*****
***
Of course, life at the British military hospital wasn't completely idyllic. Far from it. This was not just a hosptial ward, after all. Dubbed "The Lost Ward," by the staff and patients, it was dedicated to the most seriously ill, or injured, or wounded of Britain's secret warriors. And not all of the patients would be as fortunate as Harry, who would be left with only a limp, or Brian, with his dashing scars, or even Kenneth with half his upper arm shot away. Or, especiallyLucky, who would eventually emerge pretty much unscathed. If anything, he was mentally stronger and felt that he was able to face more fearful things than in the past.
There were desperately injured men on the ward. Men
who had stepped on mines or triggered booby-traps – missing feet, legs, fingers
and hands. Burning injuries were also common: men horribly brutalized by
flames, or steam from shot-out boilers, their flesh melted, faces disfigured
for however long their lives were going to last. There were men who were
blinded and rendered deaf and so brutalized they couldn’t speak so they might
as well be deaf and dumb. There were all sorts of injuries too horrible to
dwell upon, although Lucky did his best as his strength improved to visit with
some of these men and try to cheer them up.
He’d sit by their bed for an hour or more - trying
not to look at their terrible injuries, or smell the evil odors that seemed to
gather about such poor souls – and rattle nervously on about this and that.
Life in America. Descriptions of his family – his mother, his father, his
little brother, Charles. He’d make up little tales, especially about Charles,
when he noticed the men perk up hearing about the misadventures of a
mischievous tot hiding behind a couch while the whole household searched for
him, or crawling into the closet where his Christmas presents were hidden and
dragging them out. Sometimes Lucky forgot what he was talking about and just
said whatever was in his mind. But the men didn’t seem to notice. Most were too
weak to reply with more than a nod, or a grunt, or a thump on the sheet with a
forefinger.
At first, Lucky wasn’t sure if he was welcome, but
then a nurse would come and fetch him from the patio and say that such-and-such
a chap was asking for Lucky to visit and so he would. After awhile he started
bringing along whatever book he had at hand and he’d read to them – Holmes, or
HG Welles, or maybe Dickens. For a time, he tried to provide some kind of
continuity in the stories, thumbing down a corner of a page to mark where he’d
left off – writing a name lightly in pencil in the margin. But after a few
deaths, he found it difficult to keep track. And when he tried to remember – to
connect the man to the story – sometimes it got hard to breathe and
unaccountably tears would well and a sob would get caught in his throat. So in
the end he gave up trying and just read whatever he had in hand at whatever
place he was in the book.
It didn’t seem to matter, because the men kept
sending the nurses for him and he’d come, steeling himself for another session.
Wondering if the men he was reading to would live out the night.
And always he thought of George – hoping that by
cheering up these sick and dying men that he was doing penance for the wrong
he’d committed. He wanted badly to ask Harry, or one of the others, what was so
important about Easter to George that people had gone to all the trouble of
making up an Easter basket months before the date. Did Easter have some special
meaning to George? Had the man been especially religious - counting the days each
year to the anniversary of Christ’s resurrection?
Lucky got up the nerve to broach the subject of
George one lazy afternoon. He was testing a new chess opening on Harry and from
the vigorous way his friend was puffing on his pipe it seemed to be working.
So, after he’d taken Harry’s bishop – which was the key move in the Dragon
Variation - he tried:
"Remember George?" His voice was a little
tremulous, so he sat up straight and cleared his throat, as if a momentary
"frog in the throat" was the trouble.
Harry gave him a quick look, then lowered his eyes
and stared at the board, sucking on his pipe. "George? Well, who could
forget him? Admirable chap all around, wasn’t he?"
Lucky’s hand strayed toward his rook, the
ever-nagging question of when to castle at the back of his mind, but George
remained firmly in the forefront and he took his hand away. Lucky said,
"Was he – I mean, George, - was George sort of a hero?"
Harry settled his cool blue eyes on Lucky. His
features were angular – some portion always seemed to be set in shadows. His
hair was as white as the cotton dressing the nurses daily put on his wounds.
