THE COLONEL'S BOY

Part 10

"O! I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial."

Othello, 2. 2

William Shakespeare

It was another close sticky Vietnamese night but inside the hospital building the A/C system kept the wards cool and bearable. The patients were as comfortable as their wounds allowed but that did not mean that sleep came easy.

Peck's bed was bathed in a silver light from the full moon which hung alone and regardless in the dark satin sky outside. Shining through the large window it leeched out all of the colour in the room and brought a strange ethereal quality to the mundane hospital ward.

Peck noted it in passing as he tried to open his eyes but the gossamer thin quality of the light was not unusual, it had appeared like this when he had awoken on a number of occasions over the last few nights. What was more concerning to him was the fact that the drugs he was on seemed to have had the effect of making his eyelids weigh as much as a two and a half ton truck. Man, it was hard work trying to lift them!

He struggled for awhile until they were finally open wide enough to send back pictures to his brain. Images, though hazy and indistinct, that revealed to him that something was different this time in the sterile room that had become his world. Something was not the same as it had been every other time he had gone through this waking experience.

Peck blinked, tried to turn his head but the movement was beyond him. He looked upwards into the shadowy depths of the ceiling above – a recent regular past-time; the bright lights had long since been dimmed for the night, he could make out nothing up there that was not as it had been every other night.

His eyes giving no further clues, he tried to focus on his other senses. It was quiet save for the regular reassuring soft bleep of his heart through the monitor he was still attached to. A distant noise did drift towards him, a cry or maybe even a scream. It was difficult to tell but again it was not uncommon in this hospital with all the damaged and dying souls it held, to hear the night punctuated by the scream of one soldier or another. A scream borne of pain or panic, Peck had heard them all at a distance as he lay alone and separate in his own cocooned room.

His mind was still fluid and liable to deviate wildly from one thought to another inexplicably. He got to thinking then this was about the first time in his whole life, except for a couple of nights courtesy of Colonel Potter, that he had slept on his own. Damn; a big clean bed and no one to share it with. How he wished he could take advantage of the opportunity!

He gulped, forcing his mind to refocus. He came fast to the conclusion that he was hearing no sound that was different or new, nothing that could have piqued his survival instinct.

Amazing thing that even through the doping of the drugs, the pain and his disorientation his survival instinct had woken from deep within and alarm bells were jangling hysterically. It was prickling the hairs on the back of his neck, telling him he had to act. Pity the instinct wasn't clever enough to understand that he was going nowhere fast. It would be better if it would just leave him alone. Let him sleep through the danger – better for him to know nothing of what was happening rather than be aware but unable to actually do anything about it.

Jesus! What the hell was wrong with him? Festering here; was he a corpse already? Rotting away to nothing….

Get a grip Peck!

There was definitely something, some reason he had woken, something he had detected; he just had to keep his cool to work out what it was.

He sniffed weakly… caught something, vague and fleeting and yet different! Different from the smell of disinfectant and bandage, different from the smell of bed-pans and pure undiluted fear that normally hung on the air. Different from the scent of his own desperation, made stronger by his ever increasing despair especially since Murdock told him he was being shipped home.

He sniffed again, trying to place it, trying to understand the difference. Damn, his fevered brain; why in hell couldn't it think properly? Why couldn't it do what it used to do, what it was supposed to do? After all it wasn't that hard surely.

He sensed the smell again, stronger and richer. He opened his eyes and watched mesmerised and amazed as a small cloud of white smoke drifted nonchalantly above him and then meandered off towards the window.

He jerked then – a thoroughly conscious motion so different and yet appearing to be so similar to his spasming. It hurt but it brought his head around enough for him to spy the figure at the side of his bed; only a shadow but a shadow from which the smoke was emanating. Only a shadow but within its black, mysterious depths Peck caught hold of something truly precious – a flash of blue; the blue that had saved him in the past.

