Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I'm writing for fun, not profit.
Rating: PG
Main character(s): Ned Malone
Subject matter: Missing scene from Brothers in Arms
Ned Malone, journalist extraordinaire, a man with words on his mind and ink on his fingers, sits at a table centering a large rough room decorated with ferns, mounted butterflies and other bits of nature and homemade art. This room has no walls. In hesitant puffs the night breeze wanders in and tiptoes around Ned, afraid to interrupt his flow of thought. Here, one hundred feet about the rainforest floor, the air smells of greenery and lush tropical humidity. A drunken whooze of brandy floats from empty glasses on the kitchen board.
Ned has a buzzy head from the liquor, and rustling leaves and humming insects play counterpoint to his internal tintinnabulation. Even with all the brandy, Ned cannot sleep. He envies Roxton, who sloshed off to bed a while ago and most likely dozes like the dead.
Thoughts, ideas and memories control Ned tonight. Inexorably they crawl out of his mind and down his pen. Wrist and fingers make small movements, releasing words to a blank journal page. Ned doesn't try to stop these escaping thoughts; and even if he did, he'd fail. This he knows, as years ago he gave up the pointless battle.
One page fills, then two. The journal book in which Ned writes is the last of those brought from England. He wonders what will happen when it is filled. Will he still be a writer when he can write no more? Or will the obsession weaken in abstinence? Time will tell. But tonight compulsion wins, and for a hypothetical paying reader, Ned describes another Plateau day.
Eventually someone other than Marguerite will read Ned's words. She, though a competent copy editor, has never offered him a single sou. Sometimes Ned asks Marguerite's her opinion of his writing. Sometimes not. Tonight's entry will fall in the latter category.
On the table an oil lamp burns, casting a tired yellow light. Other than the moon and stars, it is the only illumination in Veronica's Treehouse home, and insects have gathered to worship its holy glow. Smacking into the lamp's hot glass chimney, a dusty pink-winged moth dies. Ned writes on.
Today, thanks to a poisoned dart, I returned to the trenches of the Great War. I keep reminding myself that it was only a dream and that the real War ended years ago and far way. The strategy hasn't worked. My heart pounds as I write and not just from the dart or Roxton's brandy.
Challenger says that the toxin could have killed me and that I'm lucky to be alive. Lucky, he says. If that was luck, I need no more of it. Luck is a poor reason to be alive. It wasn't purposeless and random luck that saved me in the Great War, but three good men, each of whom deliberately chose to die for me, much like the Christian Savior on His cross.
How can I ever be worthy of that?
Oh sure, I tried to do the right thing by them. I took the intercepted dispatch to British Headquarters, no easy thing to find in a cold, wet wilderness filled with hostile Germans. At one point I collapsed and later woke up in an ambulance driven by an American named Ernest. His family name was Hemingway, or something close. We spoke of Spain and writing.
When I arrived at the command center, I found worse adversaries than the Germans. A fluffy barnyard hen of a file clerk repeatedly tried to block my way. I think I knocked him down or threatened him with a pistol because I remember him howling, "I'll have you for that!" and myself laughing at the hollow threat -- no, "giggling" would be a better word.
In the safety of England I wrote my story and the Herald printed it on page three of the April 23 evening edition, a great triumph for a fledgling freelance reporter, the very thing I'd hoped to achieve. They paid me the grand sum of eight pounds and I thought it a fortune.
"Up and coming, that's what you are!" said Hungerton, the Herald's editor. With a fine flourish of newsprint he handed me a copy and slapped me on the back. A minute or two later he offered me a permanent staff position. I accepted without a blink. That night Hungerton took me to his club, the Reform, and I nattered with wealthy men who thought themselves liberal. Hungerton stood me drinks until I could talk no more then leashed me up and towed me home, a staggering puppy dog of a man.
The next morning I met Hungerton's daughter Gladys at the breakfast table. Until I returned to France I was so often at the Hungerton home, I knew all their servants by first name. Ethereal, elegant Gladys made me forget the blood and mud and trenches. She seemed everything the Great War was not, and I craved her beauty after all its ugliness. Small wonder I fell in love with her.
At Gladys' urging, for the rest of my war reporting duty I floated safely in observation balloons, watching troops run across the battlefields like ants on an ugly counterpane.
If those three soldiers died for Ned Malone, they only saved him for a column on page-three. A day later their death story lined birdcages or wrapped greasy chips.
Oh, and let's not forget the fine job those men won for Neddy-boy at the Herald.
How can that be worth so many lives? It can't. I failed those brave men. I sold my soul for safe conduct through the war and reported only cold impersonal facts: "Today British troops took another town, won another road, killed five hundred and thirty-two of the enemy." People back home quickly forgot what war means -- the dirt and dying -- and some day they'll fight another, because of me, because I failed those men.
For a long time I've run away from that. Even here, in this adventure novel of a life, in this Plateau world tucked away from reality, I'm still running.
What purpose do I have here? What is my reason for existence? I live each day, I write each day. It has no meaning. I'm merely waiting to return home.
And if I return, it won't be for the betterment of mankind, but for the Herald's gain -- if it even cares anymore. I'm sure the Herald bookkeepers have written me off in the net loss column and that Hungerton long ago published obituaries for us all. I just wish I could read Marguerite's.
A baritone groan sputters up from Roxton's room. Lord Roxton normally sleeps like a block of oak when safe in the Treehouse and tonight he went to bed more than a little drunk. Concerned for his friend, Ned begins to rise, but feet patter on the floor. It is too light a step for Roxton's thirteen stone.
Marguerite steals up her little flight of stairs. She avoids the floor's creakiest planks but Ned knows her destination. When she gets there Ned barely hears her whispered question, "John? Are you okay?"
