Borderline Chapter 15

"When I want you in my arms,

When I want you and all your charms,

Whenever I want you,

All I have to do is dream,

Dream, dream, dream."

The Everly Brothers

The fan on the ceiling rotated like so many helicopter rotors and the air vibrated with sweat and other people's agony. His slips in and out of consciousness were punctuated with glimpses of green scrubs and IV stands.

The prick of a needle.

He was performing surgery… wasn't he? Or was someone else performing surgery? Only the occasional tugging and the feeling of being manhandled told him that he was the one on the table. There was pain, excruciating pain but it was as if his body was lying to his brain and he just didn't care. It reminded him of the time he and some of his fellow medical students tried some Fentanyl just so they could understand what the patients were feeling.

Yeah right. That's what they told themselves.

It was nice… very nice.

And that's how he felt now, floating above the bed. It would have been nice if it wasn't for the distressed cries of other people in the other beds or the constant infernal droning of the radio that one of them couldn't sleep without.

When I feel blue in the night

And I need you to hold me tight

Whenever I want you

All I have to do is dream

He stirred, prising his tongue off the roof of his dry mouth. "Will someone turn that the fuck off…" he croaked, but no-one heard.

Someone came over, a navy doctor in number fives, speaking matter-of-factly and checking his chart. "Welcome back John. I'm Jeremy. I'm your key physician. Do you know where you are?"

John was not used to being the patient rather than the doctor, but he dutifully submitted to having his pupils checked by penlight.

"Water…" was all John could manage. His previous outburst had strained his already ragged throat and told him that he'd been intubated for a while. His eyes glazed over as Jeremy signalled to a passing orderly to bring a jug of water.

"Do you know where you are, John?" Jeremy's eyes were filled with a deep but professional concern while he gave him an inch of water in a plastic cup. John tried to take the cup with his good arm.

His good arm.

Shit.

He squeezed his eyes shut to try and stop the hot, angry tears. Did he still have his arm? Please God, don't let them have taken it.

"We were ambushed," John croaked, taking a shaky sip of water. He coughed a little. He still dare not open his eyes. "I'm in the trauma unit at Bastion," he ventured.

"That was seventy two hours ago. You're in Queen Elizabeth, Birmingham."

John opened his eyes. It was starting to make sense now. He looked at Jeremy. He was quite attractive in a public school kind of way and he wore the pally, empathetic mask that John had also been trained to wear when briefing soldiers on their injuries, without being sensationalist or triggering their mental distress. It was weird to be on the other side of the coin.

"Oh," said John, frowning. His head was still fuzzy from the morphine.

"We managed to save your arm, but we had to give you a complete joint replacement and humerus-"

John blanked out the rest of what he said. He'd heard it all before a thousand times. He didn't like being patronised, but he couldn't blame Jeremy; he was just doing his job. The tears began to fall freely now. He had a prosthetic shoulder. It wouldn't register in his brain. He had a prosthetic. It may not be visible on the outside, but that didn't mean it was less traumatic to him. He began to hyperventilate. He couldn't look at Jeremy, couldn't look at his arm.

Shit shit shit shit shit…

Fucking Taliban…

Someone at the other end of the ward cried out. It was anguish such as John had never heard in his career. It barely described how John was feeling right now. It was the sound of a twenty year old lad waking up and realising he no longer had legs.

I can make you mine

Taste your lips of wine

Anytime night or day

Only trouble is

Gee whiz

I'm dreamin' my life away

So he just lay there, unable to take it all in, unable to even sob as the burning tears flowed down his face in pure horror beyond his imagination.

He was in hell.

It was another three days before they could get any sense out of him. He'd refused the physio's attempts to get him up and about, to use his arm. He'd snapped at the guy from 'Help For Heroes' bringing him treats and news from the outside world. Jeremy had referred him to psych and they'd encouraged him to read the care diary they'd left on his bedside cabinet. It said one Corporal Bill Murray had been the one to find him in the chaos, recognising him as one of their own. Good old Bill. Knowing that a friend had been the one to carry him in his arms was the only thing that managed to bring a glimmer of a smile to John's cracked lips. Otherwise the diary just made it harder for him to separate himself from that place; his body might be here, but his head was still in Afghan, so he discarded it along with the other comforts he didn't deserve.

He didn't eat, just lay there, finding it difficult to process what had happened, staring into space and having the occasional frustrated outburst at Dougal, the boy that couldn't sleep without the radio on.

One morning, he thought it must be Wednesday by now, the nurse drew back the curtains and announced a visitor. He didn't recognise them at first as the person's face was covered in dressings. The person sat down. Then he realised that it was Drake, the logistics corps driver that he'd treated in the field. Her nose was in a splint.