A wave of overwhelming joy washed through him. God, he wanted to shout, to cheer, to dance but all he could do was lay motionless and stare as Colonel Smith sat forwards into the moonlight, blue flashing through silver grey.

"Hiyah, kid!" the Colonel said around his cigar. "You miss me?"

Missed you? Hell no! Peck thought but the goddamn quickening of the bleep of the heart monitor beside him, betrayed the real excitement that was coursing through his veins at the appearance of the Colonel.

Colonel Smith smiled knowingly and took another draw on his cigar. "I bet you've been laying there, cursing me for leaving you like this. For not living up to the promise I made you, for telling you I wanted you and then leaving you to be shipped home. I bet you feel stupid cos you think I conned you."

Blue eyes skewered into Peck and he would have cowered nervously away from the challenge they held if he could have moved. How in hell could the Colonel read his thoughts so precisely, know what he was thinking?

Smith continued. "Well I make no apologies for not being able to come before, kid. You're not the only one whose been suffering – I had to get the Charlie bullet out of my belly, so I haven't been in the most sociable of moods and not walking so well lately. But I wasn't gonna let them ship you out before I got the chance to talk to you." He grinned. "Reckon lockjaw is an appropriate affliction for you, Lieutenant. It's about the only thing I know that could stop you from relying on your clever mouth and its smart ass comments, and make you actually listen to what I'm saying. I want you to listen to what I got to say and I want you to think about it when I'm gone."

Peck felt a warmth rush to his cheeks – Christ was he going to get another bollocking? Another sermon on how he was morally bereft and not fit enough to share the same planet as Smith and his boys.

Smith flicked some ash from his cigar down on to the previously immaculately clean floor. "Firstly I want to repeat what I said to you in the chopper cos I'm not sure how much of it you understood or even remember. But it's important that you know that I am so proud of what you did out there in the jungle. I told you I judge a man, not by how he acts in the easy times, but how he endures through the bad ones. You were sorely tested out there and you stepped right on up to the plate and damn well proved you were able to cope with the shit that was thrown at you. I could not have expected more of you and I'm damn proud of what you achieved."

Peck lay back and closed his eyes – they were itching like hell but he had no means to scratch them, so he tried to ignore them.

"In contrast, and I don't like to admit it but I was hurting in that glade, I was not at my best and I shouldn't have reacted at you like I did. You had every right to question my decision since you proved later you were more than capable of blowing that bridge. I should have listened to you, I should have accepted your opinion. Hell, I spent long enough trying to get through to you that I wanted you as my Executive Officer because I valued your judgement. I'm sorry for what I said, after telling you to question me, I let you get under my skin, and that was unforgivable. Please accept my apologies, kid. I was out of order and I accept that."

Shit; had the A/C fucked up? It was suddenly incredibly hot and uncomfortable for Peck. He opened his eyes with a flash of panic; the monitor bleep increasing speed as a fearful cramp clutched at his chest. The spasm was violent but short lived. God; he had to learn to control this! And then, as quickly as it had come it was gone and his body lay motionless and useless again.

Smith waited sensing the pain and panic of the other man. Only after the convulsion had past, did he begin again, his tone soft but supportive. "BA told me about me calling out for Michael while I hallucinated, that that was how you knew about Michael and my conspiracy theory was bullshit, the product of a fevered mind. Michael is a sore point with me obviously but I owe you an explanation."

God, no! Peck's mind screamed. He did not want any sordid details, any pitiful confessions of illicit passion from the Colonel and his long ago lover. But he was absolutely powerless to protest.

"Michael was a kid I knew – the goddamn cutest kid I ever saw – you'd give him a run for his money but I reckon he'd come in the winner cos he had what you lack. I look into your eyes, Lieutenant, and I see the hunger there, the ambition, the sense of injustice and the need to find a place to belong; the very essence of what pushes you on. When I looked into Michael's baby blues, I just saw simple innocence at its most beautiful. There was no need to question, no need to ask, no fight, no worry, just a simple serene acceptance; when we first met he had a purity rarely seen in a man."

