Dickon's Visit
A letter came from Dickon only a few days later. It had gone to Misselthwaite originally but Martha forwarded it to the London address. It was short and to the point.
"Mary, I'm sure Colin has come back to England by now. He was hurt bad, I'm in a field hospital in XXXX XXX XXXXX but I'm fine. They're gonna give me leave. I'm coming home. I'll be in London in a few days."
Mary had never been more relieved in her life. Dickon was alive, he was coming home to her.
Colin POV
The nurse had just given me my breakfast and finished washing me and changing my clothes, getting me ready for the doctor's morning visit and the arrival of Mary and my father. I was beginning to be able to lift my arms enough to partially feed myself, but my back was still so stiff and painful that I couldn't lift my arms above my head and I was still not able, or allowed, sit up properly. Once I tried to sit up alone, although being on flat bed rest I was not supposed to, but I found it useless, I couldn't do it. My arms were too tired and the muscles in my abdomen, although I could still feel them, didn't want to cooperate. Even if I had been able to sit up and feed myself, it wasn't as though I wanted to eat much anyway, the helplessness I felt seemed to have robbed me of appetite. I was still trying to figure out how my body would work now. It didn't seem to work all that well. The whole ordeal left me listless, weak, and anything but hungry.
Mary and the nurses were driving themselves to distraction trying to coax food into me. Despite their best efforts, I was losing weight quickly, and my muscles, particularly those in my legs, were wasting from my extended stay in bed. From what little of my body I could see while lying flat on my back in bed I got the image of a gaunt, skinny frame, everything I had worked for nearly the last decade to rid myself of. What made me feel more helpless was that since I had woken up I had discovered that it was not only my legs which didn't work. I couldn't properly feel when I needed to use the toilet. I couldn't feel anything. Shortly after I woke up, my father came with Dr. Hawthorne to tell me that I could never be properly married or father children. I couldn't fully control my basic bodily functions. I couldn't even feel if my legs were injured, the most basic feeling in the world, pain, was all but gone. It took everything I had not to fall completely into the dark despair which I felt growing in my chest. I wanted to give up. I couldn't imagine giving up. I didn't want to die, I just don't yet know how to live like this.
Suddenly, I heard a sound from the doorway, then a beautifully familiar voice saying. "Please, you've got to let me see him." I got the nurse's attention.
"Please let him in, it's Dickon, I need to see him. We...we were at the front together." Nurse Anderson nodded,
"Alright lad, but not for too long. You shouldn't tire yourself." As soon as nurse Anderson let Dickon into the ward, he ran straight for my bed. His right arm was heavily bandaged and there was a deep gash across his left cheek, I could tell it would leave a scar. I could see he wanted to launch himself towards me for an enormous hug, but thankfully he restrained himself. I didn't think my body could handle the sudden motion of one of Dickon's bear hugs. Instead he slowly and gently gathered me into a warm embrace as best he could with one arm bound to his chest. I was almost in tears with the relief of seeing him well and home, but I still saw Nurse Anderson come up behind him and put a warning hand on his good shoulder.
"You mustn't move him." She said somewhat sternly. Dickon gently laid me back on my pillows. Nurse Anderson needn't have worried. Dickon was the gentlest man I had ever met. Dickon knelt by my bed and clasped my thinning hands in his strong ones.
"Colin, tha muss tell me it ain't true. In the shell hole tha was screamin' as tha couldn't feel thy legs. That tha couldn't move 'em. It ain't true is it? Tha art feeling better now isn't tha?" I could feel my face grow dark, I didn't want to tell him, but I managed to whisper,
"It's very true I'm afraid Dickon. I seem to have hurt my back. It's...it's permanent." I breathed in sharply forcing myself to say the words I didn't fully even believe myself yet.
"I won't be able to walk anymore." I struggled to say those words, somehow saying them made it more real. Dicken's big blue eyes filled with tears, I'd never seen him cry before. His voice shook as he spoke.
"It can't be, it's not possible. Tha's got to walk again, tha's just got to." I shook my head sadly. I struggled to remove the blanket from my legs. As much as I wanted to I couldn't deny that they lay, stiff, and lifeless, as though they weren't connected to my body anymore. Dicken pulled the blanket back the rest of the way and stared at my motionless legs. His hand traced my knee in sad bewilderment. My right leg was bound in a splint, but the left was free except for bandages around my foot, but it was as motionless as my splinted leg, it was completely limp and numb. It was bizarre, to see his hand touching me and feeling absolutely nothing.