"What the fuck happened to you?" John attempted a convivial, workaday attitude.

"Oh, you know, broken cheekbone, nose in a sling, shrapnel," she played along, putting a big bar of Milka on the side board, "how the fuck are you?"

"Oh, you know how it is, though I deserved a pension so I volunteered for target practice. I was the target."

Drake chuckled, but it was bittersweet. After a second's awkward silence, she spoke seriously, "still, we made it, didn't we, sir?"

"Yes, but lots didn't." John threatened to cry again. What the fuck was wrong with him?

"It wasn't your fault, sir, you did everything you could. Their putting you in for a medal."

That was the last straw. The tears started uncontrollably. Oh, God here we go again. Drake instinctively lurched forward and grasped his good hand. Her cut lips pressed together in empathy.

"We were supposed to be bringing vaccines to the locals and they bloody sold us out... I will never understand… Why did they do that? Why?" John's eyes took on that dead look.

"I know." Drake squeezed his hand tighter.

"They shot me."

"I know."

"The others didn't make it, did they?"

Drake looked down at the linoleum. "No, sir."

"They were there to protect me."

"I know, sir."

"Stop fucking calling me fucking sir."

"Sorry."

John fell silent for a while when he realised he was lashing out again. Here was this soldier who had taken the trouble to come and comfort him, to keep him grounded when she was dealing with her own story, and all he could do was snap.

"No, I'm sorry."

"Anyway," she said, "we're too pretty to die."

John looked at her injuries, the first time he'd looked at her properly. He disentangled his hand from hers, suddenly conscious of a connection. "Well, I might be."

Her face cracked in a genuine smile and he cautiously followed suit, until they were both laughing and holding their sides.

John recovered his composure guiltily. "I'm sorry, it must be no fun for you."

"It's Okay. I think I've come to terms with having a broken face. Besides, they said with surgery it'll be good as new."

"Funny, they said the same thing to me." He gave her a quizzical expression.

"Personally, I think it's a conspiracy. Just tell them all it'll be better than what they had before."

They smiled at each other for a moment. He tried to break the chocolate with one hand, but he wasn't having much success, so she took it from him and gave him a piece.

"Um," he said through the melted chocolate, "what's your first name?"

"Ellen. Corporal Ellen Drake. The guys call me Ripley, you know, after-"

"Yeah, I know. You can call me John. I doubt anyone's ever going to call me sir again."

"Why is that?"

"They've initiated SILP already."

"But you're still able bodied."

"It's not because of my injuries." Ellen handed him a tissue. "They think I'm not adjusting, that I might be a danger to myself."

"I can't believe that."

"I can't stop crying."

"That's normal, so I'm told."

"Look at the state of me; it's pathetic. There are people worse off than me."

"You need to stop being so hard on yourself."

"It's all so simple on paper, but when it happens to you… twenty years' experience wasn't enough to prepare me for this…"

"I know and you need to cut yourself some slack."

"That's what they keep saying, but they don't understand; I was there to do a job and I let them all down. People died because I couldn't do my job and I'll never accept that. That is not a mental illness, that's not PTSD-"

"John, you're getting yourself worked up. I'm calling the nurse."

"No, no don't do that. I'm okay." He took a deep steeling breath when he realised he was shouting and tried to get himself under control. "Sorry. I can't control it…"

"It's fine, it really is. Listen, when you're feeling better, we'll get you the fuck out of this place and go for a drink, hey. You me and some of the lads."

"Yeah," he said, his eyes glazing over, "yeah, that sounds nice."

She patted his hand again. "I'm gonna go now. But I'll come back. I promise."

Then she was gone and John realised from her concerned expression and the way she chatted to the nurse that he wasn't doing as good a job of seeming Okay as he'd thought.

His nurse, Andy, came over with a dose of lorazepam.

John was finding it hard to breathe. He bit down on his own fist, trying to keep the sobs at bay, but his body still shook with something he couldn't identify and couldn't fight. He rocked as he tried to stifle the feeling that he was still there, still in that dusty road littered with carnage, fighting for his friend's lives, with the ping-pings hitting all around, hitting him…

He then knew… he would be fighting for his freedom from those Taliban bullets the rest of his life.

I need you so, that I could die, went the radio.

Wheeze, wheeze went his lungs.

His shoulder burned.

The boy with no legs cried bitterly at the end of the room.

Yes, this was a living hell.

I love you so and that is why

Whenever I want you

All I have to do is dream

Dream, dream, dream, dream