Having written several stories based on "In a Savage Land" from Evelyn's point of view, I felt the need to let Mick speak for himself now. Rated T because of the subject matter of war and its consequences and divided into five short chapters.
Again, I couldn't resist to choose some soundtrack music, and again this is a bit anachronistic, but I'm not much into 40s and 50s music and I selected the songs mainly for their lyrics.
This chapter's title derives from a song by Mike & The Mechanics:
Then a woman screams Then I realise
and a baby cries
and someone's dream is shattered
When the nightmares dance
before your eyes
they can leave you bruised and battered
that I'm by your side
and I'm listening to you breathing
and in this room
with the silver moon
you're something to believe in
I'm in the longboat with some of the natives, on our way to work. The boat is gliding through turquoise waters glittering in the sun, and I'm looking out for the triangular rock that marks a particularly promising spot for finding the finest pearls.
"There!" I say, pointing. We slow down, and I rise, pull off my shirt and get ready to dive, taking a deep breath and setting one foot on the edge of the boat.
Something slams into my leg and sends me crashing into the water with a splash. The boat rocks madly and I can hear the panicked screams of my companions.
For a moment I can't move. I feel no pain but there is blood in the water. A lot of it. The water is thick and brownish, and I realize that I'm not in the ocean but in a muddy hole in what seems to be a tropical forest.
I try to shift and manage to get up. I'm amazed to find that I can walk, although there is blood all over my khaki shorts and shirt. Funny, I thought I had taken that off before. And I'm even wearing shoes, light brown loafers, now soggy with mud.
I hear some muffled moaning, turn around and stifle a horrified cry. Two soldiers in full combat gear lie sprawled among the mud and dirt and ripped-up tree roots. One of them has nothing but a gory mess where his chest should be and appears to be dead. The other one clutches his stomach, and blood is streaming down his face from a wound on his temple. "Help ... me …", he groans.
I don't want to help. I just want to get away from here.
"Carpenter … is that you?" he rasps insistently, wiping at his eyes with a bloodied hand.
Oh God. It's Joe. Little Joe from Arkansas, our youngest, a funny and witty farmer's son of nineteen who saw me as a kind of adopted older brother. Hasn't he died when the bombs fell on the island? Or was that someone else? I'm shocked to find that I can't remember.
"Please … bring me home …", he pleads.
I pick him up, surprised to find how weightless he seems to be, and drape his limp body over my shoulder. The staccato of machine-gun fire rings out somewhere among the trees. I break into a run, not a second too early, as a bullet whizzes past us, missing us by inches.
Suddenly I'm back in my house, alone. I don't know what happened to Joe. I want to rest, but I need to get rid of those bloodstained clothes first and see if I have been injured or not. I have just taken off my shoes when a shot shatters the window. I duck on reflex, head for the door, fling it open. Someone is behind me. I don't turn around. I know if I can make it out of the house I'll be safe.
I barge outside, try to vault the porch as I can hear my pursuer coming closer, but my foot catches on the railing and I go flying.
The jolt jerks me awake.
My heart is racing and I've got a vague confused feeling that something is very wrong, something terrible has happened, but I can't put a finger on it yet. I only know that it has something to do with one of my legs. I'm tempted to touch them both but am afraid of what I might discover.
I don't know where I am … I feel a crisp linen pillowcase against my cheek, I imagine it is white. Am I in hospital? What is it that lies so heavy on my arm? Is something the matter with that too?
Strange that I still don't feel any pain whatsoever.
I open my eyes, still disoriented, looking around frantically.
When my eyes have accommodated to the pale moonlight that picks out some outlines within the room – the wicker chair in the corner, the wardrobe, the dark rectangle of a picture on the wall – I keep wondering about my whereabouts for an instant. Surely this kind of furniture wouldn't be found in a hospital. And it wouldn't be so quiet there either.
It is with great relief that I eventually realize I'm at home. At home with Evelyn. It is her that's weighing on my arm, fast asleep. I'm surprised that the fierce twitch that shook me out of my confused dream hasn't woken her up.
I run a hand over my face and suppress a groan. Those dreams keep haunting me. Not as often as they used to, but they still return again and again, sending me back to times and places I want to forget, making me relive events that I wish I could lock away forever. But it's difficult to forget when all it takes to be reminded of the time when I was a soldier is a look into the mirror.
Evelyn has sometimes tried to make me talk about the war, she thought it would bring me closure, but I don't see why I should burden her with the senseless killing and dying I've witnessed, mostly boys like Joe, barely out of their teens, who had gone to war like kids in search of exciting adventure or out of some sense of patriot duty they were too young to really understand. Talking about it would only mean reopening old wounds that have healed, at least on the surface. Plus, you can't make somebody grasp the extent of battlefield horrors if they haven't been there themselves.
These experiences and the recurring flashbacks are something that I must bear alone. Something I can't – and don't want to – trouble anyone else with, especially not her.
After all I have managed, mostly thanks to this delicate-looking woman with the fiery hair and a character to match, to return to a life that is almost normal. I don't know how I would have ended up without her. Accepted the offer of a desk job with the military I'd had at the time, probably, for want of a better alternative, although the mere idea gave me the creeps. Gone back to a country that meant nothing to me. I'm not even sure if I'd still be alive by now. Chances are that I would have killed myself. Slowly. No drama, no hanging or drowning or throwing myself off a highway bridge, just smoking and drinking too much until my weakened body gave in to my mind's weariness for good.
She literally saved me when she doggedly kept trying to persuade me to move in with her. She wouldn't hear of the scandal it might cause in the neighbourhood if she lived with a man not her husband. (Not that I cared about silly conventions like that in the least, but I didn't want to put her academic career at risk. We were back in the so-called "civilised world" after all.) Nor did she seem to mind that I had neither the brains nor the money that her husband had had. I hadn't particularly liked that arrogant professor type, and he had looked down on me with that contemptuous attitude of his, but he had been much more of a match for her in matters of intellect and education. Would she not miss that in the long run?
I finally agreed to give it a try because the prospect of leaving her again became even more unbearable than the embarrassment of living at her expense until I found some way to earn my own living once more.
We have been together for seven years now. We've had our fair share of fights and conflicts, her hot temper against my cynicism and bitterness, but even in times of strife she never made me feel less than equal. For the first time in my life I feel totally at ease with another person because she takes me as I am – even though this is quite different from what I used to be.
I've always been the odd one out somehow. Solitary, independent, a bit peculiar maybe. It always felt like nobody really understood me, so I learned to get by on my own without needing anyone else. That dainty little person who is sleeping soundly by my side has changed all that. I'm still most comfortable if I don't need to let on too much about myself, and I need some time alone every now and then, but I couldn't possibly imagine life without Evelyn any more. She's so wonderfully different from many other women. No flirting, no sulking, no games. A free thinker never afraid to speak her mind.
I reach for the alarm clock on my bedside table and squint at the faintly glowing hands. Three a.m. I know from experience that it's no use trying to go back to sleep after one of those dreams, but I don't want to get up either because I don't want to wake her. So I'm lying on my back, listening to her regular breathing, and my mind starts to wander into the past as it often does in night hours like these.