I whispered sadly "the wires are cut." Repeating a phrase I remembered Dr. Hawthorne saying to the 16 year old boy in the bed next to mine. The young soldier had lied about his age to the recruitment office and been shot on a raid days after arriving in France. The boy had died later that night. His upper back was broken, he couldn't move his hands or his legs, and he was fighting a horrible infection which gripped his kidney and the wound on his back. When the nurses changed his dressings I could smell the putrid pus and rotting flesh. He was gripped by a fever and could hardly breath. The night after he arrived I listened as his breaths rattled in his chest, slowed, then stopped. He was gone by morning. It was horrible to hear, no one can forget the death rattle after they have heard it. What made it even worse was that I was unable to move from my bed to comfort him, I could only whisper to him softly as he died. He was alone, so desperately alone. No one should be allowed to die alone. No one.
Dickon spoke again, bringing me out of my memory and my pain.
"An there's nothin' they can do?" he asked. "In this big hospital, nothin' they can do?" I shook my head, it was useless to hope, I couldn't let Dickon hope. He would run with that hope until it consumed both of us.
"No, nothing really. The doctor said I might regain 'partial sensation' and a little movement if I'm lucky. But not enough to walk, or stand, or..." I cut myself off abruptly, I felt my face reddening slightly, I was about to say 'or piss or shit on my own, or sleep with a woman' but couldn't quite bring myself to tell Dickon the truth about these more private losses. I looked down and simply said softly.
"He said there was nothing he or anyone else could do that would make me walk." Dickon rubbed his temple with his good hand.
"Dammit Colin, it should be me lyin' there, not you. It's not fair! Tha jumped on top of me! It should have been me!" I couldn't well move enough to grab Dickon, to shake him and show him how wrong he was. Instead I put on my best rajah expression and looked daggers at him and grabbed his hand.
"No, don't you dare blame yourself Dickon. It was my choice to join up, besides, if we hadn't jumped in that hole there'd be nothing left of either of us." I must have frightened him because he quieted and sat silent. The silence was heavy so I tried to change the subject, I shifted as much as I could and looked in concern at Dickon's heavily bandaged arm.
"How's your arm? To be honest it looks quite bad." Dickon fingered the bandage, still in shock.
"It's nothin' really Colin." I noticed that Dickon couldn't stop looking at my legs. I felt almost betrayed somehow, Dickon had always treated me so normally, as though neither class nor disability could divide us. But now the guilt he felt was threatening to draw a wedge between us. I couldn't let it, Dickon was too important to me, our relationship was so strong, almost like brothers, I don't think I could bare to lose it, especially not now.
"Please Dickon, don't stare at them like that. It's no different than when you first met me, I couldn't walk then and we were still friends. You never stared." I looked down at my legs sadly, and almost whispered, "you were the only one who never stared."
Dickon finally raised his head and looked me square in the eyes.
"I'll never stop bein' thy friend. I'd go to' ends o' th' earth for thee, Colin, tha knows that." I felt hot tears behind my eyes as I grasped Dickon's hand.
"I know, and truthfully I'm going to need you. I don't know how my life will look now. I wish this never happened but there's nothing I can do to change it. I don't know how to live like this." Dickon had a look of desperate hope in his eyes.
"Maybe tha won't have t'. The doctors said before as thee wouldn't walk an' tha walked. Maybe if we get thee in to't garden again, do the exercises. Maybe tha could walk if tha worked at it." Suddenly I was angry and shook my head at Dickon.
