel -  into a city I'd helped destroy.  There seemed a certain balance in that.   

It was during this time I met a woman at a tea dance.  She was no Lil.  I made sure of that.  I had enough of those ghosts already.  She was a war widow.  Young.  Pretty.  Lonely.  No kids.  Just an empty farmhouse and the need to touch and be touched.  Truthfully, I met a lot of girls in places like that over the years.  I've never cared much for whores.  I've used my share but I never liked that sordid feeling.  Not as a young man and certainly not now.  Sure, I wanted it as much as the next bloke, but I preferred a veneer of respectability.  A good girl doing it a bit tough; a person like me- maybe just looking for some comfort in a bleak world.  I wanted to take my pleasure, but I wanted to give it, too.  It was all I had left to give.  To pay her back in equal measure for what I took from her.  I didn't ever again want to be the selfish boy I'd been with Lil.

At first I thought she would be like all the others.  We danced a bit.  We shared some tea and sweets.  Later, I took her to a halfway respectable hotel in town.  One I'd used before but not frequently.  She wanted me.  I wanted her.  She cried when I took her and when I came, it was Lil's face I saw in my mind's eye, not hers. 

I remember that afternoon vividly.  It was a blustery fall day.  Gray, as ever England's sky is.  It was wet and cold.  Wind lashed at the shutters.  The bed had a worn quilt thrown over it and a squeaky spring.  Squeak... squeak... squeak... squeaksqueaksqueak  while I fucked her.  Drove me bloody insane.  I remember grabbing the quilt and the pillows and dragging them and her to the floor with me.  Laughter through her tears and a long slow fuck on a tattered rag rug. 

Afterwards, unlike most of my other encounters, neither of us was in much of a hurry to dash off.  The weather was just too nasty to contemplate braving and it wasn't as if either of us had that much to go home to.  She had a cold, empty farmhouse waiting for her and I had an uncomfortable rack in the barracks and an unpalatable meal in the Officer's Mess.  Holding a pretty girl in my arms that arvo seemed infinitely more appealing. 

It was a memorable afternoon.  I pretended to be a happy 'Jimmy' and she pretended to be a happy 'Betty' and two lonely, damaged people managed to find a bit of comfort in each other.  We talked for a bit, something I rarely did with my tea room girls, nothing too personal really, just small talk - Where do you work, love?  Where've you been stationed, soldier? - sort of stuff.  I loved her again after.  Brought her off twice, first with my hands and then with my mouth before I took my pleasure of her. 

We dressed slowly after.  Her blouse had jet buttons.  I remember thinking how small they seemed in my fingers as I did them up.  She smelled of sex and roses.  She watched me dress, handing over bits of my uniform until all she had left was my belt, twisting nervously in her tiny fingers as she looked from me to the rucked up quilt to the door.  Fuck.  I always hated this part. 

Will I ever see you again, Lachlan?   

It wasn't the question that made me respond differently this time, it was the way she said it - and the fact that she was already handing me my belt and turning to go before she'd even finished asking it.  Her eyes said she already knew my answer before I even gave it, and to be honest, when I answered her in the affirmative, I think it surprised me as much as it surprised her.  It wasn't her face or her body or even the promise of another afternoon like this one that drew me.  It was that she seemed broken.  Like she'd given up and was only existing now, not living.  A shadow walker.  Like me. 

We saw each other off and on all throughout that fall and into the winter.  By spring, I'd moved into her farmhouse.  It was a good arrangement.  She needed a man about to take care of things and I liked the softness she brought to my life.  Not just the sex but little things.  Being able to share a cuppa with someone at the end of a long day.  The scent of a different soap on my shirts.  Home cooked meals.  Watching her dark head bent over her sewing in the evenings while we listened to the radio. 

It was a bleak time in London.  Everything was rationed.  Coal.  Soap.  Petrol.  Food.  We rarely had meat or eggs.  I ate at the base when I could and sparingly when I was home.  Fruit was a rare treat in those days.  She gave me an orange at Christmas.  I gave her a square of chocolate I'd won off my mates in a card game.  Fruit and sweets.  Simple pleasures, hey?  We shared them together, touching each other with fingers that smelled of spicy orange peel and mouths that tasted of chocolate.  To this day, the scent of oranges always makes me think of her.  Marie. 

