Sorry this is a very short chapter which contains Suicidal Ralph.

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Ralph closed his eyes and gripped the seat as the buss carrying him and the other recruits to the ships, and then off to the front line, bumped up and down on the pothole filled road.

They'd said he'd forget; they'd promised if he went off to the war he would be so caught up in it that he'd forget what had happened on that island.

But it hadn't, if anything the island had come back in the shape of the young man sitting three seats in front of him jauntily smoking a cigarette and laughing with the others.

Nobody wanted to sit with Ralph, he was to cold, to quiet for the others; they all wanted to laugh it up and talk about their girls back home or who'd get his leg over with more foreign girls.

Ralph didn't care for that; and he didn't smoke so they couldn't take his cigarettes off him like they got Jack's, he seemed to have brought enough for the entire front to enjoy and some of the enemy to boot.

Jack must have been able to feel Ralph's eyes glaring at the back of his head because he turned in his seat and flashed him a winning smile which Ralph looked right through.

"Want a ciggy?" Jack offered, Ralph shook his head and tired to ignore him; but it was too much of a temptation to keep looking, even if Jack had turned back to his pals, so he rested his head against the window and looked out at the war ravaged world instead.

He could remember, before the island, when the war had just began and people had lined the streets to wave off their brave boys and the news had been filled with stories of the lads at the front line.

But now nobody was out in the street and no-one was waving, all the windows were boarded up and the doors shut tight.

All of those brave lads had died; and that was why Ralph was here.

He was going to die as well, and he welcomed it.

Tbc