But his face was remarkably young – smooth and unlined, belying the ancient
wisdom in his eyes. "Hmm," Harry said, drawing on his pipe and taking
his eyes away and staring off in thought. "Hero? Well, he had a chest full
of medals, if that’s what you mean. All well deserved. Oh, yes. George was a
soldier a chap could count on. Always held up his side."
Lucky thought about the little pocket photo album Harry
had shown him – family pictures, wife, kids, and Harry in full uniform with
that proverbial chest full of medals. Harry would have been a bona-fide hero in
any man’s military. As would Brian, or Kenneth and most of the other men on the
ward. So, for Harry to say the George "held up his side," was the
laconic British equivalent of saying that George was practically Audie Murphy,
the American super hero of World War Two.
"Was George really that good?" Lucky asked.
"That brave?"
Harry started to answer, but suddenly his own voice
was stricken with the frog disease and he had to clear his throat, hacking into
his fist. Then he wiped his eyes, ridding them of the tobacco tears. It took
him awhile to compose himself. He slowly tapped the plug from his pipe. Then,
very thoughtfully, he refilled the machine from a battered leather pouch. Lit
it with a wooden match taken from an engraved, silver match case. Drew on the
pipe with care, getting it just right. Then he raised his head back and blew
three perfect smoke rings. Followed by a thick funnel cloud that scattered the
rings.
Harry looked down at the table and noted a black ant
with an overly large head running across the chessboard. His face lit up and he
laid his hand across the ant’s path and coaxed it onto the broad plane of his
palm. Then, and only then, did he look over at Lucky.
"I’ll tell you something about George," he
said. "He was keen on ants you know."
Astounded, Lucky sat up straight. "Ants?"
He said it again. "Ants?" What in the world was Harry talking about?
Harry docked his other hand – also palm open -
against the one cradling the black ant, allowing the little creature to scurry
across. "Oh, yes, my Lucky old sun," Harry said, "George simply
doted on ants. Potty about them. Besotted. Don’t know why, but I was always
fetching him books and science journal articles about ants. Read ‘em to him,
when he got, you know, under the weather."
Lucky bent to look at the insect moving across
Harry’s palm. Curled fingers and swift movement barred the creature from
escaping at every turn. The ant became frustrated and tried to bite Harry with
mandibles that were enormous for its size. Harry flattened his palm, tightening
the skin so the ant couldn’t dig his pincers in.
"What’s so interesting about ants?" Lucky
wondered aloud.
Harry carefully put his hand on the table palm up. He
blew gently, encouraging the insect to escape. When it reached the table the
ant scurried this way and that for a moment, looking for the scent, then
settled on its original course and joined a line of other ants marching on a
biscuit crumb at the far end of the table.
"Couldn’t say." Harry drew on his pipe.
"Don’t give a fig for ‘em, myself. Used to chase ‘em with my magnifying
glass when I was a boy, didn’t I?" He made an explosive gesture with the
same hand that had held the black ant. "Dot of light caught them and poof!
they went up in smoke." He made a face, disgusted with his boyhood self.
"Stupid, that. Things want to live, let ‘em. We all die, by and by. Got
that in common with every living thing on the planet, don’t we? And maybe on
other planets as well. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll find out one day. Some alien
bastard will put a glass on planet Earth."
Harry’s pipe was giving him trouble. He tamped it
with a little tool that he drew out of his pajama shirt pocket, then relit the
pipe with a match from the silver case. He blew the flame out and dropped it by
the large bread crumb where the line of black ants were gathered, cutting it to
size and carrying the bits away.
He raised his hand above the little insect crowd.
"Could smack ‘em down like the Japs at Hiroshima, or Nagasaki, couldn’t
I?" Lucky’s hand instinctively rose to stop him, but Harry sighed and
turned his hand to a tea biscuit. He broke off a piece, crumbled it, and dropped
a few morsels near the ants’ original feast, saying, "Ants have to make a
living too, don’t they, my Lucky old son? I suspect that’s what George saw in
‘em. Actually, he often said that ants had a great deal in common with human
beings."
Lucky frowned. "How could that be? They’re
insects, not people." Since the mysterious appearance of the little marine
animals in his Florida hari-kari hole, Lucky had taken an interest in biology.