Fair dinkum, it was a strange time.  There was a massive housing shortage.  It was the beginning of the cold war.  And the baby boom.  Christ, all those lonely soldiers... and all those pretty girls sweet on them.  Is it any wonder they took comfort in each other during that time?  Seemed everywhere I looked, I saw babies or girls with round bellies and a soldier on her arm. 

We continued to fly supplies into Berlin.  By the time we'd finished, between the Brits and the Americans, we'd flown over 90,000 flights.  That's an average of one plane landing every five minutes for nearly a year.  We kept flying in supplies even after the Russians lifted the blockade, and for the first time in years, I found a small measure of peace. 

Still, I wouldn't say that I was happy.  At home at her farmhouse, it was like we were insulated from the world.  I wasn't in love, but I was content.  We both were.  I think we tried to love each other but both of us were too broken, too used up, too used to the shadows to step into the light and take a chance on hurting so terribly again. 

We weren't.....right, though.  Our relationship, I mean.  I remember one afternoon as if it was yesterday.  It was mid-summer.  We were outside, sitting together in the grass enjoying the blue sky and the breeze.  I felt the sun on my face and thought of home.  I hadn't been back to Oz in nearly a decade.  My brothers Liam and Duncan had returned and started families of their own, but I wasn't ready to go back.  Couldn't face my Mum and Dad after what I'd done to Lil.  She noticed my silence and asked me what I was thinking.  I'd never spoken to anyone of Lil since the day I said my goodbye to her and instead of answering her, I touched her leg and asked her if she wanted to go upstairs.

It started out as a lark; there was a strip of cloth hanging out the mending basket she'd left on the chair in our bedroom.  She grabbed it with a giggle and bound my wrists to the bedhead.  We were both laughing but it didn't touch her eyes. Or mine.  Not that day.  I think she was peeved at me for evading her question and maybe a little upset I was still too much like the other men she'd known.  Unwilling to give too much of himself.  I'd have answered her if she'd have asked about anything else but Lil.  I wasn't even ready to face that myself yet, let alone share that pain with someone else.  It was too raw. 

She finished stripping me but didn't undress herself except to slip her knickers off.  She teased me at first, bit of tickling, bit of nipping, bit of tugging at my dick in a way that made me very aware my hands were bound.  Like a game - how much do you trust me?  Good question.  How much did I trust her?  With my body?  Yes.  With my heart?  No.  Something switched over in her then, in me too, I think.  I saw it in her face.  She wanted to hurt me and I let her.  Figured I deserved it.  Not just for not being enough of a man for her, but for Lil too and for all the times I came back when my mates didn't. 

She was a wild thing, biting and scratching at me as she rode me hard.  Near to screaming when she finally came.  I bucked and heaved under her but the truth is I wanted her to hurt me.  Told her to, in fact.  It was ugly and malevolent and it touched that place inside me where I hid all my darkest demons.  She used me and I used her.  I wondered what demons she was exercising as I used my bulk to flip her under me and fucked her mouth until I came.  I had the marks on my wrists for three days.  The ones that afternoon left on my soul lasted much longer.

It wasn't always like that.  Most of the time we were softer with each other.  We lived this polite life.  I did care for her.  I dunno if it was love or a sense of responsibility I felt, but I think I cared for her in my own way.  Loved her as much as I was capable of, anyway.  She was always so proper with me, made me work to make her smile but I think that darkness was always between us.  How could it not be walking in the shadows as we did?

It wasn't just her.  She asked me to hurt her too even though she must have known it made me feel guilty after, even if it turned us on in the moment.  Not- not every time was like that, but I had the same darkness inside of me that she had inside of her.  It was a small matter for her to open the cage and let it out.  I never tied her like she did to me that first time, though.  It was too big a temptation to abuse the power I had over her.  I was too strong and she was far too slight, but I'd use her roughly, forcing her down and shoving her legs apart, slapping at the tender flesh of her arse and pinching her nipples in a way that was beyond even the roughest play as I took her from behind like an animal, caring only about my own pleasure - if you can even call it that.  Do animals even feel pleasure?  The closest name I can give the feeling I experienced was 'not-pain'. 