"We were in Korean together in '53. I was a First Looey; three years out of West Point, I had done my time but was still green enough not to understand the underbelly of this army – too naive to see what made our powerful men tick. Michael was newly out of Officer Training School, wet as they come. He was from, the south – Virginia way, born of old money, fifth kid and first, much prayed for son, he had never wanted for anything in his life. Family had military blood flowing through their veins – trace their roots back to the Confederacy at Bull Run. Somehow managed to keep their fortune after the war but it was the start of a long, slow decline."

"The family wasn't what it once had been; it was descending into bankruptcy and ruin. Michael's grandfather threw himself off a bridge on the night of 25 October 1929, when he lost all of their money in the early days of the Wall Street crash. His father inherited a crumbling colonial estate and far too many debts. Nevertheless his son was expected to take up his rightful place in the army. It was the done thing."

"Poor Michael didn't have a violent bone in his body; soft and innocent, mother's boy in every sense of the word. He had some of it knocked out of him in boot camp and more in OTS but he had mainly got through training on his glorious family history. Michael wasn't made for the army – he was a teddy bear, needed to be protected."

"When he was assigned to my Team he was already struggling, drowning, trying to survive in a world he did not understand, trying to be something he was never gonna be. He talked a lot about his father, the honour of his family – how he had to make a go of the army. It was expected and he could not disappoint." The Colonel shook his head sadly. "A war is no place to grow up and find that the world isn't the forgiving place your mother brought you up to believe it was."

"First action he saw, he froze, petrified to the spot, then dug himself into a foxhole where he lay shivering and shitting himself until I pulled him out of there. He puked his guts up all the way home. I never forgot the look of haunting desperation in those eyes, innocence lost forever with the horrifying realisation that he didn't have what it took to survive. That no matter how hard he tried he was never gonna be a soldier."

"I talked to him for a long time after that, tried to reassure him, bring him back but he was never meant for such horror – Michael deserved only nice things. And he was desperate for a way out, anything so he didn't have to face his fear."

"By complete coincidence our commanding officer was one Colonel Thomas Gallagher, had an ancestor who fought for the Union at Gettysburg, and seemed to have a hatred of anything to do with the south imprinted into his genes. He was also a bully, a control freak, a bigot and an invidious sexual deviant who preyed on the most vulnerable soldiers in his command. He made Colonel Potter look like a pussy cat. I wouldn't have believed it could happen in this man's army unless I had seen it with my own eyes, never would have believed anyone could have got away with it. Gallagher ran a brothel of boys for himself and other high ranking officers who shared his scumbag appetites. Kept his boys doped up and ready on all sorts of shit but he had one undeniable selling point – his promise that he would keep them away from the frontline. He offered Michael a way out, and desperate as he was the kid leapt at it – only problem was that what he was touting was far worse than what Michael was running from. On the battlefield you take your luck and you got comrades to protect your back – you got a chance. Michael had no chance; he was dead the moment he said yes to Gallagher."

Smith stopped, took in a deep breath and wiped his hand across his eyes, affected by the memory, even now. Peck gulped, wanting to talk, wanting to sympathise, unable to release anything but the barest of groans in empathy.

"Gallagher sucked him dry, stole his innocence, his passion and his confidence. He took great delight in destroying the southern boy from a good family, he fought the Civil War all over again on Michael's defenceless body, turned him into the play thing he wanted him to be – a true Colonel's boy. Michael was so stoned he didn't know what day it was, where he was or even who he was. He pumped anything into his veins to stop the pain, to take away his memories in a desperate attempt to release his spirit at the cost of destroying his body. And I let it happen. I saw what was going on and I did nothing, watched him systematically strip a vulnerable young man of everything he had, and I let it happen!"

