Dear Diary
I'm telling you this because I have got to tell someone, but you will be locked up tightly after this, because no way am I going to let you tell anyone else. In the event of my decease, my last will and testament will be for my diary to become required reading for each of my surviving brothers…assuming I am not the last to go. But until then, there is no need for anyone to know anything more than I'm willing to tell.
Alright, I realize I sound a little bit depressed and maybe even morbid right now… well there is a reason for that…I am.
International Rescue have been in action now for six weeks. This mission was the first time I went along as field commander without dad to take charge.
Don't get me wrong here, I have no problem with taking charge or making hard decisions. I've been doing that for my brothers since mom died. This was different.
Dad managed to badly sprain his ankle three days ago. He was walking on the beach for crying out loud and trod awkwardly on a rock. He is severely bandaged up and hobbling around on crutches. Apparently, it isn't broken, although dad says it hurts as if it was. He doesn't want us to be a man down so soon, so he had me fly him up to Thunderbird Five to relieve John for a few days until his ankle heals. So now it is Myself, John, Virge and Gordon. Brains manning the talk-back on Tracy Island with Alan breathing down his neck.
(Boy, that kid sure is keen; and he seems to soak up information like some kind of super-sponge!)
Anyway, we were sent out to China, where seriously torrential rainfall led to flooding, then to a landslip, endangering the lives of hundreds of people. Because of the remote location, the Chinese authorities were not able to mobilize sufficient rescue quickly enough to prevent huge loss of life…and the rains were still falling. International Rescue were called in.
This was the first time we had been called into a situation of this scale, and although we were well versed in our equipment, and the various possibilities open to us, we were not…or rather, I was not as prepared as I thought for the devastation that met us.
Already an entire village had been buried in the mud slides, including a schoolhouse with twenty-seven children. We found frantic survivors trying to build a wall of fallen trees, logs and other debris in a futile effort to stem the rapidly approaching mud.
Whilst Virgil and the guys picked up as many of the villagers as possible, I took Thunderbird One to the mountain and fired into the rocky peak, setting off a cascade of rocks rather than mud down the neighbouring mountain. Math is not my strongest subject, but fortunately it is one of John's, and he gave me the exact coordinates and angles to shoot from. He was bang on of course, and the rockslide effectively created a huge barrier that stopped the mudslide cold.
This is where the mission caused me to spill my guts all over the inside of my Thunderbird. (yeuch!) You see, the buried village was partly cleared by the falling rocks, and once we had flown low over the area to check it out, we found the bodies of almost thirty children had been dredged up and exposed, along with thirty-five or forty adults.
I don't know. It's not like I haven't seen unpleasant things before…I was in the air-force after all before dad recruited me to International Rescue; but children? So many children who will never have the chance to grow up and fall in love and live a life of their own.
I suppose death on that scale is expected when there is war or conflict, but this was nature turning on people. There was no easy person to blame for all this senseless loss of life. We packed as many people as we could into Thunderbird Two, and Virgil made three trips ferrying them to the nearest government rescue center, where arrangements for the welfare of the survivors were already being made.
What was it specifically that set me off? I saw a young man about Gordon's age, lying among the ruins of his home. The bodies of three children were clustered about him, from a young girl that looked to be in her mid-teens, to a baby surely no more than two years old still clutched tightly in his arms. All of them were dead, drowned in the mud.
In other circumstances, that could so easily have been me and my younger brothers. I was jolted back to the avalanche that had killed mom and caused Alan to be born six weeks early. We lost mom that day. We almost lost her unborn baby (Alan) that day too. We would have had it not been for the brilliant surgeons at that hospital. We might also have lost John that day too. The loss of John does not bear thinking about. He is my rock. The one who has always been there for me for as long as I can remember.
We were fortunate that day. We lost mom, but I still have four younger brothers. If nature had had its way on that occasion, I would have had only two brothers. Virgil and Gordon.
That was when I lost my breakfast. I think last night's dinner also made a reappearance. I have just got back to my room after a mammoth session cleaning up the mess I made inside Thunderbird One. I told the others I was just catching up on a little maintenance. I think Virgil looked suspicious, and John looked at me extra hard…but what do they know? They won't know a thing unless I tell them.
How can I admit that their team leader got so shocked that he puked all over the inside of his own cockpit? I suppose there is a first time for all of us when faced with the sights we see whenever we go out. John was pretty stoic today, as he always is, but it'll happen for him. Something will happen that will rock his world to the core, and I will be able to sympathize because now I have truly been there myself.
Virgil's moment of realization was his very first mission, but to his credit, he didn't puke. At least, if he did, he kept it a closely guarded secret. But he burst into tears in the middle of the debrief with dad and Brains.
Why am I telling you about that? Perhaps I am trying to convince myself that I am not a weakling just because I was not able to suppress my feelings the way I usually do.
Uh oh, I have to stop now, someone is knocking loudly on my bedroom door. I'd know that knock anywhere…John. If John is here, then he will be insisting I talk to him, and Virgil will be close beside him.
How the hell did they know? I thought I had covered my tracks pretty well!
Oh well, better to bite the bullet I suppose…
Scott
Author's Afterword:
Forgive this addition, but I felt that I had to make an answer to 20Orchids in his/her review. I appreciate that he/she went to the trouble to leave a comment, but I do take exception to the erroneous claims he/she makes. I agree that diaries may not be a "little boy" thing, but it IS a "men" thing, because I know of a very manly man who has written a diary for decades. I also know a manly man who is extremely emotional, so who is attributing "girlie" affectations on male characters here?
Additionally, 20Orchids states that in the original series, Alan is home schooled. Clearly, this person cannot have watched, or at least paid much attention to detail because in TOS, the boys were all adults before International Rescue started, they had all (including Alan) enjoyed a successful career in the world before quitting to join IR, and therefore of course he was not home schooled. He went to school and college like everyone else.
I thank everyone who reads this, whether you choose to review or not. I appreciate not everyone will enjoy it, but please do not make the mistake of thinking that I do not know my subject. Believe me, I know Thunderbirds as well as Jeff Tracy himself!