She had this way of tapping into the poison inside me, taking me far beyond any place I ever wanted to go with a woman.  More than any other girl, she had the power to make me feel.  Like flying in combat missions did.  Same rush burning away the numbness.  I don't suppose it mattered much that what we felt wasn't sweet or nice.  I think that the fact we could make each other feel at all spoke volumes. 

My feelings changed that summer as we did our best to get by, still pretending to be the happy 'Betty' and 'Jimmy' in public and doing our best to burn out our ghosts when we were alone at night.  And in all of that, I was beginning to become more attached to her.  For all the dark games we played, I liked the softness she brought to the rest of my life and I know she felt more secure with a man around. 

For the first time in a long time, I started thinking about the future.  About settling down in England or maybe taking her home to Oz.  It still wasn't love, not like I felt for Lil, but I never wanted to hurt that badly again.  What we had was comfortable.  She was a good girl and I was a good bloke, if you discounted the dark stains on my soul.  I'd made Captain by then.  I wasn't rich but I had enough blunt to look after her properly.  We got on well enough together.  I got to thinking it might be nice to have someone to walk through life with.  Make babies with.  Grow old with.  Did I really want to be alone forever?  Did it really matter if I didn't love with the fierceness I once did?  Was 'settling' really so bad? 

I thought it felt kind of nice.  

On one of my missions, I bought a ring.  Nothing fancy, just a simple band.  Silver not gold.  I couldn't afford any better.  Carried it with me through the start of that fall, thought I might wait 'till Christmas and give it to her in a box of orange truffles I bought off one of my mates; a Frog who traded French cognac with some bloke in Belgium.  Regular scam artists, the both of them, using military flights to move their cargo.  Worked for me though; wouldn't have been the first time I bought something on the black market.  Nor the last time, either. 

It was late November when our new orders finally came in.  We'd been expecting them for weeks but as is typical with the military post, it had gotten caught up somewhere.  I'd been scheduled on a short three day mission.  Milk run, really.  Nothing dangerous.  That morning I'd left the farmhouse early, kissed her goodbye after a nice morning root and arrived at the base to find new orders waiting for me, and for several of my mates as well.  Until our CO could sort us out, all missions were canceled until further notice.  He gave us all three day passes.  Told us he didn't know when we'd next get to eat, drink, and be merry and sent us away with a wink and a one fingered salute. 

I decided to surprise my girl, sprung for some real flowers - not the kind I usually picked along the roadside for her - and sweet-talked the local black market chap out of a bonzer little bottle of vino.  She'd developed quite a taste for it lately and I encouraged it.  It put color into her cheeks and made her laugh.  Treasures in hand, chiefly among them my three day pass, I headed for home in reasonably high spirits for a man whose future was rather uncertain.  Reckoned I'd wait the three days and pop the question once I had the answer to the first thing she'd be sure to ask me- if she said yes.  Where will we live?

I was utterly floored when I returned home that afternoon and found her naked, curled up in our bed, white as sheet and bleeding heavily from between her legs.  I felt fear flash through me.  It was far, far too much blood for it to be her monthly.  She was losing a child.  Oh God.  Did I cause it to happen?  The morning root?  Was it all the wine I'd been bringing home?  A wave of nausea choked me as I thought about the times I'd been so rough with her.  How she used to struggle to force me to be even rougher.  I fought down the bile.  Her hands were curled between her legs and she was whispering to me, 'I'm sorry, Lach... so sorry....sorry...' 

Jesus.  A child.  How had that happened?  Of course, I knew how.  I was so careful with her, always using a durex unless I finished in her hands or mouth.  I always used something... except for those few times when she pushed me beyond myself into that dark place.  Most times I'd managed to stop and put one on, even in our darkest moments... but there had been a few times where she'd pushed me so far I'd been nothing but a rutting animal, lost to everything except the blackness she stirred in me and the desire to fuck her until we were both so used up that when sleep took us, we were too exhausted to feel the demons that came to us in our dreams. 