"Never mind all the legs. They have an outside skeleton and we have an
inside one. We have brains. They don’t. They’re nothing like us at all."
But when he’d finished saying that, he thought of
George and his guilt came rushing back. How could he question a man that he’d
wronged?
Harry didn’t seem bothered. He expelled another column
of smoke. Then he said, "Why don’t you poke around the library? See what
George was up to about ants. Possibly, you’ll find your answer there."
Before he could say more, there was a sharp crack!
from beyond the patio. It was a pistol shot.
* * *
In his short
life, Lucky had spent more time in the country, than the city, so he knew
immediately it was a gunshot that he’d heard, not a backfiring car.
Harry heard the shot as well and jolted up, wincing
at the pain in his bad leg. He braced himself against the table, looking around
to see what was going on. The boy heard people running toward them and saw
Harry turn his pipe inward, clutching the bowl in his fist and letting the stem
jut out between the clenched fingers. With a thrill, Lucky realized that Harry
had just turned an ordinary object into a deadly weapon.
Heart thumping, he wide-eyed the entrance of the
patio, but then the running footsteps became the familiar forms of Brian and
Kenneth, who came rushing in.
"They shot one of those Enosis blokes,
Major," Kenneth said to Harry – reminding Lucky that Harry was the senior
officer on the ward. "Come see before they take him away."
Harry relaxed, turning the pipe out again. He relit
it, drew in a leisurely puff and then expelled it. "Why not?" he said.
"We’re all getting a little rusty. Might do us some good."
He limped out of the patio with Brian and Kenneth.
Lucky followed, staying close to Harry so no one would dare question his
presence. When he emerged he found himself in a parking lot with a few British
army Jeeps scattered about and two trucks with Red Crosses painted on their
sides. A small crowd was gathered about a Cypriot youth, who was sitting
upright on the ground, groaning and clutching a blood-stained leg. Standing
over him was a young British private, holding a rifle on the Cypriot and
looking a little stupefied at what he done.
Above them all – painted in thick red brush strokes
on the barracks wall – was the word:
Enosis.
"Yatee? Yatee?" the man was sobbing. He
waved a bloody hand at a can of red paint and a red-soaked brush lying next to
it. "Teepohtee," he wailed. "Teepohtee."
"Shut up you," the private growled, poking
the youth with his rifle. The manly growl was spoiled by a boyish break in the
soldier’s voice. He was young and nervous and embarrassed – and therefore
extremely dangerous under the circumstances. Several people in the small crowd
– mostly nurses and orderlies, stirred, alarmed by his tone and manner.
"Come on, Bobby," one of the nurses said.
"Go easy on the poor fool."
Private Bobby’s features firmed. "Caught him in
the act, didn’t I?" he said – pointing at the damning words on the
barracks wall.
Harry quickly took in the scene and Lucky noticed
that with no apparent signal from him, Brian and Kenneth started ambling
casually around the crowd, hands in their robe pockets, coming up
accidental-like next to the private and his groaning prisoner.
The wounded Cypriot put a beseeching hand up at the
private, saying, "Yatee, Englishman? Yatee?"
Private Bobby’s features turned steely and once again
he prodded his prisoner with the rifle. "Don’t you curse at me, you bloody
WOG," he said.
Harry decided to intervene. He firmly edged someone
aside and stepped in front of the soldier. "What’s going on here,
private?" he asked in his command voice, which always startled Lucky
because in repose, Harry was so friendly and unassuming.
To the private, the voice conjured up visions of a
superior officer and he unconsciously glanced at the shoulders of Harry’s worn
blue bathrobe, as if checking for epaulets of denoting rank. Even though there
was nothing to be found there but blue lint balls, the private snapped to
attention and saluted. "Sir!" he barked. "Private Benton, sir.
In charge of the prisoner."
Private Benton looked Harry over and started to have
second thoughts. But Lucky saw Harry’s eyes narrow and Private Benton’s
demeanor went through a fast change and he was at attention again – even
straighter and stiffer than before.
"At ease, private," Harry said, a knife
edge to his voice.
