"Sir, I don't believe it's necessary for both of us to go on the mission."
Captain Kelson regarded Sean from the ramshackle desk made by an old table with a series of re-purposed tool boxes atop it. "I know that you and Fairburne don't like each other, but you can't let that affect the mission." He replied bluntly.
Sean's hands, which he clasped behind his back, tightened their grip on each other. It'd be too much to hope that the Captain wouldn't pick up on that. "Yes sir, the Lieutenant and I have our difficulties, but..."
Sean hesitated and cursed himself for letting his mouth get ahead of his thoughts. How could he explain it to his superior officer? Kelson knew, but that wasn't the problem. If he tried to talk about it, the words stuck in his throat like a tumor. He could he describe that? Talking about it felt like a guilty plea. Or defacing a tomb.
"Markson," The Captain leaned forward, his voice losing its abruptness. "Fairburne is the best of the best, and we know what we're getting into. This isn't France."
Hostility rose Sean's hackles. He gritted his teeth to keep back the words and closed his eyes to fight off the glare. No, Fairburne isn't Davies, Hall or Roberts. But that doesn't mean they were bad soldiers! It wasn't their fault-
Utter silence then utter noise.
Aborted yells-
No line of sight - no way to see-
The images snuck up on him so fast he had to grip the table to anchor himself back to reality.
"Markson, get some sleep. Kelly will get you when the mission starts."
Markson shakily nodded, then left quickly hoping his knees weren't shaking as bad as they felt like they were.
The sun in North Africa was nothing like the sun back in Yorkshire. The sun in Yorkshire was shy and meek, hiding behind clouds and damp fog or shining just enough to keep out the chill. Here it was brazen and ruthless, patiently scouring away everything in its path. Even the flag in their camp wasn't immune, the red-white-blue starburst pattern slowly turning the same eye-piercing grey-white as the sun's rays. Sean's skin fared little better, and he adopted a habit of taking night missions so he could sleep during the day when possible. It worked for him because of how well-trained his eyes were to picking out movement and detail in darkness - which could possibly be related to why the sunlight of the day felt like a stab to the eyes for him - and because it let him be on his own often.
Sean preferred the company of his own mind. Even as a child, he found reasons to leave conversations with relatives as soon as possible and met most of his schoolyard friends through introductions arranged by his mother or preexisting friends. The thought of introducing himself rarely occurred to him, and having a stranger talk to him always felt like being put on the spot. He knew the men in the patrol - it was inevitable after living for six months in close proximity to each other, but he never made an effort to. Drew was always friendly, and Sean was now starting conversations with him rather than let Drew do all the talking.
Sean found more reasons to talk to others since coming to the patrol. Too much time by himself was bad as of late. It let the shadows reappear, stretching like dark snakes across his mind. The fire every sundown kept them at bay, but they still slithered around the edges of the light it threw off. Waiting.
Sean kept his head low as he moved through the baking paths between the tents. The day was in full swing now. Drew was inspecting the rig they'd be using for the mission tonight. Murray and Halliot were playing cards. Banes and Parker were out on a mission. Patel was unloading supplies from the main army headquarters. Fairburne, as usual, was nowhere to be seen; since Sean didn't see him, Brauer was likely with him.
He stepped inside the dusty shanty where they kept their rifles and breathed out a sigh of relief. The rough roof did little to reduce the heat and the thin cracked walls did not muffle the sound of the rest of the base, but they obscured everyone else from view, if poorly. It was the one place on base where one had the illusion of privacy.
Sean settled on a crate and watched the sun light shine in from cracks all along the walls and roof. It made the metal actions of the rifles blaze and illuminated the specks of sand in the air, shining like bits of stardust. The patterns of brown shadows and white light were good for reflection. It felt as though the world was limited to him and these walls. He leaned back and observed the slow patterns in the wood grain and the way the guns stood on their racks like soldiers standing at attention. A vein of blue-white sky was visible through the sloppily tied together wooden boards of the roof. Sean often thought that he had never seen such a bright shade of blue sky before North Africa. Clouds were more common in Yorkshire than clear skies, but he had seen sunny days there, and the sky seemed to be a darker shade of blue there. He wasn't sure why though.
It came upon him quietly and quickly, and he felt it just before it reached him.
The shadows were back.