A child conceived in rage and pain and hurt.  Poor little mite.  What kind of chance did it have with a beginning like that?  And what kind of man was I that I could let this happen?  Of course, I knew the answer to that too.  I knew what kind of man I was.  The kind of man who could do something like this.  Tainting everything and everyone he touches.  

Her blood was so red against the snowy-white sheets.  Grabbing a towel from a stack on the dresser, I wadded one up and pressed it between her legs.  There was nothing else to do.  The nearest neighbor wouldn't have been of any help and we were too far from the base infirmary for ringing them to do any good.  I'd have never made it holding her in front of me on the bike anyway.  She'd have bled to death bouncing down the rough road long before we reached town.

It was a horrifically frightening experience, but I'd seen gore and death and I knew both how frail and how enduring the human body could be.  I'd seen what a body could take, how it could last long past the time a man wished it would.  And I knew if I could get the bleeding stopped that she'd live.  I spent an interminable hour on my knees on the hard wooden floor beside our bed, holding that towel to her and stroking her belly softly, talking to her, soothing her.  All she ever said to me was 'I'm sorry'.  My back ached.  My knees were in agony.  My arms shook with fatigue from the pressure I'd used to stop the bleeding, but stop it did.  Finally.

Silently, reverently, I cleaned the blood from her hands and legs and sat with her until she fell asleep.  After she did, I stripped off my bloodstained shirt and grabbed up the pile of soiled linen, carrying them both downstairs to the incinerator out back.  What I found there stunned me.  Another set of bloody sheets, a small brown bottle that was empty and smelled strongly of herbs, and a bloody knitting needle.  The gruesome sight made my gorge rise.  Jesus.  She'd done this to herself.  I slammed the incinerator door, fell to my knees and voided my stomach into the grass.  She killed our child.  Oh, God.  And then the full measure of what she'd done began to sink in.  She hadn't known I was coming back today.  She thought I was going to be gone for three days.  She'd never planned on telling me she'd done this.  I was never supposed to know.  That murderous bitch.  It was my child too. 

I saw red.  I thought I was beyond feeling, beyond anything but the numbness I'd been existing in for the last few years.  I didn't think I was even capable of feeling emotion again, much less this excruciating agony.  It was a hundred times worse for that very reason.  Insulated from feeling for so long, the presence of true, real emotion was shocking.  Especially this emotion.  Seething, mind-numbing rage. 

I don't even remember getting up and walking back inside the house.  The next thing I remember was standing over her with my fists clenched, seeing an entirely different picture.  Now I knew why there was a stack of towels on the dresser.  Why she was naked - no use doing extra laundry, hey?  She can kill our child but she didn't want to have to wash its blood from her clothes?  Could a woman be any more cold and callous?

You lying cunt!  I remember screaming the words at her.  Screaming and screaming until my throat was raw.  She was staring at me, still white as a ghost, two spots of color high on her cheeks as she clutched a pillow to her breast and let me rage.  I vaguely remember her protesting, saying she did it to save me, to keep me from becoming too attached to someone like her, a broken girl.  Said she felt the change in my feelings and knew it would be a disaster.  She didn't want me to 'settle', she wanted me to find love again.  Real love.  She did it so I would be free.  Free. 

It was in that moment I knew it was my fault.  My fault.  I hadn't loved her enough and that was the result.  She believed she was making the ultimate sacrifice.  Maybe she was.  I didn't know and I didn't care.  I hated her for what she did.  I hated myself.  And then, just like that, I felt all the light go out of me.  No more shouting.  No more rage.  No more pain.  No more anger.  No nothing.  Just numb.  A void.  Blackness.  It was then that I walked in the darkest shadows of all.

I never said another word to her.  Not one.  I went downstairs and rang her sister.  Told her in the most crude terms what had happened and informed her if she wanted someone to look after her sister she bloody well get her arse over here because I had no intention of doing it ever again.  While I waited for her to arrive, I packed what few things I had, taking nothing that she'd given me or that we'd bought together.  What was left fit into a pillowcase.  You'd think after knowing each other more than a year, the pile would have been bigger.

