"I'm not a bad man," Patrick began, "but sometimes life throws you into a place where there is nothing good left at all. In places that terrible, you cannot stop yourself. You have no sense of good or bad, right or wrong, you just sink further and further into the depravity that surrounds you. That place for me, little one, was France, twenty years ago. I wanted an adventure. I was bored of the tedium which life being a GP in London endlessly brought. Evil had been spreading across Europe for nearly a decade, and war had broken out. Men were wanted to join and fight for freedom, so I signed up as an army doctor. And that, was the worst decision I have ever made in my life."
Patrick paused and looked down at the baby. She was awake, but had not made a sound; it was almost as though she was captivated by every word which came from her father's mouth. Patrick continued.
"I left home three days later, kissed Liz, my beautiful girlfriend goodbye, and travelled down to Southampton, all my worldly possessions in a cloth bag slung over my shoulder. At the port, all those who had been recruited were told to board an ancient leviathan of a container ship and we set off into a thick sea mist. The sea was rough, and I spent most of the crossing being sick over the side. We docked at a place called Le Havre, and we were met by a convoy of army vehicles and a bad-tempered Colonel. A roll-call was made and before I really knew what was going on, I found myself being given a bunk-up into the back of a jeep, with half a dozen other men and crates of supplies. There were no seats, so we had to sit on or between the crates. We must have travelled for six or seven hours like this, the roads were rough, we could barely move and every time we turned a sharp corner, things from the crates fell on top of us. Eventually, I arrived at the field hospital where I was to be stationed."
Patrick gave a small, pained laugh.
"A hospital, a hospital they called it, it was a goddamn hell hole!" he shouted, before realising that his daughter's ears were within a few inches of his mouth.
"Sorry!" he whispered. But she barely batted an eyelid just momentarily stretched her arms and legs then settled down again.
"Although it was part of an army base, the hospital building itself was little more than a glorified barn. Its corrugated metal roof leaked, the windows rattled in the wind, and parts of it flooded when it rained. We rarely had enough supplies to treat everyone who was sick and injured. When we were over-run with casualties, we had to build extra wards" he snorted "out of metal poles and tarpaulin. We built beds out of supply crates, and treated men on those. So many men, some of them little more than boys, died there. There were so many that I couldn't save. I was there as a doctor, that is what I was supposed to do, but I couldn't. So many I would have been able to save, anywhere else. But not there, those men were doomed to die the moment they set foot in France. And, one night, I very nearly joined them."
Patrick's breathing became shallow and strained again, he felt his hands shaking.
"One night the army base where the hospital was located was attacked by German soldiers. Hundreds of them, armed to the teeth with rifles and bayonets. Most of us were asleep, and the few men who were stationed to protect the base were soon overwhelmed. My room was in the Officer's quarters and I was shaken awake by Sergeant Major Sudbury-Stewart.
'Get up and get out! We're overrun' he shouted, throwing me a rifle and a handful of bullets before running out the door.
He was a terrifying man, I remember. Well over six foot five, built like a brick outhouse, with a ruddy complexion, an enormous greying moustache, and a voice like a foghorn. The young Privates used to quake in fear at the sight of him. But at that moment, he was the one quaking with fear."
Patrick paused.
"I never saw him again. I don't think they ever found his body. I think he had about seven children."
He swallowed the lump in his throat, biting his bottom lip, trying not to sob.
"Being a medic, rather than a frontline soldier, I had only ever fired a rifle once in the brief 'training' we received when we arrived. And it is really easy to hit a painted target on a tree. Trees don't want to kill you."
He felt an icy shiver course through his entire body.
"At that moment all my instincts were telling me to run, to run as fast as I could away from the advancing Germans. But that was the one thing I could not do, I had to fight. I had to fight for my life, and the lives of my colleagues. I had no choice."
He could not stop himself from crying now; he could not keep his emotions contained any longer. He sobbed uncontrollably, holding onto his daughter for support.
"And that was when I killed. I killed four German soldiers that night. They were so close, if each of them had not hesitated for a second, I would have been the dead one. I saw the whites of their eyes. I saw the light drain from those eyes as my bullets hit them. I felt their blood hit me in the face, soaking me, staining me, marking me guilty of the crime I had committed. The last one looked no more than sixteen, a child in a man's world. I shot him once, but my hands were shaking so much that the bullet did not hit him where it would have killed him instantly. He had a round belly, and the bullet carved through him, left to right. He screamed and staggered, blood and intestines pouring from the wound. I aimed at him again, but my rifle was empty. So…"
Patrick's voice trembled, his breathing so laboured he could hardly speak.
"…I bludgeoned him to death with the butt of my rifle. I knocked off his tin helmet, and then continued to hit him until, until, until I heard his skull crack. Two more blows and he stopped moving. I, a Doctor killed a boy, some poor man's son. That is not what Doctors do. He was barely older than Tim, and I killed him."
Patrick sat bolt upright, look of terror on his face and screamed.
"I killed him."
The baby on his chest whimpered. Patrick rocked her gently.
"In war, you lose all sense of right and wrong. On a battlefield, you must do all you can to survive. That is the only thing you think, I must survive. I must live."
He continued to sob for a moment, but stopped at the slight of his daughter smiling up at him. He tried to smile back, but could not do so.
"War does terrible things to a man," he continued, "Terrible things. Things that no-one should have to experience. Especially not you, I'll make sure of that."