Although only half-swallowed syllables return to Ned, he knows what Roxton says to Marguerite. Tonight Roxton also re-visits battlefields and holds communion with the dead.
The rough-hewn plank walls of the Treehouse telegraph the creaks and squeaks of Roxton's bed ropes. A moan shudders the air, probably Marguerite as the sound has a sinuous feminine feel. Ned waits and wonders what he should do if they make love. Cover his ears and hum? If Ned makes any noise at all, Roxton and Marguerite will slink apart like thieves caught stealing intimacy. But sovereign silence reclaims its Treehouse throne. The lovers quietly resume their sleep and Ned returns to his journal page.
I can picture the tears that Gladys would shed while reading my obituary. "Brave, creative soul," she'd say. "Neddy sought adventure and paid the price." Then she would thoroughly forget me. Such is Gladys. Once a thought myself lucky to win her attentions.
Last year for one of Challenger's endless studies, he and I hid in a tall banyan to view an ape-man mating ritual, two big golden males and a smaller white-blonde female. The little minx enticed both males at once and giggled all through the resultant bloody fight. I couldn't help but think of Gladys while I watched. The Hungerton butler Bertram had told me of a similar incident at General Baxter's garden party when Lieutenants Hage and Morton came to fisticuffs over returning Gladys' handkerchief.
When Challenger and I later described the ape confrontation to Veronica, she said the blonde female was shopping for a strong mate.
That's torn it. I'm thinking of Veronica now.
Although all my journals are filled with stories about Veronica and rough sketches of her face and form, it never seems enough. Mostly because they're only ink on paper and not flesh and blood.
My journals are not Veronica. Even if I could perfectly sketch her Cupid's bow mouth, or match her eyes with iridescent butterfly wings, or unearth pale soft gold equal to her hair, it still wouldn't be Veronica Layton, just my memory of the dream.
Tonight dreams are all I have. A month ago Veronica floated away in Challenger's balloon. With her she took my soul as the last time we spoke, Veronica said she'd never love me. It tore at my heart, and in a rage I stalked away to seek consolation in Aleece's arms. Just minutes later Aleece died in mine. Like the soldiers in the war Aleece sacrificed herself for me. Yet another life lost to save me, and for what? A few more pages in my journal?
Tonight I have neither Veronica nor self-respect.
Here the ink that flows from Ned's pen changes from thin hairline to heavy stroke. If spoken aloud, the written words would be a low-pitched moan. Ned's eyes glisten. Putting down his pen, he walks on bare feet out of the breathlessly still room onto the balcony. Both moon and breeze have gone to bed and even in open air, the tree-shadowed night smothers like a heavy black velvet robe.
Ned considers tomorrow, and next day, and the day after that, and asks himself if he can spend those days here in the Treehouse, where Veronica and memories live in everything he sees. Seeking the answer within himself, he returns to the table and once again picks up his pen.
I've loved Veronica Layton from my first day on the Plateau. How could I not? She's a goddess, and I've become her devoted acolyte. Like countless others, I'm in love with her golden hair and bold blue eyes, her bravery and her honesty.
Veronica never lies. That's what I admire most about her, the frank, direct way she has. She never hides from the truth. If Veronica loved someone, unlike Gladys or the ape, she wouldn't play them false. If Veronica loved someone? Who am I trying to fool? Only myself, since Marguerite will never read these lines. Why don't you just say it then, Neddy-boy? If Veronica loved me.
"She'll repair that balloon," Challenger swears. "She helped me make it." He thinks she'll fly home. Roxton thinks she'll walk. Either way it will take a while. If she's alive. I pray God she's alive. I ache for some certainty of that, and I ache because I am without her. But whether we've lost Veronica or not, I will always be without her. She doesn't love me.
I'll never share Veronica's life and heart. I'll never hold her body close and make love to her. She'll never be Mrs. Edward D. Malone. She'll never marry me.
Resting his pen on the paper, Ned pauses. Unaware of the black blot his pen bleeds, Ned shakes his head and fights a spate of tears that threatens to unman him.
In his room below, Challenger, who has been silent thus far tonight, shifts in his bed. His snore starts sawing silence. It is a homey, soothing sound. Ned has a superstition: When Challenger snores, peace always reigns in the Treehouse. Ned tells himself that peace also comes from facing truth. Tonight from truth he must find tranquility.
Contemplating the black hemorrhage of ink he's made on the paper, Ned puts down his pen. The blot has some resemblance to a Plateau map, and he realizes what he must do. The purposeful life Ned was meant to live won't step off the Treehouse elevator one fine day. Ned must leave their safe haven to seek it out.
The decision made, there is much to do and Ned's preparations will fill the remaining hours of the night, but first Ned finishes his journal entry.
Many philosophers have said in various ways that life is in the living not the destination. Or that life is what occurs when you're bound somewhere else. I've always thought these sayings trite, but now I'm beginning to see their truth. Living happens. All you can do is choose your path through it.
With every day that passes, it becomes clear that our party may never leave this lost world of Challenger's. It's not so great a tragedy, at least not for me. I can have a life here, but I must seek it out.
It won't be like finding a dinosaur to shoot or a trout to hook. I cannot capture life. Like a story, I must create it, and to create a life of which I'm proud, I must do my best work. If I succeed, here on the Plateau I will find a new balance between my mislaid life and a purpose found. Here where I lost my virginity, I shall find a life.
Out there, somewhere, a life.
Finis.
**)(**)(**)(**)(**)(**)(**)(**)(**)(**)(**
If all humans were mayflies,
Living only the one day,
Would there be war?
Would there be peace?
What would happen to our suffering?
Please let me know what you think of my Malone story. It is my first story that is not about Roxton and Marguerite. Like Malone, I'm feeling kind of lonely and would like to hear from you.