The last thing I did before I left was light the incinerator.  A father's right, I suppose.  I burned the flowers I brought too and tossed in the ring I'd bought her for good measure.  At least our child would know it had one parent who gave a good goddamn.  When I got back to the house, I found her sister peeking at me from behind the parlor doorway.  Taking in the measure of her face, I was certain she'd known of the pregnancy.  Fucking women.  I felt like my head was going to explode.  She skittered away from me as I strode past and tossed a handful of bills on the table; just what money I had in my pockets and most of the small stash I'd kept upstairs.  I took the bottle of wine with me.  Figured I'd start with that and look for something stronger when I'd finished it.  She never said a word to me and I left without ever looking back.

The period of time after that is more than a little hazy.  I wasn't exactly sure how many days I lost there but I knew it was more than three.  My mates finally found me in a bar, still wearing the same clothes I had been that afternoon, stinking drunk and wallowing in my own filth.  They took me back, hosed me down, let me sleep it off and then sobered me up enough to stand before my CO.  I'd been AWOL for eleven days.  He busted my chops for it, gave me eleven days in the base stockade, a day for each day I owed him.  It was an unpleasant place that smelled of stale piss and unwashed bodies.  He gave me an official reprimand in my file and let me stew in my own juices for a week before he finally came in to talk to me. 

I never said a word about what had sent me on my bender but in the way of good CO's the world over, he somehow knew what had happened.  Didn't keep him from giving me a sound talking to, though.  I had served my time, could have been out ages ago except I wasn't ready to go home.  I was also too much of a cowboy to be promoted much higher.  I'm not a career soldier.  I just wanted to fly planes.  He asked me if I wanted out.  I asked him if the RAF was still looking for test pilots. 

There had been so many changes in aviation in the last few years, so many advances in designs and engines.  Jets had broken the sound barrier.  The first flight around the world had been made by way of four in-flight refuelings.  A lot of veteran pilots like me had chosen to become test pilots.  Flying was in my blood.  And the truth was it was all I really knew how to do.  What do you do when there are no more battles to be fought?  No more sorties to fly?  I needed the rush to keep going and this was the only way I was going to get it. 

The bastard made me wait six months.  Put me on some shit detail that had me bouncing around the Pacific - Japan, the Philippines, Hawaii, a stop in Oz to see the folks (mandatory) although I would have done anyway.  Told me if I still felt like volunteering for it after my six months were up then he'd give me green lights across the board.  I think he was worried I was on some kind of suicide mission.  I wasn't.  There's a big difference between a man who's bent on dying and one who doesn't give a damn if it happens.  I was one of the latter not one of the former, but I wanted the position so I took the deal.

Flew about the Pacific.  Recon work, mostly.  Some auxiliary support for the shit that was going down in Korea but nothing in the thick of the fray.  Bit of a disappointment that, but it seems I'd lost my taste for killing.  Seeing our sheets soaked with my child's blood had burned that out of me.  I still loved to fly though, and being a test pilot was one of the few ways left to still feel the rush without endangering anyone else.   

Six months came and went.  I smoked too much.  Drank more.  Ate less than I should have.  Flirted with some gorgeous island women.  Fucked a few as well.  More than a few.  Smoked a little opium in the Orient.  Read a lot of books.  Swam in the ocean.  Saved the life of a little girl who'd gotten caught in a current when the tide changed at some beach in Hawaii.  She'd have been about my child's age if Lil had lived.  Gave her the good luck charm I'd carried with me all through the war.  Cute as a button, she was.  Berry brown with dark curly hair.  Atonement for the children I'd lost, I reckoned. 

A start, anyway.  

Had my visit at home with Mum and Dad.  Was a bit shocked to see how much Liam and Duncan had grown.  Christ, they were just boys when I left.  Now they  were men with families of their own.  Uncle Lachlan.  Who'd have ever guessed, hey?  Lachlan....the black sheep of the family.  The name that when spoken made Mum weepy and sent Dad scrounging though the liquor cabinet. 