The heart monitor seemed to suddenly bleep annoyingly loud in the still room as Colonel Smith gulped.

"We're all lost boys looking for some comfort in the dark, unforgiving world. Michael was no more made for that sort of thing than you or me – he just grasped at the chance for an escape. He should have been a teacher or a doctor or maybe even made a go of his family's failing businesses. But men pushed to the extreme in exceptional circumstances react in different ways; we all do what we think we must to survive. Although he had your looks Michael lacked your self confidence, your belief, he was made of more fragile stuff like Murdock."

Smith hesitated then, as if arguing with himself as to whether he should follow this thought further. Peck's eyes flashed upwards at mention of the pilot's name as the Colonel carried on. "Murdock, who wants to be friends with every FNG but he knows as well as I, he doesn't need a lover, he needs a friend, a brother someone to stroke his invisible dog and support him. Someone to hold him at night when the fear really bites and his grip on sanity loosens. Of all my boys I fear for Murdock the most. This war, like any other, is hardest on the sensitive ones." Smith had lifted his hands to his face and hung his head, so he now sat in the most disheartening of poses.

Peck gulped, wondering just how he was supposed to get out of this one; unable to move, unable to talk but sensing the weight of the burden this brave man had carried for so long and the further weights that his current command pressed on to him; knowing that he had to help relieve him of the pain. He licked his lips, swallowed and then tried to set his mouth into the correct position.

"Colonel…" he murmured weakly and then again, a little clearer. "Colonel."

Smith lifted his head, bright, watery eyes coming to rest on the younger man. "I'm sorry," Peck slurred, unable to shape his mouth but hoping that his eyes expressed what he was trying to say.

The Colonel nodded slightly and let out a sigh from the depth of his soul. "I never told anyone this story before. I didn't know all of it at the time, but I knew enough and I pieced the rest together afterwards. Then I carried it deep inside and let it fester on the darkest of nights, when the despair really kicked in; I felt it like a dagger in my chest; the harsh pain of guilt and betrayal. I maybe couldn't have saved Michael but I damn well should have tried – I owed him that, for what we could have had, the simple friendship, if Gallagher hadn't come along. I wanted you to know, so you would understand why I wanted to help you. You, when I saw you with Colonel Potter were so like Michael in so many ways and yet, so unlike him."

The eyes suddenly focused. "I saw a chance to right the wrong I did to Michael so long ago; to make a kind of amends. He died in my arms – desperate and alone, his body destroyed by the damn drugs Gallagher had fed him with to improve his performance when he lost his heart. I will never forget his eyes at that moment when his life was finally snuffed out. He went home in a body bag, it even seemed as if he died a soldier. I want to see his parents when I was on leave in the States. His mother was so proud when I explained about our friendship, what a guy he had been. Gallagher was very thorough – a purple heart even a bronze star for services rendered." Smith gulped. "I couldn't look his father in the eye – he knew or at least suspected that the truth was so very different from the story the army told them."

He took a long draw on his cigar, the end glowing red in the silver moonlight, his eyes moist, as he gathered his thoughts, searched for his composure.

When the Colonel lifted his eyes, they had lost the guilty edge and burned brightly with the same intensity Peck remembered from the mission – what was it BA had called it; the 'jazz'. It was as if the Colonel had been liberated from a deep pain. Peck's mind then flashed back through time and he remembered the irresistible relief he had felt as a teenager when he had gone to confession. He remembered he had confessed to a little pick pocketing, maybe coveting a few girls, lying, swearing – the normal stuff a kid of his age would get involved in and the freedom he felt afterwards had been truly cathartic. He had never carried a burden for longer than a couple of days, to have carried the guilt for fifteen years like the Colonel had done and such a weight! He found himself hoping Smith was feeling the same sort of release now.

Smith's eyes sought out and connected with Peck's, as he began. "But you got to know, kid, I saw so much more potential in you than Michael ever had. You're a born fighter, you never got anything easy but that hasn't stopped you from trying for what you want. You know I did a little checking on you before I met you in the OC. Do you have any idea what people told me about you?"