"Don't you understand Dickon? That part isn't like last time. I can feel it, or more I can't feel it. The doctor said my right leg is broken in three places, I'm lucky they didn't hack it off, and so is my left ankle. The pain should be unbearable, but it doesn't hurt, my back hurts like hell, but my legs don't hurt a bit. When you touched me just then, I didn't feel anything. I can't feel them. I can't move them. It doesn't matter what I do, spinal nerves can't regrow themselves. They don't heal like bone or muscle. I have to accept that, I've no idea how I'm meant to accept that but I am going to have to or I'll go mad with wishing. But wishing won't help. Magic won't help. This is how it is now. I can't let myself live on false hope, I just can't. I couldn't bare it." The angry tears I had tried to suppress pricked my eyes as I watched Dickon's shoulders slump in sadness and disappointment. I hated how quick to tears I was nowadays, but the combination of constant pain and heavy doses of medication had chipped away at my ability to control my emotions. I wiped my eyes angrily. Dickon put a comforting hand on my shoulder and I nuzzled into it like one of Dickon's creatures. I was exhausted and broken down, suddenly there was no more strength left in me to fight against the deep loss I felt. Dickon was so wonderfully comforting, he always had been, even after the horrors of war he remained the warmest, kindest soul I knew. I cried silently, whispering into Dickon's big, strong hand.
"Why? Why did this have to happen to me. Why did we have to go and fight this stupid, stupid war?" With his own arm immobilized across his chest Dickon couldn't pull me into the bear hug which he clearly wanted. He simply held my cheek, it was then I realized he was close to tears himself.
"The war tore down better men than us. Tha's like my brother, remember that play tha read to me about King Henry goin' int' battle? We're like a band of brothers you and I. No matter what, we'll get through this together." I wiped the tears from my eyes, forcing a slight smile.
"For he today who sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother." I quoted. Dickon entwined our fingers, clasping our hands firmly together.
"From this day t'ut endin' o' the world." Answered Dickon. There would be no 'happy few' in this war, coming home to banners and glory. But we would all share something, every man who fought in those desolate trenches would share something. A shared pain, shared wounds, a shared heartache. And each night when we went to sleep, we would share our nightmares, until the day we died.
Dickon joined my small group of daily visitors, and I could not be gladder for it. He knows just what to say, and seems to have quickly gotten over his awkwardness around me. We read the newspaper, and talk about friends still at the front. Far more than either Mary or my father, Dickon always pushed me to do small things for myself. Just lifting a cup or feeding myself was a challenge, but with precious little else within my control, having someone force me to do these small things felt like a blessing.
About a week on, Dickon came traipsing into the ward again, an enormous grin on his face. With his one good arm he was pushing a strange contraption, which looked somewhere between a baby carriage and a stretcher.
"Colin! Dr. Hawthorne said it would be alright to bring you out into the hospital grounds today!" I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to go through the pain and trouble of being moved from my bed, but the sun was pouring brightly in from the windows and the ward was stiflingly hot in the summer heat. I smiled as confidently as I could manage and sighed.
"It's about time I got out of here, get Mary and the nurse and lets go."
Mary and Nurse Gold lined the spinal carriage with soft pillows and Nurse Gold brought in a back brace to further protect my spine from the shocks of movement. She rolled it under my body, clasping the heavy leather straps around my chest. It was uncomfortable, but not nearly as much so as the brace I had been forced to wear as a child. Nurse Gold then moved a sheet under the length of my body and brought in two orderlies to lift me into the carriage. This was fairly painful, and I felt rather dizzy afterwards, but the carriage was comfortable and it did feel rather wonderful to be out of bed. It had been approximately a month since I was injured, I'd been half unconscious for much of it, but now I've begun to feel quite restless, despite my persistent physical exhaustion.
Mary and Dickon joined me as I was wheeled down the hall to an elevator, which I was glad of, being bounced down the stairs sounded anything but pleasant at this point. We were lead to the back of the hospital which opened into a small, green courtyard shaded by several large trees. My father was already outside, sitting at a table laid with sandwiches and tea. I raise my hand, waving it slightly and giving my father a half smile. Mary wheeled me further onto the veranda until I was directly under a bright patch of sunlight.
I raised my face to the sun, feeling wonderfully warm and comfortable for the first time in weeks. I sighed deeply, feeling wonderfully content, I felt Mary come up next to me to squeeze my hand and softly stroke my cheek.
"It's a lovely day to have your first day out isn't it?" I nodded slowly, taking in the trees and flowers. The grounds were fairly plain, with large trees around the perimeter fence for shade and many small bushes, some in bloom with pretty blue and purple flowers. Nothing like the splendor of the Secret Garden in full summer bloom, but after months of trenches and hospitals, it was heaven. We ate mostly in amicable silence, after about an hour, I fell asleep with the sun shining on my face.