Mum cried when she saw me.  Dad's eyes were wet too.  First time I'd ever seen my Dad cry.  Liam's little girl, Mary, she was afraid of me at first.  I'd been with soldiers too long.  I'd forgotten what I must look like to a little girl.  A stranger with a rough, weathered face, gray hair at his temples a thin pinkish-white scar that started above his right eye and cut through his eyebrow, skipping his eye before it picked back up on his cheekbone to curve around toward his ear - the one that didn't hear so well.  Makes a bloody bit more sense now, doesn't it?  Fucking German artillery.  I also had a habit of listening to people with my head cocked because my hearing was better in my other ear. 

I'd lived a hard life and my body had borne the brunt of it.  The smoking, the drinking, the poor nutrition, the sleep deprivation, the illnesses- not to mention all the times I was wounded.  I felt the cold in my bones in the winter.  Walked with a bit of a limp some days when the bad weather made my leg act up where they'd been unable to remove the shrapnel lodged in the bone.  I was thirty-three going on fifty. 

Mum had a hard time getting over my face.  I was careful to never let her see me without a shirt.  The scar on my face was actually one of my prettier ones.  I had a hard time getting used to them too.  Dad seemed like he'd aged a hundred years.  Guess losing a son'll do that to you.  Mum seemed shorter.  And more round.  She still had that smile, though, and when I hugged her she still smelled the same, like jasmine and cookies and home. 

Seeing Liam's wife heavy with her second child was difficult for me.  I didn't tell any of them about Lil.  I couldn't even bring myself to speak about my most recent loss.  Mum wanted to know if I'd left a girl behind anywhere; said she wanted some more grandbabies to bounce on her knee.  She wouldn't have been Mum if she hadn't fussed over me but I think my answer spoke volumes.  I've left them all behind.  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.  I covered it by petting the dog.  Felix five, hey?  My Mum, you gotta love her.   

Reckon Dad knew my road hadn't been a smooth one though.  He took me down to his pub and we shared a pint.  First time ever for me sharing a beer with my old man and he told me stories about his time as a medic in World War I.  Stories I knew he'd shared with his mates and my uncles but they were the kind that were always told long after us kids had gone to bed.  Having him share those stories with me that way was like his way of saying he saw me as a man, an equal.  His approval meant more than every promotion, every award and medal I'd ever earned. 

I was a man in my Dad's eyes.  What a bloody good moment that was.  I bought a shout for the bar.  We toasted to 'beautiful stamps'.  He gave me a funny look when I said it, but drank to it anyway.  They all did. 

Beautiful stamps, Lil.  Cheers, love.  Your boy is now a man.  Sorry it happened too late to save you. 

It was a damn fine trip but still it was rough on me.  Mum whipped up a feast to celebrate my last night.  It was hard seeing everyone round the table just like always and an empty chair where Angus used to sit.  Dad said the blessing and then offered up a silent toast for Angus.  I don't think any of us really knew what to say.  Little Mary saved us all though, climbed right up into his chair, smiled at the weepy lot of us and then asked what was holding us up.  Dad nodded to Liam and then to Mum.  Reckon Angus got his toast in after all.  Still a Curry in the chair, just of a different vintage.

Despite my enjoyment at seeing my family again, I was glad to go.  It hurt too much seeing the babies, seeing how precious they were to everyone, how loved.  Curry babies.  I was glad my brothers had found women who fought to keep them and protect them rather than give them up in a trickle of red or at the end of a rope.  For as much as I loved them all, seeing them was like holding this big mirror up to my life.  See what you could have had if only you'd been a better man, Curry?  It was the first and last time I went home.   

As ordered, six months to the very day, I showed back up in my CO's office and he handed me the paperwork he'd promised, green lighting my acceptance as a test pilot, sweet as a biscuit.  It was the perfect job for me.  Got my blood pumping, gave me the rush I wanted and endangered no lives but my own.  I served for four more years.  Never earned another promotion.  Never really cared.  Had my share of close calls and a few ignoble crashes as well.  Pretty amazing career.  Started it in a biplane and ended it in a Hunter Hawk, a gorgeous single-seat fighter jet.  What a big beautiful bitch she was.  Pretty bloody amazing.