Oh, he had a good idea, all right, but Peck concentrated hard and managed to minutely move his head in a shaking motion as the Colonel continued. "They told me you were high maintenance, superficial, that you lacked control; that you didn't go with anyone you couldn't get something out of and that you weren't worth the risk. And I got to thinking that was what you wanted us all to believe, it was all part of the face you show the world, to hide the hurt you carry deep inside. Hurt; that through your whole life no body ever dared take a risk on you, and so you got the feeling that you weren't special. Still you didn't give up, you decided to do it alone. You didn't curl up and die like Michael, you are made of sterner stuff; sure you were used and abused but you overcame that, you endured, thereby disproving the very assumption that everybody had leapt too in the first place – you're a special guy, Templeton. I bet few people have told you that in your life, but it's true. You have a gift."

Peck shook his head more violently this time as Smith continued on regardless. "You know I been around awhile. I've seen some true artists at work, used the odd scam myself and I've found the best con man can look into the minds of people and see what makes them tick, see the angle to pursue for greatest benefit. You can do that with ease, you have such charm and presence that you can make even your mark feel happy about being conned! But you do more than that; you can see the positive in even the worst of situations and you ruthlessly pursue it so you can use it and more often than not the outcome is a good one. Ray told me about Hernandez and the crucifix – you didn't need to do that, no body would have known the difference, but you did it."

Again the pause. "I meant every word I said in that chopper; I want you on my Team, kid. I want you as my Executive Officer. You are special."

Peck swallowed hard and ignored the pain it brought to his sore throat.

"I talked to the doctor, Captain Fallone," the Colonel continued. "He tells me that you are gonna make a complete recovery – it's not gonna be easy and it'll take time but you have the single-mindedness to make it happen. Well, then there is nothing to stop ……"

"Colonel Smith!" The door banged open and into the room marched Major Polly Parrott. Instantly the confined space halved in size as her girth seemed to expand to fit the room. "What on earth are you doing here, in the middle of the night?" She stood arms on her hips like too many school teachers in the memories from Peck's past. He shivered with a-not-altogether involuntary shudder.

Smith smiled brightly. "It's simple, Sister," he began, taking the cigar from his mouth and waving it at her in a friendly but slightly hurt manner. "You said I couldn't smoke on my ward!"

Her bulk began to wobble like some massive jello moulded on a plate. "This patient!" she began, working hard on keeping her tone cool but failing, and pointing towards Peck, still laying motionless on the bed. "Has only recently been taken off a respirator! Do you have any idea the damage you are doing to his lungs? He could relapse at any minute!" Her mouth curled into a withering frown as she reached across, took the cigar from Smith's hand, dropped it and ground it unceremoniously into the not-so-clean floor with her regulation sensible nurse shoes.

Smith raised his eyebrows and stood up, wobbling a little before he took a deep breath, steadying himself by leaning on the IV stand that Peck noticed for the first time, realised that the Colonel must have wheeled it in earlier and it now rested beside him, the tube reaching from it straight into Smith's arm. "No, I don't think that's likely!" His eyes were beaming in amusement at the nurse's distress. "My Lieutenant and I just needed to get a few things straight. I think we're done now." He looked back at Peck. "Aren't we, kid?"

Peck nodded barely, licking his lips as Smith hesitated.

As if he had never spoken the Major continued, "Colonel Smith, I must insist!" She moved to clasp hold of his arm. "It's the middle of the night and you are disturbing my other patients! You must go back to bed."

Smith nodded and allowed her to manoeuvre him to the door with one massive unfeminine hand as she reached for the IV stand with the other. Once there he hesitated and turned back. "When they had me sedated I was having some wild dreams, you probably know the type, kid. Anyway last night I had a different sort of dream; one as clear as day – we were a team. The goddamn best ever and you were my XO, Lieutenant."