Benton was startled. He looked at his prisoner, then
back at Harry, torn by two supreme duties: guard a dangerous prisoner, but at
the same time to obey a direct order to stand at ease.
Harry motioned - Kenneth and Brian moved forward.
Brian easily played the part of an inspecting lieutenant to Benton, taking his
weapon, dumping the clip and slotting back the bolt to empty the chamber. Then
he handed the rifle back, giving the private a salute. Benton saluted in
return, then gaped at his de-fanged rifle.
Meanwhile, Kenneth knelt by the wounded Cypriot.
"Don’t fret, old man," he said, motioning at the wound. "We’ll
have that taken care of soon as we get things sorted out."
Lucky could tell by the Cypriot’s face that he didn’t
understand a word that Kenneth was saying. Even so, Kenneth’s friendly manner
and tone soothed him, and he quieted down, clutching his leg and muttering a
stream of Greek-Cypriot patois in a low voice no one in the crowd paid
attention to – except Lucky
Meanwhile, Private Benton, who couldn’t have been
more than nineteen, was delivering his report to Harry – going to parade rest,
slamming his empty-rifle butt on the tarmac. "Sir, the Private was just
coming from guard duty, sir, when he observed the prisoner, here…" he
gestured at the wounded man… "paintin’ unauthorized filth on the hospital
barracks."
Harry buried a smile. Lucky knew what he was
thinking. What "filth" could possibly be authorized? An oxymoron, if
there ever was one. Harry had recently defined the term for Lucky, so he was
alert for them now.
Private Benton elaborated. "I knew it was
unauthorized, Sir, because… first of all… he was clearly writin’ words. Greek
words. And there’s no Greek words used at this hospital and that’s a
fact."
He nodded, satisfied with himself that he’d at last
found a grounding for his actions. Then he looked down at the pale and bleeding
Cypriot and the young soldier’s eyes became wide as a deer’s. It suddenly
occurred to Benton that he’d hurt someone – a someone who didn’t look
particularly dangerous.
"Pardon, sir," he added quickly, "but
that wasn’t the only reason. The Greek words, I mean, sir. The other thing was
that he was usin’ red paint." Somehow this seemed to bolster the young
soldier’s confidence. He nodded to himself. "Yes, sir, red paint. And the
fact of the matter is that red paint is only authorized for emergency purposes,
such as red crosses and warnin’ signs and the like. Red’s danger. Yellow’s
caution. Those are the rules!" He pointed at the Enosis sign. "I
don’t know WOG talk, sir, but I know that word there ain’t… isn’t…authorized on
the side of a British Army barracks, Sir!"
Harry examined the word – "Enosis". Long
dribbles of paint streamed down from each letter. He turned back to Benton.
"Then what happened, private?"
Private Benton sucked in a long breath and then
delivered. "I ordered him to stop, sir. Quite firmly, I did." He
looked at Harry, brows beetled, anxious to show how firm he’d been. Then he
straightened up again. "But he didn’t stop, sir. He kept on paintin’. So,
him appearin’ to be a native national, sir, I tried to speak to him in WOG
talk. I said, quite loudly: ‘Stop-o. No paint-o.’ But he paid me no mind, sir
and kept on paintin.’ "So then I caught him by the collar like and pulled
him back. He gave me a bit of a fight, sir, and I found it necessary to give
‘im a pop."
Harry looked appalled. He looked down at the
prisoner’s bloody leg, then back at the private. "A pop?" he said.
"You mean you shot him? Is that what you call a pop, private?"
Private Benton blushed furiously and rocked from foot
to foot. "No, sir," he protested. "I mean I hit him, sir. Not
hard. Just a tap on the top of his head."
He demonstrated, the tall, English youth rising up on
his skinny legs, fist raised high, then coming down with some force. The
prisoner saw this and shouted in protest. He pointed at Private Benton and
cried out in Greek that he’d been cruelly treated by the soldier. He made
dramatic motions with both hands, showing how he’d been shot. They were so
plain to all that Benton flushed even deeper and growled a protest.