They crept in under the poorly-constructed walls of the gun shack, reaching with dark fingers. Sean felt them around his throat, cutting off his air. He gasped for air and diaphragm hitched on every one. The panic coursing through his veins wouldn't let him use any of the techniques his instructors taught him when he was first learning how to be a sniper. He couldn't count breaths or hold them; they got away too easily.
Sweat that had nothing to do with the heat ran into his eyes. His heart pounded in his ears.
No enemy, he told himself. No enemy.
It didn't work.
Time slowed to a crawl.
When the last of it was over, Sean got control of his lungs again. He took a deep breath and held it until his lungs ached before exhaling completely. He did so again, and again, until he could no longer feel his pulse in his neck.
The shadows slunk away, leaving him. He looked around the shanty. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Sean groaned and rested his head in his hands. That was a bad one.
The "attacks" often came upon him when he was alone and with little to occupy himself with. That was a true blessing; they'd never interfered with his missions, but he feared the day they would. What would he do then?
They showed up with no warning, which was the baffling thing. There was nothing specific that seemed to trigger them; they just showed up. They'd last only a few minutes and then he'd be shaken, but fine. The only real aftermath was drying his sweat and dealing with another night without sleep.
They held off any attempt to control them.
Sean growled and wiped his hands on his dusty trousers. The shack now felt suffocating, but he loathed going outside to face the rest of the patrol. He wiped his face and raked a hand through his hair loathing how sweaty it felt.
He started when the door opened.
"Sorry," Drew said with a rueful smile. "I was just going to say that we're leaving in a few hours' time. If you want to eat, now is the time." With that, Drew's blond head disappeared.
There was nothing Sean felt less like doing than eating, but it was better than being distracted by hunger later. The quality of their rations didn't help. If he ever ate corned beef again in his life after leaving the army it would be a lifetime too soon.
After choking down his rations in the relative privacy of his tent, he sat and waited. It seemed they were always waiting. That was the one thing he hadn't been told about war: the long periods of nothing between short moments of blinding movement and frenzied activity. He'd had a book, but he couldn't find it now.
The sun turned orange like a melting candle, shivering in the heat on the horizon. This time of day was most bearable, when the heat faded but the chill of night hadn't set in. It was no coincidence that all their meetings took place at twilight.
Sean found himself thinking about the attack earlier. He'd never had two in a day or one during a mission, so his worries didn't have much bearing. At least he like to think so. But they were always more frequent when he wasn't undertaking missions. Hopefully he had a few days' grace after tonight's mission. He hoped so. There was little aside from the Nazis themselves that he hated as much as he hated those attacks. He hated the loss of control, the unbearable and infuriatingly unfounded fear. He hated how they appeared at random. He hated how they corrupted his quiet times of reflection.
The sun dipped lower as he stewed, the upper reaches of the pale blue sky turning deep cobalt. When it began to change to a dark purple as the last of the sun's light faded, Fairburne came.
Fairburne was as quiet as a desert cat, as always, and he appeared quickly in the tent's opening.
"It's time to go." His Berlin accent was almost indistinguishable among the words. Then he left as fast as he came.
Sean scoffed and grabbed his Lee-Enfield, his Sten and his Webley revolver.
Just like Fairburne, few words and not a trace of warmth in them. Sean could blame him for being a kraut, and thus being cold, but Sean felt that Fairburne's stiff and silent manner was just him. Fairburne was a superb soldier: he was, as the Captain put it, the greatest sniper in Africa; he was quick and strong in hand-to-hand, skilled in sabotage, quick-thinking, fearless, and completely loyal to his orders. But Sean had to wonder sometimes if there was a man behind the soldier at all. If there was, only Brauer had seen him. He hardly ever spoke, and when he did it was related to business. He embodied the ideal of all work and no play.
It wasn't this insistence on focusing on the war effort that rubbed Sean the wrong way so much as his manner. Fairburne actively avoided talking to others, and scowled as if offended if spoken to by anyone other than Brauer, Drew or the Captain. He talked more during the gatherings, but that was usually after being prompted. He was the Desert Ghost, and he lived up to the nickname even surrounded by allies, hovering silently in the background.
Fairburne was adjusting his scope at the back of the rig, which sat dramatically outlined by the last of the sun's light. Drew waved him down from the driver's seat. "Both of you get in." Drew's tone was cool and professional and his normal, easy-going lilt was subdued. Fairburne picked up his rifle and walked around to the backseat without acknowledging Sean. Cold bastard.
Sean gritted his teeth and jumped into the seat next to Drew's.