Peck gulped, feeling the tears begin to prick at the edge of his eyes. He held on to the blue in blue stare that the Colonel was sending him and felt a strange rush of excitement in the very pit of his stomach as Smith continued. "I'm going to be doing my damndest to see it doesn't stay as just a dream but that it becomes a reality and I hope you are going to do the same, too, Templeton!"

"Colonel!" Parrott hissed impatiently.

The eye contact between the two men was suddenly all that mattered to them both. It was as if everything else faded away into insignificance. And then Smith blinked and the hot magic was gone, leaving only the lingering recollection of it in Peck's mind along with the desperate need biting deep inside of him to feel it again and soon.

The Colonel turned to Major Parrott, opening his arms wide. "Take me, Major, I'm all yours!"

And with a quick wink over his shoulder, Colonel Smith was gone, disappearing behind the bulk of the Major and through the door.

Peck closed his eyes, let out a ragged breath and laid his head back onto the soft pillow. Thoughts were screaming crazily around his head – he sure had a lot to think about and plans to make, but not yet. Now for the first time in a long while, maybe forever, he could sleep safe and secure that he had the pledge of a place in the world, the promise of a better fate with all of his dreams fulfilled. How he found the strength and the ability to claim it for his own he knew he would have to work on later but for now the simple assurance from Colonel Hannibal Smith was enough.

The following day, Captain HM Murdock and his comrades watched bleakly as their Lieutenant's broken body was carefully wheeled from the hospital at Da Nang out on to the air strip to board the plane to begin its long journey back to the world.

Before he was gone, Murdock stepped forward and took hold of the pale hand that had rested on the blanket. Glazed blue eyes opened and flashed wildly up at him.

"Easy, kid," Murdock soothed. "I just wanted to say good bye and good luck. We're going to miss you."

Peck nodded weakly but then his eyes lost focus and rolled up into his head.

The pilot let go of the feeble hand as the gurney moved away. "Shit," he whispered sadly as Ray moved to lay a supporting hand on his shoulder. "Why do I feel like somebody special is flying away from us? I wanted him to thank me – I did save his life, you know!"

Brenner shrugged sadly. "I'm sure he would if he could but he's doped to the eyeballs."

Murdock looked doubtful. "I don't know, he's an arrogant little…."

"Hey, Lowrie!" Brenner cut across the pilot. "Isn't that a Hercules C-130 he's flying out in? What's the info on that?"

Lowrie frowned. "Don't know, don't care!" he muttered and looked away, his shoulders slumping dejectedly.

"This is what happens in a war, boys," Brenner said compassionately, trying to inject some cheerfulness to the sad and rapidly increasingly depressing situation. "We all know, he's better off going home."

Murdock nodded but pouted like a spoilt child. "We could have had so much fun, Ray. We didn't see the best of him and now we never will."

There was a growl from behind them and they both turned to see BA scowling at them. "I seen the best of him out there," he nodded towards the boonies. "Ain't seen many men with the courage to do what he did. Man got balls." His face broke into a broad smile. "Man gave me panty hose!"

Murdock smiled too but it was a deeply melancholy expression. "He sure did, BA! And you can't get braver than that!"

The other three men turned away then and moved back towards the hospital where their Colonel waited, watching from his own sickbed but Murdock remained standing alone on the edge of the air strip. He watched as the final checks were made, the doors shut and the engines fired up. He watched as the hulking Hercules taxi-ed along the runway and then lifted miraculously, considering its bulk, into the air.

"What a beautiful sky," Murdock murmured as he shielded his eyes against the bright sunshine and watched the bird climb. "You and me muchacho; we could have been great friends, we could have been what we both need. I knew that and I acted like an idiot and now we've lost each other." He bit his lip and hesitated before continuing. "The sky's my friend; she'll look after you now, take you home safe. So long, buddy………."

TBC