"I didn’t shoot him for no reason, sir," he
said to Harry. "It was an accident. After I hit him on top of the head –
tryin’ to steady him out is all I was doin’ – he fell to the ground. He started
to get up again – shoutin’ and sayin’ all kinds of filthy WOG stuff – and I
came closer and I pointed my rifle at him and I ordered him to cease and
desist. ’Stop-o,’ I said, plain as day. But then he tried to resist and I had
to poke him with the rifle to show I meant business. But then the prisoner…
well… He grabbed the barrel of the rifle and tried to get it away… and… and…
well, somehow the trigger got pulled and somehow he got shot in the leg, sir.
And that’s what happened. Weren’t no fault of mine."
The prisoner, who had been muttering through all of
this, suddenly lifted his voice and started shouting a stream of thick Cypriot
patois. He threw his arms high, as if pleading to the Gods, then he turned to
Harry. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he poured out a torrent of woes and
perceived wrongs..
When he stopped, Harry turned to Lucky. He knew the
boy spoke the language. "What was that all about?"
Lucky said, "He doesn’t know why all this is
happening to him, Harry. He says he loves the British – he called you ‘My
Dear,’ several times, so I think he means it. And he said he only wants to be
free and for other Cypriots to be free. So that’s why he painted ‘Enosis’ on
the barracks." Lucky looked up at his friend. "Actually, that means
unity, Harry. Unity with Greece."
Harry nodded. "So I’ve been told," he said
dryly. He glanced around the perimeter of the scene, then back to Private
Benton. "I don’t see a weapon," he said. "Did you confiscate one
from the prisoner?"
Private Benton turned the color of the paint on the
barracks wall. He was mortified. "No, sir," he said, abruptly,
saluting as he replied. "The prisoner was unarmed."
Harry shook his head and fetched his pipe from his
pocket. As he lit it, the Cypriot let loose with another stream of Greek.
What he was asking made Lucky feel a little uneasy.
"He’s wanting to know if you’re going to shoot him, Harry. You’re not
going to do that, are you?"
"No, no, no," Harry said. "Tell him
I’m just going to get his leg fixed up."
As Lucky informed the Cypriot of Harry’s intent, the
major turned to the little crowd and addressed one of the nurses. "Can you
do that, sister?" he asked. "Can you fix up his leg?"
"Of course, we can, Harry," the nurse said.
She issued a stream of orders and two of the
orderlies lifted the man. The Cypriot struggled a bit, but then Lucky
reassured him and he relaxed and let them carry him away.
All this time, Private Benton was standing there,
quivering like a small frightened animal. Harry gave him a look that gave
nothing of his feelings away. "You are dismissed, Private Benton," he
said. "Someone will speak to you about this incident later, I’m
certain."
Benton stiffened to his full height. "Sir!"
he barked, shooting Harry a salute to end all salutes, stamping his right foot
down with a crash. Then he about-faced and marched away. Stiff legged, slamming
down each foot with great force. Rigid arms swinging smartly. Chest out. Head
thrown back. A square chin and muscled chest challenging the word. But Lucky
had seen the young corporal’s eyes – they had been frightened and even misty at
one point. And there had been a definite trembling of that square jaw.
Harry sighed and addressed the remaining orderlies.
"Better get that scrubbed off," he said, gesturing at the painted
word, "before it causes more trouble." They he led Lucky and the
others back to their sun-kissed refuge, Harry limping badly – stress always
seemed to make his wound act up.
"Unity with Greece!" Brian snorted. "I
can’t believe they’re really serious. There’s certainly nothing free or even
very Democratic about Greece in this day and age."
Lucky thought about the ordeal of the bench at Athens
Airport and wondered if Brian might not have a point.
"Doesn’t matter what they want," Brian
continued as they entered the patio. "After giving up India, do they think
we’re going to surrender an inch more of the empire?"
And here was Brian making the very same point in
Lucky’s infamous essay, but in reverse... coming at it in another direction.
He felt a little better about himself as they
gathered around the table again and called for some pots of tea and rounds of
sandwiches. Harry got out the monopoly board and they started setting up for a
game.
As he dealt out the play money, he asked, "What
about you, Lucky? What do you think about this Enosis business?"
Lucky blushed, embarrassed for being put on the spot.