A pair of us, we were flying them out over the mountains....can't tell you where - sorry, classified - when things started getting ugly.  We were testing an anomaly we'd discovered; between mach 0.8 and 1.0, the stick had more play than it should, theoretically allowing the pilot to be able to execute maneuvers that pulled more G's than the body could handle.  Turn and burn, baby.  He went first and I went after him.  He waited for the moment and yanked hard on the stick.  Probably pulled about 8 G's, poor bastard.  Unfortunately, the stressful nature of the maneuver did a job on his plane as well.  Ripped one of the panels off the underside of his aircraft. 

I was right on his tail and positioned as we were, it got sucked right into my intake and fucked me up pretty good.  I was leaking hydraulic fluid and that was just the least of my problems.  Warning lights all over the fucking place.  Internal systems compromised.  Tried to eject but everything was all buggered up.  I heard the mechanism trigger but nothing happened.  The ground was rushing up.  I sent one last call back to base, gave them my position and told them to tell my family back home I loved them and then I signed off. 

I was a ton of flaming wreckage falling from the sky. I knew I was going to die.  And you know what?  I didn't see my life pass before my eyes.  I felt no burning desire to live, to grasp at life, to cling to my final moments like a drowning man fights for air.  I was lover to a dead woman and to a woman who was dead to me, and father to two dead children.  No, I didn't feel any more desire to fight.  I felt only acceptance and peace.  Finally, thank God.  Take me home.  No more shadows.  Just light.

The light shimmered and swallowed me.  I felt a pull, I thought that was it, that I was dead and then the next thing I remember was waking in this World to the soft voice of a woman.  Isobel.  That face.  That voice.  I thought she was an angel.  And then in that soft way she has, she explained to me the truth, the tenets of this World.  Not heaven.  Not even hell.  Not yet. 

I felt angry.  I wanted to go back.  This place had robbed of the peace I so desperately wanted.  Robbed me of the marks I'd earned that made me a man.  I threw up the first time I saw my face in a mirror.  An old man's eyes in a young man's face.  My body felt invincible once more, young and fit and strong.  I could hear again in my right ear.  My leg didn't ache when I walked.  My face was all wrong.  Young and smooth and the gray had gone from my temples. 

But worse than that, worse than the years it had stripped from my body, was the fact it had cheated me out of the one thing I wanted more than anything.  My children are not here in this World. 

I was angry a long time.  

Sometimes I think I'm still angry.  I hide it behind this face.  Behind a cheerful bonhomie and an innocence that is no longer mine to claim.  It makes me feel guilty even as I grasp at it.  I have seen too much to ever go back.  This face, it is nothing more than a shadow walker's illusion.  As I looked at it in the mirror, something one of my mates once wrote echoed in my head.

And we were once just boys.  Jesus.  I shook my head and reached out, brushing my fingertips over the reflection in the mirror.  I was startled when Heather's beautiful face appeared at my left shoulder.  Her expression was curious, thoughtful.  I don't often look at myself in the mirror.  In truth, I don't care for them much.  Too hard to see the wrong face staring back at me, even after all the years I'd spent in this World.  This time, however, I stopped and looked at us together. 

She was nude, her soft curves proclaimed her a woman even as my hard angles proclaimed me a man.  She wormed under my arm and gave me a kiss before looking back at our reflection in the mirror. 

I like the way we look together.  

Her words- soft and shy as she studied me with those eyes of hers that see too much.  I pulled her against me and put her back to my chest so we could see ourselves together.  Her head fit perfectly under my chin.  My chest was twice as wide as hers.  I wrapped my thick arms around her and marveled at how small and slight she was compared to me, how much more fair her skin, how much softer she was, how much I loved her, and how much light she brought to my world.

I looked again at our faces.  Hers was young and soft.  Her eyes sparkled and her mouth was curved into a smile.  Her face was a good match to the one I saw staring back at me.  Funny how life works.  I believe we match just as well on the inside, too.  I am an old man and she is an old soul with a soft touch for those of us who've served and a light that guides wandering soldiers home.  Reckon the Good Lord heard me when I asked him to call me home, after all.  

Lucky, lucky, lucky.  That's me, hey?