The last thing he wanted was to lose the friendship of these men by repeating
the error he’d made at the British school. On the other hand, if he said something
kid like and stupid, he’d lose the respect the men seemed to have for his
views.
So he chose the middle ground, which was still far
from safe. "I think if people keep calling them WOGS, they’ll keep wanting
Enosis, Harry," he said. "Where I live, in Pallouriotissa, they’d
throw rocks at you for saying that. It’s what makes them maddest. The
disrespect."
There was a sudden silence and Lucky looked up shyly,
thinking he stepped into a mess again. But Harry and the others were only
looking at him – hesitant smiles on their faces, but something else. And then
it came to him – it was curiosity. As if he were an odd creature in the zoo -
although not so rude as that – they’d never seen before.
"Do you know what a WOG is, Lucky?" Brian
asked. Lucky looked at him – Brian wasn’t teasing, or mocking him. His craggy
face was dead serious.
"Well, somebody at school said it stood for
Worthy Oriental Gentleman," Lucky replied. "But my dad told me it was
a lot worse. He said it comes from golliwog, which is a cartoon character that
makes colored people look stupid. I saw some golliwog dolls when I lived in the
South, and I guess the English have them too, huh?"
"That we do, I’m sorry to say," Harry said.
"And your dad was absolutely correct. No sense putting a polite point on
it, WOG is our euphemism for nigger."
Lucky bowed his head, momentarily overcome. Images
flooded into his mind – awful things. Things he’d seen in Florida when his
father was going to college just after the war. And later in Maryland. It made
him sick just to think about it.
"Yeah," he said. "Like that."
No one spoke about it anymore.
After the incident, Lucky started thinking more about
returning home. For security reasons, visitors were infrequent. He missed his
mother and Charlie. And Brosina. He missed Athena and his village friends, and
now that he that he was recovering it became increasingly difficult to remain
confined to the ward.
Finally, he decided that perhaps it was time to ask
the staff the fateful question. And when he did ask, the answer astounded him.
In two weeks, he was told. In two weeks he could go home. He wasn’t sure
exactly what he thought about that.
"Harry," he said one night, "when I go
home… will you, and Kenneth and Brian, come and see me?"
"Of course we will, my Lucky Old Son,"
Harry said. "Just let them try and keep us away."
NEXT: A TEACHER NAMED JIM DEMETRAKIS
****
THE SPYMASTER'S DAUGHTER:
A new novel by Allan and his daughter, Susan
After laboring as a Doctors Without Borders physician in the teaming refugee camps and minefields of South Asia, Dr. Ann Donovan thought she'd seen Hell as close up as you can get. And as a fifth generation CIA brat, she thought she knew all there was to know about corruption and betrayal. But then her father - a legendary spymaster - shows up, with a ten-year-old boy in tow. A brother she never knew existed. Then in a few violent hours, her whole world is shattered, her father killed and she and her kid brother are one the run with hell hounds on their heels. They finally corner her in a clinic in Hawaii and then all the lies and treachery are revealed on one terrible, bloody storm ravaged night.
*****
LUCKY IN CYPRUS: IT'S A BOOK!
Here's where to get the paperback & Kindle editions worldwide:
Here's what readers say about Lucky In Cyprus:
- "Bravo, Allan! When I finished Lucky In Cyprus I wept." - Julie Mitchell, Hot Springs, Texas
- "Lucky In Cyprus brought back many memories... A wonderful book. So many shadows blown away!" - Freddy & Maureen Smart, Episkopi,Cyprus.
- "... (Reading) Lucky In Cyprus has been a humbling, haunting, sobering and enlightening experience..." - J.A. Locke, Bookloons.com
*****
*****
Here's where you can buy it worldwide in both paperback and Kindle editions:
United Kingdom ...........................Spain
Also: NOOK BOOK. Plus ALL E-BOOK FLAVORS.
*****
TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
Audiobook Version Coming Soon!
 |
Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969
|
In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself. Here's where to buy the book.
*****
*****
STEN #1: NOW IN SPANISH!
Diaspar Magazine - the best SF magazine in South America - is publishing the first novel in the Sten series in four episodes. Here are the links:
REMEMBER - IT'S FREE!
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